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NVIDIA Maxwell VBIOS mods - 900m series overclocking versions


svl7

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Thanks Robbo, I know what you mean about drivers, they seem finicky especially for the Radeon cards. I've had several that have performed worse after a driver 'update.'

As far as I can tell, nobody has got an R1 to work with the Maxwell architecture from nVidia so I think I'll avoid them. Though admittedly the price/performance they offer is tantalizing. As far as buying a new notebook, I looked at that already, Alienware seems to have gotten ridiculously expensive these days, so that's a no-go.

My best GPU score is in 3DMark11 is 5830. Looking at Notebookcheck, a single 670mx should get a score of 3587. How in the world can you almost double this to 6740!!? I'm assuming you're running with upgraded heat sinks and fans. Or do you have a walk in freezer for gaming? :-). Although I'm running at a higher res (1920x1080) I don't think this effects 3DMark scores (please correct me if I'm wrong).

You've got me interested in tweaking this thing once I get my new card(s) so if you have any suggestions let me know.

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Good decision Steve, at the moment it looks like the M18xR1 is not compatible with Maxwell unfortunately. You'll be fine with 780M sli, especially if you (overvolt &) overclock with svl7's modified vBIOS, that's how I managed to nearly double my performance with the 670MX, here's the link to the forum where you can download the vBIOS files for Kepler:

http://forum.techinferno.com/general-notebook-discussions/1847-nvidia-kepler-vbios-mods-overclocking-editions-modified-clocks-voltage-tweaks.html

Yep, so 670MX is only 600Mhz core at stock, and I'm able to run at nearly double that for the core with added voltage (1124Mhz @1.05V, which is only 125mv over stock) - so that's why my 3DMark11 result is nearly double of a stock 670MX. No fan or heatsink mods, apart from laptop cooler which lowers temps by 7degC (65-70degC core temp depending on room temp) vs just using it on a desk - of course I had to move the pads around on the heatsink to match the chips on the new card, but I wouldn't call that a performance mod. Alienware has always had really good cooling, so this really helps, although their new thin & light rubbish that they have coming out now will probably have worse cooling! You should be able to run your 780M's for everyday gaming at 1006Mhz (up from 850Mhz stock) - that's an achievable overclock & temperatures should be reasonable, you'll probably need maybe just 1V to achieve that figure, all depends on the luck of the draw though.

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Good decision Steve, at the moment it looks like the M18xR1 is not compatible with Maxwell unfortunately. You'll be fine with 780M sli, especially if you (overvolt &) overclock with svl7's modified vBIOS, that's how I managed to nearly double my performance with the 670MX, here's the link to the forum where you can download the vBIOS files for Kepler:

http://forum.techinferno.com/general-notebook-discussions/1847-nvidia-kepler-vbios-mods-overclocking-editions-modified-clocks-voltage-tweaks.html

Yep, so 670MX is only 600Mhz core at stock, and I'm able to run at nearly double that for the core with added voltage (1124Mhz @1.05V, which is only 125mv over stock) - so that's why my 3DMark11 result is nearly double of a stock 670MX. No fan or heatsink mods, apart from laptop cooler which lowers temps by 7degC (65-70degC core temp depending on room temp) vs just using it on a desk - of course I had to move the pads around on the heatsink to match the chips on the new card, but I wouldn't call that a performance mod. Alienware has always had really good cooling, so this really helps, although their new thin & light rubbish that they have coming out now will probably have worse cooling! You should be able to run your 780M's for everyday gaming at 1006Mhz (up from 850Mhz stock) - that's an achievable overclock & temperatures should be reasonable, you'll probably need maybe just 1V to achieve that figure, all depends on the luck of the draw though.

Does it kill the card over time to use near a double overclock on core + ov of 125mv ?

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No, I don't think so, because it's only using 1.05V, and other Kepler cards like the 750M use 1.156V max (780M = 1V), and the temperatures are basically under 70 degC. Current consumption is only in the region of 90-100W anyway, which is also less than other MXM cards. It could probably handle another 50mv up to a used voltage of 1.1V and 1200Mhz, which would give me another close to 10% performance, but unfortunately the voltage control won't go higher. I don't think it's killing the card in my situation. (I've been running that overclock for all gaming I've been doing since about nearly 1.5yrs so far - there's not been any decreased stability since then.)

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Yes the card works fine with the unlocked vBios on the GT60.

The 880m is a crap card compared to the 970m. Coming from my 780m to the 970m the performance increase was felt and real. The 880m isn't much faster because it's the same card with slightly higher clocks and definitely runs at ridiculous temperatures.

Overclock the card on the stock Clevo vBios +135mhz core and see if that's stable. I can run the MSI or Clevo vBios all day at +135mhz while gaming and it's never crashed even once in any game. Sometimes I'll overclock the memory 100-200mhz and is also fully stable.

With the unlocked vBios on my GT60 I was able to push +235mhz overclock with a slight voltage increase. I'm sure it can go much further as I still had not hit 1.0 volts, but decided to stop since I don't need it running that fast yet.

Another good thing about our GT60s is that they don't throttle at all. My clocks never leave full boost on this unlocked or either Clevo or MSI stock vBios. I'm not sure why the Alienware laptops are throttling. We have Optimus and it never throttles. Maybe MSI got the Optimus right as I've never had an issue with GPU throttling and I monitor temps and clocks in game with OSD.

Talon, I have a 970M in my M17x R4.. It's installed in Optimus mode and I have 0 throttling.. The issue seems to be in dedicated mode (NVIDIA GPU only) where throttling occurs... So in essence, if you are in Optimus mode in Alienware, you get 0 throttling.. I can OC too in Optimus mode so no complaints here... vBIOS has been great...

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i can't access the voltage option when i am in optimus mode...though i am using the 347.09 drivers but in dedicated mode and i can access them...no idea!

Don't use 347.09.. Those drivers are a mess for OCing.. 344.75 is better..

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Talon, I have a 970M in my M17x R4.. It's installed in Optimus mode and I have 0 throttling.. The issue seems to be in dedicated mode (NVIDIA GPU only) where throttling occurs... So in essence, if you are in Optimus mode in Alienware, you get 0 throttling.. I can OC too in Optimus mode so no complaints here... vBIOS has been great...

That is good news! How far have you pushed the voltage? I am tempted to reflash the unlocked voltage control again and push it today haha. I flashed back to an MSI 970m vBIOS. I think MSI uses a lower stock voltage than the clevo vBIOS and its still fully stable even at max stock OC of +135mhz core, and with lower temps due to lower voltage.

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Maybe someone have a vbios for Asus G751jy with gtx980m?

I looking everywhere and nothing :/

This is my stock bios

https://www.sendspace.com/file/e477ur

Thanks :)

I think we will have to wait for awhile for them to support our laptop. It looks like the vbios for Asus laptop is very different when compared to those laptops with MXM gpu card (ours is soldered on to the motherboard) Makes me jealous of those Alienware/Others user who got their vbios unlocked. Wished I had gone with the Alienware when I bought this Asus laptop. If only Alienware branded computer are cheap over here at my place.

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flashed it on my gt60 970m, but I can't seem to lower the voltage from the .95 it comes preset to, so under really heavy load my gpu starts throttling

82c under the same load with stock bios as it's running at around .87v, starts throttling sporadically once it hits about 92c with the modded vbios

I'd suspect a bad paste job but normal 1080p gaming is silent as far as the fan goes, running it at 2880x1620 really raises temperatures though in newer games

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I flash too the vbios(thanks svl) my 970m plays games like bf4 multiplayer at 1280 core and 2900 mem at 1.025v or +75.0mv.

MY max temps are 64c without no full speed fans.

My fps are btw 70-90 ULTRA SETTINGS

And I have clevo p377sm-a

I know I can go further but im scared....

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I flash too the vbios(thanks svl) my 970m plays games like bf4 multiplayer at 1280 core and 2900 mem at 1.025v or +75.0mv.

MY max temps are 64c without full speed fans.

My fps are btw 70-90 ULTRA SETTINGS

And I have clevo p377sm-a

I know I can go further but im scared....

Maybe stick at a limit of +100mv, and whatever the core is stable at with that voltage until you see other users pushing them further with no failures - assuming you don't want to be a pioneer!

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Maybe stick at a limit of +100mv, and whatever the core is stable at with that voltage until you see other users pushing them further with no failures - assuming you don't want to be a pioneer!

Yes you right my friend...😁

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe stick at a limit of +100mv, and whatever the core is stable at with that voltage until you see other users pushing them further with no failures - assuming you don't want to be a pioneer!

Yes you right my friend...

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This +225 is full stable on games? or benchmarks?

Because +240 that i am now to run bench,i can run with +50mv too

but bf4 multyplayer not even close...lol

Your temps playing games ov + oc?

I think you should choose an overvolt & overclock value that is stable in all situations - both in games & in benchmarks, and then use that value as your 24/7 overclock. You'll obviously want to achieve that figure with the minimum amount of voltage necessary. I think you agreed that you wouldn't go over +100mv for now, so you should just run a core overclock that is 100% stable both in benchmarks & games while at that +100mv. This is assuming your temperatures are below 80/85 degC. (Did you ask what my temperatures are, note I have a completely different card: 65-70degC depending on room temperature 20-26degC.)

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imho the gpu temp is not the problem on maxwell, as mine doesnt even get close to 80 or more degrees

the plate on my vrm and ram gets insanely hot when i run 100mv on my 980m, so i d recomend for now not even to go for 100mv as 24/7 oc... as long as u dont use an active laptop cooler or other optimisations

the problem also gets worse as the fan control takes only the gpu temp for the fan speed...so the better the gpu is cooled the worse it goes with the vrm and ram temps...

the clevo vrm and ram cooling is weak

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Good point chap, I guess it would be ideal to have some kind of infrared temperature sensor you could point at different parts of your heatsink so you could get an estimate on VRM temperatures, etc. I made a point of giving my heatsink the 'finger touch test' (my own creation!) to see how hot the rest of the heatsink was - I ran it with the base off and in a way I could touch the heatsink in different places while running Heaven Benchmark on a loop, I could hold my finger on it for about 1 second, so wasn't insanely hot - if you imagine a metal pan at 100 degC (boiling water), you could barely touch that for an instant without pain! haha, that was my reference!

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What's weird is, before Prema v5 and the new 970M vbios, I got 16k+ Physics score in 3DMark. Now I can't get 16k anymore, I can only get close to it. :mask:

That's not weird as soon as you know that not only the nv-mxm card has a power limit but most probably also you laptop bios for the whole system. So if you increase the power the gpu can use you might reach a point where the total limit is reached and the whole system gets throtteled by the laptop/mainboard bios (GPU AND CPU).

EDIT: However it IS wierd if that happens even when you apply same frequencies and power limits you had before...

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First: A big thank you to the bios modders !

I'm interested in flashing the vBIOS to a MSI GTX980M in my GT72.

I've two questions: The easy one is - if I flash this BIOS (it's Clevo if I'm right) - will I have to mod the inf file for the NV-Verde driver to install ? I had this issues with 2 MXM module upgrades - I needed to flash the MSI version of the vbios to get around this.

The more complex and more important one - I've read the whole thread and to me it SEEMS like there are issues with throttling once the card is not using optimus but is dedicated (or in dedicated mode how someone called it) which is always the case with the GT72. It doesn't have optimus - one can switch between intel HD and NVIDIA and needs to reboot to do so.

Any news on this ? I'm willing to help and test things - I could provide current VBIOS etc.

Could every MSI GT72 user that sucessfully flashed give a short feedback on his success (or the lack of) ?

I can see Fidanza and serafinowicz reporting issues...

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