GPU Overclocking

[msattler]

I have not tried it, and will not.
I personally would be very wary about mucking about with the bios on a vid card.
Unless you can easily get back into it should you make some modifications that cause the card to crash.
With the Precision Tool, I have never had a problem.....it seems to fall back to safe settings if you push too hard.
It can auto launch with each boot into Windows to start the card running at your OCd settings.

Maybe somebody who has crashed a card by OCing in  the bios can comment how the recovery process went.

[Frizz]

How can I prevent my NV card from falling back from 3D clocks to 2D speed after I've pushed it to hard (or lets better say: after it THINKS I've pushed it to hard) ?

This is pretty annoying because the only way to get back to 3D clocks is to reboot the system. This is especially annoying when there is no real reason for the downclocking to 2D: For example when an OpenCL program runs out of memory and returns an error, the clocks sometimes go to 2D ... and this happens quite frequently while developing 

[msattler]

How can I prevent my NV card from falling back from 3D clocks to 2D speed after I've pushed it to hard (or lets better say: after it THINKS I've pushed it to hard) ?

This is pretty annoying because the only way to get back to 3D clocks is to reboot the system. This is especially annoying when there is no real reason for the downclocking to 2D: For example when an OpenCL program runs out of memory and returns an error, the clocks sometimes go to 2D ... and this happens quite frequently while developing 

Dunno about 3d and 2d.......
In the past when my cards have fallen back due to excessive OCing, I have sometimes been able to shock them back into the OC speed by running GPU-Z.......it must query the card and somehow restart it.
But if it keeps falling back, I know I have OCd too far, and must change my settings in the EVGA Precision Tool that I use to set the OC.  And sometimes I just have to reboot to set everything right again.

I have found that the latest drivers will downclock when the GPU is not being used for crunching, but ramp right back up again once crunching commences.........really cool, that.  Try the latest drivers, if you are not already.

Meow meow.

[glennaxl]

I have not tried it, and will not.
I personally would be very wary about mucking about with the bios on a vid card.
Unless you can easily get back into it should you make some modifications that cause the card to crash.
With the Precision Tool, I have never had a problem.....it seems to fall back to safe settings if you push too hard.
It can auto launch with each boot into Windows to start the card running at your OCd settings.

Maybe somebody who has crashed a card by OCing in  the bios can comment how the recovery process went.

I never had a crash by OCing in the bios because I tested it first with Precision Tool or RivaTuner. Once the gpu is stable, then I flash it into the bios so i can get rid of the software which is using a little resource (but still a resource that could accumulate to a day of crunching in a long run -1yr?)

In case you messed up (like what I did, messing up the 2d/3d for test that i got fuzzy screen at logon), you can always re-flash it in DOS using bootable usb stick and use the original bios - that is if you still see something on the screen. If the screen is totally blank, use another computer with working gpu and re-flash the broken gpu from there.

[glennaxl]

How can I prevent my NV card from falling back from 3D clocks to 2D speed after I've pushed it to hard (or lets better say: after it THINKS I've pushed it to hard) ?

This is pretty annoying because the only way to get back to 3D clocks is to reboot the system. This is especially annoying when there is no real reason for the downclocking to 2D: For example when an OpenCL program runs out of memory and returns an error, the clocks sometimes go to 2D ... and this happens quite frequently while developing 

Depends on what tool you are using. In RivaTuner, there is a way to prevent it - see here

Also in the latest driver (I can't remember when did it start), make sure the power management mode is set to performance in nvidia control panel -> manage 3d settings.

I used to have this downclock to 2d issue and other issues (driver crashes)  but when I did the OCing in the bios, my system is more stable. Come to think of it, using software to OC and other stuff will lead to a crash when the OC software failed to inform the system - especially for us crunchers, when the system is at 100% load. Its like when seti app crash, then driver restarts but then the OC software never get informed that the driver has restarted so stuck at 2d (a system restart will get you back to 3d).

Personally I just think that OC software is just the middle man. Why would i need a middle man if i can buy directly from the manufacture, distributor,wholesaler and what not?

[SciManStev]

Thank you msattler and Vyper for the information. I will try both products and see how they do. The question I still have is how do you get to the bios on a GPU (GTX 480)? I didn't know you could do that.

Steve

I posted it here. Its very straight forward - you save, modify then write .   Let me know if you need further assistance.

Thank you, I must have been blind as a bat, as I originally read right over it without seeing it. I will poke around a bit and see what my biois says.

Steve

[Frizz]

Depends on what tool you are using. In RivaTuner, there is a way to prevent it - see here

I've tried this HowTo before - but "Step 2 - Enable Overclock & Forced Performance" is not possible, since I don't have this "customize" button in my Riva Tuner (Main -> Driver Settings -> Customize....).

Maybe it's not possible with never ForceWare versions (I use 258.96)? I mean Riva Tuner is quite old ...

[Zeus Fab3r]

Depends on what tool you are using. In RivaTuner, there is a way to prevent it - see here

I've tried this HowTo before - but "Step 2 - Enable Overclock & Forced Performance" is not possible, since I don't have this "customize" button in my Riva Tuner (Main -> Driver Settings -> Customize....).

Maybe it's not possible with never ForceWare versions (I use 258.96)? I mean Riva Tuner is quite old ...

You must have missed the update on how to force RivaTuner to use specific driver. I tried and it woked.