9800 Pro Problems

[Frank Weston]

The system:

P4 2.8 oc to 3.4 at 242 FSB
Sapphire 9800 pro 128 Mb
2x256 OCZ PC3700 memory
ASUS P4P Deluxe mobo
Samsung 172T LCD at 1280x1024

The problem:
System runs and tests fine for hours under Prime95 at 242 CPU and 1:1
divider for memory, but there are visual artifacts is some games, notably
Ghost Recon, America's Army, BF 1942. Other games like Counterstrike and
the Call of Duty demo run fine. 3DMark03 runs with artifacts. The GUI for
CS 1.6 runs with artifacts, but the game itself runs with no problem.

If I set the memory divider to 4:5, and run FSB at 242 and memory at about
192, everything works fine, and there are no visual artifacts. Everything
works fine until I run the memory at about 220. In any case, the memory
always tests without problems at any speed up to and beyond 242.

Has anyone else had a similar problem?

Any ideas appreaciated, I've run out of things to try.

 

[Skid]

Forgive me if I'm asking the obvious, but are you sure the AGP/PCI bus
speeds are locked in the bios? Visual artifacts are more often a sign of an
overclocked video card than overclocked memory.

 

[Marek Merta]

Skid is right. I just recently had the same issues when overclocking. The
AGP bus was clocked too high, so I had to settle for a lower FSB frequency.
Although the games wouldn't crash, like in your case, some (and also not
all) had visual artifacts.

 

[Frank Weston]

Good idea, but AGP/PCI bus is locked at 66.66/33.33. At 242 FSB and 4:5
divider, I can overclock the video card about 15% before I see any problems.

Thanks