random mid-game extreme slow downs on GPU OC, is it the memory, shader, core OC?

While playing games such as left4dead2 sometimes I can get huge drops in FPS (from 50 fps to about 25fps) randomly that occur and do not resolve until I restart the computer but it is not a crash. Is this typical of a core/shader/memory OC issue?

 

What you experience does sound like the GPU driver is crashing and restarting (the screen will go blank but will come back again albeit with dramatically reduced performance).

This issue will normally happen when the core or shaders have been pushed too far and the driver detects instability and restarts. An Issue with the Memory clock becoming unstable will normally result in either missing textures, flashing textures, "Snow" on the screen or some other form of artifcating.

The reduced performance is as a result of the GPU now running at 405/772/666(ish) instead of 450/1080/1590. The memory clock is the one that massively affects the performance.

Assuming you are using MSI afterburner or EVGA Precision (both use Rivatuner as a base) you should be able to monitor this behaviour via the on screen display.

If the above is down to instability the only thing you can do is drop the GPU clock (which will automatically reduce the Shader clock unless you have unlinked them).

 

tassadar898: Do some logging with ThrottleStop while gaming. Most of these laptops are OK and don't have problems with clock modulation throttling but I saw one log file not too long ago from an M11x and I think it was chipset clock modulation that was dropping down to 50% which instantly kills frame rates. This usually gets left on for far too long and one way to fix it is to shut down and reboot. Run TS 2.89 without either type of clock modulation checked and also use the More Data logging option. Send it my way if you don't want to go through a mountain of data. When I import a log into Excel, it is easy to find a problem.

 

Disable your GPU overclock and try again. If you still encounter the FPS drop, then proceed on to checking other items. first however, you should rule out overclocking. Just because one person can OC their GPU to a certain level doesn't mean all others can. reset to default GPU clocks or bump them down - see if that resolves the FPS drop.

 

i've narrowed it down to the GPU OC for sure, i was trying to tweak the core/shader/memory to prevent it but it was difficult cause the problem is rare and there are 3 variables to consider. Thanks to this thread I know its not the memory that is giving me issues. I do have them unlinked and I suspect it was the shader frequency at 1370mhz so I moved that down to 1350mhz and havnt had any problems yet but only time will tell.

 

Good to hear you found the likely culprit. OCing can be fun but just remember, every component is different and what settings work for one will crash another identically spec'd system.

YMMV