My idiot cousin turned all the sliders up on MSI afterburner

[Ech0location]

So, I invited my 14-year old cousin to my house because he really wanted to play Dragon Xenoverse with me on my new PS4. Long story short, we ended up talking about overclocking GPU's. I told him that I'd never really had a need or want for it and he kept talking about his GTX 560 getting 200fps in Battlefield 3. I probably shouldn't have believed him, but I'm new to PC gaming. He downloaded afterburner and I went to the bathroom while he got it setup. I come back to find he's maxed all the sliders and set the fan curve to always 100%! I kicked him out right away and tended to my poor GPU.

I'm the farthest thing from an expert you'll find, but I am t least 80% sure he's damaged my GPU (an Asus Strix GTX 960). I'm getting about 3000 in Heaven benchmark whereas I was getting much higher before. I fixed the fan curves almost immediately, and I set my GPU back to it's base clocks with the button that... well, does that. How badly could my GPU be damaged? Please help.

 

[sudz]

Probably not. It should be fine - Voltage is typically locked by default - you have to really look in the menus to enable those sliders.

 

[mad2]

He probably didn't do any damage. Cards are usually pretty good about showing problems via driver crashes and other issues. Check what the factory clocks are for your card online and reset them to that in afterburner. Also make sure your fan is on auto in there too.

Here are your default clocks: 1291MHz for core and 7200 MHz for memory

 

[sudz]

in addition - OC'ing without raising voltage is much safer - when the overclock fails, it'll hang/BSOD etc. Raising the voltage is where you pop your card.

 

[Neur0nauT]

Unless you are seeing graphical artifacts appearing, it would be safe to assume that there is no lasting damage. I would not worry about the differing score in Heaven. Install FRAPs and use it to keep a note of the framerates you are getting in games.

BTW your cousin saying he got 200fps in BF3 with a 560.......LOL. Keep him far away from your system.

 

[Dunlop0078]

I have crashed my system 100 times attempting to reach the highest possible overclock and it still runs perfect. The only thing that could permanently damage the card is turning up the voltage too high, but good news the bios on your gpu and msi afterburner wont allow the voltage to go high enough to damage the card so even with the voltage turned all the way up in afterburner its still not nearly enough to damage the card.

 

[Ech0location]

Wow, that's a load off my mind. I posted what my card was, but It kinda got buried. It's an Asus Strix GTX 960.

 

[sudz]

BTW your cousin saying he got 200fps in BF3 with a 560.......LOL. Keep him far away from your system.

800X600 - Low Details LOL

 

[Dunlop0078]

Wow, that's a load off my mind. I posted what my card was, but It kinda got buried. It's an Asus Strix GTX 960.

Yah that card will be fine, it only lets you turn up the voltage like +12mv in afterburner for the 960 and that is not nearly enough to damage the card.

 

[McDuncun]

Hahahahahaahahahahahahahaha 560 @ 200fps..... Hahahahahahahahaha!!!!