Vostro 1400 overclocking, its crazy.

Not sure what the deal is, but with 158.36 drivers, on a Vostro 1500 in Vista (8400M GS) I'm not able to push past 570 on memory! Core goes up way higher, but memory is not able? Is this a matter of a bad video card? Or simply something different with vista or the vostro 1500 in general? I've used ATITools Beta, Riva Tuner and NTune all to the same result, pushing memory up to around 600 causes a crash!

 

Crashing usually is a result of instability. If your card is crashing don't push it farther :\

/edit: Thats why I was wondering about the memory, because software isn't necessarily accurate in readings. The only way to know for sure is too look at the card itself

 

Okay, so it may be the maximum for my specific card or do you think that it could be a software issue?

 

What are your temperature readings? Have you tried monitoring and stress testing your card at certain clocks? You should probably try increasing the memory clock by 10, and the core clock by 3 and making sure everything works correctly. The memory SHOULD be able to clock higher than the core clock.

Also, I would not suggest clocking anything nearly as extreme as some of the posts in the front. I don't know much about the cooling on the 1500/1520 but the 1420/1400 cooling is designed rather poorly for overclocking.

 

Okay, I'll try to slowly increase, yes I've been stress testing too. I'll post some results after I've done more tweaking. Also: is it normal for the memory speed to be the same for every power level (2d, 3d-low, 3d-perf)? Thanks for the quick responses, you're awesome.

 

It shouldn't be.

Try resetting everything back to default before re-tweaking/overclocking.

My cards defaults are as follows...

Core Clock: 170, 275, 400
Memory Clock: 100, 300, 500

I suggest you change them from all being the same for the sake of saving power and prolonging battery life .

Try using various programs to check temperature. From what I see... atitool/ntune/rivatuner all read the same temperature while i8kfangui reads different temperatures. Not sure which reading is the accurate one though.

 

Okay, this could be the problem... its setting my memory speed to be the same for every performance value. So when I have the memory clocked up to 530, my values are 170/530, 275/530, 439/530 for example. I've tried changing it, but in every program the memory is set for every performance level at the same rate. Any idea what could cause this? I've reinstalled 158.36 multiple times, everytime the memory rate is the same.

EDIT: Also, it craps out at 465/580, but I can increase the core seemingly as much as I like.

 

Through ATItool you have the option to 'link sliders together.' Have you tried unchecking that? If all else fails you can try another driver, such as 158.45.

Also when you're installing/reinstalling your drivers, are you uninstalling through device manager, rebooting and then reinstalling the drivers?

 

Installed 158.45, still no luck past 570, really starting to think my video card just isn't stable at any higher settings... although, I couldn't really go to dell and have it replaced now could I? I wonder what could cause it, thankfully though updating the drivers did make my sliders independent of eachother! I'm curious if this is a vista problem, hardware or driver issue.

 

Well, I have 158.36 running right now on 900/700 so <_<