Weird GTX 970 Overclocking problem

[Raggtorn]

I have owned a MSI GTX 970 Twin Frozr 5 since the week it was released last year as I built my new system around the new Nvidia graphics card launch . It had a slight factory boost clock to 1253mhz just on the core.

 

It wasn't till a few days ago that I decided to try my hand at overclocking it . I watched a few videos and got my card up to what I believe was a fairly decent overclock of +185 mhz on the core and +350 on the vram ( people had reported going a lot higher than this on the ram but I felt comfortable with leaving it at 350 ). I also upped the power limit to 106% and made no changes to the voltage. At this point is was very stable in Unigine Heaven 4.0 and GTA V ( where it increased by fps from 50-75 average to 65 - 80 average ). It remained at this level for a few days, until yesterday.

 

 I had just finished an aoe 3 match with friends so I booted up GTA V. My fps was now down to the mid 20's , struggling to reach 30's . I had changed nothing about the card and everything looked fine in afterburner  ( temps , fan speeds , usage ) except one thing . the memory clock was now stuck at 810 mhz instead of the normally reported 3850 mhz . After several reboots and removing the overclock the memory was still running very slowly at 810mhz while idling at about 300 mhz. After a system restore to a restore point I had made just before I started overclocking the memory was back to normal with no added overclocking.

 

My question really is should I overclock again?  or do the results from my initial attempt show that my card maybe isn't a great overclocker and that I should just stick to stock? I have a feeling I caused this to happen by not increasing the power limit enough or not increasing the voltage at all. Or is this connected to the slow 0.5 gb vram problem all gtx 970's have ? Is this a common problem with 970's?

 

Any feedback and tips would be great as I am completely new to overclocking.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

[Tim Drake]

Do you have MSI Afterburner set to overclock it at startup?

 

If so try closing MSI Afterburner so it goes back to stock clocks and see how that goes

[Raggtorn]

I've already done that so it is just running at stock at the moment . Running perfectly at just the factory boost that came with it.

[G33k 4 L1F3]

I have owned a MSI GTX 970 Twin Frozr 5 since the week it was released last year as I built my new system around the new Nvidia graphics card launch . It had a slight factory boost clock to 1253mhz just on the core.

It wasn't till a few days ago that I decided to try my hand at overclocking it . I watched a few videos and got my card up to what I believe was a fairly decent overclock of +185 mhz on the core and +350 on the vram ( people had reported going a lot higher than this on the ram but I felt comfortable with leaving it at 350 ). I also upped the power limit to 106% and made no changes to the voltage. At this point is was very stable in Unigine Heaven 4.0 and GTA V ( where it increased by fps from 50-75 average to 65 - 80 average ). It remained at this level for a few days, until yesterday.

I had just finished an aoe 3 match with friends so I booted up GTA V. My fps was now down to the mid 20's , struggling to reach 30's . I had changed nothing about the card and everything looked fine in afterburner ( temps , fan speeds , usage ) except one thing . the memory clock was now stuck at 810 mhz instead of the normally reported 3850 mhz . After several reboots and removing the overclock the memory was still running very slowly at 810mhz while idling at about 300 mhz. After a system restore to a restore point I had made just before I started overclocking the memory was back to normal with no added overclocking.

My question really is should I overclock again? or do the results from my initial attempt show that my card maybe isn't a great overclocker and that I should just stick to stock? I have a feeling I caused this to happen by not increasing the power limit enough or not increasing the voltage at all. Or is this connected to the slow 0.5 gb vram problem all gtx 970's have ? Is this a common problem with 970's?

Any feedback and tips would be great as I am completely new to overclocking.

Thanks for reading.

The memory stick was just a bug in software. You could still reoverclock up to where you had it, but I recommend lowering the vram clock -200mhz or so until you feel you still get the up in performance, and so how it goes.

[SeanAngelo]

are you sure that your overclocks are set to run at startup? maybe try checking that option

 

my gtx 670 is oc'ed and my overclock still remains after restarts/shutdowns.

 

mhmm.... try running on stock for a while?

[Tim Drake]

I've already done that so it is just running at stock at the moment . Running perfectly at just the factory boost that came with it.

Please quote me next time so I can see your message

[Raggtorn]

Okay thanks - I was assuming it was just buggy software that cause it but knowing that the 970's memory is a bit faulty/ strange I thought I would ask here anyway.

 

Should i keep the power limit the same at 106% and not touch the voltage like last time?

[SkixAces]

You just up it slightly everytime, and dont do what others do! Every card is different. I started with +50MHz to core and +50MHz to memory, when that was stable I added 25, after that another 25, etc. Do that untill it gets unstable, and then go back a step (and ofcourse you have to stop when the temps go out of range)

[Raggtorn]

Please quote me next time so I can see your message

sure , Im not a big forum user

[G33k 4 L1F3]

You just up it slightly everytime, and dont do what others do! Every card is different. I started with +50MHz to core and +50MHz to memory, when that was stable I added 25, after that another 25, etc. Do that untill it gets unstable, and then go back a step (and ofcourse you have to stop when the temps go out of range)

Graphics cards are pretty resilient, you could take the CPU approach, check others OC's , and base your first clock on the average highest clock. After that, start lowering until the driver doesn't fail, and see if its stable.