Question RTX 3090 TDP drops during stress test causing low FPS in games

[Useful Troglodyte]

I'm having some concerning issues with my Galax RTX 3090 that has a 350W max TDP. When I run a stress test in MSI Kombustor, the TDP initially reaches 100% but then after 3-4 seconds, it starts dropping rapidly and settles at around 60-65% within a few seconds . The GPU temperature reaches 75-78°C during this.I tried increasing the max temperature and power limit in MSI Afterburner but it had no effect on the TDP behavior . Games have also become unplayable with very low FPS, which wasn't the case earlier.

I have reinstalled the Nvidia drivers as well.I've attached some screenshots from HWiNFO while running the Kombustor stress test that show the TDP and clock speed drops.

Has anyone else experienced sudden TDP throttling like this on a 3090? The card seems to be hitting a power limit and downclocking itself very aggressively.I'm concerned this is causing the terrible gaming performance I'm now seeing. The 3090 was working fine before. Any suggestions on what could be causing this or troubleshooting steps to try?
My specs:

• Galax RTX 3090 (350W TDP)
• Intel Core i7-13700K
• ASUS Prime B760M plus
• 32GB DDR4-3200Mhz
• Deepcool DQ850M-V3L 850W 80 Plus Gold

Thanks in advance for any help or advice!

 

[blckgrffn]

All other things held the same, I would be inclined to try a different PSU.

75-78 C doesn't seem all that hot to me, but maybe there are 3090 owners here that can speak to that.

Is your memory speed being downclocked as well?

 

[In2Photos]

Hot spot is 104! And at a gpu clock of 1050 MHz. And fans are wide open. You are thermal throttling. Probably need to repaste.

 

[blckgrffn]

Hot spot is 104! And at a gpu clock of 1050 MHz. And fans are wide open. You are thermal throttling. Probably need to repaste.

Geez, I totally missed that.

What a pain that is. That seems like very invasive maintenance on such a high end card.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

It's definitely throttling down because of the hotspot. Your paste either dried up or reflowed and left a bare spot. This happened on my 2080 Ti. Worked fine after a repaste, but over time I was getting huge frame drops and the hotspot was out of the control. Took it apart and an entire corner was missing paste. I used MX-4 for the application, so I'm not entirely impressed with how it holds up over time. I am also starting to see some slightly higher temps (particularly hot spot) on my 3090 which I also used MX-4 on.

 

[psolord]

MSI Komb

When I run a stress test in MSI Kombustor

Aren't drivers supposed to throttle programs like there? I remember furmark was throttling quite a while back. What happen's if you run some proper gpu bencmark? 3dmark, Unigine's benchmarks or better yet, some games?

 

[Amused]

I coin mined for a few months using a 3090.

No amount of repasting solves the 3090 hot spot issue. If you're going to stress a 3090 more than average gaming you need two high speed fans on the back of the card with a small spacer. I found pulling air away from the card to work better than pushing.

I used two of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KFCRATC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[MrTeal]

If you were mining and the issue was helped by airflow on the backside, your issue was probably memory junction temps at least with Eth. The GPU itself isn't working too hard and hotspots shouldn't be terrible.

Repasting is definitely worth a try. Be careful disassembling it, ideally it's nice to be able to reuse your pads if they look in good shape.

 

[Amused]

If you were mining and the issue was helped by airflow on the backside, your issue was probably memory junction temps at least with Eth. The GPU itself isn't working too hard and hotspots shouldn't be terrible.

Repasting is definitely worth a try. Be careful disassembling it, ideally it's nice to be able to reuse your pads if they look in good shape.

It was labeled the GPU hotspot on HW info 64.

Too keep it from cooking I had to drastically underclock the GPU and OC the memory while mining. Even with that, he hotspot temps would stay just under the danger level ONLY with the extra fans.

 

[Shmee]

Typically with ETH mining at least, you would underclock and undervolt the core anyway. At least with my old cards, core temps were never the issue. Only memory junction could be up there, but I didn't push too far, and I increased fan speed to help.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I see these posts every summer.

Use a reasonable frame cap in games. If playing at 4K start using DLSS, that's the res where it works best.