GeForce 6600GT clock speed woes
 

I've been searching all over Google and can't seem to find anybody with the same problem.

My new 6600GT seems to have issues running at the appropriate clock speed in Linux. Occasionally it'll initialize at 100Mhz core/500Mhz memory and get "stuck" (won't change even in 3D mode). However sometimes it'll initialize properly in 2D (300 core/900 memory) but then still be stuck in 3D. And then other times (these are the best) it works just fine and switches up to 500/900 when entering 3D mode.

I've been trying in vain to figure out what causes it to do this, and I'm praying it's not the card, since I've definitely lost any claims to a warranty on the card (waterblock is epoxied on with arctic silver, as is a larger AGP bridge heat sink).

I'm running the latest linux driver set from nVidia, and the only thing I can think of is that there might be some XF86Config options I need to make the driver set the correct clock speeds at all times.

I'm reading the clock speed using nvclock (CVS bleeding-edge version).

I'm starting to think this may be power related; ever since I put the new card in my power supply has been making a high-pitched squealing noise that changes pitch when the card changes clock speeds or is updating a lot of pixels on the screen (such as scrolling a webpage). Guess my trusty ol' antec tru380 just doesn't have enough juice these days...or it's about to fail.

high pitched noises usually aren't good....however that PSU should be sufficient unless you have some other power hungry device on that computer

Yeah I'm pretty sure I've got enough capacity in the PSU, but this power supply has been through a lot in it's day. I hope it'll last a little while longer; I don't have the money to replace it right now.

Whatever its rating, if the PSU is doing the high frequency shuffle then it's time to try another one. That sound could be a failing cap or one that just isn't up to the load.

For test purposes, do you have another supply (whatever size) you could cobble up next to the case to run just the card? Even another PC sitting next to it. Remove the other pc's storage power & let the MB idle while it powers the other machine's video card.

I think I remember reading somewhere that the 6600GT was shipped kinda buggy to begin with.