Custom RTX 3080 graphics cards are crashing games en masse

[Delicieuxz]

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Users Report Crashes & Black Screens During Gaming

 

GeForce RTX 3080 sees increasing reports of crashes in games

Quote

An increasing number of users are reporting the crash to desktop (CTD) issues with factory-overclocked NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards. The issues were reported on various forums and social media platforms.

 

...

 

This now clearly widespread, but still unexplored issue appears in a certain group of games when the boost clock exceeds 2.0 GHz. As soon as the clock speeds reach a certain level, the game crashes to desktop.

 

There is currently no official statement from any board partner, but ComputerBase have confirmed that they are in contact with the manufacturers. They were unable to reproduce this issue with at least three of the custom models they have.

 

It is currently unclear what is causing this problem. Whether this is a power supply issue, software bug, or maybe even too aggressive factory-overclocking from custom board partners, it is yet to be confirmed.

 

As the second article mentions, the matter is being discussed on LTT, OverClockers, and Computer Base, as well as reddit and other forums.

 

We already knew from benchmarks that the 3080 cards don't really come with notable extra headroom for overclocking on air. But it seems that even the factory clocks being given on some models are too much for what the cards can actually handle.

 

I think this isn't good for the card manufacturers, as it could result in a lot of returns if the cards can't handle their advertised specs. And if Nvidia are selling their GPUs to AIBs with their potential already completely maxed, then that doesn't leave AIBs much to work with to offer different tier models.

 

Could this be fixed with a firmware or driver update? I'm skeptical - unless the update actually downclocks the cards sufficiently so that they won't crash. But I hope another solution can be found. And I wonder if AIBs will revise the production template of their RTX 3080 models to solve this issue for cards yet to be produced.

[Moonzy]

thank you beta testers

 

that's why you should be patient when buying a new product

[Semper]

Ah, yes.

The early adopter tax. It always shows up somewhere.

Time will tell what happens here, how wide spread it becomes (my instinct tells me that some percentage of these reports are buyer's remorse). My guess is it'll be something similar to how the memory issues that the 20-series had was handled; RMA's a-plenty.

[tim0901]

Well that's not good...

 

Hopefully it's just a driver bug, which sounds pretty likely if it's limited to a certain group of games.

[TetraSky]

Uwa.... Imagine buying a brand new GPU, beating the botting scalpers at that, and getting such issues.

 

That early adoption tax sure is hitting them hard this time around.

[Shimejii]

This happened with the 2080ti Launch as well  

[Delicieuxz]

2 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Uwa.... Imagine buying a brand new GPU, beating the botting scalpers at that, and getting such issues.

 

That early adoption tax sure is hitting them hard this time around.

And, the thing is, this issue doesn't affect scalpers and miners. It affects the people who legitimately bought cards to use in their gaming rigs. They're not people who should be resented for their purchases or facing obstacles to using what they purchased.

 

3 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

This happened with the 2080ti Launch as well  

What was the solution as seen from AIB partners?

[Shimejii]

3 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

And, the thing is, this issue doesn't affect scalpers and miners. It affects the people who legitimately bought cards to use in their gaming rigs. They're not people who should be resented for their purchases or facing obstacles to using what they purchased.

 

What was the solution as seen from AIB partners?

It just took a few Drivers from Nvidia to fix it, some Actually lowered the Clocks on the next batch of cards. 

[thorhammerz]

49 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

thank you beta testers

Life lessons 101: don't be a beta tester IRL.

 

Spoiler

And that goes for government-mandated chemical injections.

 

[Bombastinator]

Le sigh.  Everyone gives crap to AMD for bad drivers but Nvidia’s problems have been just as large.  They’ve got more money and people so they tend to fix them a bit faster but they generally aren’t any smaller.

[williamcll]

Mind you, a patch for world of tanks a few months ago caused my 2080 Ti to CTD when it hits 2Ghz. No issues with every other game.

[Kisai]

4 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

 

 

Could this be fixed with a firmware or driver update? I'm skeptical - unless the update actually downclocks the cards sufficiently so that they won't crash. But I hope another solution can be found. And I wonder if AIBs will revise the production template of their RTX 3080 models to solve this issue for cards yet to be produced.

*chuckle*

 

This is what happens, ever, single time, a new GPU comes out, or a new game that eats GPU's for breakfast comes out. The OC cards fail, die (or catch fire.)  Even some previous generation cards decide to fail when changes in the API happen to support newer cards.

 

Honestly, do-not-buy factory OC'd cards unless you're prepared to deal with stuff like this. My best guess is that some of these cards will get nerfed back down to the non-OC values, or ship with rivatuner-like tools to detect certain games that will kill the card and clock it down in advance.

[BiG StroOnZ]

 

 

[Moonzy]

2 minutes ago, BiG StroOnZ said:

 

lmao true

I'm not gonna let either off the hook

 

Nvidia messed up last gen, I can overlook it, since there's no major issue before

now it's the 2nd time, in a row  _{fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice in a row, shame's on me}

though this is AIB cards ain't it? so I'm not sure who to point the gun at atm.

Will know when the reason is uncovered.

[Fatih19]

17 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

though this is AIB cards ain't it? so I'm not sure who to point the gun at atm.

Will know when the reason is uncovered.

Radeon Technology Group activated their sleeper agent who worked in these AIB manufacturer and sabotaged their cards.

[porina]

When nvidia has a driver problem, usually it is well defined and clearly fixed in time.

 

While not on this specific topic, I've also seen elsewhere that there are problems with the 3080 and using it with an LG OLED TV, which I think is a use case many of us here were looking to get one for. I've heard of two problems, one is that G-sync isn't working properly, and the other is a compressed signal at some high end display setting. Both I believe were targeted to be fixed by a TV firmware update so it isn't directly nvidia's problem, but still impacting customers of both.

[RejZoR]

3 hours ago, BiG StroOnZ said:

 

 

I was humping NVIDIA for quite a long time about drivers tearing Youtube video like insane on GTX 980 and got fixed and then I bought GTX 1080Ti and was tearing again like crazy on Youtube. And I was like, guys, you literally fixed this thing already and now it's back on the new series. Like, WTF.

 

Also people whining over AMD drivers... Granted, I don't have experience with them past HD7000 series, but up till then, they behaved the same as NVIDIA drivers. And relative has RX 580 and it's also working fine in games he's playing.

[TZODnmr2K5]

From what I've been reading all you need to do is install the studio drivers instead of the game ready one...

[Briggsy]

He definitely nailed it here when he predicted that a lot of people with Ampere would experience crashes due to a struggling power supply and/or power delivery, and think the card was defective. Nvidia got what they paid for. Drivers won't fix this, only a firmware update to decrease the boost frequency curve.

 

[SFFDesigns]

This does seem to be a driver issue. Honestly though I wouldn't expect the drivers to be perfect day one, but this should be fixed (or at least an official comment) this week or next at the latest. I think the dev/studio drivers don't have this issue ffrom what I've read

 

I'd still be happy buying a 3080 with this issue considering studio drivers seem to fix it

 

Don't get me wrong though I would hate for this to happen during say a 6 hour MSFS flight or something like that (my RX580 has crashed on my while gaming before, not a fun experience)

[StDragon]

Could be the card is starved for power.

[Sauron]

14 hours ago, tim0901 said:

Hopefully it's just a driver bug, which sounds pretty likely if it's limited to a certain group of games.

Maybe, my personal theory is that they clocked the reference cards too high and they didn't leave enough headroom for lower quality batches or for AIB partners trying to go higher. According to videocardz the problem seems to manifest when stepping over the 2GHz mark. We'll see how this goes but I wouldn't be surprised if the solution was just a blanket nerf to all cards through a driver update.

[Briggsy]

Just now, Sauron said:

Maybe, my personal theory is that they clocked the reference cards too high and they didn't leave enough headroom for lower quality batches or for AIB partners trying to go higher. According to videocardz the problem seems to manifest when stepping over the 2GHz mark. We'll see how this goes but I wouldn't be surprised if the solution was just a blanket nerf to all cards through a driver update.

or a firmware update more likely. Luckily there's not a lot of Ampere cards in the wild yet, and GPU firmware updates are as simple as running a small exe file.

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

or a firmware update more likely. Luckily there's not a lot of Ampere cards in the wild yet, and GPU firmware updates are as simple as running a small exe file.

Sure, but there's always the small chance of it bricking the card if something happens while you're updating.

[NumLock21]

Didn't the RTX 20 series have the same problem when it first launched. This is why it's always better to wait for the 2nd batch.