Hey all,
 
Just got my hands on this GTX 980 non-Ti kingpin. However, it performs at around 50% of a regular GTX 980 no matter what motherboard/cpu combo I am using, across essentially all 3d rendering tasks or computing tasks.

My 1600 T2 should give a plenty of power, but despite no power or thermal throttling at all, the 980 kingpin draws a mere 130W off the wall under time spy extreme. I took a look into Thermspy and found that the actual clock would never go above 50% of the supposed targer clock speed. 
 
I have never run into anything like this. I have toggled across the normal, OC, and LN2 BIOS. I have also tried to cross-flash to a classified non-kingpin to no avail. I tried to flash the 980 superclocked, but it gives me no display immediately upon installing the drivers. I wonder if I accidentally activated some kind of safe mode of limp mode of that GPU, if such a thing exists? How would I actually get the clock to properly stay at where it is? Thanks a lot in advance! 

If the GPU has the correct BIOS & GPU-Z sensor tab does not indicate an issue - while running a benchmark to load the GPU
 
My first guess, that your GPU OC software was running & hamstrung the Nvidia driver install (known issue)
 
No idea what power mode your OS is set to
 
Nvidia Control settings .... what did you change from default?

jiacheng_liu
 

Cool GTX
 
My first guess, that your GPU OC software was running & hamstrung the Nvidia driver install (known issue)
 
No idea what power mode your OS is set to
 
Nvidia Control settings .... what did you change from default?

The NV control panel is at default, and my system is at the ultimate performance plan. I have DDUed to no avail, but I will try with a stock and untweaked OS without any OC software once I am home
 

IF other GPUs work correctly in your PC ... then probably not an OS issue ..... test in Safe Mode ... kills all the background stuff is an easy thing to try
 
Disable OC software for GPU, set the option for the OC auto start on reboot = Off -- then when you reboot OC software does not start


Then while holding shift key down --> shut down PC --Holding shift key -- until All power is off = Clear Windows last good start file; as you want Windows to do a driver & hardware inventory
 
- Also, make sure in MB BIOS that the Fast Boot is --> Off  you want the MB to take inventory
 
Then go off line, remove old driver DDU if you want & then install the new Nvidia driver & set Nvidia CP to performance mode & see if that helps
 
--> What other software is running in the background?
 
Clean OS install is the last option & might not be needed
 

Sajin
Sounds like the card has an issue that can only be fixed by rma’ing it. Looks like you’ll need to find another one.

Is there still a way to RMA a 980 Kingpin?

You can try third party repair shops too.  I've had a handful of cards repaired including a few older Kingpin.

Ya, from a performance perspective it doesn't make sense to repair a 900 series card.  Only reason would be that it's a Kingpin for the collector aspect.