Questions overclocking on 8400M GS for good Aero performance...

Hello,

I'm currently overclocking my 8400M GS using Rivertuner to force constant Performance 3D settings: 400/800 clocks. I need to know if this will hurt the life of my video card. The odd thing is that the temperatures of the GPU normally run around 48/49 degrees on normal clocks and when I overclock them they usually run around 51-52 degrees, which is hardly different, but I still get perfect aero performance when I overclock where as it is choppy. The temps only go up if I start doing heavy 3d or start watching a video, then they go up to about 70 degress.

So my question then is, is running my clocks at a higher speed when the temperatures are roughly the same going to shorten the life of my video card?

Thanks!!

Also for anyone looking to get better battery life out of their 8400 GS, try force downclocking it to the lowest possible settings. I get a good 5.5 hours with wifi on + power saver mode (helps reduce how much power wifi consumes). I'm using a 12-cell battery. I pretty sure I could get 6+ hours if I turn wifi off. If I don't downclock, I only get 3-4 hours.

 

That card should be able to effortlessly run Aero without any overclocking. OCing hardware not only decreases the life and reliability of the OCed hardware, it can also cause heat damage to surrounding components; this fact is especially true with laptops, unless you own a machine with a very robust cooling system.

 

The reason it doesn't run aero smoothly is because it downclocks the video card to save power (and probably to reduce temperatures). Aero doesn't run smoothly on any 8400 GS in a laptop to my knowledge... but when its plugged in I don't need it to save power and if it doesn't increase the temperatures very much, I don't mind that either, unless of course it reduces the overall life of the video card, but I want know if it will reduce the life of the video card if the temperatures are still about the same. Because the temperatures are about the same, it makes me wonder if it is actually overclocking it or not.

 

you know if you just set vista to high performance mode, your card will not downclock....do you have vista? or xp?

 

Thanks for the suggestion. This was the first thing I tried, but Aero is still choppy when I set it to High Performance, though it is quite a bit more choppy when it is set on Power Saver. So it is still downclocking the GPU even on high performance. This is a driver issue, but to my knowledge, there is no driver that runs aero smooth without using Rivatuner to force the clocks to not downclock.

The reason I think the clocks are downclocked is that when I first did 3D Flip it was choppy, but if I kept doing it for about 5-10 secs it got smooth. I believe this is the time it takes to ramp up from 2D clocks to 3D clocks. It'll run smooth for a minute or two after I wind up the clocks, but then when I do 3D flip again five minutes later, it'll run choppy again until I ramp up the clocks again.

So basically when I'm trying to quick switch between windows, it's just plain ugly and usable, but if I use rivatuner to force the clocks to run at the normal 3D performance level of 400/800, 3D Flip stays smooth all the time. This really isn't overclocking, this is just making my video card run at 100% power all the time (but I don't think it is actually running at 100% all the time because the temps aren't very high. Could someone verify this?). I can't imagine it would decrease the life of the laptop very much because it should be performing within its identified range and the temperature is still very normal.

I just want to make sure that not allowing my computer to downclock isn't going to fry my computer in the first year or two. I was hoping for people who have more expertise than I to confirm this.

Also, I've tried to actually overclock my GPU for Crysis by setting my clocks past 400/800, but it hasn't ever worked and always reverted back to default, this makes me think that even when I force my clocks to 400/800 it really isn't running at full power. Could someone verify this? It seems like to me that Rivatuner is only half-working... but it actually helps in this case since it keeps the temps down and runs aero smooth.

Forgive me for the ridiculously long post!

 

I don't think I phrased my question very well. What I am asking is: if I prevent my laptop from downclocking/underclocking how much will it reduce the life of my computer? Will it reduce it some/not at all/significantly?

Now wasn't that easy?

 

Drivers from www.laptopvideo2go.com are top-notch and worth looking at.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I currently use laptopvideo2go 169.xx drivers. I have used their 174.xx driver in the past. Unfortunately, 3D flip performance hasn't changed with different drivers. :-/