AGP bus at 100Mhz? and problem removing heatsink

[BLoop]

Can running your AGP vid card at 100Mhz damage it? I had my GTS2 running stable for about a half an hour before I decided to switch back to 2/3 FSB because I wasn't sure what the implications might be. If the card is staying cool and is stable under load, do I need to worry about anything else?

Also, I'm having trouble getting the retail HS off. It's really stuck on hard with tape and doesn't seem to want to budge. I didn't want to try and pry it off with a knife because I'm affraid I might gouge the surface of the chip. Any suggestions?

 

[ingenue007]

hmmm good question. anyone know?

 

[Dark4ng3l]

I know voodoo 3's are known for taking huge agp bus speeds( 100+)

 

[Techwhore]

if you can divide the cache, i'd recommend it. There's no reason to run your card at that fsb unless it's the only way the divider works out. If the cards stable that's great, but you're doing damage to it... how much, who knows... how much damage am i doing to my duron? who knows? If it works, stick with it, but like i said, if you CAN divide it, do so, you get very little gains if any at all running at that FSB

 

[han888]

your system will not post if u have 100 mhz bus for your agp, dont trust sisoft, i ever owe the a7v, and sisoft report that my agp bus is 100mhz! i am not really sure what mobo do u have bloop, but in cases the 100 mhz bus for agp is damn high, i can not still find any video card can run at that bus speed

 

[han888]

I know voodoo 3's are known for taking huge agp bus speeds( 100+)

are u sure Dark4ng3l??

 

[Deslok]

I have had V3 3000, a 2000
and my brother also had a 3000.
All ran at 100 agp with no problem whatsoever for months.

 

[PistachioByAzul]

The reason V3s can handle those high bus speeds is most likely because they don't really utilize any of the advanced features AGP technology offers.

 

[vvvvvv]

what about voodo 3 3000 pci's?

 

[Techwhore]

you'll never get your pci bus to 100mhz to find out

 

[BLoop]

Here are my specs:

Abit BX6
C633@980 1.80v
128MB Generic PC100 cas2
CL OEM GTS2 32MB
Maxtor Diamondmax 8.6G
MonsterSound MX200
Zoom External 56K

In SoftMenu I have Turbo selected so I'm actually running at 103FSB (102.5?) with the AGP divider set at 2/3. When I tried this the only change I made was to set the divider at 1/1 so the AGP bus was actually running at 103. Sisoft confirmed this. I ran 3DMark a couple of times and went from about 5650 to 5900 so I would assume that it was actually running at that speed.

Techwhore: Like you said I'm probably doing some damadge to the card, just as any kind of OCing would, but as long as I can stress the card - 3DMark for 12 hours - and remain stable then I should be allright. Right?

Any suggestions on removing the HS? I now realize that it's epoxy and not a pad holding it on. I tried freezing the card for 20 minutes and then slowly trying to cut it off with a straight razor, but I wasn't making much progress so I quit. I read somewhere of someone prying it off with pliers but I don't think I want to risk the damage. Once the HS is off, how do you get the epoxy off the chip? Do you just leave it and attach the new HS with paste?

I need my GTS2 to last for awhile, maybe for two years, some of us don't have the money for a 6 month product cycle. I'm thinking of doing a moderate OC and leave it at that but I'm still interested in what you all think about the AGP bus at 103.

-BLoop

 

[PistachioByAzul]

It's DEFINITELY not worth it to run your card at 103mhz. It could die anytime on you, there's no telling.

 

[H.A.R.M]

Yes, an increase in frequency will cause a device to run "hotter" possbily damanging the device over an extended period of time (how much, I don't know, that is why cooiling is such so important when over clocking). I've O/C my Rage 128 and I can tell you it runs hotter now too. My brother has a GTS and he has went so far as to adding: two cooling fans, made and used the $50/a tube thermaly conductive expoxy to glue custom heat sinks on the memory chips (he should really post a picture of this on Anadtech).

 

[Techwhore]

BLoop, trust me, running your card at 1/1 ratio is not a good idea. The gains you get from it are so marginal. Like you said, you got an extra 300 points on 3dmark, i'm POSITIVE you can get more by running your card at 2/3 and increasing the RAMDAC.

H.A.R.M, Ian over at 2cooltek has a GTS like your brothers, he's got pics of it with hs's on every ram chip. It's pretty neat but i think it's overkill, probably doesn't yeild much benefit

 

[BLoop]

Techwhore: What do you mean by increasing the RAMDAC? How would I go about doing it?

 

[Techwhore]

Anyone own a geforce to help BLoop out? I believe the drivers come with o/c'n software. With geforce cards you can o/c two ways. One, by increasing the GPU core speed or two, by increasing the RAMDAC, the speed of your ram. Increasing the core on geforce cards has very little benefit, though it does increase quite a bit. The problem is the card is faster than it's ram so you want to increase your ram speed instead of the core. Ask in tech support or overclocking, someone who owns one and o/c's it will help ya out further.

 

[PistachioByAzul]

You don't increase the RAMDAC, you increase the core and memory frequencies. You can do this with the Nvidia reference drivers, but I don't recommend it. You will still only get marginal performance gains.

 

[BLoop]

I know how to increase the RAM frequency it was the RAMDAC part that had me stumped.

Well, I guess the concensus is not to - that it's not worth the potential damage, but I hope I get some input from some other people maybe even someone who's tried it. I really doubt that I will, as I said I need this card to last, but OCing any video card, be it core, memory, or bus, has these same drawbacks. I'm wondering if overclocking the AGP bus is any more dangerous than OCing the core for example, or do the same principles apply to both. OC until its stable and you should be fine although you are most likely shortening the lifetime of the card. Obviously OC the bus is more of a risk because it's all or nothing. You can't gradually increase the frequency like you can with the memory and the core.

I was just curious if anyone else has done this.

-Bloop