[GPU overclock] - Latitude E6400 Quadro NVS 160 - (optimize: gaming)

This article is aimed at computer enthusiasts ONLY, it talks about overclocking. If you have no experience in this field, it is STRONGLY recommended to not perform any of this. If Dell knows anything about it on your machine, the warranty WILL BE VOIDED, and no support will be given!

Disclaimer
By performing this overclock you risk permanently damage (not reversible) your graphic card of your laptop and it's components, the motherboard and or other components in the laptop. Your warranty on your system does not cover overclocking. Remember that the GPU is soldered onto the motherboard and can't be replaced yourself (a new motherboard is required). Dell laptop motherboards are very expensive.
I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE YOU MAY INADVERTENTLY CAUSE TO YOU, TO YOUR SYSTEM, AND/OR TO YOUR DATA ON YOUR SYSTEM. IF ANYTHING GOES WRONG, DO NOT EXPECT ANY SUPPORT FROM ME OR DELL OR ANYONE. If you don't have experience in this field you are talking a great risk, as if anything goes wrong, then you are alone, and possibly screwed, potentially have data loss. The person that perform this overclock on any of your computer systems will be held responsible. I DO NOT guaranty anything! Overclocking is always a risky enterprise, use extreme care of your system (tip: if you wonder what you need to be extremely careful, then do not do overclock). Note that your laptop uses 1 heatsink for the motherboard chip, CPU and graphic card, the heat produce by one or more component can damage the other ones, so BE CAREFUL. Remember that this will make the laptop run in a state that it was not designed for.
Moreover, this post that you are reading right now, will require you to install not-tested drivers by Dell and Nvidia driver tool which will require you to agree or disagree on a additional agreement, this license agreement is up to you to agree or not. Again, you are 100% responsible for EVERYTHING!
Continuing to read this article means that you agree and acknowledge everything without exception in this disclaimer.

Introduction
Before we begin, if you read this line that mean you fully agree and acknowledge everything in the disclaimer. Reminder: Do at your own risk!

Note: This overclock is for the Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M video card.
If you have the Latitude E6500 model, your video card has DDR3 memory and not DDR2, therefore this might not work at all, configuration might be completely different.

If you plan to play games with your Latitude E6400, then the video card is capable to run most, if not all, of today games at medium or low settings at worst. However, some games might be slow or choppy for your own taste and would like to get a boost in performance. To do this you can, if you want, overclock your Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M to get that extra performance.

My system specs
- Latitude E6400
- Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M
- Hitachi 160GB 5200RPM 8MB of Cache SATA-II HDD
- Intel Core 2 Duo P8400
- 1440x900 LG display WXGA+ LED backlit
- Windows Vista 64-bit Business Edition
- Backlit keyboard
- Intel Wireless N 5100
- IDT sound card
- no webcam, but digital microphone
- Panasonic slim drive DVD-Burner
- System set to AHCI mode

Getting Started
How is it possible, it's only a laptop!
Thanks to the Latitude E6400 great cooling system we can do this overclock. One thing that helps the cooling is that it uses the laptop base as a heat sink as well.

Before we begin, download and install from laptopvideo2go.com the Geforce drivers. The one I have is Geforce drivers version 7.15.11.8520. My Operating system is Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit Business Edition. Remember that different drivers means different overclock result. So everytime you update your drivers you must check everything again.
Also, download and install: "NVIDIA System Tools with ESA Support", found here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_system_tools_6.06.html

Recommendation
Nvidia overclock tool allows you to use profile based overclocks that can be loaded manually using Nvidia nvProfile (provided with NVIDIA System Tools), or set to load per game and other options. I recommend to go with this route so that it doesn't affect your battery life and keep your system cool when not playing games. This overclock will, of course make your laptop in question warmer, and the problem with laptops is that the graphic card and CPU share the same heatsink, so if the graphic card heats too much it could damage the CPU as well. When using the overclocked settings, make sure your laptop is a cool try environment, and that the fans and heatsink is completely clean from dust and fully operational.

Remember that your laptop can only go at it's peek speed when it's power adapter is plugged in.

Let's start
1- Once everything is properly installed, start by opening the Nvidia Control Panel, and do the following:
- Enable Nvidia PhysX
- Under "Manage 3D settings":
- - Set Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration to: "Single display performance mode"
- - Set Testure filtering - Quality to: High performance

2- Go to the "Device Settings" section of the Nvidia Control panel. This is where the overclock is done.

3- Under Create Profile tab, click on the "Save" button. Do not change the file path, and set the name of the file to gameMode. Once done, restart Nvidia Control Panel.

4- Now go back to "Device Settings" on the Control Panel, and go to the "Stored Profiles" tab. From there, select under "Profile name": "gameMode" (the one you just created). MAKE SURE YOU SELECT THE CORRECT ONE!

5- Select the radio box "Custom"

6- From there you can change the GPU settings and make it go faster (or slower). Make sure that the cooling option at the bottom on this panel is set at 100%. Changing any of these settings will make the laptop warmer. Remember that the memory of the GPU is NOT cooled with anything.
I was able to overclock my Quadro NVS 160M properly with the following settings:
- Core clock: 860 MHz
- Memory clock: 515 MHz
- Shader clock: 1720 MHz

In case you forgot the default values of the video card, here they are:
- Core clock: 580 MHz
- Memory clock: 400 MHz
- Shader clock: 1450 MHz

As you can see this is a pretty big jump, so make sure you have your monitoring tools with you and pay close attention to them. If things heat up to much, then kill your game immediately. I know for a fact that a desktop Geforce video card can hold up to 90 degree Celcius . My Geforce GTX 260 on my desktop can hold 93 C then it shut-down automatically. I PRESUME the same on this video card, however I expect the auto-shutdown mechanism disabled or set a higher temp despite being bad for itself. And again, remember that there is only 1 heat sink for all processors on your computer... so if the GPU heats up for too long at high temperatures it will heat up the others.

7- Once done, click on the Save button.

8- Now go to the "Profile policies" section of the Nvidia Control Panel to set when you want your overclocked profile get loaded. If you want to use the manual way, you can do Ctrl+Alt+H to open the Nvidia nvProfile menu to load the overclocked profile. MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT FORGET TO RETURN TO THE DEFAULT PROFILE which is named: "sysdflt.nsu" (in the hope you did not change the settings of that profile by accident).

Important Note:
The cool thing about using profile overclock (meaning you create a new profile) is that when you load the profile and it screws up, you can restart your computer, and the profile won't be loaded, and you can do adjustments.


Troubleshoot (PLEASE READ BEFORE LOADING THE OVERCLOCKED PROFILE)
Q: Why my screen get distorted once I load my overclock profile?
A: Memory or Core clock is too high. Potential overheating might be also the cause.

Q: Why my screen is leaving artifacts once I load my overclock profile?
A: Your graphic card or it's component is overheating.

Q: Why my video card driver crashes once I load my overclock profile??
A: Bad overclock, something is set too high which makes the GPU drivers crash. Under Vista the drivers should restart. If your video card drivers restarts then the the profile based overclock stops working. This means that they won't do anything no mater what you do, you have to restart your computer.

Q: Why my system crashes once I load my overclock profile?
A: Bad overclock, which made the GPU freeze or a component somewhere on your motherboard overheated or can't deliver the demand of the GPU.

Q: Why in my game I see black polygons (triangles)?
A: Shader clock seams to be set to high. Lowering it should solve the issue.


My results:
Here are some benchmark results with 3D Mark 06 (default settings):

No PhysX, No Overclock


PhysX, No Overclock


No PhysX, Overclock


PhysX, Overclock



Windows Experience Index after overclock:
Note: I found a bug in Vista, the values don't go down once went up.

Overall: 4.0 (determine by lowest score)
Processor: 5.2
Memory (RAM): 5.9
Graphics: 4.0
Gaming graphics: 5.0
Primary hard disk: 5.3

Game at playable settings
These are 3 games where I tried the overclocked profile with PhysX:

GTA IV (smooth gameplay, a little slow on big bridges at night):
http://pages.infinit.net/eps/gta4.png

The Witcher Enhanced Edition (smooth, a little choppy on the last chapter):
http://pages.infinit.net/eps/witcher.jpg

Far Cry 2 (smooth everywhere):
http://pages.infinit.net/eps/farcry2.jpg

This should give you an idea on what other games might be playable on this machine. All above 3 games were running without the overclock, but was at lower settings.

Remember that are many ways to configure a game, it all depends on what you are looking for.

If you found this useful, rep me up

 

Thanks for the detailed guide, GoodBytes.

I should also caution E6400 owners that it may not be a wise option to overclock the NVS 160 since the heatsink uses a thermal pad which does not conduct heat as efficient as a copper plate with thermal paste. If you are also using an E-Dock/E-Dock Plus, I would avoid overclocking at all, since using the dock will automatically increase the temps for both your CPU and GPU anywhere from 5 to 10 degrees Celsius.

If you still decide to overclock the GPU, I strongly suggest increasing the clock speeds in 5MHz increments for safety reasons.
Lastly, if you find you can't overclock up to GoodByte's settings, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Not all GPU are made identical, even if they are the same brand and model. eg while GoodBytes can get his up to 560MHz for this core clock, I may get only 550MHz.

 

Wow, great job posting this! However, I have a dumb question, when I look at Laptopvideo2go.com, all I see is the drivers labeled like 185.20, etc...so is "7.15.11.8520" essentially 185.20?

Also, I tried playing GTA4 on stock settings, and even at 800x600 it was unplayable. I was going to try to play crysis, but then after how GTA4 played, forgot about it. However, now that I've overclocked it, I am getting better FPS in CSS (like 10-15), Empire: Total War, and other Source based games.

I am kinda amazed at the overclocking potential as well, so far I've tested Core: 750, Memory: 550, and Shader: 1650. I'm sure I can do it higher as well. It's probably better your saying in your guide to create a different config file for the GPU driver and then load it manually when your gaming? If that will help with temperatures when in normal use, the reverse should be true as well? Underclocking it may provide battery life, less heat?

 

That is correct.

Do you have the latest updates installed? Do you close all your application on the back before playing the game? Did you try the game during day time? I know that with stock settings the game was unplayable when it rained or was night. (check out my screen shot of the game, for playable settings if you can get the same overclock as me, if you intend to do it that is.) When you say that the game is at 800x600, is the other options at minimum?

Crysis 1 is not an optimized game... it might run at best at pure minimum settings. GTA IV was originally designed for console, it's PC adaptation was sadly done too quickly, and is not well optimized for PC's.

 

Will underclocking a GPU help at all in any way? Also, did you test to see how long you could keep the system running at those settings? Can you tell me what temperature your GPU has hovering about as well under stress? I'm trying to get an idea of where this GPU should land. So far I'm seeing it idle at around 50-60 C and under load anywhere from 70-90 C.

 

I have not tried, but I believe when you unplug the power, it uses it's own overclock settings.
When I unplug the power of my laptop, Everest tell me that I got at these speed (no mater what power option you set your system (Under Vista, I don't know about Windows 7, but it should be the same)):
- Core clock: 182 MHz
- Memory clock: 100 MHz
- Shader clock: 364 MHz

Which are slightly above the minimum of the that you can set the video card (except for memory, that is already at minimum). My guess is that the video card does not run properly if everything is at pure minimum. But it's not the few MHz more that will do much on your battery life.

Sadly, I am unable to test my system for excess long periods of time. But I already gamed for 1 hours and half to 2 hours, and the GPU was in 70-75C for GTA IV, and when I stress the GPU it went up to 93 degree Celsius for few seconds and the fan kicked in faster in the 4000RPM range and stabilized at about 88Degree Celsius. I tried to also stress the CPU at the same time, but I THINK that the CPU lowers it's speed because I just went up by 1 degree. Further testing is required on that claim.

 

I see...I eventually did some more overclocking and settled on 780, 550, 1650. I did go higher, but I did have video tearing issues with Counterstrike (even with v-sync on) and it was getting a little too hot. Also managed to get my WEI score for Aero to be 4.1! I still have to see how long it can last, but even at 88 C it should be okay for extended periods of time?

 

Well I can't say for SURE.... but it should be ok.

 

Nice work!

One error... you need to accept the EULA under "Performance" before you can access "Device Settings"

 

I am aware of this. But I did not mention it, as it's up to you to decide. I won't say to you to agree on it if you don't agree on it. I don't want to be liable on anything.