Long time gamer, first time overclocker...

[EulersK]

Firstly, I'd like to say hello! I recently finished my first computer build, with no small amount of help from lurking around these forums. That being said, thank you for the wealth of knowledge on here! Secondly, while this is my first personal computer build, it is not my first build. I worked in computer repair throughout college, so while I'm certainly no expert (my degrees are in math and engineering... not even computer engineering), I do know enough to get by.

 

Now, on to the issue. I recently put the finishing touches on my build - two closed water cooling loops on the GPU and CPU. Great, Dandy. Love em. Literally the only reason I did this was to overclock, because I understand that stock coolers are often enough if you don't plan on overclocking. I've watched and read more than a few tutorials on overclocking, and when I felt ready, I went ahead and followed the instructions. Everything was great, I was getting great results, until it crashed two a solid color on each of my two monitors. "Not a big deal," I thought, "Part of the process."

 

And then it crashed again. And again. Every time I would turn on my PC, I would be met with this same colored screen whenever the GPU had to even begin to work hard. Even opening EVGA Precision X was too taxing, and would result in an almost immediate crash. I reasoned that the faulty overclock settings were saved in Precision X, and my solution to this problem was far from elegant. Turn on the computer, bring up Precision X, and spam the cursor where I believed the "Default" button on the program to be. Thank God they put that button right on the main screen, because I'm not exaggerating when I say it is an immediate crash. After four or five tries, I finally managed to do it, and I'm back up and running to 100%. 

 

From what I've read on here and other forums, there will be an outcry of Precision X vs. Afterburner vs. Whatever. I'm really not looking for that, because my question is simple - will this be the result on other overclocking tools? After a system crash, there must be a failsafe in place to revert back to old settings that I don't know about. I haven't found this issue via searching on Google, but that doesn't mean it's not out there. 

 

And now on to the specs... 

EVGA GeForce GTX 980 

Intel i7 470K

4x4GB Corsair Dominator 

Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mark S

2x128GB SSD in RAID 0 

[Shimejii]

GPU Overclocks on MSI Afterburner Do not save on your system fully unless you click a little box in the bottom left corner and even than it says not recommended, idk if precision X does that but i assume so. GPU overclocks turn off by default when a system reboots, but a cpu one does not unless the MOBO says ima restart to the last known safe boot! Make sure all plugs are in tightly and other than that it may just be the gpu not being a high bin, but it sounds like something going really wrong

[EulersK]

Thanks for the quick reply! On Precision, there is simply an "Apply" button that, apparently, makes that the go-to profile whenever you turn on the computer. I haven't even begun to overclock my CPU because, frankly, I have no reason to yet. I'm only bottlenecking on my GPU at the moment when playing top-shelf games. This may change when I get the GPU sorted out, however!

[MilkJugg24]

From what I understand for your GPU you just use you overclocking software and just revert it. There's a setting automatically turned on MSI afterburner that reverts failed overclocks if it doesn't work officially. 

 

I'd imagine if you're stuck at an overclock that's blocking your from doing anything, starting your computer in safe mode would keep the software from starting and you can delete the overclock profile and restart, and everything should be ok.

 

As for any CPU overclock issues, of course just take out the CMOS battery for a few seconds and put it back in and you're all set.

 

Also, welcome to the LTT forums!

[EulersK]

From what I understand for your GPU you just use you overclocking software and just revert it. There's a setting automatically turned on MSI afterburner that reverts failed overclocks if it doesn't work officially. 

 

I'd imagine if you're stuck at an overclock that's blocking your from doing anything, starting your computer in safe mode would keep the software from starting and you can delete the overclock profile and restart, and everything should be ok.

 

I tried the safe mode method, but Precision X won't even open in safe mode. It says that required hardware isn't present... which I suppose isn't false, given that the driver isn't running, but I can't even run the software? Really, EVGA?

 

With each post, Afterburner is looking more and more attractive...

[spaiduhz]

You should be able to remove software in safemode even if it cant run. Lets get rid of it for now.

[MilkJugg24]

With each post, Afterburner is looking more and more attractive...

 

I'd recommend uninstalling the software, then trying out Afterburner.

 

Not saying it's better because I haven't tried it, but people seem to have more bad than good from Pres. X.. 

 

 

But yea, a couple other treads on various forums complained A LOT about how their stuff just flat out doesn't work for whatever reason.

 

Keep this topic followed at the top right to keep updated on new posts and replies, it's a shame it doesn't do that for you automatically.

[EulersK]

You should be able to remove software in safemode even if it cant run. Lets get rid of it for now.

 

I tried that as well. Wow, I left out more details than I thought. After uninstalling it in safe mode, I continued to have the same issue. It was almost as if Precision X changed the settings of the card itself, not within the program. I actually had to reinstall the software to get it to work. The software has since left my computer, of course.

 

I'm going to be making a restore point, backing up everything, and try out Afterburner. I really wanted to use Precision X because of both aesthetics and the fact that it was made by the company that made my card (you'd think that would be best...). It was even linked to Steam, which was great, but this just isn't an option. I'm going to toy with Afterburner right now, I'll post an update when I accomplish or break something!