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My 680m isn't working due to a motherboard defect (Thanks, MSI, for not bothering to reply to two separate trouble tickets by two MSI owners with the same exact hardware problem) and I tried taking it out, but it causes the "100% fan deal", so I jyst popped it back in and disabled it in Windows, since I have Optimus. For you guys without Optimus, I'm not sure, MAYBE a fully opened up BIOS will give you the option to switch video adapter.

Yeah, looks like NVI doesn't accurately report memory speed, doubling it, instead of quadrupling. I'll edit the post to reflect this. Thanks, guys.

I just posted something that may help you: http://forum.techinferno.com/msi/6862-msi-video-overclocking-cheat-sheet.html

This is inpired by widezu69's "Using your 4GB GTX 680m to its safest and full potential" (Thanks for the insight!) I recently had an exchange with a new member about overclocking his GPU and noticed he had a hard time finding things, so I decided to put this here for future reference and to help others. This is the procedure I used to OC my 680m and that I would recommend to anyone asking how they should go about it. This is terse and not meant to be a step-by-step guide, but with a little reading and initiative, you will successfully overclock your 6xxm card on your GT70 using this info. I don't know how well the fan controller thing works on other laptops. MSI GT70 video overclocking cheat sheet: Use the latest WHQL driver. Beta EC https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=162629.msg1192013#msg1192013 vBIOS (may only be downloaded after X amount of posts) http://forum.techinferno.com/general-notebook-discussions/1847-nvidia-kepler-vbios-mods-overclocking-editions-modified-clocks-voltage-tweaks.html Nvdia Inspector http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/nvidia_inspector_download.html Fan control for more aggressive cooling http://forum.techinferno.com/msi/5711-guide-how-control-fan-g-series-laptops.html Furmark http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/ I use it at 1920x1080 with 8X MSAA OHM http://openhardwaremonitor.org/ I realize that furmark is hardcore and doesn't reflect real-world usage, but this will give you a good idea what the worst-case maximum temp will be. Run it until the temp reading in furmark stops climbing for a while. Ambient temp is important. Run this at your typical ambient gaming temp. MONITOR your GPU frequency and temperature with NVI or OHM(It's always running on mine) while furmarking. If you hit 90C for long, you will throttle and need to back off. Remember that you will have additional thermal load when your CPU has a heavy load during gaming. If you want to get more accurate temps, run Prime95 with max threads while furmarking. 1-3C extra on my machine, but "Cooler booster 2" owners may see more. Memory speeds ALSO influence heat, so try to find a balance between GPU and memory speed. I tend to lean towards GPU, but I don't have hard numbers on this. I think the MC% shows saturation and it does go up as the bandwidth(memory clock) goes down. I'm still experimenting, but I think that as long as it doesn't hit 100% there's no VRAM bottleneck. Note that not all frequencies you specify in NVI "click" and that you must have a load to make the adjustments. To have your NVI profile survive reboots, create an overclocking shortcut with it, then open its properties and copy everything starting with the first dash (that's the argument to the exe) Create a new task in Task Scheduler running "C:\Program Files\NVI\nvidiaInspector.exe", paste what you copied off the shortcut as the argument. Check "Run with highest privs". Persistent fan profiles follow a similar procedure. Info in thread. When you're done furmarking, run your favorite benchmark and have OHM running the the background. Afterwards, look at your temps and GPU clock to make sure there's no throttling. OHM seems to have a bug with where the GPU clock gets plotted, so it shows only half the clock, (915 shows a little over 400), but you can tell when it throttles. My card is currently at 915/1965(as displayed by NVI, memory actual is 983 and effective is 3932), furmarking at 83-84 at 26C (which translates to 86-87 at 30C). It's work in progress. I'm open to any suggestions and comments on this little "cheat sheet" from the experts! Edit: Updated card temps, added cooler booster 2 cpu load note.

As long as the voltage on the 220W supply matches the 180W brick, which is 19.5V, then you'll be fine splicing that on there. +1 on the cooling mods. I have looked around and haven't seen anything substantial. I kind of want to try changing to the "Cooler Boost 2" CPU heatsink, which has the extra heatpipe, but I don't know what real world impact this would have. It's difficult to do after-market mods to cooling on these laptops, but I reckon if you had access to the right equipment you could match the heatsink's base dimensions and create one with larger area up top... EDIT: The power supply MUST provide more amps than the current 9.2, otherwise it might it's 220W and just inefficient crap.

I haven't done much benchmarking, save for temperature-checking, but I look at it this way: Overclocking can basically make your 680m into a 780m if you're in a cold environment and have a good quality die, for free. The risk is negligible, but it does exist and each person's threshold for risk is different. I am fully aware that if something goes wrong while flashing, my 680m is dead. Frankly, I just overlcock because I can and I enjoy the process.

This is what I did on my GT70 0NE, once I got my five posts: Flashed with modified BIOS, used the one without extra voltage to keep the heat down, loaded the Beta EC and NVinspector. I also used the fan control trick with RWeverything to have more aggressive fan action. All these can be found here in the forum. Got my 680m up to 941/1900, at 26C ambient it furmarks(1366x768, 8XMSAA) at 81-82C, which hits around 87C at ~30C ambient. I use OHM to monitor clocks and temp as I test, to make sure I'm not getting throttled. My main thing was to keep it from throttling when I run my laptop in a place without AC, which is often. 100% stable in multiple games and 3dmark13. I'm still not real sure of the relationship between memory and core clocks, so I went for a higher clock. Remember that overclocking the GPU's ram will add to the heat load. I haven't overclocked the CPU at all. I don't see any easy way to do that with my 3630QM and I don't think whatever gains would be worth it, since the most games seem to be GPU-bound. YMMV, but I'd recommend only using overvolted VBIOSes if you must, due to to the extra heat load.

Disabling Optimus can only be done by flashing a new BIOS, AFAIK. A little googling showed that Linux has support for it via the official driver and Bumblebee, while OSX supposedly has support built-in.

If you're asking if you can manually turn on the fan up to maximum via the touch button, yes you can, it won't hurt anything.

I'm using the modified 80.04.33.00.247 MSI BIOS at stock voltages. Keep in mind that the memory clock also generates heat and make sure to repaste with good quality thermal paste.

Successful overclock report on a GT70 with a 680m. Modified BIOS with stock voltage, ambient temp around 30C, furmark(1366x768 8XMSAA) getting temp up to 86, clocked at 888/2005. The card did 915/2250, but it hit 90C and would start throttling, so I backed down until there was no throttling. It looks like it'd do 980 overvolted, in a cooler ambient. All in all, I'm happy with the results. It's pretty hot over here and I do game with the AC on, but I need the laptop to also work in the heat and in the AC. PS: Newest Nvidia drivers, 335.23 no issues on multiple games. EDIT: I've since cranked the clock to 915/2050, which also furmarks at 86C with an ambient temp around 30C. Unfortunately, MetroLL does cause it to throttle only a few times and for a very short periods, a couple 1-second drops (3x in a 2-hr gaming session), so I'm going to back down to 915/1974 and run some gaming tests. I'm thinking GPU speed is more important than memory bandwidth for games.

Looks interesting, but it doesn't let someone customize the temps/speeds for the fan. Perhaps this could be implemented in a later version?

I had overlooked that MSI had a 2-year warranty. Bad parts DO happen, so this isn't due to anything you did. Hopefully the exchange is speedy so you can really game, instead of spending all your time fighting with the thing.

I haven't used Afterburner 2.3.1 and just loaded the 3.0.18 beta on my system to see what I'd get. From the screenshot, it looks like you're overclocking by 140/200. In order to track down the issue, I'd keep everything as stock as possible, meaning +0/+0, at least until you figure out what's happening. Driver-wise, I've used the last three releases without issue. If you've been doing everything properly, I'd lean towards a hardware issue, but it's difficult to tell from afar. I don't know how important the thermal pads are on the card's VRM section, but perhaps it'd pay to take the heatsink off and check to make sure everything is in place. If you do this, remember you'll need to repaste the card. Try the beta EC and report back, and like others have said, keep an eye on them temps.

Real stupid question: What power profile are you running under? If you try to run it on battery, or if you're on power saver, the machine will run like crap. I also have a GT70 (3630QM & 680m) stock with latest BIOS, with the only modifications being the beta EC from MSI and a repaste job done by myself. MWO is set on high, so are Skyrim, Enemy Within, etc. You likely have a hardware problem and are just compounding it with VBIOS, throttlestop, etc. If I were you, I'd go back to stock and reformat, then try to localize the problem. The TDR stuff is just hiding the issue. If a fresh load, with stock BIOS/etc doesn't give you the performance it should, you MAY have a bad card or even a power issue. Have you re-seated the card? Simplify simplify.