NVIDIA's drivers are terrible.

[Enderman]

31 minutes ago, TheGamingBarrel said:

Actually, you are entirely wrong in this regard, My 1620 MHz 980 Does well, 1620 On 350.12, Upgraded to newest driver, cant even hit 1500 Without it crashing.

but it works at stock speeds, does it not??

[TheGamingBarrel]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

but it works at stock speeds, does it not??

sometimes it does not, this is on win 7, have not done testing on 8 Yet.

 

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Peeps say that this forum is an AMD fanboy train wreck. Heh.

 

Anw, probably a bad driver. Same thing on AMD. You've already reverted to an older and more stable one. Though, you might want to try re-installing the newer one. Sometimes the installation fucks itself up.

[Big-G]

20 hours ago, Moonzy said:

when a gpu crash, it some times locks itself

rebooting your system will normally fix that

Do this next time, and save the prozac for when you really need it... After buying your Polaris

[Big-G]

19 hours ago, Ramrod126 said:

The last two driver releases from Nvidia have given me nothing but trouble. CTD in fallout 4 and dirt 3 and just general suckiness. I am sticking with the 361.91 release until there is another new driver.

Latest driver has given me 0 issues...

[Moonzy]

17 hours ago, Godlygamer23 said:

I'm not convinced of your experience either. My GPU will bump back up to the overclocked speed.

well my 970 sometimes lock itself to a clock speed lower than stock (stock = 1316, it normally locks below 1000, like 800-ish or 500-ish)

it wont overclock even if i tweak it in msi afterburner

but it'll be back to normal after i reboot my system

[LokiFire]

Hey peeps, ignore my travesty that this thread is, i got pissed off, i don't know what NVIDIA have done to their drivers as of late but it seems like the features to make Maxwell work better hurt other architectures, the blocking of hardware, blocking GPU's from going into 3D are something Maxwell is fine with, but not a hot clocking Fermi.

 

Any who i will remain open to NVIDIA now i have calmed down and see how either vendor goes.

 

I am very expressive of my feelings.. surely some of you are aware of this?  i'm not hurting anyone so maybe sometimes let it ride...

 

But, this thread is still constructive, there are problems with the drivers so i am not wrong, but i did represent my own thread a bit differently than most expect.

 

Filled with a lot of frustration.

[Godlygamer23]

38 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

well my 970 sometimes lock itself to a clock speed lower than stock (stock = 1316, it normally locks below 1000, like 800-ish or 500-ish)

it wont overclock even if i tweak it in msi afterburner

but it'll be back to normal after i reboot my system

I think that's due to the driver freaking out, not a safety feature. 

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, Godlygamer23 said:

I think that's due to the driver freaking out, not a safety feature. 

well, i wouldnt know

i just assumed its just a safety feature tbh, since it seems to me like one lol

 

anyway it just happens so regardless of the reason, its there lol

[Vellinious]

Try 353.62.  There's no reason to go beyond that, unless you need one of the newest drivers for a specific game you're playing. 

And yes....driver versions do affect overclocking.  The newest drivers for NVIDIA just aren't very good for it.  I tested each and every release since May of '15.  After 353.62 there were no performance improvements...just improvements for specific games.

As for YOUR specific card...it's a Fermi that's 5 years old...it could just be reaching it's end.