How to Safely Overclock a 675m (2012 m17x r4)

Hi there!

Can anyone point me in the direction of a guide to safely overclock a 675m on my m17x r4? I did a little googling, but was hesitant to trust any of the older articles in case anything new has come up since.

I understand overclocking is at your own risk... but at this point its either gunna need to be overclocked or replaced, so the risk for me isn't too high.

Cheers!

 

Hi, I'm afraid the best advice I can give is DON'T!

The 675m is a rebadge of the 580m - identical in every respect. This GPU is singularly the worst I have ever been unfortunate to own.

I have had three failures and seen dozens here on NBR. Compare this to the 680m which IMO is the best mobile GPU I have ever 'played' with, I run mine at around +200mhz on the base clock and along with a voltage ramp around 30% performance increase.

If you really want to overclock it then stick with the stock vbios or find one that matches the P0 and P1 clocks as P1 throttling is a real problem with the 580/675m.

Only overclock up to the stock vbios limit (+135mhz) in steps up to this limit. Look for on-screen artifacts like flashing 'spots' and keep an eye on the temp. If it gets above around 75c then the card will slow to an almost stop. Finally, never use an overvolt vbios.

I would hunt high and low for a 680m. Even at stock it's a serious improvement and fully plug and play in the R4. I run mine at the max voltage I could find and it still rarely breaks 70c.

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the reply! I can get a 970m for just £40 more than the 680m, do you suggest I go for that instead?

 

and would an i7 3610qm be suitable enough to not bottleneck this?

 

See what price you can find the 3820qm around for? It used to be that any i7 was good enough but with today's high memory streaming that seems to be going on in 3A games the CPU is probably coming back into play. More of an 'if I have the cash to spare' type of thing IMO.

You need to research just what is involved with going for a 9xx card. Win 10, uefi bios compatibility mode, pads size and layout, and finally modifying a driver file every time you want to install a new driver.

Compared with a straightforward hardware swap a 680m requires and everything works 'as is', is nice and easy.

You might be surprised what a tuned 680m can do. I get up to 90 fps in batman AC with mostly high settings. Was around 60fps when I started overclocking it!

If you still want to try the 970m then you should find a thread or two detailing it and I can help with 'decoding' them, haha...

 

I've gone crazy! Just ordered a 970m off eBay - lets hope it's a good'un. I've actually been watching a few of them on there for a couple weeks now and it seemed decent from a reputable seller. Very excited.

I had a read through this guide:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-17x-r4-970m-upgrade.767872/

Seems do-able. I might have to come back to you if I need something decoding though.

Looked online first and it seems like I can get that CPU for £160 if I need to. Which I'm happy to do if it ensures the longevity of my M17x.

Think I'll need to also get the x-bracket and (perhaps) cooling upgrade, although some have said the cooling isn't necessary as 970m runs cold. We'll see - can always be a future update if necessary.

 

Cool, fingers crossed for you.

I had a quick look through the link and it seems simpler than it is for a 7xx or 8xx card. With those you have to disable the intel gpu to avoid switching problems.

For win 8 read win 10 and the caveats still apply so you might want to start with a fresh win 10 install with the UEFI options set in the bios?

Personal advice here, but I have never uninstalled an NV driver to upgrade an NV card. Done it a bunch of times to fix problems but as far as card switching goes I have never had a problem.

When win starts and the NV driver loads it will default to the minimum supported res and I simply re-set it. Easy!

This has one huge advantage when using a non-standard GPU. The driver mod to get it to install is now a secondary task and not needed just to get it all running .

Your heatsink is plenty good enough but try to get a matched x-bracket for the card. The posts set the 'standoff' pressure and the 970m is a thinner core (although this may be a step too far it makes sense to me).

You can find modded inf files for the latest drivers on forums.laptopvideo2go.com.

Keep me posted.

EDIT: Forgot, do you have a 120hz panel? Having no on-board they often change things for GPU upgrades.

 

Thanks for the info!

I have actually done a fresh install to windows 10 before. Is it a special type of install or can I just switch it over without a fresh reinstall?

As for the x-bracket - yeah I may need to get one. I was going to check to make sure my current card doesn't already have one, but I guess based on what you're saying it probably won't if you also had a 675m. The card I bought doesn't come with anything other than the card.

Also, do you know what thickness I should get for the thermal pads? I'm going to buy some of Amazon

 

GPT is a new type of partition for win 10 IIRC. It works in conjunction with UEFI to speed up startup times. You'll need to research it but I believe you cannot convert (or it's tricky).

I also advise you remove the second drive when installing win 10. It has a bad habit of storing critical boot info on the second drive during an install. You never know it until you try to change out the HD and the machine no longer boots .

If you use the USB Boot install method (MS have utilities) this allows you to dump any existing installations without starting it up.

The x-bracket already on the card will suffice, at least for testing purposes. Don't forget to remove any black tape around the core area. This can seriously mess up your temps.
You will need to track down a pad layout but eurocom are good at providing those. From that you should know what you need. At a minimum 1mm and 1.5mm but they can be safely stacked for larger clearances.

 

If MBR needs converting to GPT, you could try EaseUS software below:
http://download.easeus.com/trial/epm_trial.exe

 

How do I know what x-bracket to get? I see a bunch of different looking ones when searching online.

Thanks! I'll take a look!

 

Eurocom list one : http://www.eurocom.com/ec/upgradepricelist(2,259)Alienware_M17xR4
You should also find a pad layout somewhere on their site...

 

It just lists it as an nvidia GTX upgrade x-bracket. And a 675m is already in the upgrade list - which is the card I already have. That implies the x-bracket I have on my pc should work already, no?

I got the pad layout though - thanks!

 

Yes. I did say your bracket would be fine but try to get one specific. No biggie unless it gets hot so go for it. Sorry for the confusion.

 

Ah, yes you did. I'll let you know how it goes when I get the card! should be a few days - it's coming from Canada

 

Hi there! I've received all the parts! I just thought I would check in as I'm a little worried - my card looks a little different to the one in the guide and has a different part number printed on the chip 'N16E-GT-KC-A1'.

I've attached a picture of mine, and below is the image I am referencing against:
http://www.eurocom.com/ec/images(259)Alienware_M17xR4

Will all be fine and can I use the modded drivers on the website still?

 

The ID checks out as a 6gb 970m 6gb so if that is what you ordered then it's all good.

The modded drivers could be a a little tricky. If you have installed win 10 CU (creators update) then there is a minimum version level. Windows will upgrade the NV driver and this has caused a lot of problems.

Which website are you referencing for modded driver files?

I probably already said this but you should be able to leave the existing driver and it will work. This means you get to test it before having to go through the pain of modding.

Good luck, keep me updated please!

 

Thanks for the info!

What do you mean by leave the existing drivers? You mean the 675m driver?

 

Yes. The NV driver is the same one for all NV cards, it will recognize the card change and It will probably start in some god-awful big resolution just for default but that is easily changed.

 

Looks like you're right - it just installed the drivers by itself! Does this mean I don't have to do anything more? It seems to be working, although I haven't put any load on it yet. The sensors come up in GPUz also

 

Great, Now to put it through it's paces. If it all works fine I'd leave it until a game complains about the driver version

 

All working great!... mostly.

Tried out a few games and most of them seem to get on with it no problem!

However, I've had 2 occasions where the game simply refuses to use the new graphics card. I've set it to force it to use the nVidia GPu in the nVidia control panel, AND I tried right-click>Run with High Performance Graphics Processor... weird.

Any ideas?

 

Yeah, I think I know what is going on but fixing it, hmm, got a couple of ideas.

This is what I have seen with R3/R4 GPU upgrades of earlier cards. It seems that 'Optimus', the system (don't know where it exists but probably in the bios/vbios) that controls card switching is getting in the way. The usual fix is an unlocked bios and set the machine to boot from the NV and disable the on-board GPU.

For you this is way too risky (IMO) to attempt. You have a 9xx card and they need the iGPU to be able to boot (I believe). There may be some settings that will allow this but unless someone has exact instructions for a d-GPU boot I'd suck it up.

The first thing I suggest is to install the dell control center for the R4. It works fine on mine. Then you will have access to the hot-key to switch graphics. This is a one-time operation and at the next reboot it should reset back to both GPU's.

If anyone else has ideas, feel free, I'm kinda out of ideas now!

 

Is this the same as the 'command centre'? I already have this. What is the hot-key? What do I have to do to enable it?

 

The key will be marked ID/Gfx or similar, Use with the 'F'n' key. I'm not at my machine. A window should pop up with a message.

 

I might be being stupid, but I can't seem to do it. I've got the command centre open, hitting fn + I/D GFX key, but nothing is happening.

 

You shouldn't need the CC open. Do the other Fn keys work OK? Media control keys?

Maybe try a re-install is all I can think...

 

Reinstalling it didn't solve anything. The other fn keys work fine as well as the media keys

Sorry about late reply, been a lil busy.

 

Don't know I'm afraid. My R4 gives an error message about not being able to switch or something similar. It's a 120hz model so the iGPU is not available at all. Something to do with 9xx cards I guess.

The only thing that is going to ensure the NV gpu is always used is to disable the on-board. This can be tricky, especially as I've not seen any other R4/970m combo.

The only user I can think of is @woodzstack who sells NV upgrades. He has been very helpful so maybe try a PM asking him for help?

To add your config to a signature select your username on the top menu bar and select 'signature' to add some details on your machine.

 

I managed to resolve the issue. The bios version I had was too old which was preventing me from installing the latest modded driver provided by eurocom (link)

I updated my bios to A13 on the dell website (link) and then installed the eurocom driver that matched my GPU.

Now all games work smoothly and the nVidia GPU is selected correctly

 

Great news and thanks for the update and links. So what do you think of the performance (in what games)?

Just FYI but if you're running win 10 watch out for the creators update. It has been common for it to require a minimum NV driver and will auto-install it. If you're unlucky this causes a black screen and a nightmare of a fix.

Actually just checked your link and a 382.05 is probably recent enough to escape this one .

 

I'm getting about a 2 - 2.5 x frame rate improvement using the same settings as before (over the 675m) - much better!

Really the only game I wanted to be able to play smoothly was PUBG - hideously addicted to this game. I now get 45-60 fps on lower settings at 1080p (before was getting 15-30). The graphics I wasn't too worried about, just wanted the frames back.

Just loaded up Skyrim to test I can now play on High-Ultra in most categories with solid 50-60 fps. Before, I can't remember what I got, but I was playing with noticeablely low fps with all minimum settings. Also I used to get some weird laggy cursor stuff going on, which seems to now be fixed! Works beautifully.


All in all... significantly better performance! Very happy. Hopefully this will run me over for a year or two!

I imagine at that point I'll have to invest in a desktop. I now have a SP4 for my out-n-about laptop so I don't have an urgent need for a laptop anymore, but I couldn't bare to see my M17x go without putting up a fight.

Thank you for all the help @MickyD1234 !!

 

Those are pretty intense games so you definitely have given it new life, two years is a good guesstimate IMO. You should be seeing good low temps IIRC on that card, always a sign of life-span expectancy.

Next is a CPU in a few months, haha....

 

I'll @ you when it's inevitably time... I looked at some on eBay and actually are pretty cheap. Think it'll improve game performance much?

 

Probably not that much IMO. Depends very much on the game, sometimes they will use the CPU instead of off-loading things like physics directly to the NV card. I can't say I saw any real gaming improvement on the X8 when I went 'Extreme'. Same with memory overclocking - fun chasing benchmark numbers if that's your thing (I know it's not ) but only a few FPS in my games like GTA5.

 

I'll probably avoid that then unless I see my CPU maxing out then.

How about back to the original matter - overclocking the GPU Anything to be done to squeeze a little more out of it?

I read up on this article written by someone overclocking a 970m with a lot of success. Downloaded MSI Afterburner to try some incremental improvements but noticed I couldn't adjust the core voltage as they did. I really don't know what that means so I thought I would come back here and see if you have any insight. I checked the option in the settings to unlock it, but no joy.

 

The only way to up the voltage on Mobile GPU's is via a vbios update.

It has got a lot easier the last time I looked and a simple batch file run from windows can do it (uses a special release of the flash software for windows). No messing with a boot USB! It may be that there is a vbios that unlocks the voltage but I have only seen fixed voltage vbios files.

Temp is going to be the decider for overvolt. Get your baseline with an extended Heaven 4 session. Just what is a good temp on the GPU I do not know but I always like to stay under 80c full load.

Start by just seeing how it reacts to overclocking on stock voltage. You will probably be restricted by the original vbios to +135mhz but that's good enough to see if an overvolt will help. When pushed too far on insufficient voltage you usually get a sudden black screen that returns a few seconds later (as the card resets).

Good luck.

 

Poop. Seems like I gotta install an unlocked vbios update... Which may not be possible.

I've only been able to find unlocked for vbios a11 and below - I have a13. And after reading this thread it seems that installing older vbios versions is high risk for bricking your pc on the m17xr4.

Guess I'll be sticking with +135 until I can find an unlocked a13

 

Might be getting a little confused here. The numbers you mention are BIOS and not vBIOS.
I know about downgrading a main bios and it should never be done. The risks are way high.

What problem are you chasing. You said you had already used a 1.025 vbios??

 

Oh. It's probably me that's getting confused. I will admit I forgot there was a difference...
I guess I have been chasing the wrong rabbit. My mistake.

I have vBIOS version '84.04.48.00.52'

So can I just use the mod found here?

 

both if us! I was thinking you had a 680m and not the 970m that is in my face!!

Yes that looks good, he is one of two top vbios modders.

Now I know what GPU we are looking at:

Temp is good up to 85c but under 80c is my preference.
The vbios is now installed using a windows flash and batch files. No need for messing with a boot USB with 9xx cards and higher.

Good luck and let me know how it goes

 

Dang it! I can't download the file for another week from Techinferno. They seem to restrict access pretty aggressively.

How do you perform without USB? That sounds far more convenient. Do I need another software tool? He seems to follow the USB method

 

I'm trying to find it right now. It is a special version of nvflash and is needed because the vbios on 9xx is protected. It might be in the download, I have membership so can download for you...

 

All you need. |Follow the instructions in the link you sent...

 

Thank you so much!

 

I had a look and that reference to a USB is wrong. He means that you need to open a CMD prompt and issue the commands from inside the folder you extract to, Having sorted out the rom filename.

 

Just FYI but the throttle limit on the 9xx cards is 86c. I have hit this a few times and it simply slows a little and bounces between clocks. Easily spotted if you use msiafterburner to give you an OSD when playing games.

 

It seems to be getting a bit stuck after the request to list all display adapters (see attached)

 

Strange. Are you running CMD as administrator?

 

I tried with both. The instance I showed there is without admin - but it requests admin when you issue the nvflash -a command. Running it with admin just made it stay all in one cmd window and do the same thing