Clocking the Mobility Radeon 9700

HeavySnarker

I need some help/input for clocking the MR9700. From what I've heard, most notebook manufactuerer's underclock the MR9700. For example, mine from Aopen was clocked at around 420/220 (core/memory). The official ratings from the website are (450/250).

I'm very new at overclocking graphics cards, and I've been hesitant on touching the MR9700 because I'm not certain about the outcome. However, after trying a few settings, I've determined that the card is stable at (520+/253). I define stable as working for 5+ minutes. Adjusting the core beyond 550 results in a black screen, and pushing the memory clock above 250 causes glitches and smudges in the display. At a memory clock of 270+, the screen is nearly unreadable.

I'm currently setting the clock speed at 486.00/249.75. So far, it works fine.

My computer specs:
1.8 Pentium M (Dothan) CPU
1024MB DDR333
I've been using an external fan pad to keep the laptop cool ever since I bought it. Otherwise, Doom 3 will only run for 5 minutes before the GPU turns shuts down to cool off, and that was on the original clock speeds.

I'm hoping that someone with more experience on clocking could give me some input and warnings.

lokken

Greets.

The OC features of your card greatly depends on the cooling solution implemented by the laptop vendor.

As a general thumb rule, mobility cards are bad overclockers, not for the card themselves but for the poor cooling systems used in laptops.

Latest gaming powerhouses like Inspiron XPS or Alienware Area 51 have fairy good cooling solutions, while older models generally are Heat Power Plants even at stock clock speeds when pushed to limits, (Doom 3 for example )

I have a Dell Inspiron 9100 (same chassis than Dell Inspiron XPS gen 1), and was able to slightly overclock my old MR9700 without significative increase in heat, and running 100% stable for extended gameplay sessions, (now I have a MR9800, and this card is indeed an even better overclocker, and truly awesome when paired with the Northwood core P4, cooler than the standard Prescott one, as the CPU and the GPU are phisically placed very near inside the chassis, thus 'sharing' the heat generated to some extent).

Anyway, before attempting to OC your card you should get some kind of Temperature Monitoring system, (Inspiron users know about the good old I8kfangui). And always watch your temps with each OC attempt.

Also, ATITool is a great software for OC your card, as it can watch for artifacts caused by the overspeed, and have some limited Temp Monitoring system (temp monitor works only on certain computers).

Nevertheless, always remember that OCing your card is neither recommended nor supported from laptop vendors, so do it at your own risk.

Good luck. Regards

L

HeavySnarker

Thanks for the tip.

I ran 3dMark03 and Aquamark 3 and noticed some glitches/artifacts, so I clocked it back down to 408 core/204 memory.

redsolar

If you are not afraid to disassemble the laptop you can also apply thermal paste to the graphics card which may help a little. but it's risky to overclock a laptop, since replacement may be a lot more costly if you break the thing.

studbagel9

I am able to overclock my mobility radeon 9600 100 mhz over stock stable (meaning gaming for 1hour + with no problems). I think that if your gfx card was freezing even without overclocking, and the fact that the company underclocked the card are giveaways that it is not adequately cooled. I'd do what RedSolar says, put a little Arctic Silver 5 on it to see if that helps any. With your situation, it sounds like you probably won't be able to overclock very much, sorry. Like the others have said, be careful whatever you do, because it's probably hard to convince the company it wasn't your fault that the computer died if you mess something up and they look at your harddrive and see you have overclocking software installed ;p. Good Luck!

thegave

where can you get temperature monitoring programs? if ATiTool doesn't monitor temperature does that mean the hardware doesn't support it? I have a MR9700 M10

Manson

I was wondering if anyone knows about overclocking the 9700 with the newest Omega drivers. Does it work? Any help would be great, thanks.

EDIT: Also how do I go about doing it?