drastic performance drop after overclocking :(

bombchu

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May 12, 2015
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(sorry for the message length)

Hello. I am new to performance hardware and I just recently built my first gaming machine. I guess I'll start with my rig. I'm not really sure what info you guys need, so if I leave something out let me know.

MB: MSI 760GMA-P34 FX
CPU: AMD FX 6300 6 core @ 3.5ghz
GPU: MSI R9 270X Hawk
RAM: 8gb DDR3
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit Service Pack 1

Ok, so I got it all put together about a week ago, and started up Skyrim with everything turned all the way up. Ran great. Felt like a consistant 50-60 fps at all times. Over the last few days I've thrown on a few mods that made the performance drop, so I thought I'd look into overclocking. My cpu specs say 3.5ghz (4.1ghz turbo). I take that to mean that it can go up to 4.1ghz safely. And everything I read about my gpu says that it's built for overclocking. It even has that afterburner software that lets you slide some levers to easily do so. The biggest danger that I gathered from what I read, is overheating, so today I installed a couple more case fans. I ran my cpu through the overclock testing that's built into the catalyst control center, and I let it test up to 4.1ghz, and the temp never went above 42. I turned it down to 4.0 to keep from pushing it to what I presumed to be it's advertised limit. I used the afterburner sliders to turn my gpu core clock all the way up to 1400 and the memory up to about 1700. I threw the hardware monitor up on my second monitor along with a little app called speedfan (basically just a hardware monitor), just to make sure the temps I was seeing were correct. I booted up Skyrim with some tasty mods. and I could tell immediately from the animated loading screen that the game's fps was very unstable. And before the game could finish loading I got a blue screen crash. I immediately rebooted and turned off all overclocking, and turned off all Skrim mods, restoring it to what before was a steady 50-60 fps state. But when the game loaded, the performance was terrible. the framerate was well below 30 fps, and there was awful input lag. I double and triple checked that I had restored all overclock settings back to default and turned off all mods, and I hadn't forgotten anything. All settings were exactly the same as they were when I first played, but the game ran just awful. I guess I should note that I haven't noticed any issues outside of the game in case that's helpful.

So, did I damage something? Would a fresh driver reinstall fix this? Maybe a windows reinstall? Any ideas at all about what I could do to fix the situation?

Thank you for your help! :)
 
Solution
You crashed the driver and/or some game settings/files.

A complete re-install should fix the issue. I doubt you damaged any physical components unless you raised voltages.
But before you go through the hassle of re-installing, everything you should try uninstalling and deleting all driver files and gpu overclocking software. Make sure all of it has been completely removed... also you could try uninstalling the game as well. Then do a fresh install of the latest drivers followed by a fresh install of the game. If this doesnt fix it, re-install the whole windows.

Other things to try, swapping pci-e slots, resetting/updating mobo bios, reflashing the stock bios rom for the gpu (if available) **for advanced users, can damage gpu if done...

videl

Distinguished
Jun 26, 2009
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19,360
You crashed the driver and/or some game settings/files.

A complete re-install should fix the issue. I doubt you damaged any physical components unless you raised voltages.
But before you go through the hassle of re-installing, everything you should try uninstalling and deleting all driver files and gpu overclocking software. Make sure all of it has been completely removed... also you could try uninstalling the game as well. Then do a fresh install of the latest drivers followed by a fresh install of the game. If this doesnt fix it, re-install the whole windows.

Other things to try, swapping pci-e slots, resetting/updating mobo bios, reflashing the stock bios rom for the gpu (if available) **for advanced users, can damage gpu if done wrong**
 
Solution