MSI 580 TFII OC Woes!

[SPS]

Ok guys so as far as GPU OC'ing is concerned I'm a bit of a noob and I'd like a bit of help regarding that and MSI Afterburner.

Now my bro has had a MSI GTX580 TFII for a while and during this period it has been unstable.

• At first we thought it was the drivers so we tried various releases and did a full Windows reinstall.
• Secondly we swapped out mobos.
• Then we changed PSUs.

None of these fixed the problem so I thought that the factory OC may have been unstable. After Googling around, it looks like others have also had an issue with this card in high demanding games. So I ran OCCT and sure enough the drivers crashed out and the PC BSOD.

I downloaded MSI Afterburner (first time user) and set the core clock to stock 580, 772. I ran OCCT again and it worked fine, nice and stable. So I told AB to set this underclock at start and we shut the PC down. We went out and came back to test this in games.

We fired up a game and the rendering was taking forever with so much lag! It was not long until it BSOD.

I believe the card is no longer under warranty (so my bro says).
Is there any way we can remedy this or is the card knackered?
I thought the underclock would have worked, am I using AB wrong, is there some configs kicking about that should be changed?

I appreciate any suggestions.

EDIT:
PC Specs :
MSI GTX580 TFII 1.5GB
MSI GD65-Z77
2500k (currently at stock)
HX850w
8GB Mushkin Silverline
1TB WD Black

The card is currently at 772 core @ 1.038v, everything is at stock.

 

[alienware]

Up the voltage.

The card should have had a three year warranty as long as you have proof of purchase.

 

[SPS]

Up the voltage.

The card should have had a three year warranty as long as you have proof of purchase.

Ok so currently it is unstable at 772 core @ 1.038v, all I have done is lower the core clock. What voltage would you recommend?

 

[alienware]

I'd Google it mate.

A friend of mine had a Zotac 580 that was completely unstable. I mean, so unstable it sometimes wouldn't even make it into Windows. Then he found out it had a really low voltage by default so he used Nibitor to make his own bios, problem solved..

I would hazard a guess and say that the OC MSI have given it needs more volts.

Google around for GTX 580 max safe volts but I THINK ! (don't quote me !) that 1100mv SHOULD be fine.

 

[SPS]

Ok I've looked around a bit and it looks like people have upped the volts to 1050mV to 1100mV so I think I'll take the average and try 1075mV. I'll keep it at 772 core for now to see if that works first.

 

[SPS]

Ok so it looked promising but as soon as it got into the game world the PC crashed out. I'm not sure that raising it to 1100mV will solve the issue.

How safe is it to rely on AB?

I'm starting to think this card has had it...

EDIT: Ok so I upped it to 1100mV and it seemed less stable..

 

[SavageCupcake]

My friend had this very problem with his TFII 580. Even fifa 13 would crash it no matter what drivers he used. He just ran it at stock 580 speeds till he got his 7970

 

[alienware]

AB is reliable but if the voltage fixes it the better long term solution is to edit the bios and up the volts in there.

 

[SPS]

Update, put the card to stock clocks as you suggested, 772 core, 2004 mem and left at factory volts 1038mV. Ran OCCT and drivers crashed out with black squares all over the screen.

 

[alienware]

Ah.

That sounds like solder failure so if you can't RMA then I'm afraid it's the oven.

 

[SPS]

It does seem like a physical hardware issue..

 

[alienware]

I would bake it dude.. I wrote a guide ages ago lemme see if I can find it.

http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=30315

There you go

 

[SPS]

Bake it?

Do you know how long the MSI warranty is, I can't find a straight answer, he's had it for a couple of months over a year.

EDIT: Ah ok just saw your link - reading it.

EDIT 2: Hmm yeah.. I'm not sure about that lol

 

[alienware]

It's 3 years if you have a receipt/proof of purchase. If not you're screwed and you may as well bake it.

It's painfully easy to do dude, just follow the guide and put some weight on the main GPU chip so it presses into the solder. It won't last forever but it's a quick fix.

 

[SPS]

Do you know which is the best way to request RMA for GPUs? It looks like there's only really support for notebooks in the UK.

 

[alienware]

I'll pm you their contact info.. You will 100% need a copy of an invoice or online receipt.

 

[SPS]

Ok cheers, I should be able to get it from Aria somewhere.