First Overclocking Experience, Help Needed

[nightelf]

Just got my Chaintech GeForce4 Ti4200 Special Edition to Ti4400 speeds without a problem, and I am starting to figure out the joys of overclocking 😀.

Well, I have a few questions that I have not been able to answer using Google:

-What is a decent overclocking utility? I downloaded coolbits which seems to add a registry entry to enable overclocking through the windows display manager, but it *only* lets me go up to 315Mhz/560Mhz which is not enough. With the nice heatsinks and fan that come stock with my gfx card and decent case cooling, I believe I can get up to Ti4600 Speeds (300mhz/650Mhz). Can someone point me in the right direction?

-How do I know when enough is enough 🙂 ???? Are 3DMark2001 and PCMark2002 ultimate tests of stability? I need a reliable and consistent way of testing the stability of my card and system once I get up to speeds like that. And what about heat? Should I just keep checking my case temps, or should I open the side of the case and touch the heatsinks or what?? How do i know when my preccciousssss is getting too hot?

Here are my specs:

Antec SB1040 Case With 2 Intake and 2 Outake 80mm fans
MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU
80GB Western Digital JB (Special Edition, the one with a 8MB cache)
Chaintech GeForce4 Ti4200 Special Edition (with heatsinks and fan)
Kingston 256MB PC2100 DDR
AMD Athlon XP 1900+ with stock heatsink
TEAC 40x/12x/28x or something like that

Thanks in advance...

 

[Renob]

I myself use Powerstrip to OC my vid card, its a nice little program.

Use Prime95 to test stability. Run it for at least 6 hours if you have not errors then I would say its Real stable

Should I just keep checking my case temps

If your pushing it to the very edge then yes do watch temps. When I used to get real crazy with my OCed AMD systems on real hot days my system would become unstable.

 

[gaidin123]

Well first off, I like to use nvmax, a freeware utility that lets you overclock and do a LOT more to any nVidia card.

Enough is enough when your system becomes too unstable for you. 😉 I suggest using Prime95's Torture Test for a great test of overclocked CPU stability, and 3dmark 2001SE along with Quake3 timedemo loops (timedemo 1 set of course) for graphics card and CPU testing. Depending on how Q3 crashes (or probably most any other game) you can tell whether your it's the GPU or the memory on the card crapping out.

For testing purposes, I'd just leave the sides of your case completely off unti you've found the max your hardware can handle in ideal, cool conditions. Then, put the case back on and slowly back off on your overclock(s) until everything stays stable at a noise level you can stand.

Good luck!

Gaidin

 

[Duvie]

Prime is not going to test the stability of the vid card....Use prime to test stability with oc'd cpu's and memory...

I would use 3dmark2k1SE and some demos of some games....

Pcmark2002 is not a stability tester of vid cards...

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: Duvie
Prime is not going to test the stability of the vid card....Use prime to test stability with oc'd cpu's and memory...

I would use 3dmark2k1SE and some demos of some games....

Pcmark2002 is not a stability tester of vid cards...

Exactly what I was thinking. Prime 95 is for torturing CPU's (and the whole system really although it doesn't push the video subset too much). Use tests like 3Dmark 2k1 SE and your favourite 3d game to benchmark. If it's stable in the games you play (and by stable I mean it should never crash), then that should be fine.

What I do is keep pushing the GPU/RAM speeds up until they're unstable. Then I back them down 20-40 MHz each and leave it at that.