780m doing strange things all of a sudden!?

ive got an m17 with a 780m. I use to beable to maintain a overcock on the core of 1045mhz without any issues such as crashing or throttling, but as of last night, for some reason now, it wont hold that overclock, its become unstable and throttles down now. ive made logs using gpu-z and it seems as soon as the TDP goes to 100% or over it downclocks. I don't have any of my logs from when it use to hold the overclock just fine, but I do remember it never use to throttle at all. Im running the latest NVidia drivers, and the latest bios. any ideas as to what could be cause this issue all of a sudden? is the card done? time for a replacement gpu ?

 

Does it go to 614MHz?

 

it doesnt go to 614MHz, but it does drop down to 849, then to 980 and all kinds of other random clocks. its not stable it wont hold 1045 like it did before. very strange

 

May i ask what OC tool you used? And did you jump to 1045MHz in one go?

 

I use nvidia inspector. I Tested many overclocks till I found 1045mhz on the core was perfectly stable until last night. Now it won't hold anymore.

 

dam everytime I overclock to anything it just downclocks to 614MHz :/ second gpu now as well.

 

May sound like a crazy question... but... why not just leave the GPU clock alone? lol

I get you are going to get better performance... but this card is(at this time) top of the line for mobile gfx cards... so why mess with it?

Just wondering...

 

I hope you're not planning on going through Dell for a replacement...

The GPU is most likely fine but is beginning to deteriorate. This is common with overclocked CPUs where they begin to lose their overclock with time. Of course, this doesn't apply to everyone but still, something to think about.

 

Considering the gpu is about 3 days old im actually overclocking to see if the card is working fine and that I don't get a problem later on, I don't intend to use the OC constantly.

 

i was overclocking for benchmarking purposes, and for testing in BF4. i dont keep the overclock on 24/7 as im well aware itll kill the card overtime. the main issue is why all of a sudden wont it hold the overclock anymore

 

Is there anyway I can monitor my total power output?

 

Sounds like you are experiencing some form of throttling. Did you update the BIOS to A05? And also, what are your temperatures like? Usually, through NVIDIA inspector, you have to raise the temperature limit to avoid issues like this.

 

I'm on A05. Last night after 2.5 hours of bf3 my max temp was 66. That's at stock clocks. With the mentioned overclock in bf4 Max would be 86 but it never throttled. This issue just started yesterday. I have used gpu-z to makes logs and it was always stable at 1045. I now am noticing that the TDP goes to 100% and once it goes over 100% it throttles down for a few seconds then back up to my overclock. Very strange as it was rock solid before. what's this TDP ?

 

It's 120W. I think I experienced something similar to this the other day when I overclocked my 780M. I noticed a 300 point drop in 3DMark 11 with an overclock, which should not happen.

I can't think of a what would be causing this, except power limitations. Maybe someone else can shed some light on this issue... I'll have to figure it out tonight.

 

i thought it could be a power throttle but that wouldnt explain why this is just happening now and before it was perfectly stable with the exact same settings. like i said the log shows once TDP exceeds 100% it throttles instantly. ive also seen proof of this while running msi kombuster. very very weird. i hope you can find out whats causing this. i tried opening up the laptop seeing if theres any dust in my fans(highly unlikely as its only 2 months old and i keep it very very clean) and the 2 bottom screws were fully stripped and i was unable to get into it. called dell. looks like my machine is going to the repair depo, and possibly being replaced as this is going to be the 3rd repair already within 2 months, and inorder to fix the stripped screws issue they need to replace the whole body/frame of the machine. such a headache

 

You touch your drivers or anything like that? Have you tried a lower overclock and seen if the card's clock speed still throttles? Just curious.

 

I just recently(maybe 2 days ago) reinstalled the newest beta driver because for some reason the nv control panel wasnt showing up. Could it be driver related ? I've tried a lower clock and still same issue. Which is weird cause like I've said it used to be rock solid. Perfectly stable.

 

Could be a driver issue Idk. If a lower clock is causing issues I don't think its a power problem.

 

this is very annoying lol never had this issue before. all of a sudden not stable. super weird. hoping someone can come up with a fix or hopefully its just a driver issue

 

Try a different driver maybe?

 

yea going to try a different driver tonight.

 

I believe I have found out what is causing this issue. in NVidia inspector you have the option to set the power and temp target based of either the TDP or temp. I used the prioritize temp setting all the time(its a little check box I always left checked off) but for some reason now when I check the box and hit apply overclock it auto unchecks itself. the other option is to max out the TDP to146%. this fully removed my throttle but I much prefer using the temp setting. any idea as to why the prioritize temp setting is unchecking it self? never did that before. ive tried a few different drivers, as well as a few different versions of NVidia inspector. any help would be awesome. thanks

 

This might be a long shot, but have you tried running NVidia Inspector as an Administrator? (right click NVidia Inspector and then select 'Run as Administrator').

 

tried that. No good. Same issue. prioritize still unchecks itself

 

You're already running a modded vBIOS right? That might help. I guess you're already running it as you're able to set 146% TDP.

 

Yea im running the modded vbios. And strange enough I just updated to the latest driver, ran nv inspector as admin, and I got my check box to stay checked. Also set TDP to 146%. No more throttle

 

Glad to hear you got it fixed.

 

Haha yea thanks alot guys this was driving me crazy. Managed to break my firestrike record too. very pleased with the overall performance of my m17. Now ill have to figure out how to mod my U3 for even better cooling

 

I figured it was throttling... Glad it's resolved.