Gigabyte Geforce GTX 560 TI OC

[stuart1882]

Hi guys,

Before I continue here's my spec:

2 x Gigabyte GTX 560Ti OC 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI Mini HDMI Out PCI-E Graphics Card
1 x Intel Core i7 960 3.2 GHz Socket 1366 8MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor
1 x Asus Sabertooth X58 Socket 1366 8 Channel HD Audio ATX Motherboard
2 x Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1866Mhz Memory Kit CL9
1 x WD 1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6Gb/s Caviar Black Hard Drive - 7200rpm 64MB Cache4
1 x OCZ 1000W ZX SERIES PSU 80+ GOLD RATED Ultra-quiet double-ball bearing fan
1 x Coolermaster HAF 922 Mid Tower Case7
1 x Corsair Hydro Series H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate w/SP1 - Licence and media - 1 PC - OEM - DVD - 64-bit - English

I am experiencing issues with the rig crashing/freezing during game play and stress testing using Furmark. The higher graphical the game the quicker it freezes. When it freezes i have to reset the machine. It doesn't reboot on it's own.

The cards idle roughly at 39C for card 1 and 37C for card 2.

I'm running games SLI 3d surround. Card 1 will hit about 100C when playing games.

I think i have pretty good cooling in the case. 200mm on the front with a supported 120mm fan on the back of the hdd bays directed onto the GC's. 200mm on the side blowing in onto the GC's. 200mm on the top and water cooling for the CPU with 2 fans front and back of the rad.

Is 100C for running SLI 3d surround too hot. Am I to RMA these cards? I'm so confused as so many people talk about the voltage being wrong so I've tried some of the configs that people have reported to be stable with no luck.

Where am i supposed to go from here, any suggestions?

Thanks so much in advance.

Stu.

 

[Soma42]

100 C is too hot yes. The max temp for the card, as per NVIDIA, is 99 C.

The voltage I'm not sure about for the Gigabyte overclock version, but I would imagine it would default around 1.000-1.025ish?

Do you have a slot in between the cards or are they right next to eachother?

Have you tried under-volting or down-clocking the cards?

Do they get this hot when NOT in SLI?

 

[stuart1882]

Hi Soma and thanks for your reply.

I don't have a slot between unfortunately so they're butt up against each other which is rubbish. There is a 3rd slot but there's just no room for me to move it down there due to the PSU being in the way and the usb extensions for the front of the case albeit not really needed on the grant scheme of things.

I have tried down clocking yes but without much luck. Was a little more stable but still experienced crashes. I've tried quite a few different clock configs and voltage changes up and down.

I've just done some more testing. I reset the clocks back to factory setting of 900MHz and 1000mV and tried the original CD Nvidia drivers which was damn awful. Was crashing all over the place! I then tried these new Beta drivers of 275.50.

I'm now able to play Mafia 2 and have been for about 15 mins with max temps of 82C card 1 and 72C card 2 so far. I have the game minimized now so will continue for a while before trying Batman which I know is more demanding on the graphics.

The cards don't get this hot is SLI no but cannot tell you exact temps.

I will report back on my results.

Thanks,

Stu.

 

[AdrianPerry]

For refrence i have the Gigabyte 560Ti OC running:
Voltage of 1075 and
Core Clock of 950MHz

Idle temps are 42 degrees, temps under load hover just under 70. (68 degrees) NON-SLI

 

[stuart1882]

Cool Adrian, thanks for the info. I think I've (and touch wood) managed to stable out my cards under 3d SLI. Back to the standard factory OC of 900MHz and 1000 Volts. Doing some more testing tonight.

Idle temps are 36C card 1 and 35C card 2. Under load had highs of 81 which is positive.

If I manage to keep this stable I may think about trying that OC you say you are running

Will post back results.

Stu.

 

[dish_moose]

My byte GTX460OC 1G had issues - could not get the fan past 70%. I reflashed the graphic bios and all is good now - I can set the fan all the way to 100%.

 

[stuart1882]

How did you reflash the Bios?

 

[stuart1882]

Well looks like i'll have to try that 950HMz clock after all. It just crashed twice after a few mins playing Mafia 2.

Its strange how it was fine yesterday yet today it's playing silly buggers.

 

[stuart1882]

Adrian, Did you keep the Shader to 1900 and memory at 2004?

Stu.

 

[dish_moose]

http://www.overclock.net/nvidia-drivers-overclocking-software/407404-how-flash-nvidia-cards-windows.html shows you how to flash the graphic bios.
Like I said - I had a problem with fan speed - after reflashing - all worked fine when I set my fan to 90% - no more overheating.
-Bruce

 

[AdrianPerry]

OC settings are as follows in MSI After Burner:

Core Voltage: 1075
Core Clock: 950
Shader Clock: 1900
Memory Clock: 2100
Fan Speed: Auto

 

[dish_moose]

I'm just saying - I couldn't get the values I set to "stick" until I re-flashed. Are you using GPUz to monitor your setting? Re-flashing was easy - only took 10 min.
-Bruce

 

[stuart1882]

Ok so here's the update of a rather unusual series of events:

So after trying everything I could think of without any luck I tried a reinstall of windows and to start fresh before I sent the cards back.

Firstly my original install of windows was from a usb stick, so this time I installed from the CD to see if that made any difference. Secondly, when I first built my rig and started the beast up, I was like a little boy and installed a cracked version of this real life fish screensaver (yes I know I'm sad) So this time I didn't install this as you never know what comes with dodgy downloads.

So I reformat and reinstall. Get drivers installed and Batman to test with. Surprisingly everything was running great. I could have the graphics turned up even higher than before and it was running smooth. My temps were good even at full load with max of 81C. Speedfan even found some new sensors.

However alas, it crashed a few days later and noticed something rather strange on the Afterburner about the GPU usage on card 1 hitting 28633% How the hell is this possible?

Last night I saw the GPU usage go to 3081% while playing Just Cause 2 so I got a screenshot which is attached. The lines on the graph hit the top and turn yellow as highlighted in the attached image. Could this be my problem? Could the card be faulty?

Thanks,

Stuart

 

[stuart1882]

I forgot to add that I think I might have found something that could be causing the crashing but need to do more tests.

The 1 other thing I changed after I reinstalled windows was set the PhysiX processor to Auto-select which always chooses card 1. I then had the crash for the first time since the reinstall. So I changed it to card 2 and didn't have a crash for some time. I have since changed it to CPU as that doesn't seem to do a lot while playing games. Again no crashing yet.

 

[Soma42]

wow, that's crazy. I've never seen anything like that before. One guess would be that the display software doesn't know what to do when it hits 100% so it's showing ridiculous numbers. I know my EVGA software tries to keep GPU usage at 99% for whatever reason, but when it hits 100% it displays 100%.

What's even more disturbing is the crash seems to come a good time after that, which makes me think it is not the problem. Plus, there is no way in hell your already OC card is running at 3081%.

Try using another GPU software (EVGA Precision, RivaTuner, etc.) and see if you get the same thing happening.

Are you using the latest stable drivers? No betas?

Physx might be stressing your cards too much, maybe try turning down the physx settings and see if crashes after that.

 

[stuart1882]

Ok so here's an update for you that's quite interesting. After trying many things to identify why it keeps crashing, I tried disabling the Desktop Windows manager service. Now, when it crashes, it doesn't require me to reboot the machine but instead the screen goes blank for a few seconds as it did before, however, now it recovers itself. The funny thing is that if I'm playing with 3D off, it crashes but then comes back after a few seconds and turns 3D back on.