How do you "lock-in" your overclock on a Radeon?

[The Sauce]

Looks like the overclocking gods have smiled on me again. Got my 5850 to 900/1300 @ stock volts and cooling. How do I store those settings so it boots at those speeds without having to run GPU tool every time I boot?

 

[The-Noid]

Looks like the overclocking gods have smiled on me again. Got my 5850 to 900/1300 @ stock volts and cooling. How do I store those settings so it boots at those speeds without having to run GPU tool every time I boot?

Rivatuner. Nice clocks.

 

[happy medium]

I use MSI afterburner and got my 5750 to 910 1375,but I run it lower day to day.
It locks the overclock in and when you start windows it will auto set it for you.

 

[taltamir]

you can flash the firmware, there is a tool that can modify your existing firmware with new values and flash it back onto the drive. (I think its called ati firmware tool or something).
but it is highly NOT recommended... just set rivatuner to apply the settings at startup.

 

[The Sauce]

Yah, I don't want to flash the BIOS if I can avoid it. I thought MSI tool did not lock the clock speeds unless you flashed the BIOS. I'll try Rivatuner. I think I used that waaay in the past on other cards.

 

[The Sauce]

Tried Rivatuner. Latest version. No option to adjust clock speeds. What's up with that?

 

[kalrith]

ATITool is another software I've used in the past. You might try that one.

I personally flashed the BIOS on my 2900Pro, because that was the only way to edit the fan speeds (which were way too loud even in 2D mode).

 

[The Sauce]

Just checked. Most recent version of ATItool was 2006. Thinking there may be some issues.

 

[The Sauce]

Still not working...

 

[happy medium]

Figured it out. I can't believe that I am the first person to hit this obstacle overclocking their Radeon, but no one here knew and I could not find it anywhere on the web. I'll post the solution for reference.

MSI Afterburner let's you load clock settings on reboot (as someone said), but it will not let you set the clock speeds beyond defaults on the 5800 series. You have to use AMD GPU Clock Tool first, set the clocks, then go to MSI Afterburner, re-set the clocks there (it will take it then), then set it to hold those clocks on reboot. Whew. Someone needs to come out with a better way to do this without flashing your BIOS (and killing your warrantee).

I posted this a while back.

To overclock beyond 870 core I used EVGA's overclocking utility then installed Afterburner after I overclocked with Evga's precision. The msi utility will reconize my overclocked numbers as being stock and allow me to overclock further. It also works with overdrive with MSI or evga tools.

After I did the above I could set my core clocks as high as 1040 and memory over 1440.


Both MSI afterburner and the Evga tool save my clocks and restart my overclock after I reboot. Overdrive also saves my clocks after reboot.

Mabe I don't quite get what your saying?

 

[Painman]

Figured it out. I can't believe that I am the first person to hit this obstacle overclocking their Radeon, but no one here knew and I could not find it anywhere on the web. I'll post the solution for reference.

MSI Afterburner let's you load clock settings on reboot (as someone said), but it will not let you set the clock speeds beyond defaults on the 5800 series. You have to use AMD GPU Clock Tool first, set the clocks, then go to MSI Afterburner, re-set the clocks there (it will take it then), then set it to hold those clocks on reboot. Whew. Someone needs to come out with a better way to do this without flashing your BIOS (and killing your warrantee).

Afterburner can handle higher OCs without help from GPU Clock Tool or a BIOS flash. Open your Afterburner installation folder, and inside MSIAfterburner.cfg, look for:

[ATIADLHAL]
EnableUnofficialOverclocking

Just set that to 1 and save the file, jumping through the usual UAC hoops if applicable. Restart the app, and you should be good to go.

However, just like with GPU Clock Tool, your card will run at the OC speed all the time and never throttle down. If you want to keep the power saving features, you'll have to flash.

 

[Phil1977]

You could use the normal ATI CCC and live with 870 / 1300 clocks?

It remembers your overclock settings.

 

[The Sauce]

However, just like with GPU Clock Tool, your card will run at the OC speed all the time and never throttle down. If you want to keep the power saving features, you'll have to flash.

Hmm...ok. Talk to me about this flashing.

 

[The Sauce]

You could use the normal ATI CCC and live with 870 / 1300 clocks?

It remembers your overclock settings.

The maximum CCC Overdrive allows me is 775/1125. That's a sad little overclock, but I might consider it if it will allow power saving feature to remain on.

 

[happy medium]

The power saving features can be set too. My card clocks down to 700 1100 idle,but goes back up to 870 1325 when gaming.

There is a problem with the power saving features (low clocks) and grey screens and crashing.

My card likes to have higher clocks at idle for flash content and HD movies are flickering. To stay stable I enable higher clocks when idle.

There is a hot fix for this problem out now. I havent tried it, because is seems to do the same thing I allready have done manually, set idle clocks higher.

 

[Phil1977]

The maximum CCC Overdrive allows me is 775/1125. That's a sad little overclock, but I might consider it if it will allow power saving feature to remain on.

Wow that is quite interesting...

My 5750 allows me to go to 870 / 1400. It is stable at 870 / 1350.

Yes it does still use power savings.

 

[The Sauce]

The power saving features can be set too. My card clocks down to 700 1100 idle,but goes back up to 870 1325 when gaming.

So how do you do that? Does it happen by itself or do you have to do something special? Because that would be ok with me and I'd rather not flash.

 

[The Sauce]

Wow that is quite interesting...

My 5750 allows me to go to 870 / 1400. It is stable at 870 / 1350.

Yes it does still use power savings.

Yah, I know. I don't think it's just me either. All the reviews on the 5850 on the net say the same thing. CCC won't permit higher than 775/1125 - preset maximums on their clock settings. And you are right. Power saving features still work with CCC... I wish there was a hack out there to raise the clock limits in CCC.

 

[happy medium]

So how do you do that? Does it happen by itself or do you have to do something special? Because that would be ok with me and I'd rather not flash.

My minimum clocks in overdrive are 700, 1148 ,and overdrive uses that when i'm idle.

It used to go all the way down to 115 core and something memory, I can't remember.

From playing with msi and evga tool combined with overdrive, it just happened.

I unistalled both evga and msi utilities and just used overdrive and I noticed it. I just left it that way.

I don't want to play around with it,because I might scew it up.
Sorry I couldn't answer you question.

 

[The Sauce]

I'm still stuck here. This is what I have tried:

1. MSI Afterburner - will not allow me to set anything above defaults. I did the hack Painman recommended. I can enter higher values with that but as soon as I click "Apply" it immediately resets the values to default (725/1000). I can get the values to stick by using GPU tool to set them first, but then it won't keep them at reboot.

2. EVGA Precision - same as MSI problem.

3. CCC - allows max o/c of 775/1125 but then resets to stock on reboot.

Am I stuck flashing the BIOS here? I bought this card because I heard it was a great overclocker, and it is, but I can't use it overclocked...very frustrating. The only option I have is to open GPU tool and set them manually every time I start the computer. Not a good option. Can anyone help?

 

[Voo]

RivaTuner works fine for my 4870 and also remembers the settings when restarting. So what are your problems using it? No high enough values possible?

 

[The Sauce]

RivaTuner works fine for my 4870 and also remembers the settings when restarting. So what are your problems using it? No high enough values possible?

MSI afterburner and EVGA Prescision are just new skins for RivaTuner. The old Rivatuner does not allow overclocking on the 5800 series. The options are disabled in the interface.

 

[The Sauce]

Ok, I think I have something here. When I built the system I put a GeForce 7800GT in there at first since mny 5850 was not here yet. I just uninstalled the Catalysts, Driver Sweeper'ed in Safe Mode, reinstalled the Catalysts. Afterburner is still quirky and won't take all clock settings but I was able to get it to take 850/1250 and hold those for reboot. May just have to leave it there for now and be happy. Either that or I am editing/flashing BIOS's. I'm still bothered that this defeats power saving features though...

 

[happy medium]

Disable CCC and reinstall MSI (when unistalling tell MSI not to remember your settings) and overclock with MSI.

CCC is blocking your overclock with MSI.

10.1 drivers are giving me headaches also.
With the 9.12's I was able to overclock easier and higher.

 

[Occ]

it appears you have been clock blocked.