How to over (or under-) clock 6800gs??

I have the PNY 6800gs PCIe SLI card which supposed comes
"pre-overclocked" and I can't figure out how to change any of its
clock settings at all. The nVidia control panel doesn't seem to
allow control over this.

The reason I ask is that sometimes when I put any kind of stress on
this AMD dual core 3800+ system, such playing a video in windows media
player, or playing a game, the system will freeze, lock up, reboot,
etc.

Ideas, anyone?

Thanks...

In article , Tiberius
says...
I have the PNY 6800gs PCIe SLI card which supposed comes
"pre-overclocked" and I can't figure out how to change any of its
clock settings at all. The nVidia control panel doesn't seem to
allow control over this.

The reason I ask is that sometimes when I put any kind of stress on
this AMD dual core 3800+ system, such playing a video in windows media
player, or playing a game, the system will freeze, lock up, reboot,
etc.

Ideas, anyone?

What rating is your PSU for a start as this seems to be the first
falling point.


--
Conor

The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how
seldom they defeat us.

On Fri, 8 Dec 2006 12:12:01 -0000, Conor
wrote:

In article , Tiberius
says...
I have the PNY 6800gs PCIe SLI card which supposed comes
"pre-overclocked" and I can't figure out how to change any of its
clock settings at all. The nVidia control panel doesn't seem to
allow control over this.

The reason I ask is that sometimes when I put any kind of stress on
this AMD dual core 3800+ system, such playing a video in windows media
player, or playing a game, the system will freeze, lock up, reboot,
etc.

Ideas, anyone?

What rating is your PSU for a start as this seems to be the first
falling point.

The power supply is 450 watts. And nothing else shares the power
cables going to the video card.

Tiberius wrote:
I have the PNY 6800gs PCIe SLI card which supposed comes
"pre-overclocked" and I can't figure out how to change any of its
clock settings at all. The nVidia control panel doesn't seem to
allow control over this.

The reason I ask is that sometimes when I put any kind of stress on
this AMD dual core 3800+ system, such playing a video in windows media
player, or playing a game, the system will freeze, lock up, reboot,
etc.

Ideas, anyone?

Thanks...

Since you didn't mention it, it begs the question, do you have coolbits
enabled? For those who do not know, coolbits is the name of the reg file
that gets added to the registry to enable overclocking and other useful
features.

SLI has its own version of coolbits and there is also coolbits2, both
are hosted at Guru3D.com, which is an excellent repository of all things
graphics subsystem related.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=815

Also, to complicate things, if you are running (as you should be) the
current 90 series of Forceware Drivers from nVidia, you will find that
the new Control Panel Schema (love it or hate it) pretty much requires
that nTune be installed as well for full functionality, since both
programs get merged into one GUI (love it or hate it). Download the
latest nTune from either nVidia directly or Guru3D as well.

nTune allows you to monitor and modify low level hardware settings,
previously reserved for the BIOS only, as far as the motherboard BIOS is
designed to accommodate an application fiddling with it's private
settings. Same with Coolbits, consider it nTune for your video card.

The PSU not being up to snuff is a possible issue, and one of the first
things that should be considered, but if it's adequate for the task,
it's adequate for the task. However, I'll ask you this, if the PSU had
no written markings on it at all, no numbers, no words or diagrams...how
would you 'know' if it is adequate for the task if your PC suffers
stability problems? The answer is...part of the solution, you test it
and see if supplies the proper current under draw. Which, catch-22
style, requires you to have a PC that is stable under full load. That's
if you do not have the proper diagnostic equipment. Trying to assess a
PSU under full load, even with the help of a PSU tester, multimeter and
a kill-a-watt device, is annoying at the very least, equipment zapping
at the worst.

If you are convinced the PSU is feeding your 6800 enough current over a
+12V rail at all times, I'd then suspect the GPU core or GPU RAM as
flipping bits due to heat. They could be overspec, drop it down 5MHz at
a time, 3Mhz if you are fussy. Start with the Core speed, drop that down
until stable, then raise memory until unstable, drop memory until stable
again, then raise Core until unstable, then drop Core until stable. Fun, eh?

Good luck, issues like this can be a real panty twister, it could be
this, could be that...

It sounds like either you have an underpowered PSU for your system, which
would cause the video card symptoms you are experiencing. Or, you have
inadequate cooling in your computer case and the video card is overheating
during stressful videos.

--
DaveW

----------------
"Tiberius" wrote in message
...
I have the PNY 6800gs PCIe SLI card which supposed comes
"pre-overclocked" and I can't figure out how to change any of its
clock settings at all. The nVidia control panel doesn't seem to
allow control over this.

The reason I ask is that sometimes when I put any kind of stress on
this AMD dual core 3800+ system, such playing a video in windows media
player, or playing a game, the system will freeze, lock up, reboot,
etc.

Ideas, anyone?

Thanks...

On Fri, 8 Dec 2006 16:13:23 -0800, "DaveW" wrote:

It sounds like either you have an underpowered PSU for your system, which
would cause the video card symptoms you are experiencing. Or, you have
inadequate cooling in your computer case and the video card is overheating
during stressful videos.


I don't think it's inadequate cooling. I can see temp monitors stay
pretty stable. And the case has fans everywhere, even on the sides,
with their nice LEDs spinning around and around...

Could be an underpowered PSU though. I don't know if I can trust this
"stock" power supply. I'll buy a high end high powered one and see
what happens..

I agree the PSU may not be working right even though it is supposed to
be 420 or 450 watts.

However, to be fair, I do have a few accessories hanging off of that
as well. Five hard disks for starters (4 internal, one external - so
that one is powered separately). Plus six other USB devices (a video
cam, 2 scanners) A firewire device and an internal DVD writer. I
don't think the USB or firewire devices take much power. Or any,
especially if the device is not in use at the time. The four internal
hard drives are always powered though...




On Fri, 08 Dec 2006 15:38:53 -0500, "Mr.E Solved!"
wrote:

Tiberius wrote:
I have the PNY 6800gs PCIe SLI card which supposed comes
"pre-overclocked" and I can't figure out how to change any of its
clock settings at all. The nVidia control panel doesn't seem to
allow control over this.

The reason I ask is that sometimes when I put any kind of stress on
this AMD dual core 3800+ system, such playing a video in windows media
player, or playing a game, the system will freeze, lock up, reboot,
etc.

Ideas, anyone?

Thanks...

Since you didn't mention it, it begs the question, do you have coolbits
enabled? For those who do not know, coolbits is the name of the reg file
that gets added to the registry to enable overclocking and other useful
features.

SLI has its own version of coolbits and there is also coolbits2, both
are hosted at Guru3D.com, which is an excellent repository of all things
graphics subsystem related.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=815

Also, to complicate things, if you are running (as you should be) the
current 90 series of Forceware Drivers from nVidia, you will find that
the new Control Panel Schema (love it or hate it) pretty much requires
that nTune be installed as well for full functionality, since both
programs get merged into one GUI (love it or hate it). Download the
latest nTune from either nVidia directly or Guru3D as well.

nTune allows you to monitor and modify low level hardware settings,
previously reserved for the BIOS only, as far as the motherboard BIOS is
designed to accommodate an application fiddling with it's private
settings. Same with Coolbits, consider it nTune for your video card.

The PSU not being up to snuff is a possible issue, and one of the first
things that should be considered, but if it's adequate for the task,
it's adequate for the task. However, I'll ask you this, if the PSU had
no written markings on it at all, no numbers, no words or diagrams...how
would you 'know' if it is adequate for the task if your PC suffers
stability problems? The answer is...part of the solution, you test it
and see if supplies the proper current under draw. Which, catch-22
style, requires you to have a PC that is stable under full load. That's
if you do not have the proper diagnostic equipment. Trying to assess a
PSU under full load, even with the help of a PSU tester, multimeter and
a kill-a-watt device, is annoying at the very least, equipment zapping
at the worst.

If you are convinced the PSU is feeding your 6800 enough current over a
+12V rail at all times, I'd then suspect the GPU core or GPU RAM as
flipping bits due to heat. They could be overspec, drop it down 5MHz at
a time, 3Mhz if you are fussy. Start with the Core speed, drop that down
until stable, then raise memory until unstable, drop memory until stable
again, then raise Core until unstable, then drop Core until stable. Fun, eh?

Good luck, issues like this can be a real panty twister, it could be
this, could be that...

Well, here is something interesting.

I downloaded and installed the latest drivers from nVidia, and the
"NVIDIA Monitor" and nTune.

Now, as soon as I click on nTune or the NVIDIA Monitor icon, before
anything else appears on the monitor, the whole system freezes. No
blue screen, just a complete freeze.

I installed those Coolbits 2 reg tweaks, but without nTunes being able
to run at all, it doesn't do any good.


On Fri, 08 Dec 2006 15:38:53 -0500, "Mr.E Solved!"
wrote:

Tiberius wrote:
I have the PNY 6800gs PCIe SLI card which supposed comes
"pre-overclocked" and I can't figure out how to change any of its
clock settings at all. The nVidia control panel doesn't seem to
allow control over this.

The reason I ask is that sometimes when I put any kind of stress on
this AMD dual core 3800+ system, such playing a video in windows media
player, or playing a game, the system will freeze, lock up, reboot,
etc.

Ideas, anyone?

Thanks...

Since you didn't mention it, it begs the question, do you have coolbits
enabled? For those who do not know, coolbits is the name of the reg file
that gets added to the registry to enable overclocking and other useful
features.

SLI has its own version of coolbits and there is also coolbits2, both
are hosted at Guru3D.com, which is an excellent repository of all things
graphics subsystem related.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=815

Also, to complicate things, if you are running (as you should be) the
current 90 series of Forceware Drivers from nVidia, you will find that
the new Control Panel Schema (love it or hate it) pretty much requires
that nTune be installed as well for full functionality, since both
programs get merged into one GUI (love it or hate it). Download the
latest nTune from either nVidia directly or Guru3D as well.

nTune allows you to monitor and modify low level hardware settings,
previously reserved for the BIOS only, as far as the motherboard BIOS is
designed to accommodate an application fiddling with it's private
settings. Same with Coolbits, consider it nTune for your video card.

The PSU not being up to snuff is a possible issue, and one of the first
things that should be considered, but if it's adequate for the task,
it's adequate for the task. However, I'll ask you this, if the PSU had
no written markings on it at all, no numbers, no words or diagrams...how
would you 'know' if it is adequate for the task if your PC suffers
stability problems? The answer is...part of the solution, you test it
and see if supplies the proper current under draw. Which, catch-22
style, requires you to have a PC that is stable under full load. That's
if you do not have the proper diagnostic equipment. Trying to assess a
PSU under full load, even with the help of a PSU tester, multimeter and
a kill-a-watt device, is annoying at the very least, equipment zapping
at the worst.

If you are convinced the PSU is feeding your 6800 enough current over a
+12V rail at all times, I'd then suspect the GPU core or GPU RAM as
flipping bits due to heat. They could be overspec, drop it down 5MHz at
a time, 3Mhz if you are fussy. Start with the Core speed, drop that down
until stable, then raise memory until unstable, drop memory until stable
again, then raise Core until unstable, then drop Core until stable. Fun, eh?

Good luck, issues like this can be a real panty twister, it could be
this, could be that...

Tiberius wrote:

Well, here is something interesting.

I downloaded and installed the latest drivers from nVidia, and the
"NVIDIA Monitor" and nTune.

Now, as soon as I click on nTune or the NVIDIA Monitor icon, before
anything else appears on the monitor, the whole system freezes. No
blue screen, just a complete freeze.

I installed those Coolbits 2 reg tweaks, but without nTunes being able
to run at all, it doesn't do any good.

That sounds problematic, you should now pick and choose your startup
programs with a program like autoruns from sysinternals.com. Hoping that
the conflict between ntune and your hardware is caused by software.

That PSU still sounds like it isn't up to the task, can you temporarily
disable some of the drives and devices, physically disconnect them, to
see if that helps?

I'm gonna do even better than that! On your advice I went to Frys
today and got a 700 watt Thermaltake power supply. I'll install it
tomorrow.

Even if the PSU is not the problem, having the extra power is always a
good thing, especially when I get the second SLI card in the PC.

I think the Coolbits reg tweak actually kind of worked, since I now
see extra properties under Display Properties. I can change clock
speeds and core speeds now, as well as set the GPU fan to "always" be
on. So I set the fan to be always on, and for good measure,
overclocked the GPU a little bit more than it already was. Live
dangerous, right?

I haven't installed the new PSU yet, since I have some work to do on
this PC tonight. If I crash too much, I'll install it tonight.
Otherwise, I'm putting it in tomorrow. I'll report back here the
results...

Thanks for the advice...





On Sat, 09 Dec 2006 14:01:00 -0500, "Mr.E Solved!"
wrote:

Tiberius wrote:

Well, here is something interesting.

I downloaded and installed the latest drivers from nVidia, and the
"NVIDIA Monitor" and nTune.

Now, as soon as I click on nTune or the NVIDIA Monitor icon, before
anything else appears on the monitor, the whole system freezes. No
blue screen, just a complete freeze.

I installed those Coolbits 2 reg tweaks, but without nTunes being able
to run at all, it doesn't do any good.

That sounds problematic, you should now pick and choose your startup
programs with a program like autoruns from sysinternals.com. Hoping that
the conflict between ntune and your hardware is caused by software.

That PSU still sounds like it isn't up to the task, can you temporarily
disable some of the drives and devices, physically disconnect them, to
see if that helps?