Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

G400 Vanilla Overclocking .. whoa .. is this normal? =)

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • G400 Vanilla Overclocking .. whoa .. is this normal? =)

    Neat.
    Before TurboGL i had zero luck with overclocking my G400. OC'ing my vanilla to 120% offered _maybe_ 2 or 3 fps difference. Tonight I tried with TurboGL, jacked it up to 120.6% and fired up Q3Test. Previously, at 800x600@32bit color, 32bit textures, texture quality one step from full, bilinear, i got ~52fps. Overclocked I was getting 61fps. Swank. Very swank =)
    I must play with this some more. With a decently cooled case (avg's 26-32 degrees celsius, depending on the ambient air in my room), whats the average max a vanilla G400 can hit?

    ------------------
    P3-450@558mhz@2.1v, ABit BE6, 128megs PC133 SDRAM, SB Live! Value, G400 32meg Dualhead, Acer ALN-201 PCI 10bT NIC, 6.5gig Seagate Medalist Pro 7200rpm, 13gig Quantum Fireball CR, Yamaha 4416e Burner, Pioneer 10x DVD-ROM
    P3-450@558mhz@2.1v, ABit BE6, 128megs 7.3125ns PC133 SDRAM, SB Live! Value, G400 32meg Dualhead (@120%), Acer ALN-201 PCI 10bT NIC, 6.5gig Seagate Medalist Pro 7200rpm, 13gig Quantum Fireball CR, Yamaha 4416e Burner, Pioneer 10x DVD-ROM, Panasonic e70 17" Monitor, Antec KS-188 24" Tower, 6 year old Honeywell-SUH 101key Keyboard, Logitech Trackman Marble+

  • #2
    I only ever got my G400 32Mb DH to be stable at 115% and that is with a fan aswell. I have seen a few posts from peeps who clock at 120% and stable but no higher.
    You may be lucky at getting 120%
    Geforce 4 Ti 4200 64MB,
    PIII800,
    256MB,
    ABIT SA6R 815E MB,
    Pioneer 104S DVD ROM,
    Plextor 16/10/40A CDwriter,
    40GB UDMA100 Fujitsu HD,
    80GB Maxtor ATA133 7200RPM HD,
    Int. IDE ZIP Drive,
    512K ADSL Link
    10/100MB Fast Ethernet Card,
    SB Live 1024,
    Belinea 10 70 10, 17" Monitor,
    Hmmmm and a Floppy Drive

    Comment


    • #3
      Cooling specifically for your G400 (a fan) when overclocking is almost a must. Without extra cooling my heatsink represents a serious firehazard, even without overclocking.

      Just buy a plain Socket7 fan and attach it on top of your heatsink with some superglue.

      I have used PowerStrip (that Matrox util sucks) to get my G400 to 205 MHz memory clock (can't remember the equevilant core speed), but I haven't tested it over long stretches though.

      You should be able to get it to at least 200 MHz memory clock.

      Good luck

      Torben R
      G400 news, info, downloads and mailinglist : http://TRsDomain.homepage.dk

      Comment


      • #4
        115% seems to be the breaking point for me too, and it works without extra cooling, but I got a fan to snap on there and I'm gonna mess around some more. Hope the extra cooling helps me squeeze some more out of it.

        ------------------
        The Rock
        "Discourage incest - ban country music NOW!"

        System:
        P2 350 /w Asus P2B /w 128 Meg PC100 SDRAM
        17.2Gig Maxtor DiamondMax HD + 6.4Gig Fujitsu HD
        Matrox G400 32Meg + SB PCI 128 Sound
        Modem Blaster 56K Modem + Panasonic 2x/4x SCSI Toaster + 32X CD-ROM


        Bart

        Comment


        • #5
          Hmmm ... how do I know when I've hit my overclocking limit? =)
          I seem to recall massive texture shearing and such back in the days of overclocking your Voodoo's and such, but i get none of that, just great speed.
          However, after 30 mins of Q3Test, and the third level change, it crashed at the load-next-level display. Not sure if this was q3test or my system though. I quickly whipped off my sidepanel and felt my G400's heatsink and it was _barely_ warm to the touch. I seem to recall my old G200 being hotter than this in normal situations.
          Hmm. Most interesting. Anyone have any suggestions for attatching a fan (without using glue) to a vanilla G400?

          ------------------
          P3-450@558mhz@2.1v, ABit BE6, 128megs PC133 SDRAM, SB Live! Value, G400 32meg Dualhead, Acer ALN-201 PCI 10bT NIC, 6.5gig Seagate Medalist Pro 7200rpm, 13gig Quantum Fireball CR, Yamaha 4416e Burner, Pioneer 10x DVD-ROM
          P3-450@558mhz@2.1v, ABit BE6, 128megs 7.3125ns PC133 SDRAM, SB Live! Value, G400 32meg Dualhead (@120%), Acer ALN-201 PCI 10bT NIC, 6.5gig Seagate Medalist Pro 7200rpm, 13gig Quantum Fireball CR, Yamaha 4416e Burner, Pioneer 10x DVD-ROM, Panasonic e70 17" Monitor, Antec KS-188 24" Tower, 6 year old Honeywell-SUH 101key Keyboard, Logitech Trackman Marble+

          Comment


          • #6
            Yes, grab a 486, or maybe 586 fan. Also, at hardware/electronics stores, you should be able to pick up nylon screws. They'll leave no noticable damage on your heatsink.

            -Wombat


            ------------------
            K6-2/350@400, 503+ rev 1.2a, 128MB PC100 RAM, Millenium G200, RH6.1 w/ 2.2.12-20, Win98, and too many classes

            Gigabyte P35-DS3L with a Q6600, 2GB Kingston HyperX (after *3* bad pairs of Crucial Ballistix 1066), Galaxy 8800GT 512MB, SB X-Fi, some drives, and a Dell 2005fpw. Running WinXP.

            Comment


            • #7
              I have had a thought (I know, a bit rare), but listen up. On a PCI card, the chip is on the top of the board, and the heat sink/fan combo is on the top of that. Now, with an AGP card, the goodies are on the bottom. I always thought that heat rises. So if the heat rises and all of the other heat from the rest of the system heats up the card, plus the heat of the chip itself, would this not create more of a problem, rather than eliviate it? I think that the heat sink/fan combo should be on the back (top) of the graphics card. It would have to be glued on, or at the factory, maybe a clip arrangement. I would put up a pic, but I dunno how. Pretty simple idea really. Been buggin me for a bit now. I would have modified/broken my card myself, but I don't have the funds to buy a new one if i Fubar it. Shiny bottom (chip surface), to reflect excess system heat, and sink/fan combo on back(top) of the card. Might really work.

              ------------------
              AssuP2B ,iCeleron337, 128megs PC100, G40032megSH, Yamaha PCI sound, 2 small HD's, 42X Sony CDrom and 98SE w/shutdown patch, PD 5.30 w/beta ICD


              AMD XP2100+, 512megs DDR333, ATI Radeon 8500, some other stuff.

              Comment


              • #8
                Actually the G400 series are known to be very obedient when it comes to heat. They do not get any where near as hot as the TNT/2/Ultra or 3dfx V1/2/3. Thats not bad considering other similar .25micron fab cores exhibit alarming heat.
                Mine has never been hot to the touch. But yes I do have a fan towards it since my SLI and SB Live (yes I have noticed the Live chip gets just as hot as the SLI!) are directly below it.
                BTW my G400 benches at 120% but is not stable until 117%.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Hmmmmm. seems a few people manage 200 memory clock. I cant get mine above 193 without getting rows of random blue dots appear over my desktop. I can run at 116.5% for a while but the dots creep in after a few minutes. Yes I have a Pentium Fan on the side of my Vanilla G400 and the heatsink is cool to the touch so its not overheating thats the prob... Maybe my memory chips were "border edge" and some of the ones you guys have were from a better batch?

                  ------------------
                  G400 32MB DualHead,
                  PIII450@504,
                  64Mb,
                  QDI Brilliant 1 Mobo,
                  Goldstar 32X CDROM,
                  6.4Gb UDMA SAMSUNG HD,
                  3.2GB Quantum Fireball UDMA HD,
                  Int. IDE ZIP Drive,
                  ASUSCOM ISDN TA (Internal)
                  10/100MB Fast Ethernet Card,
                  SB AWE64 Gold,
                  Belinea 10 70 10, 17" Monitor,
                  Hmmmm and a Floppy Drive
                  Geforce 4 Ti 4200 64MB,
                  PIII800,
                  256MB,
                  ABIT SA6R 815E MB,
                  Pioneer 104S DVD ROM,
                  Plextor 16/10/40A CDwriter,
                  40GB UDMA100 Fujitsu HD,
                  80GB Maxtor ATA133 7200RPM HD,
                  Int. IDE ZIP Drive,
                  512K ADSL Link
                  10/100MB Fast Ethernet Card,
                  SB Live 1024,
                  Belinea 10 70 10, 17" Monitor,
                  Hmmmm and a Floppy Drive

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Hi Echo|Fox. I have the Max, and it'll o/c stably to 166 core / 207 mem. Higher than that, and it runs okay for a while (up to two hours at one point) then locks up (only if I'm in a 3D game).

                    The symptoms I've noticed when it locks up due to overheating appeared the same in both openGL (Q3Test) and D3D (Unreal Tournament Demo). What happens is this- everything's flying along just fine, then Bam!, textures are sheared on the display, and it freezes, sometimes with repeating audio (usually Q3Test). I unintentionally got verification that it is heat causing this when my air conditioner went out for a couple days last month. The card locked more frequently (same symptoms) even un-overclocked. 'Course, can't blame the chip for running a little hot- the temp in my house hit 89 degrees F at the time.


                    ------------------
                    Ace
                    "..so much for subtlety.."

                    System specs:
                    Gainward Ti4600
                    AMD Athlon XP2100+ (o.c. to 1845MHz)

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      I brought the core clock at 315 MHz with no problem, simply adding a little fan glued on the sink (is it the right word?? ^_^; .

                      Someone told me that sticking a fan onto the sink i'll see the sink comes off the chip. Is it true?
                      Sat on a pile of deads, I enjoy my oysters.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Ahhh you learn so many neat things =)
                        Since Matrox doesn't list the actual speeds of the G400 anywhere, exactly what are the stock settings, and how much am I overclocking by hitting 120%?
                        Secondly, I managed to convert a friend of mine yesterday who sold his Celeron 433 and Guillemot TNT2Ultra to buy a P3-450 and a G400MAX. Now i'm jealous :P

                        ------------------
                        P3-450@558mhz@2.1v, ABit BE6, 128megs PC133 SDRAM, SB Live! Value, G400 32meg Dualhead, Acer ALN-201 PCI 10bT NIC, 6.5gig Seagate Medalist Pro 7200rpm, 13gig Quantum Fireball CR, Yamaha 4416e Burner, Pioneer 10x DVD-ROM
                        P3-450@558mhz@2.1v, ABit BE6, 128megs 7.3125ns PC133 SDRAM, SB Live! Value, G400 32meg Dualhead (@120%), Acer ALN-201 PCI 10bT NIC, 6.5gig Seagate Medalist Pro 7200rpm, 13gig Quantum Fireball CR, Yamaha 4416e Burner, Pioneer 10x DVD-ROM, Panasonic e70 17" Monitor, Antec KS-188 24" Tower, 6 year old Honeywell-SUH 101key Keyboard, Logitech Trackman Marble+

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          On my P3-450 and G400 OEM DH 32Mb, I clocked 120% without a hitch...

                          Tried to attach a fan to it (with screws), then found out the OEM doesn't have screw-holes

                          So I'll have to glue it to the heatsink as well, I guess, or could I glue it to the back of the board??

                          Jorden.
                          Jordâ„¢

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Jorden, don't glue the fan on. If you get some of the nylon screws (check Wombat's post above), many times the screws will line up in such a way that they lock themselves against the edges of the vanes on the heatsink- no drilling or glue necessary, and using the nylon screws doesn't damage the heatsink. This way you can always remove the fan later if you decide to replace it (or, god forbid, to sell you G400 to someone else).

                            ------------------
                            Ace
                            "..so much for subtlety.."

                            System specs:
                            Gainward Ti4600
                            AMD Athlon XP2100+ (o.c. to 1845MHz)

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              I just screwed a pentium fan onto my g400's heatsink. Runs like a charm at 160mhz core, 200mhz memory.

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X