Being mean to hardware: Overclocking the 9400GT

[BetaMan]

Hello, hello, hello everyone! I surely haven't seen you in a while! How's your wife? That's excellent. And the cat, how is she? That's great! How do you say we sit down and have some mint green tea and discuss hardware today!

WELL THEN, with that out of the way, I suppose I'll tell you why you're reading this, if you haven't clicked the back button because of my, uhh, let's just say, optimistic, intro. *Ahem* I have purchased the ZALMAN VF700-CU 2 Ball VGA Cooler from Newegg (along with two 120mm blue LED fans for SMILODON; I think he'll enjoy them) and I'm going to attach it to my graphical processing unit, the PNY nVidia GeForce 9400GT, and overclock the living daylights out of it.

Oh, I see you're out of tea. I am too, and the kettle is almost empty. Shall I make some more? Wonderful!

I'm fairly excited about this and I definitely trust Zalman (you know you can trust the heatsink and fan company that your admin uses, there's no way out of it). The reviews rave about it, too. I just hope that it will fit, considering my GPU wasn't on the supported or unsupported list.

Ahh well I think you should probably go now, it's getting late in the day and I don't want to run out of tea. You should definitely come back on Thursday, though! That is the day that the fun begins.

I'll keep you guys updated and I'm sorry for making such a long post. DANGIT I can't type to save my life right now!

Goodbye.

 

[draceena]

Glad to see you are making use of your tea, and, um , oh yes! Grats on getting the card and cooler, it will be interesting to see what you can do with it.

 

[Veedaz]

Good luck with the OCing BetaMan :top:

 

[BetaMan]

Thank you all! I cannot wait until tomorrow!

 

[Veedaz]

Small increments and watch ya temps mate :beer:

 

[Andrew]

is it really worth OC a GeForce 9400GT?

 

[BetaMan]

I would think so. First of all, it's cheaper than getting a new GPU. Second, I can push it up about 200-250mHz clock speed and ~100 mHz vRAM about with the stock cooling, which is pretty amazing and will give me a perfect framerate on CoD 4 and 5 with all the settings on high minus anti-aliasing and shadows.

 

[BetaMan]

THEY CAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The heatsink is a MASSIVE improvement over the stock one and the two new fans look EPIC! HOWEVER, just a side note, the front panel fan was a real pain in the ass to install (mind my language). I had to half pull off the front panel of Smilodon just to get the power connector in. Also, I had some fails (only because of myself) while installing the heatsink. But it's great! I love it already. So now begins the overclocking process. I'll edit this post with certain landmarks. I'm pushing it until I get BSOD'D. I've discovered that the ram isn't going to go over 540mHz, so it's going up to there. But the main clock speed has been enduring very well. By the end of the hour, it would be great to have it running at 900mHz-1gHz. Here I go! Oh, and note: the clock temp right now is unable to make up its mind, sitting at 44-45 C. Wish me luck!

 

[BetaMan]

Oh, here's a picture.

 

[BetaMan]

Okay, well the overclocking was an epic fail. The temps were around 45C idle and 55C full load. However, I couldn't get it any higher than usual because the screen started getting these dot-like things randomly. Also, the display driver would crash every now and then. Help?

 

[Nibiru2012]

Those temps aren't that high really. Nice looking case by the way.

For my taste a little too much blue LED though. Just MHO!

 

[Veedaz]

Hi BetaMan

Don't have much to do with OCing nVidia as I'm a ATI fan but ....

Download Rivatuner then after it detects your video card it will update your Computer which will allow it to manipulate your video card. You use it to increase your Memory and Core clocks, and also the shader clock in small increments. Then try playing the most visually demanding game that you own and play it for 10-20 minutes and watch for obvious signs, like pixels flashing across the screen, textures showing up wrong colours or your game can simply lag or crash.

Also download Speedfan and monitor your GPU temperature closely, good luck

 

[BetaMan]

@Nibiru2012: The LEDs in the picture are REALLY bright compared to what they normally are. And thanks!

@Veedaz: I have RivaTuner, I suppose I'll try it. And I'll get SpeedFan.

Thanks fellows!

 

[Veedaz]

One game I like to use as a benchmark is Alien Arena (free fast Death match Game) you will soon see how its meant to look and OCing does improve it ... and its fun fraging the bots

Link > http://icculus.org/alienarena/rpa/about.html

 

[draceena]

I'm no overclocker myself, but have you tried taking the fan off the CPU, cleaning off the coolant stuff and re-applying it? Beyond that, I dunno....

 

[BetaMan]

Well I'm overclocking my GPU, not my CPU. I just got a brand new heatsink so I applied fresh paste when I put it on.

 

[WindowsGeek]

Speaking of GPU overclocking, I managed to get my Radeon HD5770 up from 859 to 960MHz, maxed out the ATI Catalyst OC tool. I'd need a better heatsink on it, as well as a better PSU if I wanted to go higher than that though.

For those of you that remember my old 8500GT, which for a time I thought I had killed due to temps with no OC... I have resurrected that, as well asOC'ed it from 459MHz core and 400MHz RAM to to 750MHz core, 551 RAM. It hovers around 75 idle, 85 load thanks to me parking the computer that is using it next to an open window, the 40-50 degreee (F) weather we have right now keeps it nice and cool.

 

[Veedaz]

parking the computer that is using it next to an open window

Room temps can make a huge difference to air cooled computers, I keep saying it but I'm going to have to go water cooled on my next main computer build ... quieter

 

[WindowsGeek]

I agree on the liquid cooling, the 8500's stock fan makes me feel like the whole thing is going to take off and break my window