Radeon 4830 losing overclock ability?

[vogonpoetry]

Hello, ~2 years ago I built a rig with an E5300, P45 mobo, and a Sapphire Radeon 4830.

When I first ran the ATI Overdrive utility I got up to 690MHz core and 1040MHz memory clock speeds. Now its only stable at 615 and 950... do cards degrade over time? I don't run it overclocked all the time and it's not overheating.

Also driver 10.6 was causing me to crash like heck so I went back to 10.5 and it seems better.

 

[rolli59]

Yes they will age. Overclock is known to shorten lifespan since more stress is put on components.

 

[vogonpoetry]

Yes they will age. Overclock is known to shorten lifespan since more stress is put on components.

That sucks...
I read about people having bad PSUs causing problems similar. I have a 500 watt Raidmax that came with my case which i'm sure is poor quality. Could lack of power cause the same issue?

 

[vogonpoetry]

Best answer selected by vogonpoetry.