Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.
Not to sure what you mean by the PCIe frequency though, is that a bios setting?
Yep, sounds like it. There should be a workaround though...
There shouldn't need to be a workaround. I thought there would be one, but there wasn't one I could find. There was a fault that cost me many hours of my time. I tried everything I could, but I still had a graphics card that wouldn't work in my system.
If only graphics cards were like washing machines or TVs. If it doesn't work properly, the retailer or manufacturer fixes/replaces it.
GTX1080 under heavy load via GPU Boost 3.0 uses a tremendous amount of extra PSU juice! That's just the GPU throw in the CPU+Ram etc etc I think this PSU is marginal for this type of GPU hence me saying back it all back to no overclocks see how stable it is then.
All PSU's degrade over time with natural use any ocing just degrades them faster if you used a probe on the 12V rails like some of the more thorough reviewers do the results on older units would be eye opening!! they lose up to 30% in normal use so ocing introduces even more degradation. PSU's hate extra heat & load its been said by experts they lose around 10% per year if driven harder so a 3 year old PSU = 30% degrade!
http://www.johansondielectrics.com/ceramic-capacitor-aging-made-simple#.Um_e0fmkr9k
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supplies-101,4193.html
All stabs in the dark welcome. I've had some dark weeks with mysterious computer behavior before but this is quite unreal.
In general a reasonable (pretty much most of OCUKs inventory, even the cheaper ones) PSUs performance many degrade 0-1% per year even with 24/7 usage. It would be almost impossible for a PSU to work if it degraded 30% as you'd hit a complete component failure well before it got to that level.
I am at a loss now, I have tried the following since my last post:
Fans at 100% throughout - Crash after 6 mins Witcher 3
Completely different power cable from a different socket on PSU - Crash after 3-4 minutes Witcher 3, crash after 25 minutes Prepar3d.
After a full case cleanout and reassembly yesterday as well as a brand new OS on a clean HDD I think I am spent. All my parts are from OCUK but obviously I can't just RMA things based on hunches so I feel my only option is a refund on the card and go back to the 780ti for a couple of years until I can do a brand new system. Annoyingly this has knocked my confidence in building my own rigs, something I've been doing for 10 years. Usually with these kinds of things I eventually find a solution but I am running out of ideas and I am sure you guys are too.
Unless I just happen to have two DoA cards in a row? I've heard the EVGA FTW 1080 cards had a major problem with crashing and lots of RMA's. Is another RMA worth trying or maybe a swap to a different manufacturer? (MSI for instance).
Hardware troubleshooting isn't difficult:
1. Test the card in a different system to rule it out. Based on the number of B-grade 1080GTX's for sale the card is probably fine.
2. If the card is good then either the system (CPU/RAM/mobo) is bad or the PSU is bad. Swap out the PSU to confirm.
3. RMA / replace faulty parts as needed. Done.
It's not a compatibility issue or software issue. If it was the card wouldn't work for 5 minutes then crash. It wouldn't work at all.
Try this:Holding out for some magical beta bios!