Legit Reviews

I just installed my brand new 8800gt, and can now set Crysis to High settings at 1280x720 res... AWESOME!

BUT... I tried overclocking it to 625, that's only 25 mhtz over the stock setting, and I started getting physical memory dumps, and at first it was my driver causing the problem. I reinstalled, then didn't see the dump anymore, but then one 512 stick of ram was not showing. I took out one stick to find out which wasn't working, and ran memtest. The 1gig and 512mb passed, so I put in the other 512mb back in, and now the system recognizes it. I ran memtest again, and so far they have passed (had to go to work so I didn't get to see the very last 2 test results).

What is going on with my ram? and is this a result of the overclock, or is something wrong with the card?

At first it ran beautifully, but now I get memory dumps! I even got a memory dump from something when I woke up this morning, I was not quite awake yet so I didn't find out what exact program it was, and can't remember what file.

I did have nTune and Rivatuner installed at the same time, could this cause a problem?
Tonight, after figuring out if my memory is still working, I will be installing Vista again for some DX10 goodness. I'm hoping a fresh instal will solve my problems.

Any insight would be helpful! thanks in advance.


EDIT: I am going to try running driver cleaner to get rid of the old drivers. I was reading up about this in the ATI threads and this is what was suggested, but the questions still stands, why would my 512mb stick just disapear? And, could this card be bad? I had it working just fine before all of the memory dumps, so I hope it isn't the card.

you getting a BSOD memory dump or a game crash?

Could be a video memory controller or memory chip on the new card or a funky driver. Run driver cleaner, then boot into safe mode and run it again, then reinstall drivers reboot and before you OC any thing run the Artifact tool in ATITool. If you have a bad memory controller or chip it should show artifacts like crazy. That isn't the only thing that can show artifacts though. OCing to high can blow artifacts for instance. Every 8800GT I've seen thus far is able to go to at least 675/975 with no problems, most will go higher. As per your suggestion earlier I wouldn't RMA the card with out a fresh load of windows. (That might just be me though when I run into an unresolvable situation I break out a clone of my hard drive from right after a clean load and try it on that)

Make sure in bios (if you have this option) initialize Video is set to PCIE slot first, and if you have on board video disable it. Pallet Snoop should be set to disable also. If your running a sound card (especially any Sound Blaster Model) make sure it's not above the video card, and at least one slot away from the video card.

Up until my recent reload I had Ntune and Riva Tuner installed simultaneously, as long as only one of them is set to OC at startup there shouldn't be a conflict. I'd dump Ntune any way, IMO it's the inferior tool and on some systems causes problems. (If I remember correctly it crashed Stev pretty good, if my Alzheimer's is acting up I apologize Stev) Stability is better for me running Riva Tuner and I achieve better more controllable OCs (besides it's got a ton of fun options to try).

I was getting the BSOD mem dump. Under a fresh install of vista I have not had a single problem. I will try overclocking again. I didn't even install nTune this time around, and will stick with rivatuner.

This had me worried, but DX10 prettiness has me hopefull.

What is a good program for testing stability of an overclock? Will ATI artifact tool work with an nVidia card?