ocing my 6600 gt

[SteveI]

@dsio,
I can only speak for myself... My 6600GT does seem to mind the heat. I play civ4, which is suprisingly 3d intensive. On a warm day, after awhile, I get a lot of tearing/artifacts on screen, even at stock.

I've seen the temp get into the 70's quite frequently, and if I didn't get the artifacts, would not have bothered. More important than the temp reading itself, I'll be happy if I can just play the game without hassle. Played it after the upgrade, at its highest oc setting and so far so good.

[QSDT]

dsio, the volt mod, got any links to it I'm interested in doing this to my MSI AGP 6600GT, pencil mod is it sound easy.

[dsio]

Originally Posted by SteveI

@dsio,
I can only speak for myself... My 6600GT does seem to mind the heat. I play civ4, which is suprisingly 3d intensive. On a warm day, after awhile, I get a lot of tearing/artifacts on screen, even at stock.

I've seen the temp get into the 70's quite frequently, and if I didn't get the artifacts, would not have bothered. More important than the temp reading itself, I'll be happy if I can just play the game without hassle. Played it after the upgrade, at its highest oc setting and so far so good.

Just to put this in the mix, you live in a cold country. I live in Australia, where 40C in a computer room is normal. Over here, my 6800GT runs at 72-78C under load for hours on end.

Thats an NV40 built on the 130nm process, that doesn't handle heat anywhere near as well as the 110nm NV43. I've had 6600GTs into the 90s on load without any problems at all.

If you are artifacting, I would look at other things that could be the problem. Try clocking your GDDR3 down a bit and see if it has the same effect. And check out your power connection (is it shared with anything or dedicated) and make sure your PSU is doing its job.

Also, check your AGP voltage, and try bumping it to 1.6-1.65V. Nvidia cards lap up the AGP voltage.

[SteveI]

Originally Posted by dsio

J.....

If you are artifacting, I would look at other things that could be the problem. Try clocking your GDDR3 down a bit and see if it has the same effect. And check out your power connection (is it shared with anything or dedicated) and make sure your PSU is doing its job.

Also, check your AGP voltage, and try bumping it to 1.6-1.65V. Nvidia cards lap up the AGP voltage.

Thanks for the advice. I'll give them a shot.
I've had the card since last summer. The artifacts come at stock speeds but only after playing for a while, usually at least an hour. I've tried overclocking as well, but there doesn't seem to be a tangible difference, better or worse for artifacting.

Last night, I stuck on the new cooler, without the ramsinks... I only played about an hour last night, and it didn't artifact (not exactly conclusive, )

PSU seems fine, SW readings:
1.38 vcore (as input)
2.75v DDR (as input)
5.12 for 5v
12.26 for 12v
3.33 for 3.3v

The readings barely fluctuate and are under constant load folding.

For AGP voltage, I think I tried upping it a long time ago, but didn't see improvement so I turned it back down... I'll try that again if I see any more artifacts. Currently I am running 575/1150 and may just start pushing harder for artifacts.

[bonesaw]

for appling thermal gel i try to get the layer as thin as possible with a razor? right? because i cant wait and might have to do this myself. i dont care about noise so i am going plug the fan in the normal power outlet. lol my computer is already LOUD AS HELL

[dsio]

plastic blade is good. I used a tupperware butter spreader. Some say metal blade, I don't like that.

[SteveI]

Upped the fan speed to full myself... I noticed a 3-4c drop in temps at idle... I suspect I'll get more of a gain at load. Haven't had time to load it up tho.

[QSDT]

With the thermal paste job I also found that the Nvidia logo in the middle of the GPU and HIS, on the 6600 is raised up so I got out the wet and dry sand paper 1200 grit and lapped it down still smooth. Picked up another 1-2c drop at load.

[dsio]

Originally Posted by QSDT

With the thermal paste job I also found that the Nvidia logo in the middle of the GPU and HIS, on the 6600 is raised up so I got out the wet and dry sand paper 1200 grit and lapped it down still smooth. Picked up another 1-2c drop at load.

Well yea, I noticed the same thing on my old Geforce 4 TI 4600 and gave it a lap job, though I'm a bit too chicken to do my 6800GT. If you use something mild like 1200 grit, and take care using a piece of glass to get a perfect flat finish, there really isn't a problem with lapping the logo off. Aside from being slightly raised, the paint can't conduct heat well.

[bonesaw]

its done just put the heat sink/fan on oand got about 10 11 degree drop, needless to say i am very happy with valman and my new temps. the only problem was the ram hs didn't fit on with the hs on. so i slid them on the best i come and got most of them on about 80 90% on.

[bonesaw]

i got it to 37 idle how hard do you think i can push this little card?

[dsio]

Your load temps are most important, not idle, but with that kind of temperature, your card is absolutely begging for a volt mod. I'll do my best to dig up the pictures for you.

[QSDT]

Well I think that core at 585Mhz is very possible and above 1.15Ghz on the ram. I can get 605 on core and 1.205Ghz on ram. Same setup Zalman full copper. Try using ''ATI tool'' because you can see temps while testing.

[bonesaw]

what's a comfortable temp for my card under load. because i'll aim to make that my target temp for game playing.

[QSDT]

Mine runs at 63 to 67c fine all day long at full load but use this as a rough guide because not all temp sensors read the same so there will be some differences

[bonesaw]

here it is the first pic i ever uploaded http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f3...asdjkf/top.jpg

[bonesaw]

wrong one here is the new fan i put on my video card http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f3...asdjkf/fan.jpg

[QSDT]

Does your one have an LED in the fan or is it just clear? I only got a plain black fan with mine.

[bonesaw]

yes, the fan was spinning when i took that pic

[QSDT]

I got ripped off. You'll need to change your sig, Zalman not Valman.