ASUS 780 constantly crashing

Hardware Hub GPU
1

"Nvidia driver has stopped responding" notification pops up after black screens whenever I try to play ANY game; I have tried several fixes but nothing seems to make it so that it doesn't crash. The games I have been trying to play have been Dolphin Emulator, Resident Evil 5, Starcraft 2 as well as all 3 games that came with my 780 (the latest Batman, Assassin's Creed, and Splinter Cell games) and EVERY SINGLE GAME cannot play for more than 2 seconds before resulting in a blackscreen crash.

When I got my ASUS GTX780DC2 OC (its the OC version, NOT the NON-OC one) I was sure to reinstall windows 7 on my boot ssd as to have no issues or hiccups with my new $520 card.

I had just upgraded from a XFX 7770 1GB to what was supposed to be this god-like ultra gpu.

Before trying anything, I made sure that my PCI-E lane was in Gen3 mode, as on my motherboard there is such a setting (ROFL WAT.).

First I tried using different, older drivers. After trying out all available public drivers on Nvidias main website, I went as far as downloading older drivers than those available as well as downloading and 'modding' GTX TITAN drivers that came out before 780 did to see if they would be more stable. All PC games still black screened and only Dolphin was stable enough to play for 30minutes after turning settings down, no "PC" games were stable in the least.

 

Second I made sure that my PSU wasn't getting taxed by my overclocked CPU while also unplugging 7 fans in my system, then used cables from different modular sources on my PSU...nope, still crashing with same frequency. Dolphin still partially stable, all "PC" games still crashing.

 

Last thing I tried was upping voltage to the gpu, considering that it is factory OC I figured 20mv wouldn't hurt so I tried incriments of +5mv with blackscreens still happening (these voltage bumps were while my CPU was stock settings).

 

If anyone has any ideas or strong suggestions please shoot, I am spent at trying every little thing for about a month and a half now.

 

 

System Specs: copied from my twitch (EXCEPT I NEVER STARTED STREAMING WITH MY NEW 780, SO IT STILL SAYS 7770)

 

OS: Win7 x64 Home Premium

CPU: Intel i5-3570k @4.8GHz @1.44v

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14

Motherboard: ASRock Extreme4 Z77

RAM: GSkill Ares 1866MHz 16gb(8gbx2)

GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition (stock)

SSD Boot Drive: Samsung 840 250gb

Storage HDD: Western Digital Black 2tb

Power Supply: Seasonic-X 650watts (80+ Gold)

Case: XClio Touch 767

Misc. Case Items:Sedna 3.5" Front Panel 2USB 3 + 2USB 2 Ports

BYTECC Bracket-525 and 35225

COUGAR CF-V12HP x7

Monitor: ASUS VG248QE @120Hz (Display Port cable)

Keyboard: CM Storm Quickfire Pro Mechanical (MX Brown switches)

Mouse: Logitech G400 (M-U0028)

Headset: CM Storm Sirus 5.1 (USB)

Webcam: Microsoft Lifecam 5000 (720p 30fps max)

Controllers + adapters: N64 Pokemon Controller(USA) (joystick greased with Taylor Lube HP)

Raphnet N64/Gamecube to USB adapter with vibration/rumble support

Xbox 360 Wired USB controller (Black)

 

2

You left out temperature checks which probably isn't the problem with 7 fans. Did you however try to downclock the GPU try to lower mhz by 100 or something and see if it becomes stable, if it does then i'd say the card is crap cause it's running lower than promised speed and i'd suggest returning it.

You should check the Event Viewer to what the cause of the crash was, this helped me eliminate a "drivers stopped working" issue in the past among many other times ^^. So next time the drivers crash then check the events to find out and if you can't figure it out how to read the codes and stuff you can post screenshots and we'll help out.

If you get the opportunity you should put the card into another PC to see if it works there. And if it works fine then it may be PSU or motherboard problems. But for now we'll focus on your PC.

If nothing we do turns out to work then the card may be faulty and should be returned.

3

Just to be sure, you haven't done an overclock yourself, right? Just the stock Asus overclock?

Temperature could be an issue if you have 7 fans but they aren't all pointing the directions optimized for the 780. Remember, the 7770 pushes around 80w, the 780 pushes about 3x that.

You can run Furmark and have it display the temperature, although it may not run for long, you can check temperature and all. Then set the fan speed to 100%, and run again and see if it lasts longer.

You should be trying to keep the card under 80c. The stock fan profile likes to let the cards get hot. You can use the Asus software that came with the card to set up a new profile, or use MSI afterburner which is a little easier to use.

If all else fails, return the card.

4

Downclock the card to 600MHz and see it it still happens.

5

Thanks so much for the help everyone who posted. I tried all those things and nothing worked...I got fed up and told a friend of mine who suggested removing and re-placing the CMOS battery; all is well with my 780 now and I am really pumped to start playing new games. Works well with small OC. Time to see where I can go with my fan setup and this really cold basement; thanks again all.

 

SUCCESS

 

TL;DR
Pulled CMOS and magic happened.