x1950 won't overclock at all!

S

Spare-Flair

Supreme [H]ardness
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Apr 4, 2003
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Hey, I have an x1950 PCI-E and it won't overclock at all. One MHz differnece in the slider will make the screen flash and have other artifacts. This seems unlikely because it would mean that at stock, the board is already at the threshold for maximum overclocking from factory.

The Catalyst Overdrive utility's own automatic safe overclocking tool which supposedly ramps up the clock and tests it out... once reported maximum core and mem of 621 and 786, but when it tried to run those settings, the system crashed and VPU recovered.

When I try ATI Tool or ATI Tray Tools, moving the slider in low-level overclocking will do the same crashing to blank screen...even in a 1-3MHz range above stock. If I try driver level overclocking, the sliders will actually be locked! I can pull them up, but once I hit apply, the sliders drop back to default position. Same thing in Catalyst Control center.

Is there something wrong with my card? I've reinstalled drivers and CCC and driver cleaned several times. Anybody else have experience overclocking the x1950 PCI-E? I heard it was a bad overclocker but it can't be so bad that it won't even go 1-3MHz...plus ATI's own automatic "safe" overclocking detection utility claimed much higher clocks (in line of what I've read on other sites and reviews of the card of 621 core and 786 mem possible)...but when it actually uses those settings, everything goes blank.

What's wrong here? Card is very cool. Running 45-50% normally (as this card is supposed to at stock. It's utterly stable at stock nomatter what I throw at it but 1Mhz over that and *poof* blank screen or crashing...so it can't be the card is at the limit or a temperature problem.
 
M3_Dust said:
are you running the vpu fan at 100% ?
Click to expand...

No, it ramps up according to temperature. At stock, temperature is only around 50 degrees and 41% fan speed as is normal for these cards. If I override that and make the fan 100%, it doesn't change the fact that the card crashes to blank screen on even the smallest overclock or the sliders are locked in other apps.
 
Well. with the x1950pro theres a mad science to even remotely overclocking it. Get Ati tray tools, then overclock using "driver overclock" (which doesn't set overclocks at all for me and nothing I do changes it), then you should be able to overclock w/o going to blank screens if you click apply on different overclocks too many times.

the x1950pro came with a digital VRM so, it doesn't like to overclock at all (My guess is its semi deliberate on ati's part)

If I overclock my video card, I can't overclock with "Driver overclocking" selected with or without ati poller, and I can apply an overclock via low level once, but it doesn't matter if its stable or not, the second time I apply an overclock, my screen goes random colors and my computer needs to be reset.

Edit, also with ati tray tool you can set your fan to 100%, but 51c isn't remotely hot.
 
What driver version are you running? Mine won't overclock with any of the drivers put out this year. Every time it applies an OC, the screen starts flickering like mad. With the 6.12 drivers, I can get to 621/786 just fine.
 
jadesaber2 said:
What driver version are you running? Mine won't overclock with any of the drivers put out this year. Every time it applies an OC, the screen starts flickering like mad. With the 6.12 drivers, I can get to 621/786 just fine.
Click to expand...

I'm using the latest drivers, 7.3

I'll try to find the 6.12 drivers. I get the exact same flickering you described, it's probably the same problem.
 
instead of looking at the drivers and the temperature, why dont you list all the voltages you set and what you set it to , it's a good place to start
 
I've had problems with overclocking since the 7 series Catalysts. I used to get amazing OCs on my X1800XT and X1950XT, but since 7.1 any overclock at all will crash my machine. Temps are fine (X1800XT has the fan on 100% all the time, X1950XT has a Zalman on it and usually gets to about 55 degrees max.)

I blame the drivers, even though I've got nothing to back it up. (And no, I've not tried going back to 6.12 because I'm way too lazy and I really don't need the extra speed for what I play.)
 
definitely drivers are not the problem,,
i have a x1950xtx running 760/1070 and OC is stable regardless of what driver i use,

as long as it has enough power and good cooling , it will OCs (i use latest atitool,)

the CCC oc works fine too except i hate it and it doesn't go high enough
 
Same thing happened to me with a 1950pro AGP card even underclocking it caused the screen to go nuts and crash. apparently theres something about the 1950's from certain manufacturers that makes them hell to overclock. With the one i had some people where able to overclock with certain programs most of the time only one of those programs would work while others couldnt use anything it almost seemed random because what would work perfectly for a handfull of people would not for others. needless to say that card went back and i just stuck with my 7800.
 
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