Driver Crashes During GTX 980 Overclocking
Driver Crashes During GTX 980 Overclocking
I haven't ever overclocked before, so I tried a guide from Paul's Hardware. My EVGA GTX 980 SC ACX 2.0 is working fine. I'm using the newest driver and followed the steps in PrecisionX 16, except for a smaller overclock. After loading Firestrike it ran for about five seconds, then the drivers crashed with the error "Nvidia Graphics Driver has stopped responding and recovered." I fixed it and everything is normal again, but I'm a bit disappointed that a 20Mhz overclock caused my GPU to crash. I also have an FX-8350 and a Gigabyte 970A-DS3P motherboard (which I know is not great).
If you took his advice then it seems like the system doesn't appreciate high overclocks. With my 980ti, for example, some users manage 300mhz while others struggle to reach 80mhz.
I understand every card is unique, but it bothers me when he manages to reach a higher speed while I struggle to even overclock my own. It makes me think there might be an issue with how I'm approaching things.
The deal is clear, I own two identical cards in my system. Right now I have both cards stable O/Ced at 1507 core 3.7ghz memory. I downloaded Mr-Dark from the OC Forums to tweak both BIOS settings—adjusting voltages, overclocks, boosts, and TDP all at the BIOS level. Everything is running perfectly. Searching for "gtx bios request thread" was a breeze; using GPU-Z helped me download the BIOS files and save them as backups. Then I had someone modify them and re-flash. It took under 10 minutes to complete everything.