Overclocking Radeon 9250

Hey,

As you know I'm trying to overclock my ATi Radeon 9250. I'm using ATiTool and when I am overclocking and scan for artifacts using the program it never shows any errors...

I thought this was good at the start, but then I put the Memory Clock WAY too high and no errors still.

I want a program or way of scanning for artifacts, time is not a problem, I just don't want my card frying because of the overclocking.

Regards,

Josh

 

just use the find mem and core clock... let it run until it finds erros and then leave it at the highest stable speed... let us know what you get when you are done!

edit: also you have to set clock for the settings before it takes effect...

 

Yeah, I always click Set Clock and save it to my "Overclocked" profile. Then load it again.

And yeah, when I do that I get no errors and the Memory Clock goes from 166Mhz to 993Mhz, but I wasn't watching, and when I looked at it when it was 993Mhz I put it back down quickly.

 

hm
try using a different program for ocing
try radlinker and i dont know of any other artifact testers
try ocing with radlinker and still usin atitool for testing...

 

I downloaded RadLinker from a site and installed it but I can't find it in Program Files on my Start Menu.

Then I downloaded it from MajorGeeks and it installed but I still can't find it.

Is it meant to do this, or what?

 

Hmmm I OC mine and it started finding artifacts at from 240>~277 for GPU clock and from 200>~211 for mem, this was after 1 hour on the GPU clock then reset to default (i.e. 240) and then 1 hour for mem. I then backed both off to say 275/209 to ensure stability and saved as OC profile.

Which ATI Tray tools are you using? The above was done using the "standalone" ATI Tray Tool v0.24, but I currently have the modified Radeon Omega Drives v3.8.231 based on ATI Catalyst v6.3 installed which has the ATI Tray Tools v1.0.5.824 in the bundle and I started to do my OC, GPU first, with it but I did notice it seemed to increase very quickly in comparison to the "standalone" ATI Tray Tool v0.24, didn't have the "heat up phase" and thus I have hesitated for the moment. I will have a longer go with this newer one and post back the results later. After reading your thread I may reinstall the older tool as it "hit the wall" like and when I expected it to. Keep you posted and anything you find pass it on.

 

When I use ATiTool Tray or whatever it is, when I click "Show 3D Renderer" under Artifact tester it says:

"No support for Compressed Textiles in OpenGL! Please update your driver"

Then another error when I click Ok.

If I have to update my drivers what drivers would I look for on the ATi Website?

 

Okay it will depend on your OS. ATI has just released ATI Catalyst v6.4 but from what I have read it is a bit buggy and recieving "mixed reviews", some are finding no probs but others are saying stick with v6.3 so I have!!!!

ATI link for XP OS:

https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=27

I have v6.3 but found them a bit resource hungary (4 processes in task manager) and don't like CCC so I downloaded the Omega Optimised driver pack (only 2 processes and they are BETTER than standard) from here:

http://www.guru3d.com/
and links to here:
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1361

You will have to become a member of the site but well worth it!!!

Stay away from the NGO ATI optimised drivers as I was getting in-game artifacts and poorer quality compared to standard (ATI v6.3) as were others experiencing probs with them.

You must uninstall older drivers properly:

- Download Driver Cleaner Pro (Prof Edition) and install ( http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745 )
- Use the ATI uninstall utility or goto Windows Add/Remove programs and uninstall ATI Display Driver, ATI CCC and ATI WDM (if you have it) basically I think anything to do with ATI, but post what you find in the Add/Remove List and I will tell you what has to go.
- Restart comp and go into "Safe Mode", when it states new hardware found install drivers just click "cancel" 1*.
- Start Drive Cleaner Pro (DCP) (MAKE SURE YOU READ THE HELP FILE!!!!!!!), use the Cab Cleaner tool and select all files that were previously removed.
- Go to DCP main screen and "select multiple cleaning filters", now add all ATI files you previously removed ("ATI" is the display driver file) start the cleaning process.
- This will effectively scrub the registry of all ATI entries, ensuring a "clean install" and minimise the potential of conflict issues with the new driver package.
- Restart the computer and do 1* then install the new driver package, restart and you have your new drivers PROPERLY INSTALLED!!

This may seem a lot of mucking around but it is well worth it ensures a "clean install' of any new ATI drivers

 

By the way 993MHz for our card imho is impossible and I think your are getting a "FALSE READING" otherwise your card would be cooking a 3 course meal.

 

Thanks for the in-depth Instructions. I can't find any of my ATi stuff except ATiTool and ATi Tray Tool.

 

Ok, I installed Catalyst, and that Omega thing.

When I open ATiTools>Hardware it says Overclock Disabled.

So I can't see if I can search for artifacts or not. How do I enable ocing?

 

Look you need to be really clear here you should have only installed EITHER the Omega optimsed drive package OR the ATI Catalyst driver suite. One or the other that is partly why I provided so much detail or you may experience conflict issues or at bare minimum unnnessary resource useage.

Any way I used the ATI Tray Tools that was bundeled with the Omega Optimised driver pack and OC GPU from 240>305 but CPU was 66-67C. Strangely when I reset (i.e. GPU to 240) and started tesing mem it only went down from 200>160????????? Probably have to look at the ratios set up??? but the above temps have made me leave it for the time being until heat management is better. At least it hit the wall!!!

This is a very important point josh you MUST have a background environment monitor while OC. OC of the sys is torturing it (even Video) and if not careful you will damage something permanently!!!!!

EVEREST Home is good for this and free:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

 

I have EVEREST. I'm not sure what you're getting at, I have uninstalled Catalyst.

And now I just have Omega Optimised Drivers. I can't get to the Overclocking Option in ATiTools Tray because it says "Overclocking disabled".

 

With the Radeon Omega pack I just find that I can OC I can't understand what is happening for you?

I right click on the ATI Tray Tool and open the 3D Renderer and start the OC, but importantly you can see my environment monitor below it so I can watch temps/volts/RPM's and back it off if temps are getting to hot.

 

This is what i'm talking about...

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/5452/overclockingprob9fx.jpg

 

Okay how about you try and download the "standalone" ATI Tray Tool v0.25 from 3DGurus.com and see if this works. We could hack the BIOS on your GPU but you have to have it fullly sorted in your head before I will give you this link!!!!! Things can and will really hot up and if you don't have a good understanding of thermal mang, I will not be held responsible!

 

Woot, thanks man. I got the scanning work. Thanks heaaaaaaaps mate.

Also, I'm not American so I won't sue you

I don't think i'll be getting into hardcore BIOS hacking, well not yet anyway, but i'd appreciate the link.

Thanks again!

 

Good,good just make sure you monitor things! Tell you what I have a link for a ghetto mod on our Vid Cards, lower temps by 10C and ~12$ AUD. Moniotr your sys env and your CPU if OC.

 

My GPU doesn't have thermal device

More info pls

 

Also, I overclocked the Memory Clock from 166Mhz to 200Mhz... Should that be any problem? I'm not getting any artifacts, but I'm afraid of it still not working..

And could someone please tell me how much my default Memory Clock could be overclocked to relatively safely? Default = 166

 

as long as it doesnt glitch in games and stop working... even if it glitches you can just reset it and youll be fine

 

Okay I dont have any thermal sensors on my GPU but when I OC it I can see my CPU temps increase significantly! So I use this as my indicator as well as mobo/HDD temp.

I noticed that earlier your mem @166MHz what is you GPU at??? The normal way to write it is GPU/mem so in my case 240/200 OC to 277/210. Taking mem to 200 should be fine just monitor your CPU temps with EVEREST and make sure they don't siginificantly increase. To mod the card and lower temps have a look at the top article.

http://www.short-media.com/review.php?c=39
here it is
http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=271

I'm considering doing something similar to this but on the bottom to cool the heatsink as it has no fan and will exhaust the heat quickly.

 

My normal is 240/166 And I've got it at: 246/220. That's a 2% Engine OC and a 34% Memory OC.

I can't find the temps of my CPU, but my HDD is 40 celcius, it usually 40-45 without oc, when i've used it for over 2 hours.

 

Thats pretty good for the mem but increases in GPU will make the bigger difference. Basically GPU and mem (vid card RAM) equate to CPU and RAM for Video/Graphics and thus increasing the PU (processing unit) will always give a bigger performance hit than RAM but will also cause sig heat generation.

When you say you can't find CPU temps is that using EVEREST?!? Should be in the "Computer > Sensor" section.

 

Oh, there is only the HDD Temp there.

 

Also, what would you recommend me overclock up to, but go no further.
As in what would be a relatively safe overclock percentage. 10% oc, 50% oc.

I need the percentages for both, Memory Clock and Core Clock.

 

Thats weird are you getting CPU and mobo temps in BIOS?!?

As far as OC goes aim for 10% at most until you can monitor system temps in some way. My HDD temp is pretty constant but CPU fluctuates significantly with activity so I wouldn't want to rely on HDD temp as an indicator!

 

Nah, my hardware is "old", about 3 years now or two. But just the HDD temp shows, it's 42 right now.

I overclocked it to 250/270, I think that seems like the limit, because when I go up more the screen goes black and weird pictures show in the wrong places.

Do you think that would be fine or not?

Also, when I play Dawn Of War now it opens in a window, not full screen. How do I change that back to Full-Screen?

 

It sounds like your suffering "artifacts" and impaired game performance, basically Vid card instability. Thus I would back it off. So your mem is at 270?!? Which tool are you using? What sort of system cooling do you have?
Try 245/265 and play Dawn of War again, don't know how to get it to Fullscreen maybe something to do with resolution settings???

I have a front inlet 2 side inlets and 1 outlet plus my PSU fans but I still hit 67C the other day w 305/200. I am going to try 290/210 and then do a torture test, eg. Prime95 and monitor CPU temps. If it stays under 65C then I will go with that.

I'd personally be concerned that I couldn't monitor CPU temps. I would recommend you go into BIOS > PC Health (or something to that affect) and set your "System Shutdon Temp" to 80C (or lower 75C if possible) at least this way if you can't monitor your CPU temps the system will shutdown and stop you doing any permanent damage to any of the other hardware.

At the end of the day it is up to you but I will say be catious and undertake a torture testing prog to ensure stability.

Other options are to tweak the BIOS on the card (I have an app for this) and tighten the mem timings which may give another 1-2%.

 

I wouldn't normally bother with 1or 2% but It'd be educational

May I have the app?

I fixed DOW, it was Reso settings..

Yeah the black screen and that were artifacts i'd say so I backed off and went from 256/280 to 250/270. And now i can play BF 2 yay!

Thanks everyone for your help, once again!

I honestly have no idea what cooling system I have, as it's stock. Also, thanks for that PC Health thing.

 

I take no responsiblity and I haven't used either yet as I am tweaking sys mem at the moment and still testing.

RaBiT:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=872

Also of interest:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=609

Tell me how you get on am interested.

Have you got a Video Benchmark?!? so you can assess the settings improvements?

 

When I click Bench it says some crap about Drivers not up-to-date. Is there another prog I can use?

Also, when I play some games (it was happening before) it goes to the Blue Screen Of Death and says that the memory dump is complete

 

just try updating ur drivers... or use the drivers from here ....
omegadrivers.net

 

When I download the latest one and extract it, Symantec says it's a virus. And then when I delete it, it goes crazy with TMP file viruses.

Can you tell me if it is really a virus?

 

I can't be certain I just get my drivers from guru3d.com and haven't had any probs.