Robbo

Hi, this thread might work for you, or maybe even start you on the right track: [Guide] Overclocking the 2920XM/2960XM CPUs in the M17x R3 with/without Modded bios.

widezu69, off topic I want to thankyou for your Intel XTU & Throttlestop mod for removing TDP limits (notebook forums). After reading your instructive post I was able to run max turbo at 56W all day on my 2630QM. Thanks for that one! :-)

Hi svl7, you modified my vBIOS for me, to unlock the overclocking limits. Thanks for that again, everything still good with it, but I'm curious to explore how much overvolting will likely give me as an OC increase. Max temperatures are 63degC, with fans at 61% and occasionally flicking up to 75%. If I run the fans manually, at 100%, then temperatures are 53degC. How much more performance would you think I could expect to see by overvolting from the current 0.925v maximum to perhaps 1V? Do you think it would be wise to try less than 1V, is 1V too much? And finally, would you be OK to modify the vBIOS for me (and of course for other folks that might download it)? I also attached the modded vBIOS (from you) that I'm currently using, just in case that helps you know for certain which one I'm talking about. GK104.zip

Cool, the build quality is one of the things that seems to be better than previous generations, it's all aluminium (& other metals) I believe, so I bet it feels like sturdy quality.

EDIT: quoted wrong person originally! @cl2500 Is there much point overclocking if you're gonna be running at medium quality settings with vsync on, because then the GPU is not really being pushed anyway? Although, overclocking is kind of fun in it's own right!

Not a big fan of the aesthetic on the A17, I think it looks a little generic & mainstream (a bit more boring!), more so than the previous generations. Also hearing about throttling issues on the NBR forums on the 780M, not sure if it's an isolated incidence though.

In terms of RAM speed & associated performance gain it has been proven in a few tech articles I've read that 1600Mhz is the sweet spot. You'll see some substantial gains up to 1600Mhz, and then performance gains start to trail off above that. So bothering to buy RAM that is more expensive than 1600Mhz might not be good bang for your buck & you could benefit by spending the difference elsewhere on your PC. But of course, it doesn't hurt to have faster RAM! Faster RAM than 1600Mhz really only benefits iGPU performance from what I have read, so if you have a dedicated graphics card, like we do in these Alienware, then it's a little pointless.

I wouldn't go with the 675M though, because they are old tech (Fermi), run hot & suck a lot of juice, I also don't think they overclock well because of this. The 670MX is the latest generation (Kepler), runs cooler, sucks less power, is more overclockable beyond the speed of an overclocked 675M, and costs less to buy. The 675MX is a different story though, that's Kepler, and is the same as the 670MX, but just has more memory bandwidth due to 256bit memory bus, but the 675MX is significantly more expensive than the 670MX. I do agree with fourberie though, it could be worth waiting for a drop in prices of the 680M (not sure how much they will drop in price though, sometimes these things just seem to stay at inflated prices), because they are way faster than any of the other cards I've mentioned, plus it will overclock pretty well when used with a modded vBIOS

Got the GTX 670MX in my sig for just over £200 in a sale on ebay (new). It's compatible with the same heatsink I was using for my GTX 560M. Only 'problem' is, is that you have to disable Optimus to use this card in my laptop. With a modified vBIOS on stock voltage I've also managed to overclock it by 50%, so it's nearly as fast as a stock 680M, and temperatures never go over 63 degC, plus it sucks 20W less power than my 20% overclocked GTX 560M I was using before. Very happy with that upgrade, and I'd recommend it. However, it does take some tinkering with thermal pads to set up the heat sink right, and you have to know the install procedure, etc, and then there's the modded vBIOS. So, it's not an EASY upgrade depending on your level of experience. So, I'd recommend the GTX 670MX to you. Spending money on upgrading the CPU I don't think is necessary for gaming, yours is perfectly good; well, it wouldn't really be worth the money anyway. I'd upgrade the RAM to 8GB of 1600Mhz RAM if you can get a good price or just slap in another 4GB of your existing specced stuff to get it up to 8GB, but then you'll have to remove the keyboard to get to the 2 extra memory banks - only a bit of a pain. And for general computing experience (not gaming so much), you could consider an SSD for a boot drive & use your 320GB hard drive for data storage/game storage.

First off, sorry to everyone for replying to my own thread with such fervour, but I figured that this might help someone who reads this who plans on overclocking their refresh rate of their panel. OK, I know what you mean now Khenglish after doing a bit more research! Yes, when I move the mouse cursor in Windows at a fast but constant pace back and forth, then I'm looking at the spacing between the mouse cursors. And there is even spacing between each of the mouse cursors when I do this. Which means that it's not skipping frames at the 75Hz that I tested. If the spacing had not been even, then that would have been proof of dropped frames. Thanks, got it now!! :-)

The 5 beep thing happened the first time I installed my 670MX. 5 beeps shows that there is somekind of problem with regards to the video card. I reseated the GPU in the slot, and then it worked, must have been a poor connection. You could try reseating the GPU in the slot.

As a note to other M17xR3 users, you won't be able to overclock your panel if you have Optimus active (as Khenglish pointed out to me), but if you use the latest A12 BIOS you can disable the Intel GPU and just set it to use the NVidia GPU exclusively. At this point you would then be able to overclock your panel to a higher refresh rate. Of course at this point you would no longer have Optimus & battery life would be affected.

Hmmm, I think I see what you mean by the spacing between the cursors as a test for dropping frames. I've tried it and for me it seems a little hard to judge whether its dropping frames by using that method. Mouse cursor movement seems generally smoother now though in windows. Tried F1 2012 at 75Hz Monitor Refresh rate and that felt smoother than running it at the default 60, so I don't think it's dropping frames. I tooled around with an application called RefreshRateMultiTool, that's supposed to help you determine dropped frames, but again that didn't seem to be much help to me with the limited explanations flying around the internet on how to use it. Subjectively though, I can see a difference at the 75Hz, and I can't see any obvious frame dropping anywhere.

Khenglish, have you tried overclocking the monitor on your Clevo?

Thanks for the reply! I tried it at 72Hz in an fps game where frame rate was constantly above 72 fps, tried it for 10 mins, nothing bad happened, hard to tell if it's subjectively smoother, but I don't think I'm getting frame drops. I tried your moving the mouse cursor method to determine dropped frames. If I move the mouse quickly the cursor seems to appear in four different places at once. If I move it slower it's fine, it's like that at 60Hz too though, maybe that's a Windows or a Monitor limitation or neither? EDIT: The cursor appearing in four places at once thing, I think that's just because I'm moving it too fast. I think you're referring to moving at a moderate speed (covering the desktop width in a couple of seconds) to detect any skips. If I do that, then the cursor is still smooth at 72Hz. Thanks for the tips! :-) EDIT #2: Just tried some fps gaming at 75Hz, and that does seem to be noticeably better than 60Hz, was surprised to feel a such a jump going from 72 to 75Hz. All subjective, so could be placebo, but feels easier to game & easier on the eye & brain!

The 7970M is significantly faster than the 670MX, but you can overclock the 670MX to very close to stock 7970M performance. That's what I did with my 670MX, but had to flash the modded vBIOS from svl7 to remove the +135MHz restriction on the core. As you can see from my sig, it's overclocked really well. Not that far off stock 7970M or 680M performance now. Check your temperatures to make sure the 7970M is not overheating & throttling, because should be quite a few more fps than your 670MX. Depends which game you play, some cater better to NVidia than AMD, and vice versa.

Hi All, I'm after a bit of advice/opinion. I recently found out about LCD Panel overclocking, and there's a program called evgapixelclockoc.exe that can increase the refresh rates of monitors. I did a little (I mean not very much at all!) research, and the general consensus was that you can't really damage your panel, but you do it at your own risk. Anyway, I bit the bullet and loaded up this simple program that I already mentioned to see if I could overclock my monitor of my M17xR3 (1600x900). I found out that the highest stable overclock (didn't keep it at higher refresh rate for more than 8 seconds), was 79Hz. So, effectively, this would mean that I would be able to game at a vsync of 79Hz, so games should look smoother if I can push at least 79fps. I haven't had the balls to keep the overclock to try some gaming because I'm worried about wrecking my lcd panel. What do you guys think, how big is the risk, will it degrade the display quicker over time? Anybody have any experience overclocking lcd panels or lcd panels in notebooks? EDIT: just found out you can overclock the lcd panel from within the NVidia Control Panel. You just set up a custom resolution, and set the refresh rate you want. (Just tried it at 72Hz) Hoping to hear some of your experiences or thoughts...

veer, this is a long shot, and may only help if it's a software problem with the modded driver you're using, but have you tried a driver from laptopvideo2go using their nvwin.inf? They seem to use nvwin.inf to make drivers compatible. That's what I'm using on mine, 320.49 driver downloaded from NVidia website, and then just replacing laptopvideo2go nvwin.inf into the driver folder. Perhaps uninstall all traces of NVidia from Programs & Features, then run DriverSweeper to remove any NVidia remnants, then install something like 320.49 with the nvwin.inf from laptopvideo2go that I mentioned.

Have a look on the first page of this forum. There's already 2 modded vbios' on the first page, a 1.5GB version, and a 3GB version (the one I've got).

I think you can play games with an overclock with no problem, as long as your temperatures are OK (and as long as you're not over-volting). I used to have an M1530 with 8600M GT, that I used to use overclocked by 47% on the core & 74% on the shaders, temps were always below 85 degC, and I used it for 4 years like that - it still works. My GTX 560M that used to be in the machine I have now I used overclocked for a year overclocked by 20% (as much as it would take), temps never over 65degC. Currently planning on using my GTX 670MX which is installed now, overclocked by 50%, doesn't go over 63degC, using this as a daily overclock. I would try & keep the temperatures below 90degC if you can.

svl7 (or anybody else), I'm using the software unlocked vBIOS available in this forum & I've been noticing some interesting behaviour of my cards voltage when at full load. Normally while at full load the card operates at 0.925V, but every so often, sometimes for extended periods of time, it will drop to 0.9V (while still operating at the same frequencies). I don't think it's a problem, apart from my slight concern that it might make overclocks unstable, but I'm more curious as to why it's doing this. Anybody? I did read in another forum that someone thought it was related to the cards temperature, and initially I thought it was dropping the voltage when it got to 61degC, but sometimes it'll just go ahead and operate at 0.925V even at 63degC. Maybe there's more than one variable that controls the voltage?

Wow, looking forward to being able to control all those voltages & other variables on the fly with NVInspector on my 670MX 3GB, well done svl7! :-)

Cheers svl7, that means that I know I definitely have a Clevo Card then. So, Red Line, at least you know this Clevo card works in my Alienware now, so maybe it will in yours too. I turned off the iGPU before installing the card though, because everything I'd researched suggested that was necessary.

I bought my GTX 670MX 3GB from laptopmonkey, and it was advertised as compatible with Clevo & Dell (Alienware), and HWInfo described it as a DELL card. I provided my stock vBIOS to svl7 and he modded it, and subsequently described it as a Clevo vBIOS, which I have flashed with 100% sucess. So maybe there's some overlap there between Dell & Clevo. svl7's advice is likely more definitive though!

I've got an M17xR3, so not the same as yours, but I use a Zalman NC2000 laptop cooler. I position the laptop towards the front of the cooler, so that the vent holes for the fans are inline with the intake fans on the underside of the laptop. It's a good cooler & cools the whole of the laptop, and if nothing else I've found that it decreases dust accumulation in the laptop, instead it accumulates in the laptop cooler instead, which is easier to clean out than the laptop. It's constructed of quite thick aluminium, so I think it also acts as a heatsink for the laptop too in a way. There's some in depth reviews of NC2000 in notebook forums I believe (if I remember rightly). The airlflow is quite uniform, gentle and seems non-turbulent coming from the cooler, which I think is a good thing. There's part of me that thinks that directing high speed fans directly into the intake fans of laptops is not a good thing, as it may create a turbulence that interferes with efficiency of the performance of the laptop intake fans. The NC2000 flow is indirect, so less turbulent. That's just a wild theory!