Overclocking my 6800 & BF2

I recently used Rivatuner to overclock my Nvidia 6800 128mb card. the core clock is 325mhz, and memory 700. I used 3dmark to test all the increases i made but I think I messed up.

I got it up to 360 on the core, and 750 on the memory with nice increse in scores on 3d mark... around 8400 on 3dmark. Card ran cool, and no problems running 3dmark at all.

So I saved the settings for 345 on the core, and 725 on the memory to be safe. I saved it so that rivatuner would apply those settings to startup. When I did I noticed that the memory started really low... around 380mhz or so.

I played Rome total war, no problem, I played call of duty united offensive, no problem. I then played BF2, and noticed that on the vehicles there were some strange kind of shadows, nothing crazy but not normal for sure. Not sure if I just never noticed it being there, but I am pretty sure it was not. The game itself seemed to run a little choppier too. Nothing to make it unplayable but just not quite the same.

So I go back to rivatuner, and reset it back to the default speeds, still the same.

So I rolled back my drivers thinking maybe the latest Nvida drivers were the problem. Still the same thing.

Do you think I did damage to my card? Is there any way to fix a problem like this. Any help would be appreciated.

One other note I did unlockk the pipes from 12 to 16. I did that a long time ago, with no problems.

Other hardware
prescott pf 3.06
2gb ultra pc3200 ram
soundblaster live sound
P4M80-M7 mobo
350w ATX power
160gb seagate hd

 

I think it is either the unlocked pipelines or a power supply issue.
Case No 1: The pipelines of some cores are sometimes faulty, that's why they are locked. If they are not really bad you can unlock them with possitive results. It seems that your pipelins were faulty indeed. Try setting your card's clock back to default or disabling again the unlocked pipes. But I am afraid you will have to abandon the whole tweaking attempt. This takes us to ...

Case No2: I am sure your PSU could hardly bear 2MB of memory ,a video card and CPU of average consumption. Now that you overclocked the GPU it's even worse. Try this: use your pc with only 1MB of memory and the GPU clock back to default. If the problem disapears it is clearly a PSU inefficiency. You should either by a new one or forget overclocking.

 

Sailor thank you very much for the reply. Oddly enough I have been wanting to upgrade my Vid card in the future, and got a good deal on an Ultra 500W PSU. It should be here in the next few days, so I will give that a go.

Question about the unlocked pipes... If they worked just fine before I tried to overclock, could they have gone bad during that? The reason I ask is because I have had those pipes unlocked for close to a year.

 

Yes, it is possible. Maybe your unlocked pipes are relativelly OK and the card just got messed by the overclocking. If you set the clock back to default everything should be back to normal. Since you will have a better PSU you may even be able to keep the high clock frequency.

 

Does that mean that you also returned the card to 12 pp from 16?

 

No the pipelines remained at 16. Also to update I installed a 500w PSU, and the problem remains. The game though seemed to run better as a whole as a result imo.

I went into the bf2 settings and turned down the dynamic shadows, and lighting to low. That did not seem to help much.

Tonight I was thinking of cleaning out my drivers and installing the latest Nvidia drivers to see if that helps. Couple of others thoughts. I recently installed the 1.41 patch for BF2, and installed new drivers. I kind of get the feeling that the overclocking may not have been the cause, but rather a coincidence?

Of course if anyone else can offer advice it would be greatly apprciated.

 

Hmm, the patch possibility should be examined by someone else, I know little things and basically on hardware. Still you have to try locking the pipes again.

 

Sailor I will do that tonight, and report back. Thank you.

 

Sailor sorry to just report back, but you were right it was the unlocked pipes. Everything is back to normal now. gfx card is overclocked as well as the PSU, and no strange pixels anymore. Thank you very much.