ti4200 OCed

[alden]

Ok i bought a new gpa heat sink which is here.

http://www.casecooler.com/casecooler/thergef4copc.html

my question now is how far would u guys overclock the card?


the default settings are

core speed 255mhz / memory 446mhz

i have it at 285/510 now with stock fans and heat sink and it runs fine.

is there any software out there too to check how hot its getting so i dont hurt my video card?

thanks for the help

[fiji]

i just oc till i get artifacts, or till it becomes unstable.. then i back it down

[alden]

Thanks for the help but, do you know any software i can use to monitor the card to make sure my system is running cool?

My cpu is around 105-107 F is that good?

[DRaZZ]

do0d why do u need to monitor ? if u want lower temps then you need more cooling, keep your cpu at 30-40oc lower is better, as for your g card, like they said overclock till u get artifacts, then find a stable speed :)

[alden]

Yea im trying to keep it as cool as possible I have an antec case with 4 case fans along with the new graphics card cooler im hoping i can squeeze on some more fps with the card.

[FrozenFears]

I'm running my Asus V8420 Geforce 4 Ti4200 128MB @ 325/638 and its running fine, thats been with stock cooling, I just slapped on the Vantec Iceberg 4 pro (http://vantecusa.com/ccba4c.html) cooling kit, The blue lights are just and added bonus and not a gimmick. I have never seen a better factory lapped sink, the bottom of this thing was a mirror, talk about shiny/smooth :) The 4 Ramsinks it came with were also nice, little arctic silver adhesive let it sit overnight just popped it in and now let the tweaking begin ;). But my guess is assuming your card is 128MB you should at least be able to hit 315/620 stock cooling with no problems. Don't be afraid to push it past 285/510, those speeds aren't even beginning to tap into this cards potential. Seriously everything they said about once you get artifacts/unstable then back down till its stable... thats how I've always OCed graphics cards and I've yet to break/fry one.

[alden]

thanks alot frozen appreciate the help

[alden]

i bumped my card upto

300/550 and started getting a few lines and stuff in raven shield so i bumped it back down till i get the new heatsink

O yea how can i tell who made the card i cant remember would it be on the card itself?

[Sartori]

Dear Mr. Fears,

I was wondering if you have any additional fans blowing on your video card. I have exactly the same card and am only able to pull a 600MHz memory speed.

As well, is it possible to lap the GPU on that card? It has a funny plastic spacer on it that seems to keep my Thermaltake GPU cooler from making direct contact.

My last question is whether or not the "heat sink tape" is advisable to use to affix heat sinks to the memory, or whether arctic silver adhesive is better for this.

Thank you for your time and consideration,


Sartori
Slacker Extraordinaire:)

[FrozenFears]

No additional fans blowing on the card, although I was looking at buying some. Current fan setup in case is this: Generic intake fan (which will be replaced soon)pushes under 20CFM, have the Thermalright SLk900u w/92mm enermax fan@53CFM, 1 panaflo exhaust fan@40CFM, and the enrmax 465W PS which has an intake fan above the CPU and a rear exhaust fan. The 4200 has the Vantec Iceberq 4 Pro on it. thats it for my cooling setup.

Alden:i bumped my card upto 300/550 and started getting a few lines and stuff in raven shield so i bumped it back down till i get the new heatsink
You might want to try lowering ram and increasing your gpu clock something like 300/540, and then if that works try 310/540 etc. If those don't work keep lowering the ram by about 5 until its stable with the gpu at 300 (if it doesn't ever get stable, then maybe 300 is too much for your gpu). The % overclock on my ram is about 20% increase from stock and the gpu is Oced about 30% increase from stock. (my cards@327/640) Since you said your ram's stock setting was 466, taking it to 550 is about an 18%increase from stock which might be too much for the ram on stock cooling. Assuming your gpu clock started at 250 (most 4200s do) it should definately be stable at 300 and I think you should be able to push it higher too. I wouldn't reccomend trying to further increase the Ram since with your ram at 550 you already would be overclocking the ram at 18%increase from stock. Since our stock ram clocks were different, yours at 466 and my stock Ram setting was about 535; I'm guessing that we have cards from different manufacturers so can't expect identical results, but I think you can get more out of your card ;)

My card worked fine completely stock@325/638. I think I just got a lucky card because I was able to push my memory harder than a lot of reviews I've read w/out any problems. After installing my cooler here are the results, I had it up @330/645 w/out any problems other than 3D mark '03 gets artifacts. But I backed it down to 327/640 (not much increase from where I had it with stock cooling) but still is an improvement, and it worked fine in 3D mark and all games at this setting.

Sartori: My last question is whether or not the "heat sink tape" is advisable to use to affix heat sinks to the memory, or whether arctic silver adhesive is better for this. Arctic Silver Adhesive is definately better than thermal tape. However at the same time you're only talking about a very small difference in how far you can overclock the ram. I've never used thermal tape so I can't tell you the exact difference, but from what I've read its might make a difference of 1-2FPS. So overall will you notice a visible difference on your screen, probably not, but I just like to use AS thermal adhesive cause then I know I'm getting EVERYTHING out of my card ;)

Sartori: As well, is it possible to lap the GPU on that card? It has a funny plastic spacer on it that seems to keep my Thermaltake GPU cooler from making direct contact.
As for lapping the GPU I've seen people do it because that plastic spacer/shim like thing does indeed get in the way of the HS contacting the GPU. When I pulled off the stock fan, there was A LOT of thermal grease there, a lot more than I woulda expected since you only need a extremely thin layer between the CPU and HSF (assuming the HSF is smooth etc). So when I put my new Iceberq 4 pro cooler on, I made sure there was more AS3 between it and the GPU than I would ever put on a cpu, and it works just fine. I did this in a quick fix attempt to fill the space between GPU/HS. However, its probably not as good as if I had lapped it, the thing is that I dont' really have the time to lap it right now, probably a summer project though ;). Heres a couple links about lapping the core:

Success Story, brief instructions (http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread/t-43402.html)

Scroll Down for a couple pics here (http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32992)

Probably most Helpful tutorial etc (http://www.techspot.com/tweaks/geforce4-vmod/index.shtml)
This one talks about volt modding too, but it has A LOT of good information about how to sand the GPU etc with pics to show what is going on as well.

alden: O yea how can i tell who made the card i cant remember would it be on the card itself? The Card manufactuer can be on the card, Or sometimes its on the Fan. My Asus had it both on the card and on the fan too, until I replaced the fan with my new cooler. On my card it was located in the upper left of the side with the gpu. If you still have trouble finding what manufacturer your card is made by, you can always look on websites selling cards until you find the one you have. This site has a bunch of Nvidia based cards from a lot of different manufacturers (http://www.gameve.com/store/gameve_listCategoriesAndProducts.asp?idCategory=13 )

[alden]

thanks alot ,

sorry you had to do all that typing lol

[FrozenFears]

Hey its not a problem, I had a couple of those sites marked in my favs, but it was fun searching for more info, I ended up furthering my knowledge about OCing those cards. When I first started using this site I remember searching for threads about OCing 3D cards, and lot of people would post about what they got their ram/gpu clocks to, and what they were using for cooling, and their 3D mark scores, but not so much the process they used in applying the aftermarket cooler, tweaking their cards etc. So hopefully next time someone searches for how to OC a 4200 they might get linked to this thread... just wanna be as helpful as I can :) About all the typing, I type around 95-100WPM so it didn't take that long, and I am an english major so I like writing and I tend to be a bit wordy hehe... even been known to ramble at times ;)

[alden]

OK i just noticed a problem today on the far corners of my programs i get a fuzzy jerky look to them like now in IE. So i bumped my card back down to default and still get the corners shaking. Is my card permantly damaged?

[FrozenFears]

I know this question might seem stupid, but did you restart your computer after changing the clock settings back to defaults? (I have to restart mine before new clock settings come into effect). Also how old is your monitor, and is this a totally new problem or have you had fuziness before? I've had fuzziness in the upper right of mine for a while now, happened after I shipped my monitor from cleveland to seattle.

Is the fuzziness present in all programs including games, or is it only on desktop applications?

Also another quick thing to mention about the monitor, do you have anything magnetic near it, that can really mess up the display. In addition, see if hitting the degauss button or playing with the other monitor buttons does anything to improve it.

So as for if your card is permanently damaged, I really can't say for sure either way. Did you or have you ever smelled any "hot"/"burning" smells when you were overclocking your card? If so then thats probably not a good sign.

Also try underclocking the card, lower both ram and GPU by about 40 or so from the default setting and see if the problem is still there. If that fixes the problem then its likely that there is something wrong with the card, but if that doesn't fix the problem then its possible that something else could be causing the distortion.

Sorry that I couldn't be more helpful

[alden]

yea i set it back to default and rebooted and its seemed to go away so gg. I ordered a new fan and heatsink for the card and when it gets here ill bump it back up. Never smelled any burning or anything so thats gg lol.

Thanks for the help

[Steven4563]

ive just got a asus geforce4 ti4200
stock cooling 280mhz core 580mhz ram
i love this card getting more cooling soon :)

so i think u should be able to get higher

[Steven4563]

ive just got a asus geforce4 ti4200
stock cooling 280mhz core 580mhz ram
i love this card getting more cooling soon :)

so i think u should be able to get higher

[Steven4563]

ive just got a asus geforce4 ti4200
stock cooling 280mhz core 580mhz ram
i love this card getting more cooling soon :)

so i think u should be able to get higher

[alden]

ok i just got my new heatsink for my card but what rae the 4 extra bars for the memor chips? if so i cant see them really fitting on there good.

this is the one i have

http://www.casecooler.com/casecooler/thergef4copc.html

[FrozenFears]

Yeah, they are for the Ram, my sinks are larger than my ram as well, which is fine as long as the sink is only touching the Ram. I don't know what your card layout looks like and where your ram is, but those thermal take sinks are definately too big for just 1 little ram chip. When I've seen them installed they usually sorta create a "bridge" between 2 of the Ram dimms. Heres a link to a google search result that shows a pic of your ram sinks installed, its the Red Card In The Middle (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=thermaltake+ram+sinks) I couldn't link the picture directly because the site its on either wouldn't load, was temporarily down, or maybe its just gone, either way even though the pictures small you should still be able to see what I mean when I say "bridge."

[alden]

thx again frozen