[SOLVED] How to use MSI Afterburner app and what exactly can it do?

[kw22614]

Hey all,
I have been using a MSI GeForce GT 610 2 gb graphics card for several years now. Recently the fan died so I replaced it and the card is working fine and quiet once more.
On a different thread someone suggested that I tweak the fan speed in the Afterburner software.
I've had this software for as long as I've had my card but I've never even opened it until just a couple days ago, at that suggestion.
There are several categories with slide adjusters I don't understand and don't want to fiddle with until I know what they'll change or do.
They are as follows; 1) Core Voltage (set on minimum), 2) Power Limit (set on minimum), 3) Core Clock (set at 815), 4) Memory Clock (set at 500)
and 5) Fan Speed (set on minimum 40 and auto). The driver version is 388.13.

Can anyone explain to me what each of these adjusters control and do and what I should adjust them to? Will I screw something up if I adjust it/them incorrectly?
I'm not really a gamer, I got this card for the HDMI out and to improve the video quality over the onboard Intel chipset.
I just play web based puzzle games - mostly though I just surf, watch videos, movies and tv.
Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[siaan312]

Those sliders are for overclocking, meaning putting more power into your gpu, and making it go faster. For your use case, don't meddle with them. They won't do anything permeant to your pc, but if you go too far out of spec with them your system might crash (it will reset, and reset what you did. don't worry.)

There's another menu in the program to adjust fan curve, but if you want to set a singular fan speed that it will always run at, just change the "Fan speed" slider.

Though, I don't think you should anyway.
The card has a pre enabled curve. If it's too hot, it will run it faster. What the guy probably ment is, because this is such a low end card that consumes very little power, you might be able to change the curve to be more subtle, making it less noisy.

 

[Zerk2012]

Hey all,
I have been using a MSI GeForce GT 610 2 gb graphics card for several years now. Recently the fan died so I replaced it and the card is working fine and quiet once more.
On a different thread someone suggested that I tweak the fan speed in the Afterburner software.
I've had this software for as long as I've had my card but I've never even opened it until just a couple days ago, at that suggestion.
There are several categories with slide adjusters I don't understand and don't want to fiddle with until I know what they'll change or do.
They are as follows; 1) Core Voltage (set on minimum), 2) Power Limit (set on minimum), 3) Core Clock (set at 815), 4) Memory Clock (set at 500)
and 5) Fan Speed (set on minimum 40 and auto). The driver version is 388.13.

Can anyone explain to me what each of these adjusters control and do and what I should adjust them to? Will I screw something up if I adjust it/them incorrectly?
I'm not really a gamer, I got this card for the HDMI out and to improve the video quality over the onboard Intel chipset.
I just play web based puzzle games - mostly though I just surf, watch videos, movies and tv.
Any help would be much appreciated.

Your not gaming and you say it's working fine and quiet so don't do nothing. If it's not broke don't fix it.

 

[kw22614]

Thanks siaan, I was reading about it in several different articles before this post and couldn't quite understand, but your few, succinct sentences brought it home. Not to worry, I won't touch anything, but nice to know what it could do.

Thanks Zerk, not a matter of it not being 'broke' but if there was a potential for any video improvement, in my (or any) circumstances, I'd definitely take advantage of it - wouldn't you?
Thanks again, I won't touch anything!