Number goes up and then back down... o_O

[Viper007Bond]

I have a ATI branded 128 MB 9800 Pro (default is 378/338). I just installed a Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer Rev. 3 with Arctic Silver 5 and thought this would be a good time to get some more kick outta my card.

I've never OC'ed anything before nor have I used ATITool before, so I dunno if this is normal or what - when I click "Find Max Core", it does it's thing and slowly moves the side bar up to like 415 (take about 30 minutes to do so). But then it starts going back down and eventually reaches 378 again. I cancelled it at that point.

It is supposed to do that, count up and then go back down?

 

[sersalpha]

ATITool keeps increasing clock speed until it detects artifacts, then it stops and decreases clock speed incrementally until no artifacts are detected. For whatever reason, your card can not reach a stable (read: no artifacts) overclocked speed. Check your installation of the VGA Silencer.

 

[Viper007Bond]

I never saw it say any articfacts were detected, nor is it overclocked right now. As for the VGA cooler, I followed the instructions exactly and it's heatsink looks to be correctly mounted to the processor.

 

[Slayerstaps]

You can't see it detect artifacts nor can you see those artifacts. Atitool detects artifacts you can't see to be sure you have a stable overclock. Seems that your card doesn't like to run overclocked...

 

[Viper007Bond]

WTF, you've got to be kidding.

Well, wouldn't ATITool say that it found artifacts if it found them? It kept just saying 0 artifacts detected...

 

[sersalpha]

Once ATITool detects any amount of artifacts, it quickly drops the clock speed and resets the artifact detection count onscreen to zero. Go to Start->ATITool->ATITool Log to get a detailed account of how long it took to find artifacts at different clock speeds. Better yet, when you open it, select Edit->Select All, and delete the log entries. Then, run ATITool again and you'll have a fresh detailed account of how stable your card is at different speeds.

Is your FSB or AGP bus overclocked? What kind of cooling do you have on your northbridge?

 

[Viper007Bond]

Grrr, it sees some articfacts. I reset the log and I'll run the program again.

And nothing is overclocked right now. I have the Arctic Cooling Rev. 3 VGA cooler on my graphics card. And what's a "northbridge"?

 

[sersalpha]

The northbridge is a chip(set) that communicates with the computer processor and controls interaction with memory, the PCI bus, Level 2 cache, and all AGP activities. The northbridge communicates with the processor using the FSB.

Your northbridge is a relatively large chip(set) is usually located near the CPU slot. In the following picture of an ASUS A7N8X the northbridge is covered by the large aluminum heatsink:

You can usually easily find your northbridge by looking for the largest heatsink (they sometimes have logos or fans and can be with or without fins) on your board. Replacing the stock heatsink with a more agressive cooling method, like the Swiftech MCX159 that I use, can lead to increased overclockability of your CPU, RAM, and/or AGP card.

 

[Viper007Bond]

Oh, I just have the default one. Here's a picture of my motherboard:

ASUS "P4P800-E Deluxe" i865PE Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU -RETAIL


Anyway, after some looking, I discovered that my VGA fan was on low and not high. Switched it to high and left "Find Max Core" on overnight and when I woke up, it had been running for 6 hours, was at "419.54" and hadn't found any artifacts for 45 minutes.

Now to find my max mem.

 

[Viper007Bond]

Woo!

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3035471

Got an extra 500 points just by overclocking my card.

My unclocked system is light grey, the overclocked one is dark grey:

 

[zealot`grr]

quite good

 

[Viper007Bond]

Yeah, not bad just for a little tweaking.

However, just out of curiosity, why does OC'ing my GFX card though slow down my CPU?

 

[zealot`grr]

does it?

 

[Viper007Bond]

My CPU scored lower on 3DMark03 - look at the above image. My system with the overclocked gfx card scored lower on the CPU tests than before I OC'ed the gfx card.

 

[jimmymozza1979]

Mine went up and then back down to the same core number.. all you have to do is download the softmod driver for your card... go to settings in atitool and disable the oc lock... will overcolck fine then..

 

[Viper007Bond]

Mine went up and then back down to the same core number.. all you have to do is download the softmod driver for your card... go to settings in atitool and disable the oc lock... will overcolck fine then..

I wasn't aware there was that issue with the 9800 Pro...