Using aticonfig over SSH

Want to overclock or underclock your AMD/ATI GPU on a linux box via SSH?

Usually, it'll return "aticonfig: This program must be run as root when no X server is active" or "ERROR - X needs to be running to perform ATI Overdrive(TM) commands" because it's looking for X on your local system. If you run as root and have an AMD card in the local machine then you'll get the info for your local card, not the system you're connected to.

To get around this use:

export DISPLAY=:0
xhost +

and now your aticonfig and amdconfig commands will run as normal on the remote machine, e.g. To check the temperature, retrieve the current core/memory clocks and get the current fanspeed:

aticonfig --odgt

aticonfig --odgc

aticonfig --pplib-cmd "get fanspeed 0"

To set the core and memory clocks

aticonfig --odsc 1000,1200

will set the core to 1000Mhz and memory to 1200Mhz.

To set the fanspeed

aticonfig --pplib-cmd "set fanspeed 0 100"

will set the fan to max speed.

aticonfig --pplib-cmd "set fanspeed 0 auto"

will put it back to temperature controlled.