So ive had my 980 ti for a bit now and haven't had any issues with it until now.  This only happens like... once a week or so.  First im running a 3 screen setup for nvidia surround on 3 1080p screens.  Ill go to boot up and randomly one of the screens will say that the timing is not correct or something with some other stuff and its blacked out.  Ill restart the pc and its back to working fine.  Anyone else ever see something similar?  Thanks! 

Sadly it's different monitors randomly. I got high quality connections, doesn't mean they could be bad but on reboot issue is resolved.

Is your monitor firmware completely up to date?

What all connections are you using on the 980 Ti?

I hope it's not the whole board because it's been any of the connections not just one. I got out on orders for 30 days for the army so I wasn't able to reply. Just ordered a new nvme hard drive, gonna do a new windows 10 install and latest drivers. I have a 144 hz screen I use at work and been thinking of going back to a single screen setup vs nvidia surround but I love having so much room on 3 screens.

20 -30 sec pauses sounds like indexing of your drive or force updates - unless your seeing GPU driver crashed reports

I'd run fans @ Temp C +10 = % fan at a minimum & +20 as a more aggressive curve.
 
You could check the TIM & thermal pads, if you like doing that sort of thing
 
Win 10 & new installs & common issues:
 
1) Win 10 is Rude & will update when it wants to -- unless you take steps to regain control of your PC
 
2) Turn Off Indexing or at least wait for that to be complete before gaming (if you feel a need to use indexing)
 
3) Turn Off Xbox DVR -- MS turns it on by default
 
4) Set Windows & Nvidia Control Panel to Performance
 
5) Remember to turn Windows 10 Fast Startup OFF, when upgrading drivers, firmware or hardware


With Windows 10 there is a new “hybrid” startup mode that should cut down on boot up times.

It does this by putting the PC into hibernation instead of fully shutting down."

          Windows Central - How to disable Windows 10 fast startup (and why you'd want to)

          How-to Geek The Pros and Cons of Windows 10’s “Fast Startup” Mode

Im going to try these last two posts, wonderful information!  I have installed new fans before on my old GTX 770 and it still works great so im not aside from that, however it is under warranty, not gonna ruin that :)  
 
I do have a system with a i7 860 i can try it in, im gonna check all the fans and make sure everything is working.  I thought 82 degrees was pretty damn hot even with the classified size and cooler on it.  Its just weird it started doing this all of the sudden out of the blue with the lock ups.  Ive had 3 evga gpus and never once had um lock up on me.  
 
Could a side fan interfere with cooling?  I appreciate the information, been so aggravated with this today.

Are you ready for this.  It was doing 82C..... while playing... without fans (the hottest it got was 82c).  I kid you not.  I figured out whats going on and I don't know why.  The fans spin on start up and work fine, and when windows loads up... no auto fan no nothing wont turn on at all unless I use MSI Afterburner to set them to a custom profile.  The auto cooling I guess per say is not working for the fans to cut on at all.  It did this on two separate computers.  Further more... my pc is acting weird sometimes still acts slow like something isn't right.  After writing this its still locking up occasionally.  My gtx 770 isn't doing this on my pc.