ATi voltages

[ThirtySixBelow]

When playing UT2k4 I keep getting general protection faults at the render level. I was told that upping my agp voltage might help with some stability. I was wondering what the max safe voltage is for ATi cards.

p.s. I posted this in overclocking rather than graphics cards because I figured o.c.er's would know more about voltages.

 

[lithium726]

upping the agp voltage wont do jack for card stability... you need too look elsewhere to find the cause of that problem

edit: a general protection fault sounds like a software error. look at drivers and maybe try reinstalling the game.

 

[tsuehpsyde]

Yeah, whoever said that is probably not exactly the best with the 'puters. 1.5v should be set in your BIOS (by default) and instability is probably drivers or the game itself. I mean, feel free to void your warrenty and vmod your card to make it faster, but it won't be more stable.

 

[ThirtySixBelow]

Why does raising CPU voltages help with stability but raising GPU voltages does nothing?

 

[ryuji]

it makes cpus more stable, for overclocking at stock speeds you dont want to raise voltages, same is true for memory, same is true for north bridges(upping agp feeds intel chipsets more voltage, but does nothing for the graphics card), same is true for graphics card cores
some people pump like 2 volts into radeons and it doesnt hurt them, i wouldnt worry about it, not that it will do anything/much for you

 

[James Earl Ray]

Hmm.....

 

[ThirtySixBelow]

So basically, graphics cards are the exception to the voltage = stability rule.

 

[ryuji]

its no exception, its just if it doesnt run at stock speed and stock volts for anything you need to return it for a exchange

 

[Spammy1984]

no no, raising the voltage of your GPU will allow a higher clock or possibly fix stability problems (notice the *possibly*). but that is NOT the same as raising AGP voltage. AGP voltage is the voltage your AGP bus uses. Its on your motherboard not the graphics card.

edit: oh yeah you probably do not want to do this either

 

[lithium726]

So basically, graphics cards are the exception to the voltage = stability rule.

if you vmod the card to allow it to supply more voltage to teh core, sure - it does the same thing it does with CPU's or memory or anything else. that however, is not the AGP voltage.

 

[RawsonDR]

As ryuji said, graphics cards are no exception to the rule as has been unintentionally implied. Although its true that AGP voltage is not the same as GPU voltage, I don't think that means your original question needs to be ignored. Its not incredibly likely to solve your problem, but go ahead and raise your AGP voltage to 1.55 or 1.6 and see if your situation changes at all. If it does, we can go from there. If there is absolutely no change then you can pursue other options, but its ludicrous to ignore your perfectly valid question and pursue a complex solution rather than first rule out the simple one.

So as I said, don't sweat upping your AGP voltage by .1 volts unless your case cooling is very poor. See how it affects your problem.

 

[ThirtySixBelow]

As ryuji said, graphics cards are no exception to the rule as has been unintentionally implied. Although its true that AGP voltage is not the same as GPU voltage, I don't think that means your original question needs to be ignored. Its not incredibly likely to solve your problem, but go ahead and raise your AGP voltage to 1.55 or 1.6 and see if your situation changes at all. If it does, we can go from there. If there is absolutely no change then you can pursue other options, but its ludicrous to ignore your perfectly valid question and pursue a complex solution rather than first rule out the simple one.

So as I said, don't sweat upping your AGP voltage by .1 volts unless your case cooling is very poor. See how it affects your problem.

Alright, well I see where my confusion might be comming from. The AGP bus itself has it's own voltage? How is the AGP voltage different from the GPU voltage since the AGP bus is dedicated to my gfx card only.

 

[ryuji]

Alright, well I see where my confusion might be comming from. The AGP bus itself has it's own voltage? How is the AGP voltage different from the GPU voltage since the AGP bus is dedicated to my gfx card only.

agp voltage is the signaling voltage
the video card has its own dedicated power supply that doesnt change(even if it pulls power from the slot)

 

[2Fresh]

You would need to put a vmod on your card in order to raise the GPU voltage. AGP voltage is just the bus.