AMD 7970 overclock and game crashes

Mikchi · 26 Jun 2013 at 02:20

Hello,

First off, I wasn't sure whether to put this thread in here, or the GPU subforum. :confused:

So yesterday I decided to fart around with Overdrive and bump up the clock speeds slowly from 925Mhz GPU clock and 1375MHz memory clock to 1125/1575 respectively, while running Heaven.

Everything was looking good, no artifacts, temps were good, etc.

Ran OCCT's stress test with Shaders set to 1, since 4 and 7 (or 9, I forgot what's the highest) would crash my PC. Again, seemed stable enough. Buggy OCCT?

Now today when I've been playing games it's frozen the game for ~5-10 seconds a piece.

I probably just need to pull the clock speeds back a little bit, but I don't understand why a stress test which is whoring my card out at 99% activity doesn't phase it, yet Path of Exile wants to kill it dead.

Thanks in advance,

An incompetent tit.

Edit: And Power Control settings to +20%. Whatever that means.

pgi947 · 26 Jun 2013 at 07:00

Sounds like it just needs a bump in core voltage...

Mikchi · 26 Jun 2013 at 09:20

Hmm, voltage is something I know nothing about.

Current core voltage is 1.112v and memory voltage is 1.600v.

How high can I bump up the voltage?

"The overall GPU speed increase of 200MHz cost a total voltage increase of 81mV, up to 1.249V total on the GPU core."

I'll try that to start.

LtMatt · 26 Jun 2013 at 09:25

Mikchi said:
Hello,

First off, I wasn't sure whether to put this thread in here, or the GPU subforum.

So yesterday I decided to fart around with Overdrive and bump up the clock speeds slowly from 925Mhz GPU clock and 1375MHz memory clock to 1125/1575 respectively, while running Heaven.

Everything was looking good, no artifacts, temps were good, etc.

Ran OCCT's stress test with Shaders set to 1, since 4 and 7 (or 9, I forgot what's the highest) would crash my PC. Again, seemed stable enough. Buggy OCCT?

Now today when I've been playing games it's frozen the game for ~5-10 seconds a piece.

I probably just need to pull the clock speeds back a little bit, but I don't understand why a stress test which is whoring my card out at 99% activity doesn't phase it, yet Path of Exile wants to kill it dead.

Thanks in advance,

An incompetent tit.

Edit: And Power Control settings to +20%. Whatever that means.

Mikchi said:
Hmm, voltage is something I know nothing about.

Current core voltage is 1.112v and memory voltage is 1.600v.

How high can I bump up the voltage?

"The overall GPU speed increase of 200MHz cost a total voltage increase of 81mV, up to 1.249V total on the GPU core."

I'll try that to start.

Sounds like you need to read this. :cool:

TL : DR - Bump the voltage to 1.125v and retest.

Drangueos · 26 Jun 2013 at 10:00

up to 1.25v and less than 85C you are safe.

Mikchi · 26 Jun 2013 at 10:13

LtMatt said:
Sounds like you need to read this.

TL : DR - Bump the voltage to 1.125v and retest.

Awesome, giving this a go now. Just installed the new drivers, so onto OCing.

Drangueos said:
up to 1.25v and less than 85C you are safe.

I was hitting temps of 90 degrees in OCCT.

LtMatt · 26 Jun 2013 at 10:15

Mikchi said:
Awesome, giving this a go now. Just installed the new drivers, so onto OCing.

Atta boy. With voltage less is more, so use as little as you can to keep temps down, but you need to use enough for complete stability. Once you start overclocking past 1150 core you need to keep temps in check. If they get too high it will cause a crash or corruption. Its all in the guide, any question just holla.

Mikchi · 26 Jun 2013 at 10:22

LtMatt said:
Atta boy. With voltage less is more, so use as little as you can to keep temps down, but you need to use enough for complete stability. Once you start overclocking past 1150 core you need to keep temps in check. If they get too high it will cause a crash or corruption. Its all in the guide, any question just holla.

How does one PM on this? I've looked through your profile and I see no PM feature.

I'll probably get stuck at some point and I don't want to flood this thread with HALP! posts.

LtMatt · 26 Jun 2013 at 10:24

Mikchi said:
How does one PM on this? I've looked through your profile and I see no PM feature.

I'll probably get stuck at some point and I don't want to flood this thread with HALP! posts.

Just post in the thread if you get stuck. Either myself or someone else will be around to help.

Drangueos · 26 Jun 2013 at 10:59

Mikchi said:
I was hitting temps of 90 degrees in OCCT.

OCCT and Furmark are not the best way to check the temperature, because they are only stressing the cards and gaming you will never get the same temps, will always be less.

Also you can make a custom fan profile to lower your temps.

Mikchi · 26 Jun 2013 at 11:29

Whoa, things are going terribly.

Core - 1125MHz / Voltage - 1.113v = 1920 score on Valley

Core - 1150MHz / Voltage - 1.113v = 1802

Core - 1150MHz / Voltage - 1.119v = 1372

LtMatt · 26 Jun 2013 at 11:44

Mikchi said:
Whoa, things are going terribly.

Core - 1125MHz / Voltage - 1.113v = 1920 score on Valley

Core - 1150MHz / Voltage - 1.113v = 1802

Core - 1150MHz / Voltage - 1.119v = 1372

If you get a crash, display error, black screen etc you need to restart your pc then continue overclocking and reset your clocks. Otherwise you see reduced performance. Leave the memory at stock 1500, and focus on the core first. Ensure the power limit is at +20% as well to make sure the card doesn't throttle.

Mikchi · 26 Jun 2013 at 11:48

LtMatt said:
If you get a crash, display error, black screen etc you need to restart your pc then continue overclocking and reset your clocks. Otherwise you see reduced performance. Leave the memory at stock 1500, and focus on the core first. Ensure the power limit is at +20% as well to make sure the card doesn't throttle.

Chucked the voltage up to 1.125 and I got 1924 with the 1150MHz core speed. A small improvement, but an improvement nonetheless.

The memory is actually at 1375MHz, I have a reference Asus 7970 if that helps.

Going to try 1175MHz again with 1.131 volts.

Edit: 1175 and 1.131 seems to be as high as it'll go. Had a good score of 1981 on Valley.

1200 @ 1.131 crashed, 1200 @ 1.137 crashed.

Memory time.

ViRuS2k · 26 Jun 2013 at 12:20

you really have no idea how to overclock a graphics card lol
you will never get 1200 core with 1.131v or 1.137v you have to remember vdroop aswell on cards....

if you want 1175 fully stable your going to have to put 1.175+v through your card and 1.200+v for 1200+ *note* most of the time you can match core with voltage so say you want 1150 you would try 1.150v or slightly higher. ect ect*

and benchtest your cards with crysis 1 or crysis 3 ignore those artificial power supply testing software furmark or occt and stick to games testing, games that use lots of memory aswell as core are the best day 2 day tests.
also do yourself a favor put your memory at stock and test your core first once you are happy with your core, then test your memory once you freeze/black screen then bump your memory down a notch. instability with memory can cause screen freezing even if you dont see artifacts trust me on that one.

Mikchi · 26 Jun 2013 at 12:28

ViRuS2k said:
you really have no idea how to overclock a graphics card lol

Correct. Not something I've ever done before. Nor am I very computer literate.

ViRuS2k said:
you will never get 1200 core with 1.131v or 1.137v you have to remember vdroop aswell on cards....

if you want 1175 fully stable your going to have to put 1.175v through your card and 1.200+ vcore for 1200+

and benchtest your cards with crysis 1 or crysis 3 ignore those artificial power supply testing software furmark or occt and stick to games testing, games that use lots of memory aswell as core are the best day 2 day tests.
also do yourself a favor put your memory at stock and test your core first once you are happy with your core, then test your memory once you freeze/black screen then bump your memory down a notch. instability with memory can cause screen freezing even if you dont see artifacts trust me on that one.

1175 on the core seems stable @ 1.131, it's the highest I've completed a run on Valley.

Memory is still stock.

Mikchi · 26 Jun 2013 at 12:40

Alright, jumped into the deep end there with 1250MHz core and 1.225 volts. Highest temp of 69C. Fine.

I think I'll leave it at that.

LtMatt · 26 Jun 2013 at 12:45

Its best to do it my way and take your time making small adjustments each time to the clocks and voltages but if you can't be bothered then just do it your way.

Mikchi · 26 Jun 2013 at 12:51

LtMatt said:
Its best to do it my way and take your time making small adjustments each time to the clocks and voltages but if you can't be bothered then just do it your way.

I was doing, but Virus was right in saying I don't know what I'm doing with voltages, so I just copied what you had as your highest overclock in your thread.

"So this is the limit i reached on my card. Any higher and i struggle to keep the temps under control. I'm happy with this and this will be my maximum core overclock."

LtMatt · 26 Jun 2013 at 12:55

Mikchi said:
I was doing, but Virus was right in saying I don't know what I'm doing with voltages, so I just copied what you had as your highest overclock in your thread.

"So this is the limit i reached on my card. Any higher and i struggle to keep the temps under control. I'm happy with this and this will be my maximum core overclock."

If you read the guide i walk you through step by step of what to do. Its about slowly increasing the voltage until you find stability, then increasing the core clock until a crash, then adding more voltage etc until you naturally reach a limit. It takes time but its the most efficient way to overclock a gpu. I always found its better to go up in small stages rather than large amounts, but not everyone has the patience to do that. If its working for though then thats great, but you have to remember each card is different and some need more voltage, or less, than others and not every card will reach as high a core clock as 1250.

Mikchi · 26 Jun 2013 at 13:03

LtMatt said:
If you read the guide i walk you through step by step of what to do. Its about slowly increasing the voltage until you find stability, then increasing the core clock until a crash, then adding more voltage etc until you naturally reach a limit. It takes time but its the most efficient way to overclock a gpu. I always found its better to go up in small stages rather than large amounts, but not everyone has the patience to do that. If its working for though then thats great, but you have to remember each card is different and some need more voltage, or less, than others and not every card will reach as high a core clock as 1250.

I have read it, thoroughly. I did what the guide suggested up to the point I crashed, and crashed, and crashed, and got a bit annoyed. I thought I'd give your max overclock a bash and it seems to have paid off, and saved me a good chunk of time.

I'm leaving it as it is for the time being, I'm happy where it's at.

Now I'm working on the memory voltages as the Valley score has gone down with the extra 25MHz I bumped it up by.