# Help! video card limited by the power limit



## maciel_lopes (Aug 14, 2016)

I have a video card Gigabyte GTX 960 WindForce 2X OC and she's a serious problem.

The default clock board is:
Boost: 1304 MHz / Base: 1241 MHz in Mode
Boost: 1279 MHz / Base: 1216 MHz in Gaming Mode
Memory clock: 7010 MHz effective

This card was always the 1367 MHz due to the low temperature (60°C) and never did manual overclocking. This clock of 1367 MHz is the chip itself.

The problem is that the core clock and memory clock does not go up. I will attach GPU-Z data showing that the GPU is being limited by the power limit (PWR). The clock (both the core clock as the clock memory) are wavering, but never get in the normal factory and in most cases is with very low clock, example 250 MHz and accusing be 100% usage.

I have tested the video card in another high-performance computer with a Cooler Master 750W and the problem continued, ie, it is no problem on my computer. It seems the problem is in the power of the video card.

Already I tested with several different drivers, from the oldest to the youngest (353.62; 362.00; 365.19; 368.39; 368.69 e 368.81), including already made a new installation of Windows 10 and even Windows 8.1 and solved nothing.

The video card has one year and one month of purchased but not used much was due to my lack of time. Here in Brazil Gigabyte only gives 1 year warranty so I can not fire them RMA.
I'm sorry for bad English, I'm using Google Translate.








Idle:






Now running F1 2015:


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## FR@NK (Aug 14, 2016)

Perfcap pwr is when the card hits its power limit I believe. When did this start happening? 

Maybe the VRMs are overheating. Can you remove the heatsink and clean it out? Else it seems the hardware has failed.


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## maciel_lopes (Aug 14, 2016)

FR@NK said:


> Perfcap pwr is when the card hits its power limit I believe. When did this start happening?
> 
> Maybe the VRMs are overheating. Can you remove the heatsink and clean it out? Else it seems the hardware has failed.



Yes, PerfCap Reason "PWR" is when the video card reaches its power limit. But the card is far below the standard clock and accuses be at 100%.
If you look at the last print, you'll see that the board is the core clock at 202.5 MHz, the clock memory at 405 MHz, the temperature only 40ºC and the TDP in only 30%, but the board does not rise, is being limited the power limit.

The video card is running smoothly, the error is only that the clock does not rise when it is requested. It has been a month since the problem began. As she always was in 1367 MHz in any game.

I am waiting for a response from a person from Gigabyte on the warranty, if there is no solution, I will open the card and see what can be. I believe it is problem in welds of 6-pin connectors, or the BGA solder.


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## FR@NK (Aug 14, 2016)

If you look closely at the GPU-Z graphs, the card does clock up to its normal speeds for a moment then the pwr perfcap reduces the speed to 200MHz. Also 40C seems abit high for running at low voltage and clock speeds.


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## maciel_lopes (Aug 14, 2016)

FR@NK said:


> If you look closely at the GPU-Z graphs, the card does clock up to its normal speeds for a moment then the pwr perfcap reduces the speed to 200MHz. Also 40C seems abit high for running at low voltage and clock speeds.



Yes, the speed at some moments the core clock rises and goes so far as to get normal already figured it out, but it's pretty fast even. But the temperature does not follow this increase.

For example, before yesterday I did a test on the benchmark Metro 2033 and the clock was at 1000 MHz for a while and then fell again. But the temperature did not rise at the same rate, if I remember right, the temperature stood at 52°C.

I am depending on the Gigabyte answer for me to open the video card and see if I decide alone.


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## DRDNA (Aug 15, 2016)

FR@NK said:


> Also 40C seems abit high for running at low voltage and clock speeds.


Nah 40C is fine for 20% fan speed.

Maciel, Welcome to TPU


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## maciel_lopes (Aug 15, 2016)

DRDNA said:


> Nah 40C is fine for 20% fan speed.
> 
> Maciel, Welcome to TPU



I think if overheating problem, the fans would work at high speeds.

Thank you for the welcome.
It is a pleasure to be here.


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## maciel_lopes (Aug 16, 2016)

Up.


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