I have a retail Radeon 8500 that I have been running great for a few weeks now, but I can't overclcok the damn thing. How are all of you especially you Mutha Funker, achieving such insane speeds on your cards? I am running at 290(Core)/285(Mem) using Rage3D Tweak. Any higher and I get BSOD's and lockups.
Someone please help me... I'm only getting 4743 3D Marks, while other are in the 8000s with the same card.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
unfrgivn
If god hadn't intended for us to eat animals then why'd he make them out of meat?
I have a Retail Radeon 8500 so I don't think the pencil trick will do anything for me. It seems it's only a voltage mod which increases the voltage of the OEM/LE Radeon's to Retail level. Is there anything I can do, or is my only option putting ramsinks and and better cooling on the chip?
-unfrgivn
If god hadn't intended for us to eat animals then why'd he make them out of meat?
Originally posted by unfrgivn: I have a Retail Radeon 8500 so I don't think the pencil trick will do anything for me. It seems it's only a voltage mod which increases the voltage of the OEM/LE Radeon's to Retail level. Is there anything I can do, or is my only option putting ramsinks and and better cooling on the chip?
-unfrgivn
Obvious stuff first... What are the specs of your system? Is it an ATI Retail card or one made by a third-party? You got the latest 4-in-1's installed? 4743 might not be bad for something fairly middle-range.
The pencil trick works for retail cards too. All you do is start with a higher default voltage. You can probably push 1.8/3.8V without having to worry about extra cooling. With RAMsinks and a good GPU cooler the maximum safe limits are about 1.9-2/3.9-4V I reckon.
Worth checking the last two digits on your memory ID code to see if they are "36", although all Retail boards should come with 3.6ns RAM.
You say you get lock-ups and BSODs. What operating system are you running? I've never gotten a BSOD from overclocking the 8500, only freezes. And if you are overclocking the memory you should expect visual artfacts way before you get any kind of dead-lock. You can go really LSD-crazy before the memory locks the card. Freezes are usually a sign of the core overheating so back it down to 275MHz and see how far you can push the memory first. Then reverse the process and see if the two overclocks marry.
290/285MHz isn't that bad, to be honest. I'd expect more out of the core though. It might be worth taking the heatsink off, scraping off the crap and re-installing it with some AS2. You could also position an 80mm fan to blow directly onto it. That way you don't void your warranty (in the eyes of the retailer) and you can see if additional core cooling will get you further.
Hope this helps, dude. 290/285MHz isn't bad and if your system specs are quite low then that'd explain the low 3DMark score.
Actually, just re-reading my orignal (slightly insane) post on the pencil mod, I see I reached...
Core/memory: 1.72/3.75V, 299.3/299.3MHz
This was when I modded to try and reach Retail voltages. Since then there have been varying reports of what the voltages of the retail cards actually are. It's quite common to see Retail boards with voltages of 1.7/3.5V (~Rage3D forums). This would probably give about a 300/280MHz overclock, so your results could be absolutely within expectations. Might be worth getting a voltmeter and checking them out.
RAMsinks etc will help, but not as much as using extra cooling and doing the pencil mod. Heat isn't really an issue at the standard voltage/clockspeed but RAMsinks really come into their own when you crank everything.
I can't fit it in my signature, but currently my 8500 voltages are 1.82/3.82V and I attacked the board so now it looks like this...
I have the latest 4-in-1's installed, and I'm using the 3286 drivers that you recommended to me. I'm running Win2K and I have never had a BSOD on this OS until now and I know it's an ATI problem, because the error occurs with some ATI****.dll.
If I use the pencil trick, where do I up the Radeon voltages? I don't see any options for that in Rage 3D Tweak. Do I have to use another program?
Thanks,
unfrgivn
If god hadn't intended for us to eat animals then why'd he make them out of meat?
You should be getting slightly more than that in 3dmark IMHO. You said you were using the 3286's? What OS are you running (sorry if I missed this). I would up your drivers to say the 6043's if you are running XP, 2k... Try some of the newer beta drivers for whatever os you have though... I think the 3286 series is pretty old. I really think you should be atleast in the 5500-6000 range with that system.
As I understand it the pencil trick physically ups the voltage by allowing more electricity to flow through the resistor you pencil. You wouldn't be unlocking anything similar to AMD cpu's. You are physically altering it by adding the graphite. Anyway this is one of the reasons to take it slow and use a multimeter.
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