GeForce RTX 2070 Super: FPS drops, high fan RPMs, monitor flickering

My GPU (an NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super Windforce OC 3 from Gigabyte) started acting odd a month or two ago. I'm certain it was late December/early January. At first it was just the fans. I noticed they would suddenly ramp up really fast at times, and loud, for about 5-6 seconds. Sometimes it only happens once or twice during a gaming session, sometimes more often and more frequently, even when it's the same game.

Then the FPS drops/stutters began to set in. This is when I really started to worry. Because it had never done this before.

And now, as of a couple weeks ago, my monitors flicker occasionally (I have two, connected via DisplayPort, at 144Hz each, one primarily for gaming, the other for Discord and/or music/movie streaming).

I have tried the following:
Clean installed the drivers using DDU and disabled driver updates in Windows Update. No dice.
Rolled back the driver to one prior to when the issues began. Didn't help, either.
Took out the GPU, dusted it out (not a lot of dust, though) and the rest of the PC, and reseated it. Nope.
Looked into maybe RMA-ing it, but it looks like it's past warranty, unfortunately, but I contacted the seller anyway. No response.
I've also looked into what the cause of this might be, but it's really difficult at this point to narrow things down. What I believe may fix the issue is adjusting voltage, clocks, or even a combination of the two, whether decreasing or increasing (from what I've read, it's possible to undervolt to reduce heat and power consumption, while raising the clocks a bit to compensate, which can alleviate my issue with a negligible performance loss, or in most cases, a decent boost in performance depending on the card). I have no idea how to start with this, honestly, and I feel like this is territory I really need advice in before I attempt it. Or see if there's other causes, because as I mentioned, this started recently but I've had this PC, card included, since September of 2020, if I recall right.

Anyone have advice? Or tests/info to request?

@GuyInDogSuit

I pretty much just had the same problem with an RTX 2070 (EVGA)
In my case it was just the card a teeny bit loose in the slot.
The fan speed changing was the clue.

Weird grfx problem (solved) but still weird.


With the card installed properly in the slot... try just pushing down a bit on the front of the card.
Sometimes you'll need to loosen the screw on the rear of the card... like a 1/4 turn or so.
Ofc, you'll want to do this when the comp is OFF.

If at the rear of the vid card the case has a clamp instead of a screw... try putting something under the vid card tab before locking the clamp down... like a shim. You want to make sure the vid card isn't rising up too much (less than 1mm), in the front.



The vid card can rock a bit. And if that happens... weird things occur.




My case has a screw to hold the rear of the vid card in place. If I tighten it down too much, it rocks the card a bit, which messes up the contact in the vid card slot. We're talking about 1/2mm of rocking towards the rear.







It could also be your power supply. I mean Apevia isn't know for their awesome power supplies.
Undervolting is also a good idea. Leave the clocks set the same and drop the voltage in like .001 increments.

I doubt you're driving the vid card too hard... 2x 21" monitors is not really a big load on a 2070 Super.

There is also a fan controller chip on the vid card, which could be going out. I had that happen long ago, on a GTX 580.
The fans would ramp up to jet engine speeds, when that started to go.

A place like a Mom & Pop computer shop or Best Buy, for a fee, could check the PSU and could also substitute another vid card to help limit the possibilities.

The card is not that old, actually. Just over a year (which was how long the warranty was, sadly).

It came with the PC, but was a custom-built one. It had crossed my mind that the card was either from a bad batch or might have even been refurbished.

Even more suspicious is the company I bought it from (CyberPowerPC) still has not responded to the message I sent through their support form on their site.