General Question Atitools

Just wondering when u scan for artifacts, do you have to constantly watch for the appearance of those yellow dots or do atitool keep track of that and tell you at the end? How long do you usually scan for to get a good idea? And should I use the old method of scanning as I heard somewhere that is more compatible with nvidia?

 

BTW how do you kno if there are artifacts? Do you just watch the screen for yellow dots? Or do the program actually tell you.
Because once in a while i see an yellow dot and atitool tells me no error for ### in the 3d window.

 

Also, just wonder can any expert explain to me how the artifacts can lead to damage? with no v mod the power consumption is the same, so can stressing your video card to a point of getting artifacts do damage?

 

you don't want any artifacts, not one.

 

does atitool tell you when you stop the scan? or you have to be watching in the scanning process?

 

if you use "Find max clock", it runs until it finds stable clock without artifacts. if you run "Check for artifacts" it runs until you turn it off.

 

so no way for atitool to keep track if it found artifacts or not? I have to watch for the yellow dots or just listening for the beep?

 

no it does keep track. there are two timers one at the top of the window, which counts runtime of the artifact scan, and the bottom one which counts how long it's been since the last error. If those two are the same, then no artifacts have been found. There's also a sound that comes when an artifact is found.

 

Yeah Ati tool will tell you when it encounters an error, seeing as you should really leave an artifact scan running for about 12-24 hours after any overclock, you couldn't physically just sit and stare all that time

 

so i got a question. i ran the thing to find the max core and it kinda crashed at 515MHz core so i just put it down to 500mhz and it seemed to have run fine but i was worried that it might get messed up if i over clocked it all te time. btw its an mr x1900 but what i want to know is how do i make sure that it is an effecient overclock with out messing up my gpu. scan for artifacts? im worried that i might not be getting enough volts to my gpu. help me out im new to this whole overclocking thing.

 

I would certainly not recommend overclocking a mobility X1900 very much. Even in my desktop x800, it's hard to increase the core more then a few mhz (stable) without increasing the voltage which I don't want to do. Memory however is easier. I can get it from 350 to 460 with barely any change in temperature, and no articfacts after 24 hours.

Overclocking the core of desktop cards usually requires a new cooler, and increasing voltage, etc. Therefore I would not recommed OC'ing the core of a X1900 in a laptop more then a few mhz, you're asking for trouble long term and shortening life of the machine.

 

that's... odd. On my go7700 I could push the core 50-60MHz (depending on how i set my memory) stable with out voltage increase or even significant heat increase, only a few degrees C. Could be because the MBR x1900 is already pushed alot.

 

its not pushed a lot...its core clock and mem clocks are pretty low
i think they can be pushed higher to say 450/500 maybe a little more...i dunno havent tried overclocking yet...still awaiting on some new drivers lol...

standard is:

core:398mhz
mem: 468mhz

 

x1900 should not be overclocked period. Nvidia models seem to be more flexible when ocing.

 

i have to disagree and agree...i disagree beacuse you can overclock it its jus about taking the right precautions aswell (for example coolers or alternative measures)...but i agree that there are quite few models (in particular the go 7900gs) that have a far more superior ability to overlock...

makes me wonder though...i read that the go 7900gs can be flashed into thinking its a 7900gtx (so it yields better results and higher overclocking abilities...its like tapping into some hidden power hehe)...in theory couldnt a similar princple be applied (if they knew how to) to do it to a mrx1800 to make it an mrx1800xt?

 

they should be he same physical chip, someone just has to make the modded bios for it.

 

I'm not sure whether they are the same.At least the power consumption doesn't lead to this.
Even if they are identical,turning a 7900GS to an 7900GTX might not be always possible.An example is the 6800LE (AGP version), the chip is totally identical with 6800GT, yet all of the 6800LE's couldn't be unlocked to make 6800GT (Flashing is different with unlocking.)
As for the BIOS : The fact that 7900GTX's BIOS can be flushed on 7900GS means that they use the same BIOS format, and in this case, it works.It might carry some risks [I haven't heard of any so far but they might exist].It's too quick to conclude that they are identical.

 

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I am well aware of this. Even flashing the gs does not make it the gtx, the pixal pipeline and some other stuff can not be unlocked. the 1800 and xt should be the same design, but features might be locked that can not be turned on. Flashing to the GTX bios just allows for higher oc in terms of clock speeds, nothing else.