I recently installed an EVGA RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra 12GB, but games frequently crash to the desktop or freeze while background audio continues playing. I have reinstalled the graphics drivers twice. Event Viewer shows NVIDIA driver errors including nvlddmkm Event IDs 13 and 153, LiveKernelEvent 141, and an Application Hang involving Cities2.exe. My system has an Intel Core i9-13700K, ASUS Prime motherboard, 32GB of RAM, a Kingston NVMe SSD, a Seagate HDD, a Corsair 1000W PSU, an AIO cooler, and Windows 11. The GPU is currently powered using a daisy-chained PCIe cable. Could that be causing unstable power delivery or voltage spikes?
2 Answers
Those errors point to the NVIDIA graphics driver or GPU subsystem crashing, which naturally takes the game down with it. Start by using a separate PCIe power cable for each power connector on the graphics card instead of daisy-chaining one cable. Even with a 1000W PSU, separate cables are the better setup for a high-power card. If that does not help, use Display Driver Uninstaller in Safe Mode and install a clean driver; if the newest driver still crashes, test an older stable version as well.
Run separate stress tests for VRAM and the 3D GPU, such as OCCT's VRAM and 3D Adaptive tests or FurMark. Watch for driver resets, crashes, visual artifacts, or reported errors. If the tests fail, the problem may be hardware-related, although an unstable overclock, undervolt, power setting, or other configuration can cause the same symptoms. Also make sure the card is fully seated and, if needed, test another PCIe slot.
I ran OCCT and GPU-Z shortly after installing the card and the results looked good. I am going to replace the daisy-chained connection with separate PCIe cables and see whether that improves the crashes. I have also limited the card to around 85% power in Afterburner.