Black screen when overclocking?

[Kevin11]

So I am overclocking my GTX 660 a little, not a lot, and during high load it will sometimes give me a black screen for a second or two before coming back just fine, still playing the game or benchmark with the same settings. What is causing this and should I be alarmed? It doesn't happen very often so I'm fine leaving my oc settings where they are as long as it isn't causing any serious damage. I mean it's a GTX 660, I'm not too worried about it, lol.

[doomsriker]

ANY instability is a good reason to dial back your overclock. 

[Kevin11]

12 minutes ago, doomsriker said:

ANY instability is a good reason to dial back your overclock. 

what if I'm not too worried about the 660?

[doomsriker]

It's not about the card's safety, it's the fact that pushing a card past it's limit can actually decrease it's performance. Things like thermal throttling will degrade your gaming experience when using a card that is overclocked past the point of stability.  

[Kevin11]

1 minute ago, doomsriker said:

It's not about the card's safety, it's the fact that pushing a card past it's limit can actually decrease it's performance. Things like thermal throttling will degrade your gaming experience when using a card that is overclocked past the point of stability.  

 

Everything runs perfectly, performance is higher and the temps never go past 80 or 85C, I just get a black screen rarely, should i still throttle it back?

[doomsriker]

In the end it is up too you. The black screen could be a warning of things to come, or it could be nothing. I just see no point in pushing hardware to the breaking point regardless of weather or not you care about it.