RTX3070 stuck at idle core clock and max power consumption

[Erhyll]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm posting since you're my last hope. Here'smy problem : i have a Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070 Eagle OC 8G (rev 1.0) that is not working properly. The card is stuck at 210 MHz (at idle, on desktop, browsers but also when gaming). The memory clock seems to be ok (boost up to 7000 MHz when launching a game or Heaven Benchmark). The card is also reporting 225W consumption on the GPU when idling, and 280W when in benchmark, even if the GPU's still at 210 MHz.

I can "overclock" it with Afterburner and do a + 1 000 MHz, so the card run a "normal" 1210 MHz. There are a few frame drop when using this profile in Afterburner, but consumption is still at 280W and temps are around 50°C.

I have tried multiple things to have it running properly again :

- Removing the driver (using DDU) and reinstalling them (multiple times)

- Completely fresh Windows install

- Flashing the BIOS (MOBO and graphic card using nvflash)

- Tried the card on my wife's computer

 

As you can imagine, neither of these worked for me, that's why i'm posting this.

I'm currently using my "old" KFA2/GALAX GeForce GTX 1070 on the same system, which work perfectly fine, but i would like to get back the 3070 to its full performance.

 

I used to watercool my PC, and had a leakage, but i dried the card, and it worked during multiple months after that, it doesn't seem damaged, but it could be a cause. Of course, the problem occured a few months after the end of the warranty.

 

So, if anyone have an idea, i'm all ears !

Thanks

 

PS : sorry if there are some mistakes in the post, english is not my native tongue

[ulookuglynoob]

Has the card ever worked normally for you (ideal clock speed), or has it never?

[Erhyll]

It worked perfectly fine for about 2 years, and i noticed that problem when the game i was playing (Assassin's Creed Unity i think) dropped under 30 FPS in 1080p. The day before, the same game was running 120+FPS, and i did some benchmark from time to time (like after a cleaning, CPU repaste...) and it was working properly

[ulookuglynoob]

try setting power management mode to high performance in nvidia control panel. might help.

[podkall]

35 minutes ago, Erhyll said:

The day before,

any changes, installs, uninstalls, windows updates the day before?

[Erhyll]

10 hours ago, ulookuglynoob said:

try setting power management mode to high performance in nvidia control panel. might help.

I tried to change it, and change the power management mode of Windows too, but if that was the problem, the fresh Windows install would have solve it ?

 

10 hours ago, podkall said:

any changes, installs, uninstalls, windows updates the day before?

No change, i closed the game, powered off the computer, and when booting it up the next day, the problem was there, but i didn't install any update on any software, or any other new software for that matter, i didn't change anything in the BIOS, i really didn't change anything at all, since it was working, i didn't see the point of changing anything, so, i'm clueless on what's happening...

 

Any way to test if the hardware is the problem (since another card work fine on the computer, and the 3070 doesn't work on another computer) ?

[podkall]

20 hours ago, Erhyll said:

Tried the card on my wife's computer

didn't work?

 

what PSU does the PC have?

[Erhyll]

3 hours ago, podkall said:

didn't work?

 

what PSU does the PC have?

No, didn't work on any of the computers.

We have a dual system using a Phanteks power supply (a Revolt X 1200W). When i tried the 3070 on my wife's computer, it's not using the same PCI-E cable than on mine, and these cables still works fine for the 1070

[podkall]

2 minutes ago, Erhyll said:

No, didn't work on any of the computers.

We have a dual system using a Phanteks power supply (a Revolt X 1200W). When i tried the 3070 on my wife's computer, it's not using the same PCI-E cable than on mine, and these cables still works fine for the 1070

I'm running out of ideas,

 

I could ask others that know more but it's not looking bright I'm affraid,

@PDifolco @Levent any experience with possible delayed water damage?:

 

On 4/16/2024 at 8:36 PM, Erhyll said:

I used to watercool my PC, and had a leakage, but i dried the card, and it worked during multiple months after that, it doesn't seem damaged, but it could be a cause. Of course, the problem occured a few months after the end of the warranty.

 

[Levent]

On 4/16/2024 at 9:36 PM, Erhyll said:

card is also reporting 225W consumption on the GPU when idling

 

On 4/16/2024 at 9:36 PM, Erhyll said:

I can "overclock" it with Afterburner and do a + 1 000 MHz, so the card run a "normal" 1210 MHz. There are a few frame drop when using this profile in Afterburner, but consumption is still at 280W and temps are around 50°C.

 

pull all your shunt resistors off the board and check their resistance.

 

ALSO before all that, check to see if you see anything abnormal in gpuz.  Here is my 3070 while furmark is running.

Spoiler

(note numbers are off by the order of of 1.66 as the card is of shunt modded with 3mr shunts).

 

[PDifolco]

20 minutes ago, podkall said:

I'm running out of ideas,

 

I could ask others that know more but it's not looking bright I'm affraid,

@PDifolco @Levent any experience with possible delayed water damage?:

 

 

Yeah just dry everything really well and it'll work fine, got leakage on my board and GPU one time, took 2 days to fully dry !

But only if water don't contact anything electrical while the rig is on ...

 

I suspect OP card has some  electrical/power delivery damage and reported wattage is doubled, it's a "reverse shunt mod" lol

Clock is wonky too, card is good for repair or trash bin

[podkall]

@PDifolco the water leakage was apparently months ago,

 

@PDifolco @Levent for a basic user I guess it means taking it to repair shop and hope they can fix whatever was damaged?

[PDifolco]

1 hour ago, podkall said:

@PDifolco the water leakage was apparently months ago,

 

@PDifolco @Levent for a basic user I guess it means taking it to repair shop and hope they can fix whatever was damaged?

Huh yes until you can do this  yourself, which is pretty rare, I've watched lots of vids from NorthWestRepair and still don't understand sh#t to what he's doing

 

[Erhyll]

I will check my GPU-Z values but I guess it’s dead. I posted just to be sure that I didn’t forget to check something that could solve it just from software, but with very little hope, since the problem was the same on a different computer.

I will post the GPU-Z capture but guess i will have to buy a new one …

[Erhyll]

Hey, sorry for not responding for quite a while, i had lots of things to do.

So I just did a GPU-Z capture (and nVidia performances panel as well) with nothing running (except chrome). Here's what i get :

So something is bad, it shouldn't draw more than 200 Watts while doing nothing...

I also did a capture with Heaven running :

So, any idea of  what to do (instead of buying a new card) ?

 

Thank you

[Godlygamer23]

Something is going on with the card itself. While GPU-Z indicates that it's pulling full power, the temperatures indicate otherwise. If the card was actually pulling 256W, I would expect the temperatures to be much higher, regardless of any clock speeds. So the solution here is to either repair the card, or purchase a new one. If you feel comfortable with it, you can try taking it apart and seeing if anything obvious shows up.

[Meaker]

Could be one of the shunt resistors is knocked or gone bad.