x2 TUF 3070 OC 8G Crashing Under Load, No Clear Reason Why!
Hey all. I'm tearing my hair out about this one so asking for help from any and all who might have advice for me.
I have two systems; i7 8700K / Gigabyte Z370XP SLI (1.0) / TUF 3070 8G / 32 GB RAM / Seasonic Focus GX 850w / NVMe, HDDs etc. etc. i5 8400 / Gigabyte P67A-UD4-B3 (1.1) / TUF 3070 8G / 16 GB RAM / Seasonic Focus GX 850w / SATA SSD, HDDs etc. etc.
I bought the 3070s from an ex-miner circa 2022 for a decent price, and he only had about six cards, he said he got in too late and gave up, so the cards were fairly new and underused. They were a bit dusty but hardly overworked and I furmarked both when I got them on a spare old bench for over an hour, no issues.
I upgraded both systems to the Seasonic 850s because both systems were occasionally crashing in games. We had a 600w/650w respectively before this, so I figured we're on the edge of max for those PSUs and the GPUs are hitting momentary overdraw, so all good. Reputable 850s we go... *Except it's still happening, even more so now.*
**There are two main crashes**; the most common and worst is a full screen blackout, akin to a GPU disconnect. The card fans will spin up (if not already) and I'll hear Windows' "error" sound as it displays... *Something...* crashing. *occasionally* i'll also hear the 'disconnect' sound. Audio programs like Discord still work, and I'll hear whatever sound is in the audio buffer from the game (a weapon shooting, a jetpack's thruster noise, a car engine etc.) but the game is clearly stuck. The second crash is the game itself, which will throw a driver error and immediately terminate the game.
We've been playing Overwatch most of late (feel free to abuse us for it)which is traditionally a low-intensity, stable game (even ON OUR SYSTEMS traditional, much less generally, globally stable) and in the last few days my system (the top line) has been crashing up to 4-6 times per session. We usually give up when one of us gets a ban for leaving games.
I can reliably crash the system by putting it under load in Furmark. To accentuate the problem I also use the CPU burner, as my first test with Furmark lasted 2 hours, but I can reliably generate a crash in anywhere from 30 sec-15 min with both loaded.
Temps are good; **83/104 hotspo**t on both cards under load, **65-80 on CPUs**, **40-70** across other system sensors. Nothing in the red for max load.
Side-problem, but on MY system my second screen also has stopped connecting as soon as Windows starts to load. I have to unplug and re-plug in the screen for it to load in Windows...
**Troubleshooting:** \- DDU drivers (both machines) \- Downgrade drivers \- Update windows, \`sfc /scannow\`, \`DISM /online /restore-health\` \- Remove and reconnect cables in PSU/GPU (in case sense pins aren't quite in or similar) \- Run second PCIe power cable to GPUs (instead of splitter at end of one cable) \- Undervolted the GPU via GPU Tweak III to up to 80% power target (this is the one thing that helps, and also what I did before upgrading the PSUs to circumvent what I then thought was a power problem) \- Enable Resizable BAR in BIOS \- Switch to PCIe gen 3 in BIOS (neither board supports Gen 4 and I've seen suggestions that 'auto' is dodgy elsewhere) \- Disable XMP (seen suggestions that bad memory OC can do this, though neither system has EVER had memory timing issues) \- Reset BIOS entirely \- Upgrade to Win11 (my system only) - reasoning below
Attached are examples of all the different errors I've gotten in Event Log when these crashes occur, taken across both systems and Windows versions. (https://imgur.com/a/xY2xkS8)
Due to the errors with the Desktop Windows Manager (dwm.exe) I thought I'd try upgrading one system to Win11; I figured at the end of all this troubleshooting there would be a fresh Windows image anyway, so IF this happened to be an error in a kernel file like DWM, there's a good chance the upgrade writes a new file and so could fix this. Unfortunately not, but at least now I'm where Microsoft wants me.
Things I haven't tried yet that I'm considering: \- Reseat card (doesn't seem likely that seating is a problem in both systems but possible) \- Repaste CPU/GPU (temps aren't a big problem but could be hotspot spikes that aren't being cooled) \- Fresh Windows image & test (bit of a PITA but planning to try this with a spare SSD soon) \- Throw in bin????? Buy AMD system ARC GPU fix issue good?!?!
I'm at the point where I may need to speak to Asus support, but I'm not holding my breath since they're not the most reputable support around, and since I don't have original POP (AND and since they're also likely outside of warranty)
Will comment any other notes I've forgotten, and support links I've been reading, but for now this post is long enough. Thanks in advance for your help everyone.