GRAPHICS CARD OVERCLOCKING (Nvidia cards)

[red930]

I'm using RivaTuner version 2.0 RC16 and the problem with the red dots are when i'm in 2D mode only happens, because the damn memory 3D CLOCKS never goes back to 2D CLOCKS (850MHz[3d] to 750MHz[2d]). I just set the memory to 750MHz and everything in 2D looks fine, i even had red dots before the settings and now they're gone. I think it has something to do with the vDIMM. I'm giving my memory 2.1v (yes i had enough so i shaded the resister). I think i can hit 860MHz but just for testing i chose 850MHz. How in the hell can you have the 2D/3D clocks work properly if they don't even work in CoolBits/CoolBits 2.0? wtf? The core is fine, goes from 520MHz[2d] to 690Mhz[3d] but the memory stays on whichever i had it set before. Someone help me i'm losing it.............

[red930]

What red dots??? :confused:

 

I see these greyish/blackish dots on the white text window... and to tell you the truth you should clean your monitor more often

 

You can dream because you can never touch the way i clean, that's why they call me MR.CLEAN.

[Sorrento]

You can dream because you can never touch the way i clean, that's why they call me MR.CLEAN.

Hmm, you don't get it... for me Mr Monk is filthy!!!! And Howard Huges smelled bad...

 

[Guest InFeKtioN]

Fist I must Say ..... Very Nice Job..

 

I have a few questions as well !

 

I have been considering doing a VMOD on my 2 eVGA 7800GT's.

 

I have not been able to properly view the PIC's found here and without being able to see the solder points..... well need I say more.

 

Next, as I said I have 2 evga 7800gt's one is a 515 and the other is a 518 ....

 

Is anyone aware of the differences between the 2 cards? The reason I ask is .... would there be any benifit for me to try and flash both cards with say the newest 518 BIOS or the newest 515 BIOS ..... (the 518 runs slightly higher clocks) ...... or would it be better to just find the highest clock of the weakest card and adjust them both (indiviually) to the same clocks to put them in SLI ? Im just not sure if there is a difference in the Cores or rams .....

 

Funny note :

Useing Coolbits auto find on both cards alone !

The 515 will do 475/1200.

The 518 will do 490/1300.

 

When I have them in SLI Coolbits will auto them @ 510/1800.....

I have not tryed any benches (yet) @ this clock ..... but it will NOT run BF2 !

I just wonder why such a huge difference.

 

This Tut is very infomative .... I only wish I had some pic's to refference the solder points.

Im not sure why the pics dont show up ..... either on my laptop or desktop !

 

Thanks

[Sorrento]

Coolbits auto-overclock is not really accurate... its just a guideline that sometimes works. I would take into consideration the overclock it found for each card as it is more accurate than with SLI, and use the lowest one when they are runing together... again as a guideline since they probably could run a little bit faster at least. I think if you use a lower 475/1200 first to overclock with your SLI setup BF2 and other games won't have a problem.

[Guest InFeKtioN]

Coolbits auto-overclock is not really accurate... its just a guideline that sometimes works. I would take into consideration the overclock it found for each card as it is more accurate than with SLI, and use the lowest one when they are runing together... again as a guideline since they probably could run a little bit faster at least. I think if you use a lower 475/1200 first to overclock with your SLI setup BF2 and other games won't have a problem.

 

Oh sure ! I feel the same ....

 

What I really wanted to know was about the BIOS/ Card Differences ?

 

Thanks tho !

[seanico7278]

Agree with Sorrento. Recently in an online review (I don't have the address) I read about ocing graphic cards in sli in two cases; 1. same specs with different brands, 2. different specs with different brands. Re 1, as everybody knows, nothing to worry about. Regarding 2, the review said if the two cards have different specs, say, 6800gt and 6800ultra, then just need to give a ultar bios flash to 6800gt. If possible, it is better to use the bios of your 6800ultra. So, as long as two cards have same pcb with same GPU and Mems, it is easy to make them identical. I myself checked many bioses (www.mvktech.net) to see whether or not the bioses of a same spec card with various brands have any differences in gpu clock, fan speed, memory timmings. But they are all the same. But, their oc ability varies. I guess it is because each brand has a bit different cooling system and components like memory and gpu brand or capacitors. So, I think it'd be ok to flash one with a better (518) bios. After all, how far oc goes depends on the capability of the weaker one.

[CharmedLover84]

d3m0n,

 

I love this guide thus far.

 

I'm using NVFlash/Nibitor, and I just flashed a very small increase on my already OCed to heck by XFX cards (they run 690/1750 stock).

 

All I did was raise the voltages from 1.3 and 1.4 to 1.31 and 1.41, then I raised the clocks (I know you said to do little amounts but I know for a fact these cards can handle this) to 700/1800. Thus far they seem rock stable in SLI and separately. It gave me a small increase in Aquamark3 (which is what I expected) and rose my 3DMark05 score from 15368 to 15411. Not a huge increase, I know, but... I like the sound of nice even numbers over 690/1750 lol.

 

Does that sound about right to you as far as the voltage increases and clock increases go? Anyone else done this? I'd like to know if I did it right or what not.

[CharmedLover84]

Lowered it down to 700/1750 cuz I noticed the ram didn't seem to be doin' so good at the higher speed, rose the voltage to 1.42Vs, which seems to have made the 700Mhz on the core more stable. My problem in Oblivion of discolored/odd looking things on the faces of people has almost completely disappeared now, whereas before with the cards at "stock" it was frequent and to be honest, annoying.

 

I noticed for the very first time hitting "Detect Optimal Frequencies" in Coolbits setup in the NVidia properties actually worked, it detected at 700/882, in the past it has NEVER set them higher than the normal settings. Does this mean my voltage settings are working good?

 

I'm thinking I'll up the core voltage a bit more to see if maybe eventually it'll auto-detect at higher than 700. We'll see. Heck, they barely get up to around 45C, the cores, runnin' 06, right now.

 

We'll see, again thanks for this guide, I will continue to use it's methods for the next few days til I get my cards to where I'm happy with'em It's kinda funkay with SLI having to update both or only update the second of the two it detects to make sure you get the top video card. LOL

[d3M0n]

CharmedLover84- You can always lower the clocks of your RAM in BIOS. Just find a timingset with timings that are higher than the ones it currently reads. Then you can clock away with the GPU. Let me know how it goes...

[CharmedLover84]

How do I know when the timings are higher though? I totally left the RAM timings alone cuz that's kinda jibberish to me. I'm just workin' on the GPU now, I got it to where I'm running 700/875, lemme know what exactly I should look for in the timings and I'll be sure to do it when next I get a BIOS mod mood LOL

[CharmedLover84]

Okay... Here's what I've got now:

 

Core: 710MHz

RAM: 900MHz

 

Voltage is set to 1.5Vs... from 1.4Vs stock (I'd like to know what that applies to, just the cores, or does it pro-rate that to the ram voltage too?)

 

RAM TIMINGS:

 

tRC: 35 (from 34 stock)

tRFC: 44 (from 43 stock)

tRAS: 25 (from 24 stock)

tRP: 11 (from 10 stock)

tRCDRD: 13 (from 12 stock)

tRCDWR: 9 (from 8 stock)

tRRD: 9 (from 8 stock)

 

I've tried upping the RAM timings another 1 on everything, but all that seems to do is downgrade my performance without really allowing much more speed.

 

The 710/900 speeds are gaming stable (I played several hours of Oblivion after benchmarking to make sure) and temperature is still far-from being an issue.

 

Now, what I ask is, what else do you all think I should do next?

 

I'd really like to get them up to around 725/900 stable, but does that mean all I gotta do is up the voltage more and get the speed stable?

 

When I hit "Detect Optimal Settings" instead of (when I have the BIOS set to 690/875 stock, even though I have the voltage and timings uped) staying at 690/875 it now detects somewhere between 695-700 on the core and 880-900 on the ram.

 

I've tried 715 on the core at the settings I have now but it gives no increase, and in fact decreases in some instances, performance.

 

As I said ideally I'd love to have'em running at 725/900 or thereabouts, RAM speed really doesn't matter to me, core does as I know that's what makes the real difference. I'd be very happy if I could somehow get'em to 750/950 or somethin' like that but... yeah, I don't expect miracles LOL Anyway, what should I do next to try and get my settings to be stable at higher speeds AKA around 725/900.

 

I tried the whole "Up it 5 and test, then back it off 10 when it fails" strategy on the core, that's how I got 710 in the first place, it either fails at 720 or 725, but it'll pass at 715, but as I said, no difference is noticable between 715 and 710 as far as any benchmark goes... at least not any positive one.

 

I'm thinking if I up the voltage to 1.55 or so, it may give me some more head room on the core... should I do that or... what? Still kinda clueless about this video card BIOS modification LOL I know what I'm doing is obviously working but... don't totally know why for sure LOL

 

Thanks again.