Voltage Dropping GTX 980

[jordan1794]

Hello all!
I've overclocked my GTX 980 to around 1560 Mhz core and around 8300 Mhz on memory.
I have a voltage offset of +25 Mv, which puts me at 1.25

However, during benchmarking (And gaming) I rarely stay at 1.25, in fact I am only at 1.25 during LIGHT LOAD, during heavy load it drops to 1.225.
This is problematic, because the heavy load is when I need to extra voltage to stay stable, and I think this is holding me back from a higher OC (My temps are easily under control)

Does anyone know if there is a way I can fix this, or is this a way of the card telling me I have pushing it too hard?

 

[Caring1]

What is the temp of the gpu core and the temp of the Vrams?
Heat can cause it to down clock.

 

[jordan1794]

Temps under 65 the whole time.
I can get them lower if need be;fan is only around 60% at 65 degrees.

I also thought that I could be hitting the power limit, however limit is at 125%, and I run right around 120% when it is at 1.25v, and even lower once the voltage drops down.

 

[jordan1794]

Bump? Still trying to figure this out...
I am not hitting my TDP limit, unless GPU-Z is incorrectly reporting my TDP usage...
My temperatures never exceed 65 degrees.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Caring1]

Sometimes clocking too high can cause it to underperform, actually clock back so it performs worse.
Hopefully someone with the skill needed will assist.

 

[jordan1794]

Sometimes clocking too high can cause it to underperform, actually clock back so it performs worse.
Hopefully someone with the skill needed will assist.

Well the clock speed only drops 13 MHz or so (for example, instead of being 1569, it will drop to 1556.) This is problematic because I need the 1.25v to stay stable pretty much anything above 1550.
I've tried dialing it back, even all the way down to an offset of 100 MHz, even just 50 MHz rather than 150 MHz and it still does it. Looking in the BIOS just raises more questions, as the max boost clock listed is 1531 MHz(However with no OC the highest boost I actually see is 1404)
I really wish I could find a comprehensive guide for BIOS tweaking, that way I wouldn't have to ask for help, but I can't find one anywhere.

Thanks for the reply though!

 

[jordan1794]

One last bump to this before I let it die!
I even thought maybe the card wasn't getting enough power, so I attached the auxiliary sata cable to my MOBO that sends power to the PCI slot itself, it did not appear to have an effect.

 

[Johan45]

If the voltage is dropping and the card isn't throttling ( monitor with GPU-z sensor for GPU usage) Then I'd assume what you're seeing is a bit of Vdroop which is quite common in DC systems.
EDIT: all the toolls you need to exploe the bios. http://www.overclock.net/t/1517316/...d-980-firmware-zosons-h2o-and-air-custom-bios

 

[jordan1794]

Ok so I found out why my voltage was dropping. It turns out I was hitting a power limit, I had read that the limit was 125% of TDP on these cards, I guess my limit was lower, either by chance or by EVGA design(I don't think that is likely though)
Regardless, I modded my BIOS and changed my power limit, I was able to run the same exact clock settings that were throttling me down to 1.225, and even 1.2, but with the BIOS edit stayed at 1.25 the entire time(clock speed also did not fluctuate)
That was at a boost clock of 1556, I've got my eye on 1600 >.>