GTX570 SC to hell and back

[Crap Daddy]

I'm posting this here because it's related not only to the GPU in question.
So it all started with the "driver stopped working and has recovered" during TF2, well I said to myself it's a problem with the servers, the game and went to Just Cause 2. Three minutes into the game, crash. Well it might be some old saves and other driver that I've been playing couple of weeks ago. Then Company of Heroes crash to the desktop just when the menu has to come up. Verified the cache of the game - Steam - integrity of the files, the same. As I've been reading a lot about GTX570 biting the dust when overclocked, I have the EVGA SC version I was starting to feel like one of the, maybe 5-10%, unlucky customers. Tried with different drivers, downclocking the card to stock, uninstalling afterburner but things got worse, artifacting and crashing in every game I tried.

The last thing I tried was to pull the card out, take a look at it and reseat. Connected the monitor to the second DVI port and bring the CPU back to stock (it was OCed to 4.2 GHz turbo). Now it's working as it should be, stock clocks for the SC 797/1594/1950. Tried a few games, some game benchmarks and 3DMark11 and everything is working. What is it? What can I expect? The OC on the CPu had some bad influence? Been running these setings since almost a month with no issues.

[BababooeyHTJ]

Thats why proper stress testing is important. Prime blend works really well for sandy bridge.

[puma99dk|]

Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

Thats why proper stress testing is important. Prime blend works really well for sandy bridge.

u can't use Prime95 for ur GFX, u can use OCCT it got a GPU Stress test, try that one, i use v1.025 on my EVGA GTX 570 to un 797/1594/1950 bcs it has crashed on me once, but normally it don't in TF2

[BababooeyHTJ]

Originally Posted by puma99dk|

u can't use Prime95 for ur GFX, u can use OCCT it got a GPU Stress test, try that one, i use v1.025 on my EVGA GTX 570 to un 797/1594/1950 bcs it has crashed on me once, but normally it don't in TF2

His video card is fine. It was his unstable cpu overclock causing issues. An unstable overclock can cause tons of strange issues. With my P45 I had a stable overclock for months. One day I started seeing artifacting in games with no other signs of an unstable overclock. I then ran a cpu stress test that I knew that I had passes not too long beforehand and failed. Reverted the cpu to stock speeds and the artifacts went away.

I'm saying that this is why proper stress testing is important when overclocking your cpu.

Also OCCT doesn't work well with GTX570 due to the power limiter.

[mad1394]

I've had the exact same thing happen a couple of months ago, crashes + texture corruption in games which all got fixed by re-seating the card.
Haven't had any other problems since then but it sure got me worried...made me throw some nice words gigabyte's way for sure.

[the54thvoid]

Sorry to hear. My stress tests on my 580 when i was overclocking would fail during unigine or 3dmark11 with driver errors. The specific message stated the driver had failed but had now recovered (though when checking afterburner the clocks were back at stock).

There is the issue of PSU. If you're combined overclocks and other hardware are pulling too much juice the gfx card could be the first to hold it's hands up and say, need more powah!

Just a thought.

I just played around here: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp with your system specs and with your overclocked cpu (with everything at 100% load) it gives about 550Watt requirement. If your gfx overclock is substantial, it might tip the balance.

[Crap Daddy]

Well my Corsair is 650W with 52A on the single 12V rail and has served me well but that's what I was thinking, maybe it's on the way out. As far as the CPU OC is concerned it was never a problem of stability it worked perfectly fine.

[BababooeyHTJ]

Originally Posted by Crap Daddy

Well my Corsair is 650W with 52A on the single 12V rail and has served me well but that's what I was thinking, maybe it's on the way out.

I ran a 6950 crossfire system with an overclocked i5 760 and later i5 2500k with no issue on a 650w psu. I doubt that is the problem.

As far as the CPU OC is concerned it was never a problem of stability it worked perfectly fine.

For only a month. Under what conditions was it running fine? Which video card? What usage? What type of stress testing did you do? I would be willing to bet if you would run prime 95 blend on your old overclock it won't make it more than a couple of hours.

[Crap Daddy]

I also tend to belive it's the OC that yesterday decided it's time to give up. Since I'm happy that the GTX is fine I don't really want to do anything for the time being and keep the 2500K at stock. It's powerful enough for any game we play and total overkill for office work and stuff. Maybe later I'll start messing again with some easy OC. Thanks.

[Crap Daddy]

I'm back with some more findings. Now the card is running properly. Apparently it's not the "unstable overclock" as some sugested but a flaw that's been documented on different forums. It seems that especially the 570 and the 580 develop this corruption and artifacting which is solved by a cold boot and reseating the card. One guy at Newegg says that EVGA suggested this repair option and it worked although he says that once a month he has to perform this again. Don't know if I'm just one of the "lucky" owners of a 570 who has this or if it's a design problem. I'm amazed that this is the solution that's recommended and I'm pretty pissed at Nvidia right now since it seems that is not specific to one vendor. This is just to let everybody that has these cards and this problem. To be honest I'm pretty reluctant to recommend this card to anybody right now although when it works it is truly great.