Is it bad if the GPU crashes when you overclock?

[hyun18]

Like I know crashing is very common when you start overclocking your CPu as you work around the best settings .
But how about for GPUs?

Is it safe ( normal ) or dangerous when the graphics card crashes while overclocking ??

I have an overclocked 760 which I configured a while ago but I wanna try upping it more.
During that time , I 've experienced a few crashes (maybe twice ) .

So I just wanna make sure before risking any more potential damage.
Thanks!

 

[i7Baby]

They usually crash because they overheat. If you keep on overheating them, it'll eventually do permanent damage.

 

[Gunmetal_61]

I think it's a no-brainer that crashing when overclocked too high is a bad thing. It literally strains the circuits and silicon of the card. Tons of heat buildup and potentially destroying components by pushing the voltage over their tolerances. You'd want to lower the overclock or get a better cooler, or both.

 

[hyun18]

They usually crash because they overheat. If you keep on overheating them, it'll eventually do permanent damage.

I meant while I was overclocking , before I settled to the configuration I have today .
Thats when it crashed.
I've had no issues with my card since then .
I was just asking to clarify before I try overclocking again , just to make sure .lol
My temp are also fine. never overheated.

Actually I think I remember only crashing once, but I dont think it was 'cause of the temp.
It crashed as soon as I upped the memory clock . That was probably my limit (+600 ).
I havent played with the other speeds that much yet ( core clock , voltage ...)
But alright, thank you.
I just thought maybe crashing is part of the overclock process (like in cpu overclocking , when testing stability)

I think it's a no-brainer that crashing when overclocked too high is a bad thing. It literally strains the circuits and silicon of the card. Tons of heat buildup and potentially destroying components by pushing the voltage over their tolerances. You'd want to lower the overclock or get a better cooler, or both.

I dont think its a no brainer , not everyone is a tech-nerd andi ts always better to ask questions to be safe than sorry .
Tnx

 

[i7Baby]

If it crashes, don't go so hard on the overclocking.

 

[hyun18]

If it crashes, don't go so hard on the overclocking.

yehp.
But it is normal when you test a game and the 'game' (not the pc) crashes right ?
Which means the overclock is unstable.
That happened a lot to me ....
But pretty sure thats completely normal and harmless (?)

 

[fkr]

I think it is harmless. it is usually the drivers that are crashing since the info that iss being pushed through is jumbled as the overclock has caused instability. the easiest way I can support this i if you left the voltage at the exact same level but lowered your overclock then it would not crah but it would still run at that voltage. I have crasshed every card I have ever had countless times, literally countless.

when I was pushing my old gtx 560 up to 1100 it was so hard to keep that thing running. I would sstay up till the temp went down to 40F and move my desk so i could open the case up and leave it outside. I pousshed that thing to a top 10 score on 3dmark on air, stock. I have never had a RMA.

my gtx 970 is getting the same treatment now. I have reached 1550 but i think 1600 is feasible if I keep temps below 50C. just have to wait for winter here in phoenix.

 

[hyun18]

I think it is harmless. it is usually the drivers that are crashing since the info that iss being pushed through is jumbled as the overclock has caused instability. the easiest way I can support this i if you left the voltage at the exact same level but lowered your overclock then it would not crah but it would still run at that voltage. I have crasshed every card I have ever had countless times, literally countless.

when I was pushing my old gtx 560 up to 1100 it was so hard to keep that thing running. I would sstay up till the temp went down to 40F and move my desk so i could open the case up and leave it outside. I pousshed that thing to a top 10 score on 3dmark on air, stock. I have never had a RMA.

my gtx 970 is getting the same treatment now. I have reached 1550 but i think 1600 is feasible if I keep temps below 50C. just have to wait for winter here in phoenix.

Really ? Crashing as in your whole display (then you'll need to restart the pc) ?
NOT just the driver ( like when the screen blanks out for a bit but returns with that 'driver has crashed / stopped working but has recovered' .
I was talking about hard crashes :O
Or are you replying to my last comment about ' crashing in games' ?

 

[fkr]

with amd the driver would always recover. I would still have to do a restart after every driver fail just because i noticed that previously working overclocks would not be stable again till i restarted the pc

now with nvidia and my gtx 970 the screen goes black and nothing ever pops back up (drivers have never recovered even once), then after 30 seconds the whole PC just stops and i have to do a hard reset. It got so bad that I would have to open up the case and use the motherboard reset button because even after a restart the GPU would not be recognized, if I switched pcie slots it would work but when putting it back in the first one again it would not. It was weird. I think one of the crashes corrupted the GPU drivers. after a clean install of the drivers now the pc will always boot back up.

after many long hours and multiple testing on over 10 modern games and every benchmark, I have finally hit a stable 1540 on the core.

there is always a risk whenever you hhave to hard boot your pc but it has always been a software issue that would occur.

 

[hyun18]

with amd the driver would always recover. I would still have to do a restart after every driver fail just because i noticed that previously working overclocks would not be stable again till i restarted the pc

now with nvidia and my gtx 970 the screen goes black and nothing ever pops back up (drivers have never recovered even once), then after 30 seconds the whole PC just stops and i have to do a hard reset. It got so bad that I would have to open up the case and use the motherboard reset button because even after a restart the GPU would not be recognized, if I switched pcie slots it would work but when putting it back in the first one again it would not. It was weird. I think one of the crashes corrupted the GPU drivers. after a clean install of the drivers now the pc will always boot back up.

after many long hours and multiple testing on over 10 modern games and every benchmark, I have finally hit a stable 1540 on the core.

there is always a risk whenever you hhave to hard boot your pc but it has always been a software issue that would occur.

yehp me too. When my games crashed , I couldnt get the gpu to run normally even if i revert to the working/stable settings.
So I had to restart.
And ok.That does it for me. Im not even gon' risk anymore.
That sounds scary xD

I guess I'll just stay with this config .
I really dont have much idea how good of an overclock this is but what do you think ? XD
( I tried raising core clock but could not get any stable results even if i play around with voltage,and increasing memory clock,like I said, completely crashed my gpu ,so I never touched that since. )

 

[fkr]

it used to be very scary to me also, but after so many times having it happen i am desensitized to it now. Its kinda like being married.

anyway your overclock is very good and you should be happy with it. you would be getting another 1% performance with more overclock so if you can play all games at that setting you are fine.

what you have to keep in mind is when going for extreme overclocks (that are not much higher than what you have) it is purely for the sport of it and it is not about getting more performance. when i get an even better overclock I do not leave it there because there may be instability in new games and such so I lower the overclock to a known stable in every game an use it there.