[mecharmor23]

I'm attempting to overclock it as it is the only choice left for the following 3 months for me.... I want to Overclock only my video card basically. It's default speed is 166Mhz. I then installed Voodoo3 OC. The readmes don't exactly tell which speed I should go beyond. Anyway the minium is 120 while the default for my card is 166 and the max it can go is 200mhz. Right now I had it tuned from 166mhz (default) to 190 mhz. Is that dangerous??? And I only have ONE fan in my comp heh.......
your reply would be appreciated....

 

[Betamax]

That must be one hell of a fan.

Seriously



taken from www.sharkyextreme.com

2000 & 3000 Overclockability

So are these retail boards overclockable then? In a word YES. Do the boards get hot enough to frazzle the skin off of your fingers? Oh yes… Is it worth it? We certainly think so (overclocking and not burning your skin- we don't condone that). The benchmarks conducted on the Voodoo3 2000 certainly showed that even without cooling one can 'safely' (we say 'safely' because 3dfx does not condone or encourage the use of freeze spray or overclocking blah blah) overclock as high as 175MHz. And at the 166MHz frequency one could VERY easily mistake the board for a 3000 since the benchmarks were identical (using the same drivers of course). And when going as high as 175MHz, you one starts to realize that the board is not all that far away from the 183MHz proposed for the 3500. Most of all, the testing shows that if you're unwilling to pay for the pricier 166MHz version of the Voodoo3 (the 3000), then you don't necessarily have to spend the extra $50- here's a good excuse for you. That's if you don't really want a software bundle either… And if you're prepared to take a few risks.

Any problems? No not really. If you are willing to accept the odd graphical glitches and discrepancy at 1600x1200 then you'll be fine and in good hands. Of course the likelihood of any of you using a Voodoo3 2000 or 3000 at 1600x1200 is highly unlikely anyway. The speeds listen in the table/graph all worked happily and there were no instances of crashes. We did indeed go as high as 180MHz (without any additional cooling we might add) but this is where overheating problems began occurring- random crashes and image problems. Therefor we'd reckon 175MHz is a good place to put a full stop. At this frequency the 2000 worked for two days solid.

Personally I think your safe. In my case I bought a v3 2000 when they first came out and clocked it to the same speed as a V3 3000 with no problems. I'm still using that card in my spare pc. However that siad I gluded an old 486 heatsink and fan onto it. Its better to be safe than sorry.

 

[ZeroDegree]

Man, mecharmor23, you are overclocking too much!
But if it works for you, great. But my advice is overclock your v3 1MHz at a time and run graphic intensive applications to see if it is stable. If you start seeing artifacts and gliches then that's the limit. You should really overclock just when you are going to use graphic hungry apps and games with an overclocker which lets you overclock on the fly. When your finnished using the app, set your v3 back to default speed. Voodoo3 OC just configures via the registry, you need something that OC's via hardware. The tweakers that I know which are capable of doing it are powerstrip and v.control. check them out.
powerstrip www.entechtaiwan.com
v.control www.voodooextreme.com/koolsmoky/v_ctrl.html

 

[EeeK]

First of all, the default speed for the Voodoo3 2000 is 143MHz and not 166MHz so I presume you are using a Voodoo3 3000 which have a default speed of 166MHz. If you are using Voodoo 3000 and have not encounter any lockup or graphix gitches, then it's working fine so don't worry about it but if you are using Voodoo3 2000 instead and so far have not encounter any problems as I mentioned above, then you really got a VOODOO card!!!

 

[Neo_ZX]

I also have a Voodoo 3 2000 and the clock speed is in fact 143Mhz as previously stated. However, I currently have it at 155 soon to bump it up to 160 if everything works properly (and it has so far). I have read on the web that people go as far as 166 with only very minor glitches here and there *with no extra cooling* although something like a 486 fan would of course be a welcome addition.

Unfortunately the card's heatsink faces downwards and we all know that heat rises. I have read that you are able to add another heatsink on top of the card to help dissipate the heat but I doubt this would really help much. People have claimed to get the card as high as 175 or 180 but I wouldn't risk going that far. I plan to go as high as 165Mhz with a 486 fan. This should keep it stable and safe.

Not sure about the Voodoo 3 3000, but I hear it isn't as overclockable. Try searching the web or something for tips on that card.

 

[takwu]

maybe i'm just too careful, but i use a slot fan right below my voodoo3 3000 even tho i dont overclock. i used to be quake2 addict and would go for a 5 hour game any day (or night), so without that fan, it'd crash eventually. after fan, however, never got prob anymore.

 

[Ryos]

A lot of recent cards have fans insufficient for the job even at the default heat (just take a look at the Athlon 1.2...eek). Considering how cheap fans are, it's never a bad idea to get another one or two. I think the main problem is computers are geared at casual use and not the every single minute you're at home user.

 

[Betamax]

True, last year when I upgraded my machine I had major hassles getting a cooling system strong enough. I ended up going OTT and got a nework sever case then attached extra fans that I pulled out of old faulty PSUs. That did the trick. Anyways, if your looking for cases with serious cooling/power systems I recommend www.overclockers.co.uk .