nVidia Fermi chips downclocking while playing games

[HollowRopes]

I currently have a (don't laugh) GTX 465 that I got for a decent price, but I've also tried a standard GeForce GTX 460 and a GTS 450 and there's a problem that I've noticed with all three cards.

This may strictly be an overclocking issue (definitely not a heat issue, however) but if the GPU/memory clocks are set a bit higher and then a game is played, after about five minutes the game resets the GPU and memory clock way lower than the default clocks that the card generally uses when playing games.

In other words, I set a specific clock setting (even just 50MHz more or so for the GPU, small increments) and after playing a game the game will pause for a second, then slow down incredibly. When I check my clock settings, they're almost 200MHz lower than their default settings.

Has anyone had this problem or have any idea what I'm talking about? I've been messing around with nVidia Inspector but I still run into the same problem every time. At first I thought it was heat, but with the newer aftermarket heatsink I got the temperatures never really get more than 68 C.

I'm just trying to find a way to set my games to speeds that I know are stable in terms of voltage/temperature, it just seems like something is causing the card to kick back it's speeds even less than what they are as default.

 

[notty22]

You can change games where you note this behavior individually, or if you like you can do it globally, but then the card will never down clock during 2D.
So I just choose -prefer maximum performance on games where the clocks drop during gameplay.

 

[toyota]

even with "maximum performance" it will still downclock if there is a problem and you will have to reboot to get normal clocks back.

 

[HollowRopes]

See, I'm in the same boat with Toyota. I was using the maximum performance setting in the control panel anyway, but this slowdown still occurs, sometimes when I haven't even overclocked the card yet (which is VERY frustrating).

When this occurs (the downclocking), I can use nVidia Inspector and manually set the clocks back to what the should be, but I can never set my "Performance 2" memory to the same speed I had before. So basically the problem can somewhat be solved with nVidia Inspector, it just doesn't know what the mechanism is that causes this.

To me it would seem like a heat issue, but I know it's not that.. I know it's not a hardware issue because I've experienced the same thing on three different cards. Like I said, I just wish there was a way to set it without it downloading (and not only downclocking, doclocing lower than the card's default clocks).

P.S. I just wanted to add that I'm not trying to overclock these cards in crazy ways. I'm using small 50MHz to 120Mhz increments on the clocks and memory, and still get these problems (and even get them when I don't overclock the cards at all).

 

[notty22]

I never get that behavior, that requires re-booting.

You can make sure this setting is set to off, under power options

 

[toyota]

notty22, it has nothing to do with any power options for Windows or Nvidia from what I have seen. it will automatically downclock if there is some type of issue. it happened to me three times in Batman while running physx. I stopped using physx and it never happened again in that game. and for some reason something triggered it one time it when I started up Mafia 2 one day. so I believe that is the only times it has happened for me. and unless I am crazy, Idontcare had downclocking issues at one time.

 

[HollowRopes]

Again I'm with Toyota; I've tried all power management settings, specific power settings for games, everything... It's not a power issue, it downclocks no matter what but to me it seems like there could be a way to stop this from happening (though I have no idea how).

With nVidia Inspector, there are 4 performance levels that allow you to change GPU and memory speeds. They're listed as 0, 1, 2, and 3. 3 is the active one that will change automatically (i.e. set the speeds for performance level 3 and you will get direct results in performance).

The reason I'm mentioning this is because whenever this downclock occurs, it changes some of the settings in the other performance levels. If you go back into those performance levels (especially 1 and 2) and set them back to what you had them as before, everything will work right again until it downclocks.

I wish there was a way to 'lock' settings in nVidia Inspector or any other overclocking program so that nothing changes while you're playing your games. In my personal opinion, I think this all might be a voltage issue. With any of the overclocking programs I use, I can't get higher than 1.087v. If I set it to that voltage, it will take a longer time to downclock, but it still ends up doing it. That's what gives me the impression it could have something to do with voltage.

 

[toyota]

if i remember correctly, the gtx260 had three different speeds. 300mhz, 400mhz and then whatever regular 3d clocks I was using. anytime this problem happened it would automatically go to 400mhz and that's where it would stay until a reboot.

 

[HollowRopes]

With the GTX 465 that I have and currently use, the default GPU clock is 608 and the memory clock is 1603. When the downclock occurs, the GPU clock drops to 450 and the memory clock drops to 1107. But like I said with nVidia Inspector it can be changed back in the other performance settings, it's just a hassle especially when you're not even overclocking your card.

I've managed to get this GTX 450 to a GPU of 850MHZ and memory at 2250MHz rock solid stable with Furmark, Kombuster, etc. but when I try to play an actual game, it messes up and does the downclocking crap. That's what's really pissing me off and again it's not a heat issue becuse I have a specific cooling setup and my temperatures never even reach 70 C, even with Furmark on it's max benchmarkng settings.

 

[notty22]

I have 2 cards in SLI- and in games like Star Wars the Force unleashed, one or both cards would downclock to 50mhz during gaming. But as soon as I set the profile to max performance for that game profile , neither will downclock at all.
This is with my main setting on adaptive.
Other games, I choose prefer maximum performance, in the actual game profile are NFS Hot Pursuit.
I believe IDonTCare's problems were solved by trying those settings, I use. Set adaptive power, under global settings. Then in the individual games set prefer maximum performance.
Also after setting your NV panel that way. I would re-boot, NOT start NVinspector for testing purposes and see if that solves your initial problem.
NV inspector has many hooks in to the NV driver and maybe causing issues, depending on what settings you may have altered.

Also, even when those games downclocked, almost always, they never stayed locked that way, but I did not like the behavior. And it was solved by the settings, I mentioned above.

 

[Grooveriding]

What driver version are you using ?

There have been some horrible drivers from nvidia lately. Try the 270.61, these seem to be the last good working set.

Check the nvidia driver forums, http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showforum=213

See if you can find a similar issue. I've had power management stuff in some games but forcing max performance fixed it. Some people it does not work for though.

Try different drivers if you are using the latest WHQL or recent betas.

 

[HollowRopes]

In nVidia Inspector, the Peformance Level 3 is what is basically running all your speeds. I always have it set like this:

I do the same thing for the Performance Level 2 since the clocks seem top drop randomly if they're not set.

I also do it with Performance Level 1 for the same reason, I don't like seeing the clock speeds drop while I'm playing games.

Doing it like this allows me to play games for maybe forty five minutes to another, then I either get a driver crash or a black screen. This has happened with all the Fermi cards I've tried and it's really disappointing me because I appreciate the performance but it seems like the cards are made so that they can only handle so much, even if they can truly handle more.

I'd like to find a way to do a voltage mod to see if that makes any difference now that I have a proper cooling solution, but I'm willing to bet that it will still do the downclocking even if I did that.

 

[HollowRopes]

I'm using the latest drivers from the nVidia site, I guess 275.33 WHQL?

Also, when my games 'lock', they stay that way until I either reboot or mess with nVidia Inspector. I know it's probably not a good idea to mess with all the settings like that, but it sems to be the only way I can get the dang card to work for more than few a just minutes.

Grooveriding, I'm going to drive the other drivers and see if I have any luck with them. I love the performance of the Geforce cards but I just can't stand this issue, and from the past experiences I've had with ATI/AMD, there's no way in hell I'm going that route.

 

[HollowRopes]

Just a question, could this have something to do with my power/power supply? Here are my system specs:

Raidmax 630W Power Supply
Asus P5KC
Intel Core 2 Duo e6850 @ 3.5GHz (500x7)
4GB Patriot Sector 5 (7-7-7-20)
GeForce 465 GTX
Two Hitachi 300GB Hard Drives

I know the GTX 465 eats a lot of power, is there a possibility my power supply isn't sufficient enough?

 

[toyota]

do you have a cpu in there?

and I believe there is more than one Raidmax 630W model.

 

[HollowRopes]

Can't believe I forgot to mention to the CPU, it's a Core 2 Duo e6850 at 3.5GHz (500x7).

The specific model of the Riadmax power supply is "RX 630-Z" When I purchased that power supply from Fry's, the salesman told me that it would work good with my old GX2. I figured it was a good enough power supply, so I never really thought twice about it until now.