Overclocking video card problems (goes back to stock settings)?

now i have a 9500gt 512mb nivdia video card, and i recently have been learing to over clock it, ive used two programs.

#1 riva tuner

#2 EVGA

and after ive done overclocking ect.. i go to play cod 7 and all runs fine, untill randomly the screen looks like it refresh's and it alt-tabs then the game lags like a jew and , i go to check if my video card settings are all good and they get set down heeps low, my core clock goes down to 200 and my shader clock down to 400... so wtf!!! plz help me|||It probably can't keep up with the speeds you're setting and reverts to lower settings to keep your card from dying. Try lowering speeds and increase in small intervals until you find a stable clock.



I'd suggest you to upgrade your videocard if you're gonna keep playing newer games, as 9500GT is getting really old. :)|||It's overheating and returning to the default settings to protect itself. For the minimal increase in performance compared to the amount of additional heat generated from oc'ing the gpu, especially with a low end card like the 9500GT, overclocking it is pointless. Do yourself a favor, buy a better card that will give you the performance you need without being overclocked.|||You're overheating the graphics card. Don't play games with an overclock until you confirm the overclock is stable under high load.