Any overclocking tips in order to prevent GPU failure?

Well artifact appearance is a sign of memory instability,when overclocking as I'm sure you know adjust the clocks at 5mhz intervals.

Also Msi afterburner is top notch in my opinion.Just be sure to run some benchmarks and monitor heat and watch for artifacts.As a rule of thumb I never go above 80c and if the card requires more than 70% fan usage then you have hit you limit and should be cautious.

Hi.

What are the stock clocks of the GPU?

@PcVeteran: is it fine to just maintain the fan speed @ 50%? i mean in case my GPU gets hotter. btw, my GPU hits 60C when playing games for like an hour or more.


@saint19: here's my GPU clocks: (sorry if i wasn't able to put 'em lol)

core: 550
shader: 1340
memory: 1700
fan speed (auto)

there   thanks!  

Download MSI Afterburner and create a fan profile, when you have that let me know.

Yes, Don't overclock it!

you mean i should create a profile with my fan in auto mode? just like this?

Go to settings, fan tab, select the option that appears above the graphic (don't remember the name), after that star to place point in the graphics to determinate the speed and which the fan must run depending of the GPU temperature.

i checked the "enable user defined softare automatic control" box. the default fan speed/temp was from 10-50C the speed would be 50% and it increases by 10% as the temp becomes hotter by 10C.

now i made some adjustments. whenever the temp starts to rise by 61C, the fan speed will be at 70%. is that fine?  

I'd define that 61ºC as 55ºC or lower, when you overclock the GPU temp rise too.

yup. uhm, what would be the best application for benchmarking?

3D Mark 06 or Vantage

i also read on some forums that there are points that are given to your GPU after benchmarking. what does those points mean? like for example, someone said that this GPU has higher points than others.

thanks!  

That means that some GPUs has better overclock range that others.

ok ima try to overclock. lol. thanks for the tips  

Start in little steps, 10MHz-20MHz and check stability.

checking stability means checking if there are artifacts during benchmarking right? so how long should i run 3d mark 06 every time i increase the clocks by 10-20mhz?

Yeah, if you can pass the full test is a good signal of stability. Well, I rise the frequency from 620MHz to 655MHz in one step.  

how many minutes does it take to finish the full stability? because some ppl would say that running 3d mark for just 5 mins is fine. the real benchmarking is by playing games for an hour or more.

~15 minutes or less....

oh ima try that. coz i remember before, i used to run furmark for about 45mins. lol i guess that's the reason why my 9500gt gave up. XD

You don't have to run a benchmark for so long, as benchmarking tests the GPU at 99% to 100% capacity, whereas games would run the GPU at much lower (the game would be unplayable if it pulls the GPU to 100% due to VERY crappy framerates). A good and simple benchmarking tool I found is a screensaver from NVidia. It uses insanely high-resource computing to run, and it runs the GPU at about 95% for as long as it is enabled. You can DL it from here: http://www.nvidia.com/content/graphicsplus/us/download.... Deselect all boxes and select just the screensaver, and click Download. It is free, and it works the GPU quite extensively.

You can then use Afterburner to check how the GPU temperature responds to load, and you can overclock whilst testing with the screensaver to your heart's content. I did it like this:

1. Checked my GPU temp.
2. Installed the screensaver, set everything to max.
3. Clicked "Preview" to initialize it instantly.
4. Let it run for 10 minutes.
5. Close the screensaver, checked GPU temp on Afterburner.
5. OC.
6. Go to step 3.
7. Repeat steps 3-6 until you are happy, and then tune the GPU back 10% of the amount to OC'd (if you overclocked 100MHz, turn back 10MHz to OC only 90MHz). This saves the GPU from harsh temps even more, and prolongs it's life.


First good tip: DO NOT OC with a stock cooler, the heat dissipation is too weak! I have a GTX460 Cyclone, and even I am not comfortable with overclocking it to even within the recommended limits.
Second good tip: OC'd hardware usually loses it's warranty, and has a very bad re-sell value. Think before you OC, consider what you gain and lose!

1- 90% of GPU overclocking is do it with stock cooler, you only need find the GPU limit, have good airflow and define a fan profile.
2- How cares warranty? If you want overclock you know that warranty don't apply, and regarding the re-sell value isn't an excuse, even if you don't overclock the GPU and sell it with stock clock, you can't sell it at the same price that you bought, so, in both ways, you lose money.