Overclocking the 8400m GS

A few of you have noticed that while overclocking your cards (mine's the M1330 8400) that you see lower scores on the bench while seeing faster FPS, here's why:

The card downclocks itself to 3d low power and eventually 2d if it gets too hot. This happens all the time in 3dmark. The way to fix this is through using ATITool and selecting to control all the bench settings together. Rivatuner cannot set the 2d memory high enough on the 2d side so you will always downclock. ATITool doesn't have this restriction. If you want to use Rivatuner, be sure to enable the low power 3D option to set that up.

I'm at 502/687, rivatuner showing 540/684 with 3dmark05 of 3795

 

Can you explain how you've done the overclocking and with what driver version? I found (haven't tried in a while) that when I overclocked it would immediately reset the clocks to default.

 

Use ATItool .27b or Rivatuner or ntune with the 158.36 drivers and it'll allow you to overclock. There is a huge thread on overclocking w/ the 1400/1420 but its quite a mess.

Try using I8KGUIFAN along w/ one of the other 3 programs to monitor temperature (I actually like rivatuner/atitool more than ntune).

Depending on what program you use the temperature will vary, and it also seems depending on what processor you're using the chipset temperature will vary.

Rivatuner/Atitool/ntune read what I8KGUIFAN reads for chipset +10degrees c. Using one of these programs, I idly around 65c and temperature goes up to around 96c while using stock clocks under heavy load for an extended period of time. With even mild overclocking my temperature readings break 100c.

I8KGUIFAN GPU temperature reading thoiugh never fluctuates much though.

Remember, from what I can tell, the temperature varies depending.. of course on GPU and also on the processor for your chipset. Either that or some laptops (like mine) just run 5-10c hotter than others :\

The SAFE method is to raise memory clock by around 10 and core clock by 3 and test for stability but people seem to have been able to raise the clocks pretty high (though I don't guarantee safety in that)

 

You can't use a 16*.** driver to overclock, you need to use a lower series...158.36 is prob. the best in the lower series right now

 

Maybe this is why i'm seeing 2900~ in 3dMark05 when other people are benching 3100~ or higher from stock drivers.

 

Also, what does it take to permanently keep your overclock settings after a reboot so that once I find a happy medium for my 8400m, that I can save it leave it, and whenever I shut down, reboot, etc. my overclocked settings remain the same?

 

The 8400gs overclocks really well. Im on the nvidia forceware drivers that came on the cd and im getting clocks of 630/750. OH and im using ati too .27b

 

Well I guess that explains it then. Is this true on the desktop chipsets also?

 

I'm not sure...but I could only assume so...