Radeon 9700 acting wierd...

[NorthShoreRob]

I just purchased a ATI Radeo 9700 by PowerColor. When I look at the info it reads as a 9700 pro. I heard from a friend that it was overclocked to the specs of a 9700 pro, is this true? What is happening is, I tried to run a benchmark program and about test 3 of 17 it the monitos has all these little fuzzy stuff and looks like the pixels are all discolored. Is it running too hot? If it is overclocked, is there any way I can turn down the settings to see it will solve this problem? I'm a newbie so can someone shed some light on this.

Thanks in advance,
Rob

 

[rogue1979]

You are overclocking it too far. The core should easily reach the defualt 9700 Pro speed of 325MHz. Most of the Radeon 9500-9700 cores seem to reach at least 340MHz or more. However, the memory on the 9700 is not rated as fast as the Pro. Some people are only getting 295MHz or so, with 310-315 being rare. Even a actual Pro only reaches 335-350MHz for the memory speeds. These are only appoximate guidelines, all video cards can vary from the norm.

Welcome to Anandtech forums

 

[NorthShoreRob]

Thanks for the reply! okay, I dont know what the term is but how do I "underclock" the video card if its overclocked too much? I just installed it as is and didnt do any adjustments to it (I dont know how to overclock) but tis acting this way. Can you tell me how I can fix this?

Thanks again and thanks for the welcome!

 

[Budmantom]

Download coolbits and underclock it with that utility.

 

[rogue1979]

I misunderstood, I thought you were already overclocking to 9700 Pro levels. Sounds like a possible overheating issue?

 

[filmore crashcart]

What your describing may very well be overheating.... I had the same appearence with mine and discovered that I had too much dust accumulation on the heatsink blocking the heat conduction.
If you bought a PowerColor OEM 9700 pro, you may have gotten one of their "lite" pro models with a clock speed of 295/264 - not really a pro. I don't know if this is what your friend is referring to.

 

[FearoftheNight]

if you wish to reduce heat and clock i believe radeonator and rage3d tweaker will suit ur use.

 

[NorthShoreRob]

Wow!, you guys are awesome! this is my first post here and I cant believe how helpful you all are. I'll see if I can cool it down a bit and see if I can use those utilities mentioned above.

Thanks again