NVIDIA Maxwell VBIOS mods - 900m series overclocking versions

[serafinowicz]

Thank you - I'll let you know how I get on.

[TomJGX]

This vBIOS is great! Stock clocks are now the boost ones and they run at 0.95V..

Stock 3D Mark 11: Intel Core i7 3940XM @4.2GHz and stock 970M(running on full boost): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3940XM,Alienware M17xR4

For Firestrike: Stock 970M (full boost ) + 3940XM @ 4.2GHz: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3940XM,Alienware M17xR4

Anyways, max stable OC I've done on 344.75 is +300 core and +600 memory (+300 on boost memory clock) with power target on 130% and 1.056V..

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3940XM,Alienware M17xR4

Will be doing more benching later today.. Need to ramp the voltage up a bit..

[omega939]

This vBIOS is great! Stock clocks are now the boost ones and they run at 0.95V..

Stock 3D Mark 11: Intel Core i7 3940XM @4.2GHz and stock 970M(running on full boost): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3940XM,Alienware M17xR4

For Firestrike: Stock 970M (full boost ) + 3940XM @ 4.2GHz: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3940XM,Alienware M17xR4

Anyways, max stable OC I've done on 344.75 is +300 core and +600 memory (+300 on boost memory clock) with power target on 130% and 1.056V..

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3940XM,Alienware M17xR4

Will be doing more benching later today.. Need to ramp the voltage up a bit..

Hmm.. I think i really need to upgrade my CPU to an extreme then .. btw.. You using nvidia inspector right?

[TomJGX]

Hmm.. I think i really need to upgrade my CPU to an extreme then .. btw.. You using nvidia inspector right?

Nope using Precision X... Will try NVIDIA Inspector later..

[johnksss]

the original post said "almost complete control" so my thoughts is that some functions might not be fully controllable.

i'll wait and see what people say about it.

Ah yes. We were trying to unlock a lower voltage table.

Godfakr is claiming he is getting throttling so I'm a bit worried about this.. more ppl with AW's need to flash this and confirm if working 100%..

This could very well be true.

they're sigged as having an M18X R2 but if they have an AW17 and they're getting throttling with the modded vbios then i am concerned.

Why be concerned? You flash, test it, if it's not fully working then you flash back. No harm no foul.

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.

Try some other settings. Usually after a bios flash I have to always do slight adjustments to get back to where I was.

hello, svl7! i'm using your vbios and tested several times.. it works great.. successfully unlocked and can access power limits and voltage control.

but sometimes directx 11 stop responding while playing the games. and suddenly nvidia driver stopped and recovered. just for me, i can't even start 3dmark tests because of the erros (some buffer and device error they said) .

this pheonomenon occurs many times and my colleagues experienced same even they didn't set graphic card to overclock (didn't change the clocks, power limit and etc.. with only bios default setting) . it is kinda unstable right now.

i newly installed nvidia drivers(344.xx drivers) and directx just in case, but same.. when i get back to my backup vbios, it goes well, and same for my colleagues.

is there anyone experince same like me and my friends? by the way, i'm always appreciate your work svl7! i'm here just give feedback to make it better:distracted:.

thank you very much for reading!

As suggest, you may need to raise the voltage a little. We were going under the assumption that it would be stable for all at these settings.

vBIOS flash has worked.. Time to OC.. Thanks Godfafa, you've been a great help.. Svl7, you kind of need to update the instructions.. It needs to be more clear with regards to the fact that you have to flash in windows and not DOS..

Per first post:

Flashing:

- Go to the device manager -> 'Display Adapters' -> chooser your GPU, right click on it and choose disable

- Flash the VBIOS with mnvflash, a modified version of nvflash (see attachments). Here are detailed instructions for nvflash in case you aren't familiar with it.

- After the flashing is done: Enable the GPU once again in the device manager.

- Reboot

But the link in the description is to the old flashing style.

@whatsupdo7 I've not flashed this vbios yet. But i had similar issues while OCing 980m as you've experienced. I think it is related to base clock and voltage. Have you tried increasing voltage at stock @1202 clock? like 1025mv or 1050mv

**Edit**

First i would like to thank @svI7 and @johnksss for these vbios release, appreciate your time and efforts. John, now my 980ms can able to go beyond 1350, due to unlocked power slider. Actually i've noticed that at stock clock 1202, all games (COD AW, AC Unity, Crysis 3 or BF4)i've tried to play so far crashed after few seconds of game play, dark screen system freezes. I think it is due to low voltage 1V at higher clock. First i've increased voltage to 1025mV, BF4 worked fine for about 25 sec. then black screen. Increased voltage to 1050mV everything else at stock. Now i can play all games without any issue. Played BF4 for about 20min no problem. I think 1000mV is not enough for 1202 core clock, it should be 1050mV. Here is my BF4 game play @1202 and 1050mV.

Looking good now. Some may need to raise the voltage a bit while others are stable. Something we will look into.

i'm curious as to why some people are seeing throttling in dedicated mode while others aren't...very strange.

EDIT: I know i've been harping on it like an angel with parkinsons disease!

A work in progress.

Hi all! First - thanks to svl7 and johnksss for your hard work.

I have the 8GB 980M in an MSI GT72 (a great machine which I recommend) running the 344.75 driver. I flashed the new vbios okay and started 3DMark again. It crashed with a little overclock a few times and I ran it with no oc and it crashed again after ten seconds or so.

Looking at the posts above I see people recommending increasing the voltage by a little. I've never overclocked before and I think I have an understanding of it and am happy to experiment but I know that messing with the voltage can screw up your card.

Is increasing the voltage a little on this card risky? Also - are core clock and memory clock bound by any kind of ratio? And what about power target?? All these things are still a little mysterious to me.

As a beginner it would be great to have some suggested values to try. Can anyone help? Thanks!

EDIT: Will post GPUZ screen when I get home.

You are fine with increasing a little voltage. As to how much is up to the individual user. No one will have a fact based answer for long term use because these cards just came out. So we play it by ear for the first 6 months.

Hmm.. I think i really need to upgrade my CPU to an extreme then .. btw.. You using nvidia inspector right?

And extreme brings new life to any machine....And so does paying for them.

[thegh0sts]

All I can do is hold out till I come into some money.

[johnksss]

Dang, so not on your Christmas list huh?

[thegh0sts]

Dang, so not on your Christmas list huh?

It's on my "get when I have paying work that isn't a survival job" list. I also have want more tatts done on that list too

Being out of work sucks!

[Peter18x]

Looking good now. Some may need to raise the voltage a bit while others are stable. Something we will look into.

I think it's due to every 980m use slightly different voltage at same clock. At slightly higher voltage 980ms performs better. Unlock voltage limit upto 1250mV could help to get stable performance at very high clocks.

[johnksss]

I think it's due to every 980m use slightly different voltage at same clock. At slightly higher voltage 980ms performs better. Unlock voltage limit upto 1250mV could help to get stable performance at very high clocks.

No mobile card has unlocked voltage above 1.2 mv

I was also able to game on these cards at 1446/1453. So i gotta say that is pretty impressive in it's own right.

Edit:

yes, they all seem to do that. Even on my desktop cards. And I had 4 of them.

It's on my "get when I have paying work that isn't a survival job" list. I also have want more tatts done on that list too

Being out of work sucks!

Yes..... It does.

[thegh0sts]

I've been told it's possible to oc while in Optimus mode... Anyone tried it?

[Kantana]

Any issues with using Clevo gtx980m cards in SLI with this, any special instructions needed? Does this also fix the unequal clocks and voltages with these cards in SLI?

[Peter18x]

No mobile card has unlocked voltage above 1.2 mv

I was also able to game on these cards at 1446/1453. So i gotta say that is pretty impressive in it's own right.

Edit:

yes, they all seem to do that. Even on my desktop cards. And I had 4 of them.

lol Yes impressive, i've watched your BF4 game play at 1446.

[johnksss]

Do not think i do that on a regular basis!

Im back to gaming on stock clocks. HAHA.

Playing Advanced Warfare right now. A game that uses pretty much all of that 8GB of video memory that most seem to think is useless.

I've been told it's possible to oc while in Optimus mode... Anyone tried it?

Yes. When I had my M18XR2 I was able to over clock on stock vbios. I had never got around to flashing that machine to test our vbios on it before I sold it.

[thegh0sts]

240w for a stock 980m is fine?

[Peter18x]

Do not think i do that on a regular basis!

Im back to gaming on stock clocks. HAHA.

Playing Advanced Warfare right now. A game that uses pretty much all of that 8GB of video memory that most seem to think is useless.

Ahh your good at FPS games For gaming dual 980ms at stock enough.

COD AW is nice game but PC version is broken, getting lag randomly most of time.

[johnksss]

I found that when gaming online you need to be on a very fast server. The server that is ahead of the lag. Else you are playing twice as hard to keep up. And also the local you connect from plays a role.

The part I hate most is i know damn well i shoot people then only to have them turn and kill me. Then i go back an look at the game and see that i he shot me 5 seconds before i even started shooting. LOL.

[Peter18x]

Yes true!! Actually there is no dedicated servers for COD BOII and later. Haha yeah and most of time you get killed so quick, if your not hosting game.

[Guest]

OK, now it's not throttling again, LOL... how goofy! This is using a stock vBIOS. There has to be an answer to this. Probably something simple. System draw is going beyond 330W now with no problem and that is normally where it plummets. I had made a Windows drive image at a point where it was not throttling. I restored it here and now it's working good again. This really makes me wonder if it is a driver issue. If it was BIOS or vBIOS behavior causing it, not sure restoring this image should have made any difference.

I wonder if I shut down and cold boot if the throttling problem will be back again?

- - - Updated - - -

Do not think i do that on a regular basis!

Im back to gaming on stock clocks. HAHA.

Playing Advanced Warfare right now. A game that uses pretty much all of that 8GB of video memory that most seem to think is useless.

Yes. When I had my M18XR2 I was able to over clock on stock vbios. I had never got around to flashing that machine to test our vbios on it before I sold it.

I absolutely love this game. I have played through SP twice with 780M. Once we get my 980M SLI throttling issues sorted, I will have to run through it, Crysis 3, Ghosts and BF4 once more.

[thegh0sts]

If it throttles after a reboot then it has to be a hardware issue maybe in the firmware?

[johnksss]

I'm liking COD AW allot.

[thegh0sts]

I'm liking COD AW allot.

Runs better than ghosts but it does have some issues.

[johnksss]

No issues for me thus far.

For ghost or AW.

[thegh0sts]

No issues for me thus far.

For ghost or AW.

There's a glitch in the mission where you're stealthing your way into Irons' private estate. Whenever I do a kill with the grapple hook the dead body would float 2-3 feet in the air holding the default pose (standing with arms out).

Not game breaking but definitely immersion breaking.

Steam overlay doesn't work for me either so I have no idea if I have received a steam achievement or a pm.

[ssj92]

I'm liking COD AW allot.

Are you playing it on PC or Xbox? I ended up buying AW for Xbox this time around. I had bought ghosts on PC and it was awful and there was like no one playing online. COD on PC seems to be good for the first year or so then no one really plays them, at least in my experience so far.