Un-Overclock GPU??

[Freegrazer]

I recently acquired a second hand Nvidia gtx 560. It was given to me for free, and I used it in my brand new system that I built. This being my first build I was a little wary of putting a used component into a machine where every other component was brand new.

Since completing my build, the rig has performed extremely well, including the graphics card. However, every now and then (once or twice a week) the PC will freeze for maybe 30 seconds showing a blank screen before coming back on slowly and then windows displays a message telling me that the Nvidia Display Driver stopped working.

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the Nvidia drivers, and I have checked the settings in the Nvidia control panel but I can't find anything wrong.

I have since been told that the previous owner had overclocked the gtx 560. Could the overclock be affecting the system and causing the problem?

I'm basically a complete noob when it comes to overclocking. How can I check to see if the gpu has been overclocked? And how can I reverse the overclock back to original settings to see if this solves the problem?

I'd appreciate any advice on this.

Cheers

 

[Havana_UK]

Download and install GPU-Z here, and that will show you the stock clock speed for the GPU and what yours is actually running at.

It would be great if you can post the rest of your spec, including your PSU make & model as well.

 

[los]

You can get a program called GPUZ which tells you what the clocks should be and what it is. Although when you overclock it is set by a program such as afterburner installed on the computer. So unless the bios was flashed, which is pretty unlikely the card will be running at stock speeds for the card.
It might be worth checking that you have the latest bios installed on your motherboard.
Other than that it might be the card faulty or to do with the drivers.

 

[Orcvader]

You can get a program called GPUZ which tells you what the clocks should be and what it is. Although when you overclock it is set by a program such as afterburner installed on the computer. So unless the bios was flashed, which is pretty unlikely the card will be running at stock speeds for the card.
It might be worth checking that you have the latest bios installed on your motherboard.
Other than that it might be the card faulty or to do with the drivers.

This. Unless the original owner messed with the GPU's BIOS, then it will already be on stock settings.

Post the rest of your system specs, it may be something else causing it.

 

[Freegrazer]

That GPU-Z sounds handy. I'll give it a go when I get home, stuck in work here at the moment [boss thinks I'm working tee-hee]. Cheers guys.

As for my system specs :

i3 3225 (upgrading soon) |
Sabertooth Z77 |
8GB Corsair DDR3 L-P Vengeance 1600MHz |
nVidia GTX 560 |
Creative Sound Blaster ZxR |
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 cpu cooler|
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD |
2x WD Caviar Green 2TB HDD's |
Cooler Master 720W Silent Pro M2 |
All wrapped up in a Sharkoon Tauron ATX (RED) |
Mad Catz Cyborg R.A.T 9 wireless mouse|
Logitech K400r keyboard |
Sennheiser HD650 Headphones |

 

[tribz]

Didnt the 560's have a reputation for suffering a bit with driver not responding errors, something about not enough voltage. I seem to remember the geforce forums were full of it at one point and it seemed to be mainly 560's

 

[wazza300]

try a touch more cpu voltage

graphic card issues and drivers crashing can be down to not enough cpu v on ivybridge

to check look in event viewer in windows for any whea warnings/errors esp parity 19 warnings/errors

 

[Nasher]

I have similar problems with an MSI 670 OC, except a LOT more frequently. I have noticed the default clock speed is about 100mhz over what is stated in the specs. Should be 1045 under boost, but is actually closer 1145!

Underclocking the core or upping the voltage slightly usually fixes it for me. But for certain games nothing I've tried seems to fix it completely (even tried other PSUs, motherboard, ram etc). It seems to be worse on some drivers than others as well.

 

[Freegrazer]

I didn't get a chance to have a look at the voltages or that GPU-Z thingy yesterday. I was busy catching up on Breaking Bad!

I'll defo be taking a look this evening and I'll post the results tomorrow. Although I wont know if the problem is fixed for a while seeing as I'll need to wait and see if the display driver fails again whenever it chooses to do so.

Cheers for the tips lads, appreciate it.

 

[Freegrazer]

Download and install GPU-Z here, and that will show you the stock clock speed for the GPU and what yours is actually running at.

So I had a go of GPU-Z and it turns out that the card is running at stock settings. No overclock at all, the original owner probably set it back to stock settings before handing over the card.

Also there was no w-h-e-a errors in the event viewer. But there was a couple of errors there that correspond to the occurrences of the display driver failures. Not much info to go on, but the underneath the "Source" column for these errors it said "kernel power".

So that leaves me wondering if it is the CPU voltage as wazza300 suggested. The really annoying thing is that every time I implement a potential fix, I have to wait a week or more to see if the problem has in fact been solved.

So my plan is to try a couple of fixes all at once and hope that at least one of them will fix this issue. I will try slightly increasing the CPU voltage.

Can anybody offer me some advice on how to do this?

Just how much of an increase are we talking?

Can I just increase the CPU voltage or will I need to change setting with Vdram, Vcore, etc... first?

 

[wazza300]

how much ram are you running?

if theres no whea parity 19 errors then cpu v is ok,not sure if cpu is overclocked or not? its generally when its overclocked they crop up

if running 16gb of memory try with 1.10v cpu/vtt and enable x.m.p profile if your memory supports it

 

[Freegrazer]

how much ram are you running?

if theres no whea parity 19 errors then cpu v is ok,not sure if cpu is overclocked or not? its generally when its overclocked they crop up

if running 16gb of memory try with 1.10v cpu/vtt and enable x.m.p profile if your memory supports it

Currently running 8GB ram. And the CPU was bought brand new from Amazon so defo wouldn't have been overclocked.

Worth mentioning I don't play games on the PC, this problem occurs just with general use. Although, and I might be wrong about this, it never happens while I'm watching a movie with XBMC. If I'm browsing the web, it only occurs when I change a web page or switch tasks or view the desktop or when I close XBMC or other apps.

In other words, when it does occur it happens to be during a display transition of some kind, ie: switching windows or tasks. If the screen changes from one thing to another it seems to trigger the issue, but again this is only once or twice a week and not every time I switch tasks or close applications.

 

[oldestgregg]

Currently running 8GB ram. And the CPU was bought brand new from Amazon so defo wouldn't have been overclocked.

Worth mentioning I don't play games on the PC, this problem occurs just with general use. Although, and I might be wrong about this, it never happens while I'm watching a movie with XBMC. If I'm browsing the web, it only occurs when I change a web page or switch tasks or view the desktop or when I close XBMC or other apps.

In other words, when it does occur it happens to be during a display transition of some kind, ie: switching windows or tasks. If the screen changes from one thing to another it seems to trigger the issue, but again this is only once or twice a week and not every time I switch tasks or close applications.

I'm not picking faults I just thought you might want to know for future reference that overclocking is done via programs for the gpu and motherboard bios for the cpu. If you buy a gpu secondhand then as soon as it is removed from the sellers pc it ceases to be overclocked unless its been bios flashed. A cpu though cannot be bios flashed ,therefore ,as soon as its removed from motherboard it also ceases to be overclocked. Just a bit of something to take forward with you in your tinkering!

With regards to the card ,my bro-in-law had that problem and found that upping the voltage a touch and dropping 25mhz off the core clock sorted it for him. Not promising anything but its the identical problem he had on paper.

 

[oldestgregg]

You could maybe try forcing constant voltage in Afterburner as it could be a problem with 2d profiles and not coming out of low power state properly? Again,just an idea but it is always best to eliminate all possibilities no matter what they are.

 

[Freegrazer]

I'm not picking faults I just thought you might want to know for future reference that overclocking is done via programs for the gpu and motherboard bios for the cpu. If you buy a gpu secondhand then as soon as it is removed from the sellers pc it ceases to be overclocked unless its been bios flashed. A cpu though cannot be bios flashed ,therefore ,as soon as its removed from motherboard it also ceases to be overclocked. Just a bit of something to take forward with you in your tinkering!

With regards to the card ,my bro-in-law had that problem and found that upping the voltage a touch and dropping 25mhz off the core clock sorted it for him. Not promising anything but its the identical problem he had on paper.

Cheers mate, I was thinking that's how it should work when you remove a chip.
I will try doing what you suggest, but could you just clarify something for me real quick - You're suggesting I drop core clock speed by 25MHz on the gpu, but up the Voltage slightly on the CPU or the GPU?

 

[oldestgregg]

I would try GPU first and then CPU is it dosnt work. You may not need to drop the core clock either just saying what worked for him

 

[Bluntwrapped]

I had a similar problem not so long ago, random driver crashes and black screens.

Open task manager and have a look to see if iehighutil.exe is there. It's nasty bit coin mining malware that causes the above symptoms.