I hope I didn't damage my HD3870...

[KlausK]

I was playing around with Ati Tool today. With a Thermalright HS, the GPU
temp was always below 47C even when running 3D Mark 06. So, I clicked "find
max core." It went up & up..to 840, 850 and then suddenly my PC lost video
signal.

I rebooted. No video signal. I panicked and rebooted. No video signal. About
2 minutes later, I rebooted and (whew) everything seemed normal. I ran 3D
Mark again and it went fine.

So, I hope I didn't damage my 3870...(sigh).

 

[First of One]

I was playing around with Ati Tool today. With a Thermalright HS, the GPU
temp was always below 47C even when running 3D Mark 06. So, I clicked "find
max core." It went up & up..to 840, 850 and then suddenly my PC lost video
signal.

Remember, better cooling doesn't allow for higher overclocks. Better cooling
in conjunction with voltage increases allows for higher overclocks.

I rebooted. No video signal. I panicked and rebooted. No video signal.
About 2 minutes later, I rebooted and (whew) everything seemed normal. I
ran 3D Mark again and it went fine.

Often, overclocking-induced crashes require a hard power-off/on (i.e.
flipping the switch on the back of the PSU) to reset. Warm reboots don't
always work.

So, I hope I didn't damage my 3870...(sigh).

If there's damage, you would see it (in the form of flashing pixels,
checker-pattern textures, etc.). Ironically, your whole ordeal may have been
pointless. The new cards like the HD3870 and 8800GT tend to be limited by
memory bandwidth at high res + FSAA. You will see higher gains overclocking
the RAM.