Clevo P170EM gtx680m temperatures / throttling

[surely]

Hi everyone,

I've just receives a clevo p170em from originpc with a gtx680m and was interested in testing it's limits (safely) so I installed 3dmark, furmark, and nvinspector to have a play around. I found a guide elsewhere mentioning some safe values for core and ram overclocks without overvolting or bios modding to go past the +135mhz core.

I noticed though that no matter what core clocks I set, either default 719mhz or oc 854mhz, when I run a benchmark the temperature slowly climbs up to 90c and then stops there - spot on 90c, never going any higher.

I'm wondering, is it hitting some kind of throttling to keep it from exceeding that? Does this mean that effectively my changes to the core clock are achieving absolutely nothing? Also, what is considered safe temperatures for an overclock? 90c sounds pretty high but what can these things actually do in practice without damage or severely limiting the life of them?

Thanks in advance for any input

[Brian]

The Kepler cores do have built in throttling at the 90C threshold so what you observed is normal. With a modded vbios that @svl7 made, it seems to get around the throttle entirely for single clevo/msi cards. When I overclock to 1087/1250 (daily clocks) I sometimes hit 93C while playing Borderlands 2 and it never throttles.

[surely]

Cool, thanks. This brings up another point then, should I be concerned that I'm hitting 90c with even the default clocks when running benchmarks? Maybe my heatsink needs to be repasted properly or something. Seems to be ok if I'm just playing games though. eg borderlands 2 with everything turned to max hits a max temp of 80ish but I'm not sure its really as taxing as other games

[Brian]

First, I wouldn't recommend running Furmark/MSI Kombustor under any circumstance since GPUs aren't meant to scale to 100% utilization like a CPU. To combat this nVidia and AMD have implemented throttle schemes but you can still end up damaging the card when the power draw is too great for the board circuitry to keep up with. Remember, a mobile card doesn't have nearly the same amount of mosfets a desktop card does and even the desktop ones have been killed by furmark.

Now about the temps, 80C is still high for stock clocks but I'm speaking from an M18x perspective. I do know the Clevo P series do run a little hotter so your temps seem to be in line with what other Clevo owners get. If you start seeing 90C in games, then I'd be worried.

Edit: I moved the thread to the Clevo subforum.

[surely]

Ok, thanks. I'll have a read through the Clevo subforum to see what results people have had with repasting and modding the cooling on these. Thanks again

[Hackness]

Hi everyone,

I've just receives a clevo p170em from originpc with a gtx680m and was interested in testing it's limits (safely) so I installed 3dmark, furmark, and nvinspector to have a play around. I found a guide elsewhere mentioning some safe values for core and ram overclocks without overvolting or bios modding to go past the +135mhz core.

I noticed though that no matter what core clocks I set, either default 719mhz or oc 854mhz, when I run a benchmark the temperature slowly climbs up to 90c and then stops there - spot on 90c, never going any higher.

I'm wondering, is it hitting some kind of throttling to keep it from exceeding that? Does this mean that effectively my changes to the core clock are achieving absolutely nothing? Also, what is considered safe temperatures for an overclock? 90c sounds pretty high but what can these things actually do in practice without damage or severely limiting the life of them?

Thanks in advance for any input

GTX680M will throttle down to 135MHz on core when you run Furmark/Kombuster, this also happens on Asus G75VW's GTX660M.

[surely]

Wow, furmark manages to make it sit at 90c still when throttling like that? I don't think I want to run furmark any more

[Apu71]

I have a NP9150 with a 680m and when i have run furmark it throttles down to 135 very quickly and still hits stupid high temps. I have since stopped using furmark at all. Dont want to fry my card! haha

[xtrophy]

Does this throttling issue exist at any time? What are the symptoms? I have a bit of a throttling issue on BF3 where sometimes it will just drop to 70% for a few seconds until the temp drops down. Then it will come right back up.

It is just enough to annoy me.

[setonfire]

Hi, I've got a clevo p170em with vbios modded by svl7.

It works pretty good having a great boost in performance and good stability (no bsod).

Anyway i experience throttling cause the temperature on some games that use GPU intesely reaches 90C.

Is that normal with the modded bios, or the temperature should stay below 90C? Environment temperature is about 23C.

The only way to stay in the range is removing the backplate. I tried to repaste but the result is the same.

I even noticed that sometimes when the temperature hits 90C the fan spins to maximum speed and the temperature gets easily down to 86C to grow up again and bounce between 86 and 90C. Could be possible to anticipate the max speed fan to avoid the temperature reaches that throttling setpoint?

[Tonrac]

If you have a sager you can try the combo fn + 1 that speed up the fan to the max.

Do you use a notebookcooler? You can try also to mod your backplate (but with the risk of loosing waranty).

Which is the frequencies of your OC? Do you try this vbios http://forum.techinferno.com/general-notebook-discussions/2062-using-your-4gb-gtx-680m-its-safest-full-potential-8.html (a less overvolted vbios) ?

[setonfire]

If you have a sager you can try the combo fn + 1 that speed up the fan to the max.

Do you use a notebookcooler? You can try also to mod your backplate (but with the risk of loosing waranty).

Which is the frequencies of your OC? Do you try this vbios http://forum.techinferno.com/general-notebook-discussions/2062-using-your-4gb-gtx-680m-its-safest-full-potential-8.html (a less overvolted vbios) ?

No, on my P170EM there is not that feature.

I use notebook cooler and without the backplate i dont have any issue even at 1032x2400, the maximum boost at 1,037V

Anyway, i repasted and replaced the GPU copper heatsink and with the backplate on my temperatures now are -5C lower than before.

Still have some throttling at 900x2200 on crysis 2 after half hour of game. Not a big problem cause the fan at the max speed lowers the temperature below 89C, the throttling threshold.

With maximum boost instead (1032x2400) the throttling comes quicker obviously.

I think that modifying the backplate will solve the problem and i can run full speed easily.

I didn't try the undervolted bios yet. How much you can push with the boost?

[Tonrac]

I push my card @1005/2400 rock stable (no throttling even with crysis2) with that vbios. Moding the backplate help me to loose 8°C (with notebookcooler) ...

This vbios is not undervolted, the voltage is 1V in load instead of 0.96V

[lonesyndal]

I'm not much of a science person, but how exactly does that aluminum tape mod work? At stock settings, my P150EM idles at 36C~45C. As soon as it starts doing work, it idles at 45-51C. Maybe its OCD but... I wanted to get it lower. (Max recorded temp was 86C at 100% load on i7-3840QM).

EDIT:

So I decided to try the mod anyway for aluminum foil. Got a nice drop in temps from the idle after work.

[mw86]

I'm not much of a science person, but how exactly does that aluminum tape mod work? At stock settings, my P150EM idles at 36C~45C. As soon as it starts doing work, it idles at 45-51C. Maybe its OCD but... I wanted to get it lower. (Max recorded temp was 86C at 100% load on i7-3840QM).

EDIT:

So I decided to try the mod anyway for aluminum foil. Got a nice drop in temps from the idle after work.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5423[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]5424[/ATTACH]

How much has the aluminum shielding essentially, improved your temps. A few C?

Paranoid Galaxy S3 on Tapatalk 2

[lonesyndal]

By 4-6C. You have to use very thin rows of aluminum tape, just enough to cover the gaps and then a bit more to make sure it sticks. Too much will do the opposite and start collecting more heat (in which you can feel from the backplate). So for now, I have literally no problems with heating.

EDIT: If you want, I can take a few snapshots of how I did it in case you want visuals.

[Clevorr]

Wow never knew you could push these mobiles that far. Modded bios for 1v sounds awesome! my 680,s don't get anywhere near that throttle temp point so should have some room to play with. Was wondering what the threshold was for these, now i know.

thanks

[selphie]

By 4-6C. You have to use very thin rows of aluminum tape, just enough to cover the gaps and then a bit more to make sure it sticks. Too much will do the opposite and start collecting more heat (in which you can feel from the backplate). So for now, I have literally no problems with heating.

EDIT: If you want, I can take a few snapshots of how I did it in case you want visuals.

Hi Ionesyndal, could you post the snapshots please? I'd be interested to mod my P150EM if it's easy enough.

[hunker]

I had the same problems before and i have change the thermal paw by Silver 5 and now i have 75- 80 C in game.

[SergentPepper]

you should try to repast your GPU and/or use aluminium scotch redirect air-flow.

90° sounds pretty hot for P170EM...