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Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing!

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-A30N-
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2014/08/10 18:38:22 (permalink)
I bought 2x EVGA GTX 660 3GB Superclocked+ for my budget gaming build. All games seem to run fine on high/ultra settings, except Watch Dogs. It crashes completely randomly. Sometimes I can make it an hour or two without crashing, sometimes it crashes back-to-back. After a bunch of troubleshooting, I loaded up EVGA PrecisionX 15 and discovered that Watch Dogs is overclocking my card! I've never seen anything quite like it. Here are my specs:
 
EVGA Z97 FTW Motherboard
EVGA 750W SuperNova Power Supply
EVGA GTX 660 3GB Superclocked+ (2x)
Intel 4670K Processor
16GB ADATA XPG DDR3-1600 RAM
256GB ADATA XPG SSD (2x RAID0)
Windows 8.1 Pro, updated, nVidia Driver 340.52 WHQL
 
The cards are rated for 1046MHz Base Clock, 1111MHz Boost Clock, and the default voltage is 925mV.
When playing Watch Dogs, PrecisionX 15 & GPU-Z both report the GPU clock running steady at 1162MHz, and the voltage is 1175mV!
The overclocking begins as soon as the game begins, persists throughout the loading & setting menus and into the gameplay itself.
 
Troubleshooting steps taken: Re-installed a clean copy of Windows, tried 4 different nVidia drivers, tested with no other software installed or running in the background.
 
What would be the best way to lock my clock & voltage to prevent Watch Dogs from overclocking and damaging my new cards?
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    the_Scarlet_one
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/08/10 18:52:22 (permalink)
    Download gpuz and verify, without precision running, that it is indeed overclocking the cards and that it wasn't gpu boost doing it.

    Also, do you find it strange that a game about hacking and making things do what you want, is doing this to your equipment...

    I haven't downloaded the game. I refused to buy it after the bf4 release issue and forgot about it until about a week after release, when every freaked because of how bad it performs. Now I just don't feel the need to play it yet.

    How do you like it?
    #2
    -A30N-
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/08/10 19:26:27 (permalink)
    Yeah, I verified with GPU-Z that the game is overclocking and overvolting. I underclocked both GPUs by about 50MHz, so that it didn't overclock past the card's rated Basic Clock. I played the game again, seemed OK at 1110MHz, then during a car chase it overvolted from 925mV to 1162mV and the entire system froze, requiring a forced reset. 
    #3
    the_Scarlet_one
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/08/10 19:43:05 (permalink)
    Software does not read voltages correct, unfortunately. It hasn't been able to properly display for a while, but it may be tied to it. I have never heard of this before, unless it is simply demanding too much from the card, so the card is trying to overcompensate. What settings are you running at and what kind of fps are you getting?
    #4
    _Nite_
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/08/10 20:04:38 (permalink)

     
    thats an oddity for sure, boost clock is normal but I never heard of a game overclocking/overvolting a GPU before
     
    I was thinking about getting watchdogs but not sure I want to after hearing how demanding it is on hardware.

    Gaming Rig: AMD Ryzen 7 2700x @ 4.25Ghz - Asrock B450 Pro 4 - 16GB Crucial Ballistix DDR4 3000 - 240GB SSD (OS), 1TB ADATA SU800 SSD and 2TB ADATA SX8200 Pro M2 NVME (Games) - 8GB RTX 3070 XC3 Ultra - Sound Blaster Audigy 5 RX - EVGA Supernova 750w G2 - Antec 302 - 24" Asus VG248QE
     
    #5
    -A30N-
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/08/10 20:06:04 (permalink)
    First, I tried to use the autodetect in-game for 1080p. It set everything to medium. Force closes all over the place.
    Then, I tried GeForce Experience. It set everything to high/ultra, and of course the game crashes within 30 seconds.
    So, I set all the settings to the absolute minimum, disabled anti-aliasing completely, and ran the game at 720p. Still crashes like crazy!
     
    BTW, the computer can run Unigine Heaven & Valley on High settings for hours just fine. Stress tested with FurMark too, had to point some extra fans at my cards to prevent overheating, but again, no issues other than heat.
     
    #6
    the_Scarlet_one
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/08/10 21:27:31 (permalink)
    Try a fresh driver install. If you have ddu (display driver uninstaller) run that in safe mode, then restart and reinstall. Next reinstall with a custom install (not the easy one, lol) and select only PhysX and the driver, leaving the 3d and sound drivers off. Especially leave the GeForce experience program off and use the latest driver.
    #7
    -A30N-
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/08/11 00:05:22 (permalink)
    OK, DDU compete uninstall done, in Safe Mode too, it was really easy and fast, less than 3 min altogether. Reinstalled 340.52 custom, only driver & PhysX. Smooth, no errors. Testing with Watch Dogs on medium settings, and just GPU-Z running on second monitor. Will update results tomorrow. Good night!
    #8
    the_Scarlet_one
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/08/11 01:22:07 (permalink)
    Kk :-)
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    bdary
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/08/11 07:26:22 (permalink)
    -A30N-
    I bought 2x EVGA GTX 660 3GB Superclocked+ for my budget gaming build. All games seem to run fine on high/ultra settings, except Watch Dogs. It crashes completely randomly. Sometimes I can make it an hour or two without crashing, sometimes it crashes back-to-back. After a bunch of troubleshooting, I loaded up EVGA PrecisionX 15 and discovered that Watch Dogs is overclocking my card! I've never seen anything quite like it. Here are my specs:
     
    EVGA Z97 FTW Motherboard
    EVGA 750W SuperNova Power Supply
    EVGA GTX 660 3GB Superclocked+ (2x)
    Intel 4670K Processor
    16GB ADATA XPG DDR3-1600 RAM
    256GB ADATA XPG SSD (2x RAID0)
    Windows 8.1 Pro, updated, nVidia Driver 340.52 WHQL
     
    The cards are rated for 1046MHz Base Clock, 1111MHz Boost Clock, and the default voltage is 925mV.
    When playing Watch Dogs, PrecisionX 15 & GPU-Z both report the GPU clock running steady at 1162MHz, and the voltage is 1175mV!
    The overclocking begins as soon as the game begins, persists throughout the loading & setting menus and into the gameplay itself.
     
    Troubleshooting steps taken: Re-installed a clean copy of Windows, tried 4 different nVidia drivers, tested with no other software installed or running in the background.
     
    What would be the best way to lock my clock & voltage to prevent Watch Dogs from overclocking and damaging my new cards?


    The game isn't OC'ing your cards.  The advertised base & boost clocks are just that.  They are the minimum clock speeds you'll see other than the idle clock.  But most if not all Kepler cards will boost higher than the advertised boost speed.  The only difference is how much.  It's completely normal as long as there isn't an issue with the cards themselves.
     
    The default voltage you mention (925mV) is the idle voltage.  1175mV is the full load voltage.  As long as you didn't use PrecX to OC your cards and they're running at defaults, what you're seeing is totally normal.
     
    Things I'd try:
    1.  Run one of your benchmarks with very high settings like performance or extreme settings.  While doing so, monitor your core clocks with PX to see what clock speeds you boost up to.
     
    2.  Try running Watch dogs with SLI disabled.  I don't know if they fixed it yet, but I thought there was an SLI issue with this game.  But worth testing it out.
     
    3.  Uninstall the game and re-install it.  I say this because you mentioned you tried letting Geforce experience set your settings for you.  Once you do that, it changes your config files for the game.  I suggest uninstalling the game, then reinstall it and set your own game settings.  Don't let GFE mess up your game config.
     
    Notes:  While doing any monitoring of your GPU vitals, use only PX or AB or GPU-Z, but not any of them at the same time as they poll a lot of the same sensors  and can cause issues.
    Watch your GPU temps as well just to verify they're not getting out of hand.
     
    Let us know how everything works out...
    post edited by bdary - 2014/08/11 07:30:17


     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    #10
    -A30N-
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/08/11 12:08:17 (permalink)
    OK, I ran the Unigine Valley benchmark on Ultra settings, got great framerate! With both cards in SLI, they both averaged 1050 Base Clock and 1110 Boost Clock, and the voltage stayed under 1000mV. The cards behaved normally, downclocking and upclocking on demand.
     
    With Watch Dogs, both cards blow past the 1111 Boost Clock and stay there, without any down or upclocking, with the voltage staying steady at 1175mV.
     
    I will now try disabling SLI and dedicating the second card to PhysX.
     
    Running tests...
    Looks like maybe SLI is the issue. The primary GPU gets pretty hot, 82C on auto fan speed, and 72C with fan manually set to 65%. However, it's not crashing anymore. Also, the Clock and Voltage aren't maxing out when loading the game, and fluctuate normally throughout the game.
     
    I have to go to work soon, but tonight I will test some more. Thank you for helping me find the issue!
    post edited by -A30N- - 2014/08/11 12:49:23
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    bdary
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/08/11 13:03:36 (permalink)
    Sounds good...  Keep us posted.


     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
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    Sajin
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/08/11 19:58:30 (permalink)
    Watch dogs isn't overclocking your cards. GPU Boost 2.0 is responsible for that. Running a modded vBIOS that has boost disabled will prevent the cards from boosting up and causing a crash.
     
    bdary 
    3.  Uninstall the game and re-install it.  I say this because you mentioned you tried letting Geforce experience set your settings for you.  Once you do that, it changes your config files for the game.  I suggest uninstalling the game, then reinstall it and set your own game settings.  Don't let GFE mess up your game config.

    +1. Completely uninstall geforce experience from your system too.
    #13
    _Nite_
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/08/11 20:05:02 (permalink)
    Been doing that ever since Nvidia added the custom install feuture, I ALWAYS unclick 3D, HDMI, Geforce Experience and just install the Driver and PhysX. Then I click on Fresh Install checkbox, never had a problem doing this.

    Gaming Rig: AMD Ryzen 7 2700x @ 4.25Ghz - Asrock B450 Pro 4 - 16GB Crucial Ballistix DDR4 3000 - 240GB SSD (OS), 1TB ADATA SU800 SSD and 2TB ADATA SX8200 Pro M2 NVME (Games) - 8GB RTX 3070 XC3 Ultra - Sound Blaster Audigy 5 RX - EVGA Supernova 750w G2 - Antec 302 - 24" Asus VG248QE
     
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    -A30N-
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/08/11 23:36:59 (permalink)
    Alright, the results are in!
     
    I can play as long as SLI is disabled. No crashing or weird overclocking! But I didn't spend $380 on graphics cards to play a game on medium settings. Anyway, I downloaded and installed TheWorse Mod, and it adds a ton of eye candy, without sending my card's temps into the red! So for now, I'm happy. I will have to remember to set my cards back to SLI for all other games though.
     
    Oh, and I just got my 21:9 2560x1080 monitor today...WOW! Super widescreen is amazing! 
     

     
    Thanks again for all your help and suggestions!
    post edited by -A30N- - 2014/08/12 00:43:57
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    bdary
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/08/12 06:50:37 (permalink)
    -A30N-
    Alright, the results are in!
     
    I can play as long as SLI is disabled. No crashing or weird overclocking! But I didn't spend $380 on graphics cards to play a game on medium settings. Anyway, I downloaded and installed TheWorse Mod, and it adds a ton of eye candy, without sending my card's temps into the red! So for now, I'm happy. I will have to remember to set my cards back to SLI for all other games though.
     
    Oh, and I just got my 21:9 2560x1080 monitor today...WOW! Super widescreen is amazing! 
     

     
    Thanks again for all your help and suggestions!


    Glad to hear everything is working now even though without SLI for that game...
     
    Nice monitor btw...


     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
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    TomSawyer2112
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    Re: Watch Dogs is overclocking my cards and crashing! 2014/10/22 18:05:38 (permalink)
    I'm having the same problem with SLI 780 Ti's.   Would not be a big deal if I was only running 1080p, but at 2560x1440, this game needs the power!
    I would have thought that Ubisoft would have fixed this by now...

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