M18x GTX 580M SLI Throttle Fix and Software Overclocking - No vBIOS Flashing Required

STANDARD WARNING

Third party BIOS Modifications, VBIOS Modifications and other system level tweaks (including fan control) can potentially cause damage to your system. Be aware of this before blindly flashing/installing.

If you brick your system or cause damage, chances are very high that your warranty will be useless. Know what you are doing, you are responsible for your actions.

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All righty then, since nobody wants to step up and provide a comprehensive tutorial, I will...

Before you start this process, be sure you have the latest GTX 580M vBIOS (version A0170.24.2B.00.06) from Dell/Alienware as the first step in fixing this problem. You can use GPU-Z to check the version you have. You can download it here if you do not already have it installed.

You can do essentially the same thing as a vBIOS mod only in a less invasive format using NVIDIA Inspector to set the P1 speeds states at the same clock speeds as P0 on each GPU. At stock speeds of 620/1240 your temps should be the same as if you modified nothing. (It worked that way for me.) This is not an overclock... you are simply preventing the GPU speeds from slowing down to a lower power consumption state.

Using manual fan controls my cards stayed at or below 76°C and no throttle condition occurred with Furmark while clocked to 725/1450. Using a less aggressive benchmark than Furmark, or while gaming, so far I am seeing no issues with GPU temps or throttling at factory maximum defaults. Below are 3DMark11 and Vantage runs at 725/1450 for P0 and P1 on both GPUs using the native M18x fan controls.

3DMark 11: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2760QM Processor,Alienware M18xR1 score: P7002 3DMarks

Vantage: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2760QM Processor,Alienware M18xR1 score: P24978 3DMarks

3DMark06: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2760QM Processor,Alienware M18xR1 score: P23034 3DMarks

So anyone that wants to give this a shot prior to (or in lieu of) flashing their vBIOS can do it this way...

1. Download NVIDIA Inspector 1.9.5.5.
2. Extract to D:\nvidiainspector (place the files in this folder, not in a subfolder, if you want to use my batch file) or another location of your choice.
3. Launch NVIDIA Inspector, click the "Show Overclocking" button and click OK to the warning.
4. Select GPU0 in the lower left corner, change the Performance Level (drop down at top right side) to P1 and set the Shader Clock to 1240. This will match your factory default for P0.
5. Click the Apply Clocks & Voltage button.
6. Now, switch to GPU1 and repeat the changes.
7. Enjoy no evidence of throttling!

You can make this process easier in the future by clicking the Create Clocks Shortcut button for each power state for each GPU. (You will end up with 4 shortcuts, P0 for GPU0, P1 for GPU0 and one of each for GPU1.) You can double-click each shortcut to implement the changes next time.

Or, if you only want to double-click once for both GPUs, you can use a batch file instead of using a shortcut for each GPU. If you used the same path for extraction I did, meaning the nvidiainspector.exe file is located in D:\nvidiainspector (no subdirectory) you can use both of the batch files I have attached.

If you had a need to extract to another location, edit the code in the batch files using the appropriate syntax for the location of your executable.

For P0 & P1 to be set at factory maximum defaults (620/1240):

Code:

start D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setShaderClock:0,2,1240 -setMemoryClock:0,2,1500 -setVoltage:0,2,870

start D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setShaderClock:1,2,1240 -setMemoryClock:1,2,1500 -setVoltage:1,2,870

start D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setShaderClock:0,3,1240 -setMemoryClock:0,3,1500 -setVoltage:0,3,870 

start D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setShaderClock:1,3,1240 -setMemoryClock:1,3,1500 -setVoltage:1,3,870 

For a mild overclock to 725/1450 on P0 & P1:

Code:

start D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setShaderClock:0,3,1450 -setMemoryClock:0,3,1500 -setVoltage:0,3,870 

start D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setShaderClock:1,3,1450 -setMemoryClock:1,3,1500 -setVoltage:1,3,870 

start D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setShaderClock:0,2,1450 -setMemoryClock:0,2,1500 -setVoltage:0,2,870

start D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setShaderClock:1,2,1450 -setMemoryClock:1,2,1500 -setVoltage:1,2,870 

Add the batch file of your choice to your Windows Startup folder or schedule a Windows Task to start it automatically after a preset number of seconds or minutes after loading Windows. This would accomplish basically the same end result as tweaking the vBIOS except that flashing would not be required. It would also be quickly and easily undone by removing the batch file from the Startup folder or deleting the Task.

Update 12/04/2011: For those that want a permanent solution (vBIOS mod) for their M18x, please see this post by Red Line.

 

OK, I uploaded new batch files because I did not realize that a separate command was required for each power state on each card (a total of 4 with two GPU). This would also be the case with shortcuts created by NVIDIA Inspector... 4 shortcuts would be needed with dual-GPU. So, the value of a batch file becomes clear right away... Launching a single batch file does the work of double-clicking 4 shortcuts, LOL. I edited the instructions above to make that clear as well.

Here's the really good part... adding the batch file to the Windows Startup folder works perfectly. So, doing this provides no disadvantage over flashing the cards from what I can see. In fact, the advantage to not flashing is that when you delete the shortcut from your Startup folder, your cards work exactly as Dell intends them to without having to re-flash to return them to their previous state. No bootable USB sticks, no flashing, no fuss...

In further testing, I also ran Furmark without HWiNFO64 winding up the fans and experienced zero overheating or throttling. The GPU temperatures were not reduced using a modified fan profile with HWiNFO64. Letting the native M18x fan controls do their job worked fine. Temperatures remained at or below 76°C.

WARNING

Furmark was used in this test to confirm throttling symptoms were completely eradicated in the M18x. Forum members are cautioned against using Furmark for any purpose, including testing. Since this was posted, Mr. Fox is no longer using Furmark for testing. If you choose to use Furmark, do so at your own peril.

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If anyone wants to add to the fix a comprehensive tutorial on a mod to the P1 state involving a vBIOS flash, it would be a welcome addition for those that are interested in taking that route. If we do that, I will update the thread title to reflect that tutorials for both methods are provided. (The tutorial for the M17x R3 is excellent for M17x R3 owners, but not specific enough to address procedural difference for many M18x owners.)

 

whoally! just tried steps 1-7, no more throttling issues! nice! fps worked like butter! +1 rep master fox

 

Thanks! Glad you like that, bro.

If you used the same installation directory you can skip steps 3 and beyond and simply double-click the desired batch file. If you find that also works as advertised, you can decide whether or not to put a shortcut in your Startup folder or just run it from your desktop as a shortcut.

 

Excellent work Mr. Fox, as per usual! ....repped for your stellar support and forethought for others....

 

Thank you. Nice post!!! +rep when I can.

 

Mr Fox you are the man! This is great, plus easily reversible to boot. +rep.

 

Thank you, sir!

 

I flashed my vbios prior to realizing how powerful inspector is. I could have saved myself a heck of a lot of nail biting if this guide was up a week ago when I performed my overclock lol. Good work.

Also you can just drop all four shortcuts in startup folder no batch file required.

 

Fantastic Mr Fox I used this all the time with my old 285m SLI. A great app

 

Looking forward to seeing how it works on your new M18x, Dan.

 

Will post results should have mine this week

 

One thing you should add to this guide:

P0 and P1 states have differing voltages which can lead to instability if they're both set to the same clock speed without being at the same voltage. It definitely is an issue for me since I can't seem to find a way to adjust voltage in P1.

 

I found that with the 285m SLI and the only way around this is to modify the vbios and flash.

 

i ended up using the .92 volt bios for stability for my overclock. Things got funky when dropping to p1's voltage without dropping the clock.

 

so I don't hava to worry about my incoming 580m GTX Sli any more, great.

 

So I hope someone can shed some light on this.

Furmark always crashes to a white screen and I have to power off my computer by holding the power switch, even at stock voltages.

What's strange is that its not heat, I'm well under 76C for Furmark even if I clock up to 800mhz. In fact, I can finish 3dmark and unigen heaven at 800mhz just fine as well as any game session, however furmark always always causes a hard crash. Furmark seems to push the chips just a bit further into the 98-99% usage range whereas Heaven stays around 90-97%.

I'm very confused. On the one hand gaming and other benchies are absolutely phenomenal while the other hand Furmark even at stock speeds commits suicide.

 

I haven't experienced any of the stability problems with the small difference in voltage between the primary and secondary video cards as you describe, but your clock speeds are much higher than what I am attempting and that may require more voltage. I also have no issues with Furmark working totally fine (as noted in the video) at stock clock speeds or at 725/1450.

I can tell you that you may be pushing your OC too far and that can cause all kinds of stability issues even though your cards are running at what would generally be considered a cool temperature. The behavior you describe with Furmark happens EXACTLY the same way with AMD cards if you OC more than your cards are capable of handling. It is generally the driver (whether NVIDIA or AMD) that stops responding, attempts to recover, ultimately crashes and makes Furmark unstable, not the hardware per se. In fact, you may have noticed a pop-up message from your system tray or warning logs in Windows Event Viewer documenting that.

My recommendation is to back down the clock speeds to the 725/1450 range or stock speeds and see how your system behaves. If it balks and gives you fits at stock speeds then you may have a hardware malfunction. My guess would be that it is simply a matter of pushing them too far without providing some enhanced cooling. The higher the clock speeds are, the cooler they need to be for stability. At 800/1600 reaching 76°C, although not "hot" by normal standards, may not be a low enough temperature for stability. For example, you may need to be at 65°C or lower to sustain that clock speed with stability.

It is not necessary to run your 580M cards at such high clock speeds to achieve outstanding gaming performance without throttling. Stock speeds produce excellent results for gaming. The OC is only important if you are trying to set benchmarking records and providing support for that endeavor was not the intent of this thread. The focus here was to correct the throttling issue.

Johnksss is our resident expert on the subject of overclocking and he can correct (with my appreciation) any of my comments if he feels that they are inaccurate.

 

Yeah I agree 800 isn't necessary but what I maybe wasn't clear about is that Furmark crashes to white screen even at stock speeds and voltages. That's what's puzzling; everything else is butter.

 

I am running the Verde 285.75 beta drivers. You may be also, but if not, you can try them. Or, try doing a clean driver installation to see if that helps. Perhaps there was some sort of corruption in the driver installation process.

You can also re-flash to your original vBIOS on both cards and then try using the tweak in this thread to see if the behavior of your cards is the same.

 

Well just tried everything, driver sweeper and all the proper procedures. Its really an enigma its just furmark that fails like that.

 

Thanks a bunch for this. Great fix with no issues here!

 

Glad this worked well for you, bro. +1 rep for giving it a go.

That is pretty strange. If everything except Furmark works great, I suppose that isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps there is something wrong with the Furmark settings or installation. You might try uninstalling Furmark, running CCleaner, then reinstall and run it with default settings.

If that still does not work for you, OCCT has a tool similar to Furmark as well as CPU testing features that Furmark does not have. http://www.ocbase.com/perestroika_en/index.php?Download An Alienware Tech Support rep installed OCCT on my first M17x R2 a long time ago in an Alien Contact session and I've found it useful.

 

Jut a few questions to ensure I am doing this correctly.

Everything ran great via testing, but again I just want to make sure this is what it's supposed to look like.


When I start the program, I toggle at the bottom left to Dell gForce GTX580(0) and then I go up to the top left and toggle Overclocking down to Performance level [2]-P1. Next, I go down to shader clock and max it to 1240. At this time I hit apply clocks and voltage.

I repeat the exact same steps for Dell gForce GTX580(1) and when I hit apply clocks and voltage once more it saves just fine. However, when I toggle it back to GTX(0) it shows it at Performance level [3]-P0. The speeds on both are showing 1500/1240 when I toggle back and forth between the two, but the Performance level keeps changing to [3]-P0. Is this normal?

Thanks a bunch for clarification on this.


Lastly, once I run this, I can close the program down and it will stay this way until I restart or power down correct? I gathered that I need to redo this each time I power on the machine, but wasn't sure if the program had to remain open to keep the clock speeds. Thanks for helping a noob

 

a few things...for starters...furmark is not really the idea way to go. what will end up happening is you will fry the card, which will have nothing to do with heat. it will have to do with you going well over the 100W power draw of the card and the pcie slot.
now if you persit in wanting to do this...then make sure your using the correct version of the software and the multi gpu version at that.
start with a super low resolution and in window mode to see if it will run.

none here. looks good brother fox.

 

Yes, you are doing this correctly. Good job. When you switch graphics cards the default view is the P0 state. If you manually change the drop-down to P1 you should see the new settings you applied to the P1 state.

 

This is great info. I agree that running Furmark is not necessarily a good thing, and readers would be wise to heed your warning on this. Running it briefly can verify the throttle problem is fixed because the throttling shows up within seconds of launching Furmark Multi-GPU. You don't even need to let the full benchmark run its course to confirm you have resolved the throttling issue. Once you have confirmed success, there is really no compelling reason to ever use Furmark again. There is no point in placing unwarranted stress on such expensive hardware. There are other programs that you can use to confirm the fix. Just use MSI Afterburner's OSD program and you can watch the clock speeds and see if the throttling is or is not taking place during a game or benchmark run.

Thank for confirming this, bro. Just wanted to confirm I was telling the truth.

 

that you were.

 

Thanks a lot for your work Mr Fox, unfortunately I did not understand the batch file thing, I want these changes to be permanent and I was wondering if these batch files were the solution.
Can anyone tell me how to install those, I've already done step 1 to 7.

 

if you put them in a startup folder...that should work as well.

for a permanent solution...you would need to flash them

 

John is correct. Having the batch file in your startup folder is not permanent, but accomplishes the exactly same end result with how the video cards operate. The only difference is that the original vBIOS firmware is unchanged.

The batch files I attached for download should work without modification if your files are located in the exact same drive location/folder. Put the batch files in the same folder as a matter of convenience. Simply go to your start menu, All Programs and right click on the Startup folder to open it. Then drag and drop a shortcut from the batch file you wish to use (not both of them) into the Startup folder. After doing so, the batch file will run every time windows launches and you'll be good to go.

 

Fox,
If I was to do this on my m17x r3, with 1 580, I would have to remove 1 line for each set of lines in the batch files, right?

EDIT: actually, it doesn't look like I would, sorry. Looking at it now a little closer

-Tim

 

Right you would need to just do GPU0.

Mr. Fox this is great stuff! + rep.

 

OK, I see now. Nice.... +1 Fox, nice idea for those, who dont want to flash the vbios.... and with the batch file, you wont have to do it manually every time...

 

@Xeneize / @T_Hefner - thank you, gentlemen. I hope it helps many. The 580M cards run so sweet with P0/P1 at the same clock speed.

Yes, exactly. Same outcome, but no flashing for those that are worried.

 

Fox,
Yes, I applied it, seems to be working good, I also had to edit batch file, for C: and remove the #1 gpu card... and just have the 2 lines for #0 card...

So, basically it will keep the clocks the same even when it drops to P1 .85v from the P0 .87v... right?

-Tim

 

Yes, that's correct Tim.

 

sweeeet, works in the startup folder great.... thanks again

 

Thanks, I've done it correctly, I had to rename them (C: ) at first, but it works just fine.

But my problem still remains, I'm gonna ask again at the newly created SLI thread.

 

Cygoris - I replied to your situation in the SLI thread.

 

Can we make this a sticky? This is an awesome process to follow for every new SLI owner that's looking to mod the BIOS at a software level.....

 

I completely agree....this is an excellent process for Nvidia owners that dont wish to flash vbios. Maybe it can be tagged to the 1st post of the new Nvidia gpu thread?

Mr. Fox.....you sir, are a genious!

 

Thank you for the kind words, Xeneize and Steviejones.

We only allow a certain number of sticky threads and we're already at our max right now. That's why I linked certain threads it in my signature. I agree it would be nice to have it stickied, but it will stay near the top of the list as long as the thread maintains interest and continues to grow.

What I can do is link to it in the first post on the NVIDIA SLI thread so it can always be easily found.

 

I am going to give this a try when my 580m shows up. I may need help, but it looks pretty simple....

 

It's really easy. I am fairly noob at this stuff, and was able to figure it out without blowing up anything. Bottom line is, the AW board members are amazing and very friendly. If you hit a snag, simply ask and someone will be right along to help you out. Great community here.

 

yeah its pretty easy, honestly when i first did it was afraid, but i rather do this than flashing (because imho i haven't did flashing before, my bad ) anyway do it slowly and step by step, for me its not really a big deal if you do anything bad, just give your brothers here a ring in NBR if in doubt

 

Does this mean that when i order a new sli m8x, i must do this fix? Didn't they fix the throttle issue with new batches of slis?

 

The short story: DELL has already address the issue, at least to some degree. Initially when the cards reach a certain criteria (Load+Temperature?) the cards would throttle from 620Mhz to 50Mhz....

The new VBios that comes loaded on the new 580M still has a similar behaviour but instead of the 50mhz the trhottling speed is 475Mhz, while still annoying, it is indeed much better.

This fix will effectively set the throttling speed to 620Mhz so you will see no throttling at all....

Also note that Throttling is actually very rare in actual games, many people here (such as me) are using stock VBios and hoping Dell does some other official fix which reportedly already looking into....

Hope this helps.

 

thx for the heads up xeneize. Honestly, i'm really getting a little paranoid with m18x. i just returned my xf m18x and on the way to ordering an sli one.

 

Another short story:

M18x is the best high end enthusiast laptop in the market, most issues are completely "resolvable" even with the help of this community. And you really cannot go wrong with either a ATI or Nvidia, at the end of the day it's a matter of preference, however I do believe that SLI setups are more stable as far as driver goes.

Don't be paranoid, you will definitely be happy with your purchase. It is the best computer I've owned out of 12 systems in the past 10 years (Falcon NW/Alienware/Voodoo, I tried them all and this Laptop beats my ALX system from an expectation stand point and even my M17x R1 which was ground-breaking stuff)