-----Original Message-----

Date:    Thu, 13 Oct 2005 10:13:56 -0700
From:    Peter Shkabara <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: ATI video

I have a Gigabyte GV-RX60X128V video card that is based on the AIT Radeon
X600 core. There is a fan on this board that runs at a high speed and is the
noisiest part of my computer. Some reviews I read say that the fan is almost
silent. I did note that the fan turns on and off during the boot cycle, so I
suspect it is controlled by the card.

I know that this video card can be overclocked. My question to the list is
how do you overclock this card? I have no intention of doing gaming and
don't want to overclock the card. However, I thought it a possibility that
the card is already in an overclock mode and hence the fan is running faster
than it needs to. I wanted to check and possibly reduce the clock settings
but don't know how this is done.

Thanks for any guidance here.

Peter
----------------------------------
Peter, there is a great tool for this purpose specifically for ATI based
video cards called ATITool. You have the ability to underclock both the
memory and core freqencies (as well as overclock). This may help to quiet
the card fan. I suspect that the hardware monitoring the card supports might
be telling the fan to run at a speed that is causing it to be a little
louder than you would like. On another note, the fan on the card is small
and probably needs to turn at a higher RPM in order to move enough air over
the heatsink. Do you have any way of installing another case fan to help
draw cooler air into the case? I can't imagine there being a heat problem,
but it might be getting warm inside your case causing whatever themal
monitor is on the card to react accordingly. You are correct in that the fan
is controlled by the card and is supposed to adjust itself depending on
whatever range the manufacturer has determined to be operating temperature.
You may be able to quiet the card by underclocking but you will have to find
a setting that suits you as you will obviosly take a performance hit when
doing this. (Not much of a factor unless you're playing Doom3 or HalfLife2
;^) Here is a link that leads to a pretty detailed page for ATITool.
http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/

Chris Ryan
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