stalinx20

Samsander

stalinx20

Samsander

stalinx20

Samsander

stalinx20

Samsander

stalinx20

Samsander

stalinx20

wickedwayne

djmorgan
Hardware or software! those that think it hardware perhaps should read this, software is and does cause needed resets
 
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/847580/geforce-drivers/official-nvidia-353-30-whql-game-ready-display-driver-feedback-thread-released-2015-06-22-/
 
 
David

It's amazing that even with the official responses in this thread you are still adamant about blaming it on a driver issue. It's like you don't even read any comments here.
 
Also, you should probably read what those drivers have fixed in the changelog because you obviously didn't read those too. 
 
They didn't fix anything, literally.
 
 

I can't do anything but shake my head for those that thought that the latest drivers were actually going to fix the FTW. It's not. THis is not a driver issue, and never was a driver issue. Unstable card is unstable card. I'm not sure what it's going to take for the techs to "consider" the theory that the GPU is not getting enough voltage, or that the voltage is throttling (which some users have found out). WHen you have an unstable card, the drivers are going to fail no matter what you put on it. Hense the reason when you have unstable overclocks, your gpu's drivers crash.

As far as the voltage, I'm not even sure if the techs can provide more power to the card. I think it's peaked. If that is the case, your only resolution is down-clocking the card. Sorry. There is no way around it.

The voltage lock is probably not the issue though. Because even at 1.175 & 1.150v the card is stable at 1380Mhz if you run it at a constant 100% power draw. (I tested this by changing the voltages in the BIOS, anything below 1.150v was unstable at 1380Mhz and resulted in application crashing and a driver recovery, NOT a black screen BSOD).
It will crash though when the power draw starts going up high and down to the low draw (with any voltage). The problem is most likely the card not adjusting in time for those drastic power changes.
So 1.2v is more then enough if you ask me. I've seen people running at ~1500Mhz without touching the voltage on non FTW models.
 
Example: http://www.overclock.net/...lub/5070#post_23189477

So, in a sense, it is a voltage issue... in order for the GPU to remain stable, it has to stay at a constant voltage (in your case you modified the bios to make the GPU run at 100% power draw...not sure if that's safe, but I bet you have a much hotter gpu, right? with it being stable, of course) I don't mean to sound specific or trying to be correct here, but, *Anything in which the application crashes, and/or driver recovery (leading up to, but not limited to BSOD) relates to the unit has in fact crashed and has to reset itself in order to acquire stabilization again, Due to the clocks trying to acquire the additional power, in this case the FTW.
 
1.2 for sure might be enough, but that is where the power is pushing "almost"  to Nvidia limitations. So, yes the voltage lock is "one of the reasons" the FTW is not running 100% stable. I'm pretty sure 1.25 is the cutoff point to where they are not allowed to achieve anymore. Needless to say that is probably why their first "BIOS fix" probably showed their attempt to lower the clocks rather than to increase the voltage.

No, you didn't understand me. You can't change the power draw in BIOS to always draw a constant 100%. The power draw of 100% I achieved with the Furmark Benchmark.
All I did in the BIOS is played with the voltages just to see how low can I set the voltage at the stock BOOST clock without the benchmark crashing or the driver recovering.
 
I also tried to set a constant 1.2v in BIOS at all states just to test if it was the voltage fluctuation that is causing all the problems.
This didn't help at all. Even with a constant locked 1.2v the card still crashed with a black screen when the power draw started changing drastically.

If that didn't help at all, then the conclusion is that the card just has too high of clocks. I know that's not the answer anyone wants to hear, but the logical thing to do is, again, lower the clocks till you get a stable card until they have a BIOS fix. Not trying to justify the situation, but is a boost of 100mhz really that mind blowing?

High clock is also not the issue. As already said many times, You can run the FTW at ~1450Mhz with that locked voltage and it will run fine for hours as long as you run a heavy benchmark like Furmark or Kombustor that maxes out the power draw.
 
If the clock was simply to high those benchmarks would crash and burn. But they do not. I did manage to crash Furmark when it came close to 1490Mhz. And that was an app crash with a driver recovery. Not a black screen BSOD.

It has to be. The higher your clock, the more power you need. I can run the scenario you guys are having with the FTW with my reference model, and I can make the GPU's drivers crash day in and day out (you understand the point i'm making here.) - - - So, the GPU is not getting sufficient power when it is not under load. Try running Assassin's creed unity maxed settings. Or, even shadows of morder with ultra textures. what happens? Does it still crash?

I can tell you for sure that it will crash unless you set everything to Ultra, disable vsync and run at 4K DSR. Keep that power draw high and nothing crashes. Even if you go above the stock 1380Mhz boost clock.

I think the #1 resolution they should consider is having 1 of the power plugs using an 8pin. more power sufficiency and better voltage going to the card.

It does use one 8pin and one 6pin.

Then wth....?

Shelledfade
IF they make a newer bios for you guys, I really hope they make one for the reference 980 model as well, because I can't use these newer drivers even at stock clocks. Don't want to steal any thunder away from you guys but I really feel like there's something wrong with other evga cards as well, not just the FTW models.

My OC is stable at 1500/3950 with 347.88 driver, but with the last couple of newest nvidia drivers I can't even use stock clocks without crashing, let alone using OC.

antandbetty
If you guys have Precision X installed  please try and see if the ftw has this option... hold ctrl and shift and click the middle mouse button and you will get a pop up box of advanced settings. Check off disable voltage ctrl then ok and try see if this helps....I don't know if your going to have this option but it helped stabilize these major crashes for me.... 

BigBearSmokey
Just got back the RMA'd Gtx 980 FTW Card. Nothing has changed, I still get the black screen after a few minutes in GW2. Changed Physx in control panel to CPU instead of GPU and it was stable. Used EVGA Precision X and down clocked -100 mhz and it was stable. Did a diagnostics check on my PC, everything was 100 percent fine, did a RAM test and again everything was fine. Why is this GTX 980 FTW not stable at stock speeds in my machine? Everything is about 2 months old, my 290x Sli, 280x and gtx 970 sc works fine without a hitch but this FTW card seems to carry a very bad curse with it ("For the Win" huh, we sure won alright.)

CPU: i5 4690K
MOBO: Asus Z87 Pro
PSU: 850 Watt Bronze Label
RAM: 8GB Corsair
SSD: Samsung EVO Pro

kidfire00
Has there been any new news on the 980 ftw troubles .ie new bios that i might have missed the crashing sucks hard core today and not looking to do a 3rd rma

stalinx20
I know many people are going to be very grateful for the hustle on getting the FTW fixed and running. Nicely done.

EVGATech_DaveB

stalinx20
I know many people are going to be very grateful for the hustle on getting the FTW fixed and running. Nicely done.

Thanks!  I'm just sorry this happened to begin with.  But I hope this goes to show that we know that everyone can make a mistake but we will do all we can to resolve it.  I know this has taken a while, but I think we are in the home stretch for a fix.
 
More to follow.