deuce985

Jshiver90

deuce985

Jshiver90
I do have the GTX 980 FTW ACX 2.0. I just can't imagine it being another part if down clocking the GPU fixes the problem 100%. Like I said, I'm not a techie, and that's why I came here. I've done everything people have suggested so far to test the other parts in the PC, and the only thing that's worked so far is down clocking the GPU. I even replaced a PSU that Corsair said was working within normal parameters; they were very helpful, and replaced it anyways.
 
I really don't know what else to try.
 
I've updated my support ticket several times, but still haven't gotten a reply. Guess my next step is to just buy a new GPU.

Nothing you can do except RMA the card. Looking at all the steps you did above and saying only underclocking the GPU makes everything run stable directly points to a bad GPU. It sucks you have to RMA another card but that's the way it is. If it was something like RAM you would get errors doing the testing or if it was a bad motherboard you would likely get BSODs no matter if underclock or not. If it was a bad PSU then most likely your entire PC is going to shutdown like someone pulled the plug or you would get certain errors. You mentioned you checked your PSU and even RMA for a new one. It's a bad GPU. You have an unstable overclock is why it's stable when you underclock. It could be it was stable leaving EVGA's facility but quickly went bad. Sounds like you just got unlucky unfortunately. I would demand EVGA pay for your shipping on both sending and return.
 
I had the ACX 2.0 980 SC. My drivers would crash and Windows would recover. It was TDR errors I was getting. I'm 100% sure it was the GPU because when I took it out and put another one in I didn't get the crashes. I'd take the faulty card and underclock then never experienced another crash for months until Witcher 3 came out. When I went back to factory OC settings on the other games they would again crash. Underclock, problem solved in every game except Witcher 3 which might have driver problems right now.
 

I'm still willing to try whatever suggestions people have to further test the issue. EVGA said my last card worked fine during "testing", despite having the same exact issue; I do find it hard to believe I got two bad cards in a row. I've tested both cards with FurMark3D and don't have any issues, which is weird. It's only while actually playing games that I have the issues, and the only fix I've found is downclocking the GPU.

It's hard to make recommendations when people don't know your entire setup. Some people on here said if you have a setting for core enhancement for the 4790k to disable it and see if it stops your crashes. I saw someone say if you force the BIOS to 3.0 instead of auto for the PCI-E slot it can help too.
 
I'm just curious on what type of crashes you get. Do you get BSODs or is it something like it just crashes your driver, Windows goes black and it recovers? What you mentioned above is the exact same thing that happened to me. In fact, when I first got the GPU in November I played like 100 hours of Dragon Age Inquisition without a single crash. It was only a few months later when I started playing SWTOR did I notice my first crash ever. Underclocked, problem went away. Technically when you OC something it kills it faster but it shouldn't be that fast. Also, what I mentioned above is more for if you have that 4790k overclocked but you can try it anyway.
 
I'm with you...it's hard to believe you got a second bad GPU but it's certainly possible. I suppose another thing you could try is putting the GPU in another PCI-E slot if you have one, taking RAM out and checking a single stick at a time to see if your system runs stable. I highly doubt those are issues though as you mentioned above you tested RAM.

It's a black screen crash, monitor goes cold and says no connection, but the PC seems to hang onto power and never fully shuts down. I have to manually power it down. I get no error, and have to check BlueScreenViewer to see what error it was.
 
Not using core enhancement setting, and have already tried forcing 3.0. Also not overclocking the CPU or RAM, it's all stock settings.

Jshiver90
 
I'm still willing to try whatever suggestions people have to further test the issue. EVGA said my last card worked fine during "testing", despite having the same exact issue; I do find it hard to believe I got two bad cards in a row. I've tested both cards with FurMark3D and don't have any issues, which is weird. It's only while actually playing games that I have the issues, and the only fix I've found is downclocking the GPU.

So do you believe EVGA are lying to you? if they say it works fine when they test it doesn't that make you think something else can be wrong! EVGA have never shown themselves to be stingy in standing up and replacing a card or excepting a fault.
 
There are many things in the chain of making a PC work correctly, not only the hardware, power, Pci, ram, mobo, bios etc but software running in the background, and especially drivers for the video card, by example most people reject the latest 2 drivers from nvidia as rubbish.
 
I do empathize with you, if you had a friend with a PC maybe you could try your card in theirs, maybe a retailer or a repair shop, either way I just can't believe EVGA or anybody else for that matter is going to tell you it works fine if it isn't
 
David

djmorgan

Jshiver90
 
I'm still willing to try whatever suggestions people have to further test the issue. EVGA said my last card worked fine during "testing", despite having the same exact issue; I do find it hard to believe I got two bad cards in a row. I've tested both cards with FurMark3D and don't have any issues, which is weird. It's only while actually playing games that I have the issues, and the only fix I've found is downclocking the GPU.

So do you believe EVGA are lying to you? if they say it works fine when they test it doesn't that make you think something else can be wrong! EVGA have never shown themselves to be stingy in standing up and replacing a card or excepting a fault.
 
There are many things in the chain of making a PC work correctly, not only the hardware, power, Pci, ram, mobo, bios etc but software running in the background, and especially drivers for the video card, by example most people reject the latest 2 drivers from nvidia as rubbish.
 
I do empathize with you, if you had a friend with a PC maybe you could try your card in theirs, maybe a retailer or a repair shop, either way I just can't believe EVGA or anybody else for that matter is going to tell you it works fine if it isn't
 
David

I never said they were lying. Why else would I be here asking WHAT ELSE should I do? I've done everything suggested by various posters and by EVGA; I've even RMA'd non-defective parts.

It's been over a day since they replied to my support ticket, and the only advice I've gotten from many posters is just to get rid of it for something else.

Not only that, but why would down clocking the GPU fix my issues if the GPU is working fine?

wickedwayne

deuce985
OP I would recommend using drivers 350.12 too because that seems to be the last stable driver from NVIDIA for a lot of users. TDR errors only started popping up for some in the last 2 NVIDIA drivers so it's possible it's a NVIDIA issue and not EVGA.

Wrong issue man, read the thread. Driver update didn't help either (for me). Don't know if OP has tried but i am positive it doesn't change anything because its not a driver issue.
 

Jshiver90
 
It's a black screen crash, monitor goes cold and says no connection, but the PC seems to hang onto power and never fully shuts down. I have to manually power it down. I get no error, and have to check BlueScreenViewer to see what error it was.
 

 

I have tried multiple drivers with clean installs on each one.

Jshiver90

I never said they were lying. Why else would I be here asking WHAT ELSE should I do? I've done everything suggested by various posters and by EVGA; I've even RMA'd non-defective parts.

Start using your logic, make an assumption it is not the card, find a local repair shop and give them your box for testing, find a friend and test the card in his box, if you have a relationship with a retailer, most have a repair center out the back and may put it into one of their shelf units.
 
If all the above report a fault then you have something extra to tell EVGA, getting 2 bad cards in a row, well only 1 as the other was said to be ok, you should buy a lottery ticket.
 
It is very hard for any of us to help you beyond this in a forum, for all we know you may run your box under water in the bath tub, you may have fried something on the mobo from static when you changed the card, who knows! maybe your room has high humidity..... as I said there are many elements that need to work together to make a PC work well
 
David

djmorgan

Samsander
Exactly!
And since people here are on their second, third and some even forth RMA of the FTW model I think we can conclude that there is a problem with the FTW cards and not some other component in our PC's. 
SC & Reference GTX980 cards will work just fine in the same system without any black screen BSOD's
 
EVGA tech probably didn't put the card under enough load for it to fail. Some tool like EVGA OC scanner, Furmark and even Haven or Valley Benchmark could run for many hours without failing.
 
But as soon as you try something that really puts the GPU under heavy load like the 3Dmark Skydiver Demo, GTA V, Crysis 3, Witcher 3 the card will black screen very quickly.

You should start that post with
IN MY OPINION!
 
David

Well, he makes more sense than You IMO.
 
Suggesting that OP should spend even more money to get his PC checked out is like the worst possible solution to this problem considering that he and we already know that the card is at fault here. He also built the system by himself from scratch and usually people who don't know much about PC hardware and don't know how to handle them, don't do that, at all.

I've been building PCs since I was a child, it's nothing new to me. Troubleshooting them and trying to figure out what's not working is new to me, as it's only happened on one other occasion, when, surprisingly, it was my EVGA GTX 660 OC that was malfunctioning.
 
Speaking of which, I've replaced my GTX 980 FTW with a GTX 660. This should tell me if it's my card that's malfunctioning, shouldn't it?
I don't have access to another computer to test the 980, but if I don't crash with a 660 in the same system, doesn't that point to it being the 980?

Jshiver90
I've been building PCs since I was a child, it's nothing new to me. Troubleshooting them and trying to figure out what's not working is new to me, as it's only happened on one other occasion, when, surprisingly, it was my EVGA GTX 660 OC that was malfunctioning.
 
Speaking of which, I've replaced my GTX 980 FTW with a GTX 660. This should tell me if it's my card that's malfunctioning, shouldn't it?
I don't have access to another computer to test the 980, but if I don't crash with a 660 in the same system, doesn't that point to it being the 980?

As underclocking did resolve the crashes like You mentioned (same as me), i think we are past figuring out what the issue is.
 
But go ahead.
I did so as well with my 680 lightning, even overclocked it by a decent amount (which should draw more power than a 980) and still have not had the same problem. Can't really say how much the power draw of Your 660 is though.

Well, I'm about 30 minutes in on testing the same PC with a GTX 660 OC, and have no problems at all so far. Going to try testing it further tonight, but by now I would've crashed with the GTX 980 FTW.

wickedwayne

Jshiver90
Well, I'm about 30 minutes in on testing the same PC with a GTX 660 OC, and have no problems at all so far. Going to try testing it further tonight, but by now I would've crashed with the GTX 980 FTW.

Push it to the limit with downsampling, 3dMark Sky Diver and whatnot. Heaven for example isn't that hard on the GPU from my experience. 

I'll do what I can! Will post results here when I've got 'em.

Let's welcome one more friend add one more to the list.
http://forums.evga.com/RMAd-GTX-980-FTW-Still-Crashing-m2344866.aspx
 
They just keep piling up.
Yea, there is nothing wrong with the FTW version. /s

Few hours now. No crashing. Raided in XIV, played Witcher 3, ran 3D MarkSky ...
 
No problems with the GTX 660 OC.

bcavnaugh

Jshiver90
Few hours now. No crashing. Raided in XIV, played Witcher 3, ran 3D MarkSky ...
 
No problems with the GTX 660 OC.

I have seen a lot of issues with the ASUS MAXIMUS HERO VII Motherboard and Maxwell Graphics Cards here on the Form, and not only EVGA Cards.

Would downclocking solve that issue, though?

deuce985
I have an ASUS Z97 Sabertooth Mark 2 mobo with his exact problem only I have a GTX 980 ACX 2.0 SC and not FTW. I did tests on my end and same as him, underclocking was the only thing to fix my problems. Waiting on my RMA to get here so we can see if it fixes my problem.

I'm not saying bcavnaugh is wrong, but if it's true, would down clocking solve the "compatibility" problem? I don't remember seeing that Maxwell GPUs and the Hero VII weren't compatible.

deuce985

Jshiver90

deuce985
I have an ASUS Z97 Sabertooth Mark 2 mobo with his exact problem only I have a GTX 980 ACX 2.0 SC and not FTW. I did tests on my end and same as him, underclocking was the only thing to fix my problems. Waiting on my RMA to get here so we can see if it fixes my problem.

I'm not saying bcavnaugh is wrong, but if it's true, would down clocking solve the "compatibility" problem? I don't remember seeing that Maxwell GPUs and the Hero VII weren't compatible.

I highly doubt it but you never know with mobo problems. If it was a mobo problem like that though a BIOS update would surely fix it and it would be hurting EVERYONE on a similar build with that BIOS. No way would ASUS let it extend itself out especially since it's a gaming enthusiast board.

Updating BIOS was the first thing I did.