Problem with EVGA 660 ti SC?

[Echopraxia]

Hey guys, I recently built my own computer last week and purchased an EVGA 660 ti SC to use as my GPU of choice, and over the past several days I have noticed that my graphics card, upon a fresh reboot of my computer, is immediately clocked at 1110mhz and idles around 60c, and it seems "locked" there, whether I'm sitting on the desktop idling or playing games. Originally, upon reboot, it would chill around 325mhz and 32c just idling.

Do you know if there is anything that might be causing this other than simply having a bad card?

Here are my system specs:
AMD FX 4170 4.2ghz 12mb total cache
ASUS Sabertooth 990fx mobo
Raidmax 850w power supply
8gb RAM
Samsung 128gb SSD
Windows 7 64 bit
and of course the nVidia GeForce GTX EVGA 660 ti SC

 

[drums101]

sounds like the driver is not telling the card to clock down at idle....try updating your drivers.

 

[Echopraxia]

sounds like the driver is not telling the card to clock down at idle....try updating your drivers.

Thanks for your reply man! I also think it could be the drivers.

Originally when I installed the graphics card, I updated the drivers to the latest driver supported by EVGA (as per their website), which is 306.02. After encountering this problem with the card getting "stuck" at this particular clockspeed, I updated to nVidia's latest driver which is 306.23. It seemed to fix the issue, but after a few hours of gaming it was back to being stuck again.

I called EVGA and they said that the new drivers (nVidia's 306.23) were not yet supported by EVGA, but they were currently testing the drivers and if everything looks good they will endorse the update and release it on their website. So I reverted back to EVGA's recommended driver (306.02). It worked fine for a while, but after I put a few hours of gaming on it, it gets stuck again.

So there is definitely a pattern here, I can temporarily fix the problem by reinstalling the drivers but inevitably it gets stuck after I put the card to work by playing graphically intense games on it. Last night though, I reinstalled nVidia's latest driver to play Borderlands 2, and by the time I had shut down Borderlands 2 and turned my computer off, I wasn't having issues with it being stuck. But upon a fresh reboot this morning, it's idling at 1110mhz and 56c again.

Should I just RMA the card and get a new one?

 

[phdzor]

How many monitors you have plugged into that card, because if only one then there is definitely something wrong with that card, if two then its normal.

 

[Echopraxia]

How many monitors you have plugged into that card, because if only one then there is definitely something wrong with that card, if two then its normal.

Just a single monitor mate, although it is worth saying that I'm sending the video through an HDMI cable to the 40" TV in my living room. I was told there shouldn't be any issues with doing that but I've always been skeptical.

 

[drums101]

Hmm having that tv hooked up might be causing this...have you tried removing the hdmi cable to the tv and see if that allows it to clock down....also you gotta keep in mind that the 660ti is still very new so good drivers for the card are gonna take a while...you should wait a few months before you try and return the card giving time for good drivers to come out.

 

[paddys09]

Any overclocking software on your pc for the GPU or CPU?

 

[Echopraxia]

you gotta keep in mind that the 660ti is still very new so good drivers for the card are gonna take a while...you should wait a few months before you try and return the card giving time for good drivers to come out.

Good call. I will try removing the HDMI cord and seeing if the card clocks down from there.

Any overclocking software on your pc for the GPU or CPU?

Not that I know of, my cpu and gpu are just out of the box factory settings with no performance tweaks what-so-ever. Didn't tweak the BIOS much either.

 

[phdzor]

its probably becasue of that TV, i had the same problem with gtx 560, with two monitors card was always running at 50c and high clock speeds while with only one monitor temp was around 35c.

 

[Echopraxia]

Alright guys, here is an update.

First off, I really appreciate all of your input! Thank you so much!

Since I am currently lacking an actual computer monitor, I tested my computer out on a smaller 32" television and the clock speed on my card will not budge from 1110mhz. Infact, the only way I can get it to move out of that clock speed is if I adjust the GPU Clock Offset in Precision X, and I can down clock my gpu however much I want, but the second I load default settings it shoots right back up to 1110mhz.

I'm suspecting the drivers to be the main culprit. For now I'm just reinstalling the drivers when I start my computer to get my card under control.

EDIT:

Any overclocking software on your pc for the GPU or CPU?

I realize now that Precision X could be considered overclocking software, in relation to the question asked by paddys09. I have been using it strictly to monitor my gpu clock speed and temperatures (both on the desktop and using the in-game overlay), and all settings are default. I really don't want to overclock my system at all which is why I'm struggling to figure out why it is behaving so strangely.