i am not sure about voltage but if you use evga precision latest version to apply voltages , make sure you click on about tab and check apply at start up
 
if all fails use the ASUS GPU TWEAK its best software after evga's

I know this, this is the voltage limit at high/3d mode.. I'm not daft :)

sorry subodai, I wasnt trying to insult you! Just covering all bases. 

Voltages vary from card to card, its normal.

So what I'm asking is: if other vendors are recommending 1.050 or 1.150 for some.. why are these at stock so low?
 
What SHOULD the voltage be to make these cards stable ? because battlefield just ISN'T having it.. and any word on that BIOS ?

Hi maniac, thanks for the response.
 
The crashes happen at stock, with stock volts, and even underclocked by 10Mhz and even underclocked by 50Mhz (following the BF3 forum advice). I tried pumping the volts since it's watercooled and that also doesn't seem to help.
 
I have since stuck up the core to 801Mhz and tested it to be fine, this makes BF3 run a little better, but still get intermittent completely random Appcrashes.
 
As for system spec:
Abit IP35 Pro (love this board)
Q6600 G0 Slacr @ 3Ghz
8GB OCZ 8500 Ram
OCZ 60GB SSD with latest firmware
GTX580 3GB Hydro Copper
CPU and GPU are both watercooled.
PSU is a Coolermaster Realpower M850
Windows 7 Prem 64bit
I know this seems dated (because it is) but i get like 80+ fps most of the time in BF3 on ultra (no HBAO/MSAA) admittedly karkand has brought this down a bit.  

I'm seeing peek temps on the card of around 75degC (after a few hours of intense gaming, inbetween appcrashes lol) this VERY quickly drops to around 45 once gaming stops (gotta love water) but true idle is in the low 30's i think. I do have a toasty warm house, but these seem okay?

 
Tried the last 3 beta drivers from nVidia also, all seem to vary in the 'image quality' but still have random appcrashes. I'm aware this issue is ALL over the bf3 forums, and it's generally being ignored to be honest. So I thought I'd approach this forum (since it's not full of spammy trolls) before losing my rag with it :)
 
Thanks again for reading I'm aware that's quite an epicly long reply
 

Oops yes, audio, Auzen X-Fi Prelude, which has all the X-RAM stuff, I forgot that sorry.
 
When you say 3 threads, is there a specific reason it would be 3 and not 4, since it's a quad core?
It doesn't look like the cpu is at 'max' usage (from task manager graph) and the performance is pretty exemplary for it's age.
 
It doesn't stutter or slow down in ways other's have mentioend, apart from karkand, but the consensus seems to be that's happened for everyone.
 
I'm on the 290 driver at the moment, (your guide is excellent I've been using that for every driver change) but will go through your guide this evening and try the 285.79 again.
 
Is 'driversweeper' / 'drivercleaner' necessary ? I've seen that mentioned all over but not in your super guide?
Edit: Just seen that it does, sorry! will go through in detail tonight and report back.
 
Thanks!
 
Again, thanks for your time, I appreciate it.

Thanks Maniac that's great of you :)
I'm in the UK so we'll have to sort a time which is convenient to you to chat properly.
I'm considering a full, virgin install of windows 7 if I can't sort it out this weekend.

Okay went through your guide and did a driver cleanered install of the drivers you recommended, still got an appcrash :(