[Ashkeroth]

Hi there,

Since the recent beta test of BF3; I've got myself interested in overclocking my Gainward GTS250 Deep Green series. It looks like this one
http://www.gainward.com/main/vgapro.php?id=118

I check the following thread http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/6936...ts-250-oc.html

but apparently I do not have the version because my Stock Core Clock is 675Mhz according to the Nvidia Widget that I've installed and RivaTuner also confirms that it runs at 675Mhz.

I attempt to use RivaTuner and pushed the card to

GPU Clock: 775MHz
Memory Clock: 1240MHz
Shader Clock: 1728MHz

(as stated on the post above that it's stable for the Green version)

and it immediately crashed my card (my whole W7 Desktop freezed with glitches). Lately, I was trying out BF3 beta on a clock setting of ~ 5%. Geeks3DFurmark 1.9.1 does not give me any artifact, but the bf3 does - and shortly; usually the game freezes up forcing me to go to Task manager to end bf3.exe.

However, this is not all; because I have the Nvidia widget on; somehow after the crash, it keeps staying on 2D graphic (301Mhz) and when I load the game a 2nd time, my frame was crazy low at ~6 FPS.

Not only I reboot the PC; my 3D Graphic came back. So other than playing with the tweaks on RivaTuner; I was wondering if I am doing everything correctly? I am currently not at home and writing from my laptop; I will provide with more information of my card; version; CPU etc.

My concern is could there be something else that I forgot to apply; maybe the voltage?

EDIT:
Here are my specs
Window 7
Gigabyte P55A-UD3
Intel i5-650 @ 3.2 Ghz set the BLCK to 160 x 22
G.Skill ECO 4 GB

 

[dragosmp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashkeroth;15254832
Not only I reboot the PC; my 3D Graphic came back. So other than playing with the tweaks on RivaTuner; I was wondering if I am doing everything correctly? I am currently not at home and writing from my laptop; I will provide with more information of my card; version; CPU etc.

My concern is could there be something else that I forgot to apply; maybe the voltage?

Hey,

Lucky thing these cards are build with some headroom as what you did could toast it is; increasing voltage would only toast it sooner. You can't just apply a 20% OC on anything and think it will work only because it worked for someone else for many reasons: the other had a lucky card, didn't post all settings, changed cooling, exaggerated the claims, etc.

OC using MSI Afterburner (has GPU and memory clocks and temp monitoring) and up the frequency 10MHz at a time and test between - keep an eye out for artifacts and temperature. It might be that you card is capable of 800MHz for all I know, but you'll never get there unless you OC/test/OC/test in small steps. Read a proper Nvidia OCing guide and you'll see exactly when you should up the voltage, by how much and why sometimes it's inadvisable, it's fairly easy to learn. The reason why you should follow a guide is because all cards aren't equal: some may be better, some may be in a better cooled enclosure, some may be powered by better quality PSUs which makes them more stable in OCs, etc.

 

[Ashkeroth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dragosmp;15257967
Hey,

OC using MSI Afterburner (has GPU and memory clocks and temp monitoring) and up the frequency 10MHz at a time and test between - keep an eye out for artifacts and temperature. It might be that you card is capable of 800MHz for all I know, but you'll never get there unless you OC/test/OC/test in small steps. Read a proper Nvidia OCing guide

Is this the guide you are talking about?

http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/9916-ati-nvidia-overclocking-guide-all-you.html

For one thing; it is fairly old; date back to 2005. Also there is no mentioning of RivaTuner which is the one I am using. To be honest; I am new in OC. I don't even know the basic difference between Core Clock; shader clock and the Mem Clock (from Riva Tuner). What I noticed is that pushing the Core Clock raises the FPS of 3DFurMark. So what you are telling me; there should be no need to touch the voltage at all?

 

[dragosmp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashkeroth;15258360
Is this the guide you are talking about?

http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/9916-ati-nvidia-overclocking-guide-all-you.html

For one thing; it is fairly old; date back to 2005. Also there is no mentioning of RivaTuner which is the one I am using. To be honest; I am new in OC. I don't even know the basic difference between Core Clock; shader clock and the Mem Clock (from Riva Tuner). What I noticed is that pushing the Core Clock raises the FPS of 3DFurMark. So what you are telling me; there should be no need to touch the voltage at all?

I think a new guide should be written on OCN, that one is quite old. The follower to RivaTuner is called Afterburner and is branded by MSI, but it's programmed by the same guys as RivaTuner. It's essentially the same thing with a skin on top, but Afterburner sees more updates these days, that's why I recommend it. Here's a guide, it's well written and should help familiarize with the clocks.

You shouldn't overvolt at the very beginning because often a 10% overvolt can toast a card; only overvolt if you can't raise the clock any further and if the temp of the GPU is below 80°C under Furmark/Kombustor.