Card not downclocking anymore

[M17]

Hi

I have a GTX 560 installed in my PC. I have two monitors attached to my PC but the card used to downclock from 882 down to 50 MHz while idle. I have read that the card will always stay at the maximum clock as long as two monitors are connected, but mine used to downclock. Even when playing source games I would monitor GPU-Z on the second screen and it would go to around 400 MHz because the game wasn't that demanding. Everything worked perfectly!

Now I have upgraded to the 301.42 driver and it no longer downclocks, even when idling it is stuck at 882 MHz. I do not remember what driver I was using before, or if there was some setting I changed to make it downclock even with 2 screens. Now the only way to make it downclock is to disable the second monitor.

Is there any way to make it downclock when idling with 2 screens? any help is appreciated.

[newtekie1]

Try the latest drivers, 304.79.

With a second monitor attached the card isn't supposed to downclock all the way to 50MHz, but it should go down to 400MHz.

[M17]

Thanks for that link. I tried installing that, It is still stuck at 882. It has been idling for a few minutes now, it does not go down.

[M17]

I have managed to get it down to 50 MHz. the first monitor was set to 60Hz and the second was at 59Hz. I set both to 60 Hz refresh rate and the card downclocked almost immediately after I hit apply. It probably had nothing to do with the driver itself, I remember messing around with the scaling settings after installing the new driver. I think that may have changed the refresh rate somehow.

[w00tz]

Hi,
Sorry for revive.
I also suspected it was the second display and after I plugged it out, the clocks dropped.
I too have a GTX 560. My previous driver was 301.something and I just updated 306.23.
In my case I have a Samsung TV connected on HDMI which runs at 1920x1080. I can change from 60Mhz to 59 but nothing happens.
My primary display (1680x1050) runs only at 60Mhz, can't change to anything else.

Is it the resolution difference which keeps the clocks up? (although the TV is powered off)
Would be a shame to stay constantly with the clocks up - temperature dropped from 54 to 39. And also wasting electricity.

[M17]

In my case since both displays run at the same resolution I cannot test that. But my issue was resolved when they were both set to the same refresh rate (60).

You got to set the refresh rate for both screens in the Nvidia settings manager, not on the TV itself. On mine you see I have selected screen 1 of 2, after that click on 2 of 2 and make it the same refresh rate too.



If it still isn't down clocking then I don't know what else might be the problem. You can go to the "Manage 3D settings" and see if power management mode is set to adaptive.

[w00tz]

Originally Posted by M17

You got to set the refresh rate for both screens in the Nvidia settings manager, not on the TV itself.

Of course, I set the refresh rate in Nvidia manager not on the TV.
The culprit is the resolution difference, if I set the TV to 1680x1050 (the same as the PC), then the card downclocks.
Setting the TV back to its native 1920x1080 and no more downclocking.