6800GT: Thermal Throttling Holing you back? Solution!! (for me anyway)

So about a week ago I got my whole new computer in.
A64 3200+ @ 2.550mhz
MSI K8N Neo 2
1GB XMS PC4000 Corsair
Evga 6800GT 256mb

After about a week of testing I had come to the conclusion (or at least at the time) that my video card would not clock any higher then 390/1150. This wasnt a terrible overclock, but I realy had hoped to get my core up higher. After messing around for a long time, I realized I was being down throttled by the gpu to stock speeds 350/1000 at anything over 390mhz core. My temps were fine (49c Idle , 64c Load), no artifacts.. nothing. Very frustrating. For example I would run 3dmark03 for bout 10 seconds, then the benchmark would pause for about 5 seconds like it crashed then continue. Using RivaTuners hardware monitor I discovered the thermal throttling.

Anyway, today I was readin some more and someone mentioned turning of "Fast Write" in one post or another. So I figured id give it a shot. Bump up my core to 400. NO THROTTLING!! Then I kept kickin it higher. Right now im at 421/1170 stable.. no problems.

I dont know how many other people are having this issue, but I know that not many people are aware that this could be a fix for some. Hope this helps someone as it took me about a full week to come to this conclusion

Glad you figured out a solution but 64C load is nothing to brag about, you might want to get some aftermarket cooling on that.
My 9800XT @ 500/800 is 42c load with a Zalman Dual-Heatpipe...

for a 6800gt thats a good temp as far as ive read

btw, i have an nvsilencer 5 on there now

alternately u could also get your hands on a modded 6800GT bios that removes thermal throttling among other things such as using 1.5v GPU instead of 1.4v.

Ket, where might one find that bios? Ever since I got my eVGA 6800GT I have yet to be able to OC it without any problems. I've turned off fast writes, set the 2d and 3d clocks the same, and no matter what I do, I cannot remain stable with my vid card OCed.

Yea when i turned my Fast writes off my oc went higher and no more stuttering like you mentioned.

ket said:

alternately u could also get your hands on a modded 6800GT bios that removes thermal throttling among other things such as using 1.5v GPU instead of 1.4v.

Click to expand...

ive heard people talking about these bios'os.. but havent found em anywhere. if anyone can find a bios that undoes throttling please let me know!

or you could just select manual overclocking and get rid of thermal throttling the easy way.

okra said:

or you could just select manual overclocking and get rid of thermal throttling the easy way.

Click to expand...

what do you mean manual overclocking? even when i edit my bios to have my stock speed equal 420/1170 with fast writes on.. it will clock it down to 350mhz core in 3dmark within first 5-10 sec.

keep in mind. as soon as fast writes are turned off, i can oc 420/1170 without a hitch. otherwise im stuck at 390/1150 i believe

64C load? ouch, slap a nv silencer 5 on there, maybe get your overclock even higher

Genetic said:

64C load? ouch, slap a nv silencer 5 on there, maybe get your overclock even higher

Click to expand...

he mentioned earlier in the thread that he has a silencer on it already.

and 64c really isnt that high of a load temp for a gt

Where in the heck is the option to turn off the fastwrites? Or is in only in the Rivatuner program?

WheaT

WheaT said:

Where in the heck is the option to turn off the fastwrites? Or is in only in the Rivatuner program?

WheaT

Click to expand...

some motherboards provide it as a bios option you may need to disable it through rivatuner if your unable to locate it in your bios options though.

CandymanCan said:

Yea when i turned my Fast writes off my oc went higher and no more stuttering like you mentioned.

Click to expand...

But now with Fast Writes off you will get stuttering and higher CPU utilisation in playback of DVDs and wmv files .

Turning off fastwrites kills cpu performance. I did some benchmarking on the cpu with fw on and off and this is what I got:

3dmark03 CPU Test - 717 FW off
3dmark03 CPU Test - 940 FW on

3dmark05 CPU Test - 4400s FW off
3dmark05 CPU Test - 5200s FW on

I would like to find a way to OC my 6800GT without having to turn off FW because I want the cpu performance. If this cant be done than Im just gonna leave my card unclocked and take cpu performance over gpu performance.

Tried everything.... now suspecting the PSU. I have a new one arriving today. Ill report once I get it up and working