[HELP] GTX 770 is overclocked on each windows reboot and I didn't set it

disclaimer: this may or MAY NOT be caused by MSI AP, But since MSI AP MIGHT be part of the issue, I am posting this thread here.. Plus I'm desperate and could use any help and those guys at MSI are geniuses.

I'll make it as simple as possible

Things I did that lead to the problem, in order:

1- I was doing some light overclocking with MSI Afterburner
2- I stopped using it (but its still installed) and switched to EVGA Precision(no reason, just experimenting different tools) and kept doing my OC experiments to find a sweet spot
2- I installed custom vBios
3- I encounter some weird artifacts upon windows welcome screen and some instability issues that leads nvidia driver's to crash very soon and after it recovers, the GPU then works normally as long as I don't reboot.
4- After some 101 troubleshooting I located the issue using GPU-Z right BEFORE the display driver crash (which usually happens within the first 10 min of a reboot if I didn't game) and it shows an overclocked clock and memory speeds that my GPU can't handle.
5- I also checked with MSI AB and EVGA before the display driver crash and they both show +60 on core and +700 on memory -which I never ever set- and I believe my GPU can't handle +700 which leads to artifacts and crashing, if I set it back to 0 and hit Apply it scale down to stock speeds BUT I CANNOT adjust power slider or voltage slider unless I let the display driver crash. ( yes, it's checked in the settings to allow to adjust voltage im not that dumb but its a glitch or something related to the problem if I don't let it crash)

Things I did to try to solve this problem, in order[none worked]:

1- Reflash backed up stock vBios
2- Uninstalled/Reinstall Nvidia drivers
3- Uninstalled MSI AF & EVGA P using Revo Pro Uninstaller to clean the registry.
4- reinstalled MSI AF and tried to set it to start with windows and to maintain OC upon booting (I set a profile and only added +1mhz over stock) figured this might override that profile at the startup.
5- Tried same thing with EVGA P -after uninstalling MSI AP cause I figured it could've been an EVGA profile that needs to be override.
6- Tried setting both MSI and EVGA to stock settings and uncheck everything and uninstall them all.
7- I'm out of ideas.

Things to keep in mind:

1- Upon the first display driver crash the clock/memory goes down to stock. and I can game or even overclock or benchmark or whatever, its back to stock and fully working.
2- It's annoying the hell out of me and honestly I'm out of options.
3- I don't think I'm eligible for an RMA after flashing that custom bios. Plus it doesn't seem to me as a hardware issue, its more like a crazy corrupted overclocking profile that's hidden somewhere.
4- I don't have another PC to try the GPU in.
5- I'm trying to avoid doing a format like the plague
6- Unfortunately windows system restore was disabled to save space on my SSD.


I'm open to any suggestions as I can't think of anything else to do.

EDIT: and I just installed nvidia beta drivers, and it got nothing to do with it.

 

With AB installed
"Hint 1: You may press and hold <Ctrl> key immediately after logging in to Windows to bypass applying the
settings."

That should bring you stock settings "if" AB is the cause , but I can't see how you can get OC if you uninstalled all OC software and reinstall drivers .
Do the uninstall, reboot , do clean driver install should bring stock settings .

Note on uninstall make sure no left over files in AB folder , wherever you installed it .
Also use autoruns to make sure you don't have another OC software being loaded at startup .

 

I am having the same issue as well. I am using the latest AB with RTSS and the latest GeForce Driver 331.21.

What is going on is that I have the auto profile mode enabled for 2D and 3D, but for some reason upon boot my 3D overclock gets loaded while in desktop mode.

If I disable the auto overclock option, then all is well, but as soon as I re-enable it again AB enables my 3D overclock while in 2D.

Not sure what is causing it. I am not using any other overclocking software, btw.

 

Well pardon the hell out of me. I thought it was similar in nature since my overclock does start on each reboot, and rather than create an extra thread figured it would be less clutter to mention it here.

Sorry to bother you.