EVGA 1080 FTW - System suddenly powering off with mild overclock

[SimianR]

Hey guys,

I just picked up an EVGA 1080 FTW about a week ago to replace my R9 290. The card works perfectly 99% of the time, but I've had 3 times now when the system has just completed powered off, and started itself back up a few seconds later while gaming for about an hour+ while the card was overclocked. The settings I used were +100mhz core, +100mhz memory and 120% power limit. Now, the obvious guess that a lot of people would go to is the power supply, but I just find it hard to believe because I never had this issue with my heavily overclocked R9 290 (though that was an 8+6pin vs this card which is 8+8) that it replaced. The R9 290 tended to be far more power hungry though, but maybe stressed the power supply differently. So is the issue the card or the PSU? I was able to replicate the issue by running furmark with the overclock settings. I guess one of the obvious solutions is to back the overclock settings off, but if this overclock has exposed a weakness/failing PSU, I would rather deal with it now. What do you guys think? RMA the psu? Is there an issue with the card? The other odd thing I've found with the card is that when overclocking, I rarely ever see artifacting, the program will be running absolutely fine and then the program will either crash or the video driver will stop responding, which isn't quite the same thing that I used to see in older GPUs.

My specs:

i5 4670K @ 4.2ghz
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-D3H mobo
8GB DDR3
EVGA GTX 1080 FTW
HX 850 Corsair power supply

 

[daveybrat]

So how's the card run under a full load 'without' any overclocking? If it runs just fine, then you have a card that isn't that overclockable. The FTW cards are already pretty factory overclocked.

 

[SimianR]

I haven't seen the issue with stock settings. I know it's already a fairly overclocked card at stock, but that behavior of a complete shut down / power off seems really odd. Is that normal? Like I said, I can completely back the settings off, but 120% power limit on this GPU still doesn't seem like much compared to how much power my aggressively clocked R9 290 would pull. Could it the system be shutting down because the VRM's on the card are getting too hot? Just trying to figure out what's going on.

 

[daveybrat]

Very well could be. Is yours one of the FTW models that is lacking the thermal pads on the memory?

 

[daveybrat]

You do know about this right?

http://www.fudzilla.com/news/graphi...fficial-statement-on-gtx-1080-1070-ftw-issues

 

[SimianR]

EVGA has a serial number checker on their website and it lists the card as having the new bios with the increased fan curve as well as the thermal pads installed. But I just wasn't sure if there could still be an issue there when overclocking.

 

[daveybrat]

Well that's a good thing that you got a newer model. But the overclocking capabilities of those FTW cards are luck of the silicon lottery. Just because your 290 was a great overclocker doesn't mean your 1080 has the same abilities.

Your 850Watt power supply should be beyond sufficient for a single GPU.

 

[SimianR]

Yeah, I don't expect any miracles and I would be fine with the idea that the GPU doesn't like the overclock. My concern is trying to figure out of that's actually what's going here - that the system is shutting down because the GPU is hitting a wall or if something is going on with the PSU. Because the system literally turning off is something I really haven't experienced while overclocking GPU's, just instability/crashes.

 

[buellersdayoff]

I'd be thinking more psu than gpu, gpu overclock usually causes drivers to crash or artifacts. CPU overclocks on the other hand though... See what happens when you put the CPU back to stock and overclock the gpu

 

[SimianR]

So, I was actually able to replicate the behavior of the system powering off even while the card was technically at "stock" clocks. I set the switch to the alternate bios on the card, which unlocks the "130%" power profile, and I enabled 130% power target in EVGA precision, but left core clock and mem clock at stock. While running OCCT, the system powered off 3 minutes into the test. I have to think that this is a PSU issue, but I'm not entirely sure. The only reason I'm skeptical is because I did not have any issues like this on my heavily overclocked R9 290. I'm going to do an express RMA on my PSU and if that doesn't resolve it then I guess I'm stuck with it being the GPU not liking the increased power target / clocks. That being said, if it is the GPU, should I be concerned? Every review on these cards seems to show that they have no problem running with an increased power target and a mild overclock. I'm running with an increased power target and no overclock and getting complete system shutdowns...

I know that this model of the card is already overclocked out of the box to some extent, but I guess for the price of the card it would feel weird to me not being able to alter the settings at all without complete instability.

 

[buellersdayoff]

Shut down while running occt, what's your cpu temperature, set your cpu to defaults and try again. Your cpu is also probably working harder to feed the new/faster gpu.
It's either temp shut down (cpu), overclock Instability (cpu) or over current shut down (power supply/motherboard)
If cpu temp is high repaste, it could be starting to dry up

 

[pj-]

I had the exact same issue last year with a 980ti/5820k system. Turns out the issue was my EVGA GS 850w PSU (rebranded Seasonic). RMA'd it and problem completely stopped.

Corsair also sources a lot of PSUs from Seasonic so maybe yours has the same guts and has the same issue.