Why you should not use Afterburner/Precision to overclock Maxwell/Kepler

[the unknown]

So is the Maxwell BIOS Tweaker the one to use? Any walk-throughs you would recommend? Also I'm guessing the brand is unimportant.

 

[MrK6]

TBH I don't think it really matters. It sounds like all you're doing is dabbling in the extreme limits of what your hardware is capable of, which is fine if that's your thing or you're going for a benchmark high score or what not. For everyday gaming I tend to sacrifice that last 2-3% for absolute stability. I've been running Afterburner on a 970 for 6 months now with no issue because of this. Remember that your operating environment is variable (ambient temps change, dust can build up, loads change, etc.), I don't really see the utility in pushing your gaming system so hard for an extra 2%, and personally would prefer the better power savings.

 

[exar333]

TBH I don't think it really matters. It sounds like all you're doing is dabbling in the extreme limits of what your hardware is capable of, which is fine if that's your thing or you're going for a benchmark high score or what not. For everyday gaming I tend to sacrifice that last 2-3% for absolute stability. I've been running Afterburner on a 970 for 6 months now with no issue because of this. Remember that your operating environment is variable (ambient temps change, dust can build up, loads change, etc.), I don't really see the utility in pushing your gaming system so hard for an extra 2%, and personally would prefer the better power savings.

Good advice.

I don't even load an OC profile in AB unless I am actually gaming. Stability is more important than (maybe) 1-2 more fps.

Edit: Of course this is someone who hit a hard-wall in OCing at 1550. I guess I could try really maxxing voltage, but its just not worth it for maybe 10-30 more mhz...

 

[manimal]

Good advice.

I don't even load an OC profile in AB unless I am actually gaming. Stability is more important than (maybe) 1-2 more fps.

Edit: Of course this is someone who hit a hard-wall in OCing at 1550. I guess I could try really maxxing voltage, but its just not worth it for maybe 10-30 more mhz...

Its amazing how much more stable I have been without using AB for OCs. After modding just the power profile my gtx 970s both do 1550 boost with 4000 on mem and has been crazy stable. I couldnt do 3800 on mem without issues in ab stock. All I modded was the mem in the first page and the power profiles.
After going back to the old driver and modding both bioses similarly both pcs are completely stable. Asics on both cards are 71 and 73.

 

[exar333]

Its amazing how much more stable I have been without using AB for OCs. After modding just the power profile my gtx 970s both do 1550 boost with 4000 on mem and has been crazy stable. I couldnt do 3800 on mem without issues in ab stock. All I modded was the mem in the first page and the power profiles.
After going back to the old driver and modding both bioses similarly both pcs are completely stable. Asics on both cards are 71 and 73.

76 here, but I am still a little suspect of how the ASIC actually translates to OC profiles, but that's another issue.

I guess in my case, it might make sense to try an alternative to AB if I had issues with stability on a low/moderate OC. I definitely don't have a crazy-high memory overclock, but I don't think its holding me back a lot either.

Does anyone know the root cause of the AB/Precision instability? Wouldn't it be easier to update their code(s) rather than this fix? Just hypothesizing...

 

[Subyman]

I've been having problems with AB lately using a GTX 970. I had AB open to monitor temperatures while playing Witcher 3. I kept experiencing random crashes so I tried to down clock the card to see if my card wasn't stable. Did a -100mhz core clock modifier and a -500mhz memory modifier. The game still crashed. After fiddling with it for a bit more I decided to close AB all together and play. I ended up playing for 3 hours straight without a crash before quitting. I'm going to play again tonight without AB to see if the streak continues.

If I play error free for another few hours then I am going to open AB back up and see if I experience instability again. If so, then there is definitely something about AB that causes crashes in Witcher 3 for me.

 

[deanx0r]

Were you running your card at stock speed when the crashes occurred? What kind of crash were you having (CTD or TDR)?

AB has been a source of instability for me in StarCraft 2, even at stock speed. There are several threads going on GeForce/Blizzard forums about the game crashing spanning several generations of cards over the years. It's an unsolved problem and I think AB might be the culprit.

 

[flexy]

Its amazing how much more stable I have been without using AB for OCs. After modding just the power profile my gtx 970s both do 1550 boost with 4000 on mem and has been crazy stable. I couldnt do 3800 on mem without issues in ab stock. All I modded was the mem in the first page and the power profiles.
After going back to the old driver and modding both bioses similarly both pcs are completely stable. Asics on both cards are 71 and 73.

I can tell you that I know I am stable at 1506 (1519 on a nice day) at 1.200V with my EVGA.

If I use the default unaltered bios and then I use A/B to get my max clock to 1506 I get a crash even *starting* Heaven Benchmark....simply because the card(s) take a tiny fraction of time to "clock up" where they jump from a lower (non-stable clock) to the stable max boost. But even this tiny amount of time at a lower clock is already enough to crash.

Another way to test is apply your (supposedly) stable OC with Afterburner, say +150 or more, and then run a game or Heaven Benchmark at 70% power target. This also crashes.

I am not really "blaming" A/B, it's just the way how adding clocks with ANY external tool (Afterburner, Precision, NV Inspector) interacts with Boost.

By the way there *IS* a solution for those who don't want to or can't mod their bios: Gigabyte OC Guru. It works also with other brand cards since you can specify an "offset" minimal voltage that is applied. This can be used as a workaround to avoid crashes at lower clocks.

 

[Subyman]

Were you running your card at stock speed when the crashes occurred? What kind of crash were you having (CTD or TDR)?

AB has been a source of instability for me in StarCraft 2, even at stock speed. There are several threads going on GeForce/Blizzard forums about the game crashing spanning several generations of cards over the years. It's an unsolved problem and I think AB might be the culprit.

Both stock speeds and underclocked. Closing AB eliminated the problems so far, but I need to do more testing.

 

[the unknown]

By the way there *IS* a solution for those who don't want to or can't mod their bios: Gigabyte OC Guru. It works also with other brand cards since you can specify an "offset" minimal voltage that is applied. This can be used as a workaround to avoid crashes at lower clocks.

That did it for me. Thanks flexy.

 

[EJSLP]

Even if you are not overclocking, running Afterburner along to monitor your video card can induce instability.

It's not much of a problem for games that can stress your video card, but load a game that isnt too demanding, and the display driver will crash when the card tries to underclock itself.

Is this why ONLY SOME of my games are locking up(black screen but with audio on some) with my gtx 980 classified? I tried numerous drivers and still have this problem?
I am not using AB to overclock but i do like to use it for the OSD and fan profile and on some games(mostly older titles) i get a lot of black screen lock ups?
and the only way to get out is to re-boot the tower.
Ps, My gtx 780ti superclocked does not do this and i know the 980 classified is not a bad card because i can play games like watch dogs for 8 hours straight without a single crash.

 

[Deders]

Is this why ONLY SOME of my games are locking up(black screen but with audio on some) with my gtx 980 classified? I tried numerous drivers and still have this problem?
I am not using AB to overclock but i do like to use it for the OSD and fan profile and on some games(mostly older titles) i get a lot of black screen lock ups?
and the only way to get out is to re-boot the tower.
Ps, My gtx 780ti superclocked does not do this and i know the 980 classified is not a bad card because i can play games like watch dogs for 8 hours straight without a single crash.

Are these lockups occurring when you start the game? If so you just need to change a couple of settings. I'm pretty sure putting stealth mode on in Rivatuner statistics server (not afterburner itself) it should solve this, you may also need to switch custom D3D support too.

 

[XiandreX]

I can tell you that I know I am stable at 1506 (1519 on a nice day) at 1.200V with my EVGA.

If I use the default unaltered bios and then I use A/B to get my max clock to 1506 I get a crash even *starting* Heaven Benchmark....simply because the card(s) take a tiny fraction of time to "clock up" where they jump from a lower (non-stable clock) to the stable max boost. But even this tiny amount of time at a lower clock is already enough to crash.

Another way to test is apply your (supposedly) stable OC with Afterburner, say +150 or more, and then run a game or Heaven Benchmark at 70% power target. This also crashes.

I am not really "blaming" A/B, it's just the way how adding clocks with ANY external tool (Afterburner, Precision, NV Inspector) interacts with Boost.

By the way there *IS* a solution for those who don't want to or can't mod their bios: Gigabyte OC Guru. It works also with other brand cards since you can specify an "offset" minimal voltage that is applied. This can be used as a workaround to avoid crashes at lower clocks.

I had a fair amount of instability using AB and gave OC Guru a go.
Its a pain to run as you need to manually start the profile but
I do not crash with this, whereas AB would cause crashing.
From what I have experienced the offset setting solved my crashes.

 

[Maligx]

hmm what kind of minimal offset voltage would one try on an evga 980ti sc using OC Guru?

 

[hawtdawg]

Ive used AB from day 1 with my 780's for over 2 years, and i've used it with my 980ti's. I've had 0 problems related to AB. literally 0, and I push the limits of my OC's.

Methinks most of you are mistaking Rivatuner server for AB. Rivatuner server is a pile of crap.

 

[deanx0r]

You do need Rivaturner server to enable the OSD functions in AB. I haven't tried AB without Rivaturner tho, but it was only one game out of many that was crashing for me. I had issues with PrecisionX too which would just hard lock the computer whenever I was using the battlenet launcher, which isnt a game itself.

 

[RampantAndroid]

Having tried to OC my GTX980 last night with AB, I am finding stability issues, actually...not sure if it fits the problems listed in the OP, but I'm fully stable in Unigine Valley and Furmark (and my max temp ends up being 59C) but in games sometimes, specifically when GPU load would suddenly spike, I'll get a TDR. My only solution was to just drop the overclocks...

My card is an MSI GTX980. In AB, I'm stable if I do +170 core, +400 mem, +15mv. GPUz shows me as PWR limited in Furmark, in other benchmarks I show as VREL limited.

 

[Berryracer]

Hi Flexy, do you think your post could be related to what I was experiencing?

With my Dual 980 Ti's I overclocked using Precision X to +150 MHz Core and +250 MHz memory, all benchmarks and stress tests ran just fine and temps were fine. But when I was watching movies using PowerDVD, I would get random crashes.......do you think this is related to the concept that you are talking about here?

 

[RampantAndroid]

Hi Flexy, do you think your post could be related to what I was experiencing?

With my Dual 980 Ti's I overclocked using Precision X to +150 MHz Core and +250 MHz memory, all benchmarks and stress tests ran just fine and temps were fine. But when I was watching movies using PowerDVD, I would get random crashes.......do you think this is related to the concept that you are talking about here?

When you see the crashes, if you have GPUz running, do you see the card throttling? I need to test this out on my system to see if I can spot the system throttle a bit. I'm honestly thinking about flashing a custom BIOS that ups the max system wattage to 150%, which I think would allow my overclock to run just fine without throttling...

 

[Berryracer]

When you see the crashes, if you have GPUz running, do you see the card throttling? I need to test this out on my system to see if I can spot the system throttle a bit. I'm honestly thinking about flashing a custom BIOS that ups the max system wattage to 150%, which I think would allow my overclock to run just fine without throttling...

I'll try again and report back bro

 

[Berryracer]

When you see the crashes, if you have GPUz running, do you see the card throttling? I need to test this out on my system to see if I can spot the system throttle a bit. I'm honestly thinking about flashing a custom BIOS that ups the max system wattage to 150%, which I think would allow my overclock to run just fine without throttling...

It did throttle bro,

GPU 1 throttled while GPU 2 didn'ty but I only launched a video using PowerDVD and MPC-HC

I even tried increasing the voltage to +18mv and +43mv that didn't change the clock:

Here are my settings:

 

[RampantAndroid]

That's not what I expected, actually. Util PerfCap means it saw no reason to clock higher (this is based on the GPU utilization. If GPU utilization rises a lot higher, the perfcap reason will end up being PWR, VRel or VOP.)

I assume the throttling you're referring to is at the very start on the core clock?

 

[Berryracer]

That's not what I expected, actually. Util PerfCap means it saw no reason to clock higher (this is based on the GPU utilization. If GPU utilization rises a lot higher, the perfcap reason will end up being PWR, VRel or VOP.)

I assume the throttling you're referring to is at the very start on the core clock?

Not sure but I guess what you said makes sense since these video players don't seem to stress the GPU so much. Mind you I am running MPC-HC with madVR + LAV/CUVID (AKA CUDA)

Do my overclocking settings seem right though?

 

[RampantAndroid]

Not sure but I guess what you said makes sense since these video players don't seem to stress the GPU so much. Mind you I am running MPC-HC with madVR + LAV/CUVID (AKA CUDA)

Do my overclocking settings seem right though?

Sure, they seem about right (mind you, I don't have a 980TI, I have a 980.) My 980 settings in fur mark show as VREL limited (voltage reliability) and in Furmark, they're limited by PWR, meaning that I'm hitting the max TDP that the card/driver allows.

In furmark, I'm able to set +15mv, +170 core clock, +400 memory clock, but I hit neither of them of course.

 

[Headfoot]

the percentage of responders who clearly did not read the OP in this thread is staggeringly high