Nvidia drivers crash and then GPU clock speeds get stuck at 405mhz

[Endo]

It happens at random and i have to restart my pc to get my fps back.
Specs:
GPU: EVGA GTX 960
MOBO: MSI 970 GAMING
CPU: AMD FX 6300
RAM: DDR3 8GB
OS: Win10

[®NapalmSunrise®]

Well when the video driver crashed it will drop your clock speed, you need to reboot to fix the driver crash, are you on the newest driver ?

[Endo]

Yeah I tried to reinstall all of my drivers just yesterday and then re installed and then it crashed again shortly after.

[®NapalmSunrise®]

Originally posted by Endoten:

Yeah I tried to reinstall all of my drivers just yesterday and then re installed and then it crashed again shortly after.

The newest driver has caused a bunch of issues with alot of games, you might want to run DDU and go back to 368.81

[Endo]

The newest driver might not be the problem becuase this has been happening for nearly a month.

[®NapalmSunrise®]

Originally posted by Endoten:

The newest driver might not be the problem becuase this has been happening for nearly a month.

hmm, are you overclocking the GPU ?

[Endo]

No but this had only begun happening after i had replaced my motherboard because the previous one had short circuited.

[®NapalmSunrise®]

Originally posted by Endoten:

No but this had only begun happening after i had replaced my motherboard because the previous one had short circuited.

Make sure your mobo's bios are up to date..

[Endo]

I check the bios versions and thats fine but there were a few programs that came w/ my mobo that I had missed. Im going to see if these help a little.

[[☥] - CJ -]

Its normal for when the NVIDIA drivers crash to lock the clocks at Idle/2D speeds until the driver recovers.

Uninstall All NVIDIA Drivers
Do a Clean install with DDU
Custom Install the drivers and ONLY i repeat ONLY install the Drivers and PhysX
Install GFE if you wish, but i recommend against it.
See if this makes a difference.

Graphics Driver crashes can be caused by Temps, Faulty RAM sticks, Unstable Overclocks and Powersupply issues.

[Endo]

What CJ said seems to have worked so far its been about 2h since then.

[[☥] - CJ -]

glad its worked out so far

[Endo]

Nevermind it they just crashed. You said it could be caused by Faulty RAM and i have my RAM plugged into slots 2 and 4 becuase I needed to make room for my new cpu cooler fan. Im going to try moving the fan and to the other side and move the RAM to 1 and 3 to see what that changes

[[☥] - CJ -]

What cooler do you have?

[Endo]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065

[[☥] - CJ -]

Figured as much

The fan being on the left side is best anyway
It sucks air through the fins better and doesnt leave a dust imprint where the fans case splits off As ive found through tests and experience, i have the EVO version.

Most configs call for the RAM sticks to be in 2 and 4 slots
But you can try it in 1 and 3, see if it makes a difference.

Its possible they just need to have been reseated, or the DIMM slots dusted out.

Either way, give it a try n see how it goes.

If it comes to it, try using the PC normally with only 1 stick of RAM.
If the driver crashes with that stick replace it with the other one and try again.

Its time consuming but it makes it easy to see if it is indeed a bad RAM stick or not. RAM Tests arent 100% accurate but they can give an idea as to whether a stick is bad.