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

^^^what he said it's true... all of it +1

 

yeah fox. that it's true, the M18X is the best machine out there with AMD or NV.

 

Mr. Fox! This is truly awesome! thanks a bunch! bunch bunch bunch

i want to ask you how does memory clock come into play here?
why do u only set the memory clock at 1500mhz? i score better on vantage with higher memory clock, i search around and i just cant find how does memory clock come into play here.

btw here is my testing result with 1760mhz memory clock and with your slight overclock batch files

1760mhz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2920XM Processor,Alienware M18xR1 score: P26344 3DMarks

1500mhz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2920XM Processor,Alienware M18xR1 score: P25934 3DMarks

1650 after using your batch files
http://3dmark.com/3dmv/3715709

1750 after using Mr. Fox Batch Files (impressive!)
http://3dmark.com/3dmv/3715737

 

Cool, thanks ivander. I am so glad you found my guide helpful. Those are excellent results. I look forward to seeing more benchmark results from you over in the http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/574780-official-alienware-m18x-benchmark-thread.html. I posted some Crysis2 benchmarks there and would like to see how well your system does.

There is no reason you cannot increase the memory clocks and find the sweet spot for your system. My main purpose providing this how-to guide was to address the throttle problem... not really to provide an overclocking guide. The guide certainly opens the door to overclocking and that is why I added the disclaimer on the opening post.

If you are going to push higher than about 725/1450 for core and shader clocks, then you will need to take more drastic measures by increasing voltage slightly. Otherwise, you may find the system too unstable. You can only increase the voltage through a vBIOS mod. You can read more about that in this post. Unless you are going for a benchmark record, the scores you have right now are super and more than needed for high performance gaming and no vBIOS mod or higher clock speeds is necessary.

 

Thanks for the links, I I'll be sure to check it out.

A quick question though, has the vbios resolved the throttle problem that happens when you put the voltage up and overclock the sharers?

Last time I checked (which was couple months back, I was busy with school nowadays) this was still a problem with higher voltage?

Thanks again though

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

ivander - you might want to pose that question to Xeneize on this thread: LINK

To my knowledge, there is no problem setting the voltage to the NVIDIA reference specification (which I believe is .92v). You definitely don't want to go beyond that. I have not modified my vBIOS because doing so is not necessary for getting solid benchmark scores and gaming. I do not want to give you an answer that might turn out to be wrong.

 

My answer

Spoiler

I completely agree with Mr. Fox, and I can simply state that 0.92, while safe, it's completely unnecessary unless you're trying to get very high overclocks for benching purposes ONLY!, however unless you are in complete control of what you are doing, I wouldn't recommend it. After all even at 800mhz, you are really only gaining 20% more performance (in reality only 5% more than a 0.87v OC which can go as high as 750/1800) and highly stressing your 580's to maybe gain 10fps on a game that already runs 50fps..... not worth it IMO

That said, many people here have successfully flashed it with a 0.92v VBios and had no issues, but with higher clocks comes higher temperatures and therefore greater friction on ther GPU's which are far more fragile than CPU's. No one I know keeps those clocks and higher voltage for every day usage, simply not worth it....

I am very happy with my undervolt (running 0.85v), keeps my cards running cool, but if I had to recommend the best VBios, that would be the official Dell latest VBios with Mr. Fox's Throttle elimination method, you will be completely safe.

Now to answer your question, you need apply a modded VBios with higher voltage and the throttling fixed (there are posted in one of these threads) and the throttling issue will not happen.

Just keep in mind that the throttling in the official Dell driver is set to 475Mhz, so it's not that aggressive like it once was (50mhz) and the kick in factor is not very common at all....

So to summarize... my recommendations are:

1- Stock vBios with the Fox Fix (now that sounds awesome ah?)
2- A permanent undervolted (0.85v) and slightly OC (say 700/1700) you should read the Red Line Undervolted guide.
3- A permanent stock 0.87v Vbios wiht the throttling fixed (and you can use EVGA Precision to OC when you need)

What I do not recommend:

- an OC vBios with a 0.92v......

Pretty much my 2c...

 

+1 Rep Xeneize - excellent response. "Fox Fix" - sounds cool.

 

WOW, awesome response xeneise!! I thanks for taking the time to explain that!

I will just use the stock latest vbios from Dell with the awesome "fox fix" I'm more than happy already that I can get p26638 on vantage and i will just oc my 580s to 1750 memory clock. seems this is my sweet spot that I can get the most out of the performance.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

to those guys who have tried red line's undervolting guide, what 580m bios do you use? im about to try this one now.

 

Can you actually game on battery is what i want to know. This would be a good reason to undervolt....

 

I was of the impression that as you lower the voltage, the current drain goes up proportionally depending on load, so the overall power user remains close to the same.

 

You got me there....I have no clue.

 

I've never heard that before. You could be right, but it certainly does not sound accurate to me. Did you read that somewhere? Just curious, how did you get that impression?

I've tried gaming on battery with both AMD and NVIDIA and it sucks. (Same is true with the M17xR2.)

With the M18x, one may as well switch to the HD 3000 IGP for gaming, as it performs similar to the discreet graphics on battery power for me. Playable, but not very satisfying.

 

Sorry to ask this question but what exactly is the meaning of throttling? Could someone tell me what are the obvious signs and anything related to it because i'm not sure if my GPUs are throttling or not.

Btw, I didn't find any P1 in the Overclocking drop down list. All i see are P0, P8 and P12. Even if i switched to P8 (performance level [1]), I can't change the shader clock to 1240MHz. Any solutions and thoughts?

 

Let me ask you this...Why do you want to over clock?

 

It's not overclocking now is it? I thought it's just maintaining the stock speed while fixing the throttling problem (whatever that means lol).

 

My electrical engineering degree.

In a DC circuit, when you reduce the voltage, the current drain goes up. It's a vry common way in which ICs are damaged when undervolted too much.

 

Wow... the collective intelligence of our Community never ceases to amaze me. This is not my area of technical expertise and I am glad you're able to provide such insight. Thank you.

 

No reason to apologize for asking a question. We're glad you did because someone else is probably wondering the same thing and has not asked yet. We appreciate questions, as it is one of the things that makes our community so awesome. As far as not seeing P1, you must not be looking in the correct spot or something is not right with your video cards. See this screen shot...



What are your system specs, friend? Does your M18x have 580M SLI?

This is a great question. While overclocking can definitely be achieved using the "Fox Fix" the primary intent is to show M18x owners how to cure the throttling issue. Overclocking is absolutely not a solution to overcome performance limitations in everyday computing. If an M18x is not performing extremely well at stock speeds, there is something that needs to be fixed and overclocking is not the right means to the end. I and many others are running our GTX 580M SLI setup at factory default clock speeds during normal everyday use. (Others have goosed things a bit, but it is not necessary to achieve amazing performance in gaming once throttling is eliminated.)

Yes, you're exactly right in this statement. By setting P0 and P1 states at the same factory maximum default clock speeds, when the cards change power states due to load or temperature thresholds (which we cannot change) it prevents things from "slowing down" and degrading performance.

 

My specs are:
-Intel® Core™ i7 2860QM 2.5GHz (3.6GHz w/Turbo Boost, 8MB Cache) With IC Diamond on CPU + GPU
-Dual 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 580M – NVIDIA® SLI® Enabled
-Kingston HyperX 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1866MHz (4DIMMS)
-1TB RAID 0 (2x 500GB) 7200RPM Solid State Hybrid

I'm not sure if the absence of P1 is caused by the drivers. Currently, my driver version is 'GeForce 285.62 WHQL' as stated in nvidia inspector.

 

It should not have anything to do with the drivers, as it is controlled in the video BIOS. We need to make sure you have the current Dell vBIOS, which is A0170.24.2B.00.06 released on 10/05/2011. You can download it from Dell here LINK. Even if GPU-Z or NVIDIA Inspector shows you have this vBIOS, you might want to re-flash it and see if the missing power state shows up.

 

Haha no problem.

I think people sometimes misunderstand the whole concept of electricity. In particular 'Voltage' (read 'Potential Difference').

This whole principle is reason a stable power supply is so important in a PC (or any high precision electronics with a resistive load for that matter). As you increase the load on a circuit beyond the power supply's ability, the voltage will start to be pulled down (droop). When the voltage droops, the current goes up even higher. That's when bad stuff happens.

It's also the reason why 'brown outs' are so dangerous to electronics.

Undervolting won't cause damage unless the load on the circuit is sufficient to draw more current than it would at the specified voltage, if that makes sense.

If you're really serious about overclocking, the best way to go about it is to measure the supply voltage accurately (with external sensors) and see how it behaves in real time under load. For example, in the case of the 580Ms, do they actually sit at 0.87V stable under 100% load, or are they drooping? I'd be willing to bet that the reason people are getting such good results overvolting their cards to 0.92V is because the oversupply causes less droop under load.

For example, under 100% load and set to 0.87V, the voltage may droop to 0.84V, but then set at 0.92V, the voltage may only droop to 0.87V, so therefore stabilizing the voltage to 0.87V with a droop mod, so it sits at exactly 0.87V under idle or 100% load conditions would produce the same results and with potentially lower temperatures under idle conditions where the voltage is not required.

Think of it this way... A processor is like a fixed nozzle on a hose, The two things which influence how far the hose can spray water are the diameter of the hose (voltage), and the velocity of the water flowing through the hose (current). There are two ways to make the hose spray further, we can force more water through the hose (increase the clock speed/current), but that will not work once the pressure inside the hose exceeds the capability of the hose. OR we can increase the diameter of the hose (voltage) so that more water can be pumped through at the same pressure level, but because the nozzle of the hose can only handle so much pressure, if we go to far, the nozzle blows off the hose (processor blows), or the water pump (power supply) can no longer supply sufficient pressure (voltage) to fulfill the requirement.

Hope this helps understand the fundamentals a bit better.

 

Ahh. That figures. I'll try that first. Thanks Mr. Fox!

 

Btw, does disabling the throttling thing poses a damage risk to the 580s? Just wondering.

 

Only if you were to regularly run it at temperatures higher than where it would normally throttle (letting it sit running Furmark for example).

 

^^^Agree with Sentinel^^^

As Smokey the Bear says...

 

Have you thought about flashing to clevo 580M vbios instead to sort out these throttling issues?

 

There is no more throttling issue. Applying the updated Dell vBIOS and setting power states P0 and P1 to the same clock/shader/memory settings prevents the throttling. (Power states change, but speeds are identical, so it is irrelevant.) I haven't been able to get my M18x to throttle under any conditions at all using that method. Look at the opening post. This is possible with the updated Dell vBIOS. (Some M17x R3 owners with a single 580M say they are experiencing a temperature based throttle using a vBIOS mod, but I can load my 580M SLI and run Furmark without any evidence of temperature-induced throttling.

Some have flashed a vBIOS to run at 0.92v, (including myself,) which could be the Clevo vBIOS... not sure Since there is no way to edit the 580M vBIOS (that we have found yet), it has to be coming from another source, such as Clevo. This vBIOS is unnecessary unless stability at higher clock speeds for benchmarking is desired. The Dell vBIOS with the synchronized P0/P1 states is 0.87v and is more than adequate for gaming with clock speeds up to the neighborhood of 725/1450 to 750/1500.

Using RBE, conceptually, the same thing works beautifully on 6970M and 6990M cards to defeat PowerPlay.

What I am still search for is a way to game on battery. I know it will suck the juice right out of it, I'd like to figure out how to run the NVIDIA 580M SLI at full speed without the AC adapter connected. Powermizer seems to be totally worthless for that.

 

Fox, if you wanna game on battery, you could try one of these - might get you through a few games?

 

Ha ha! Steve, that's too funny. It's not so much that I "want to" as much as not being "able to" if I suddenly wanted to. I hardly even run on battery because there is rarely a time than I need to. On a whim, it would be nice to be able to load Crysis 2 or make a Vantage run on battery power. Maybe sitting in First Class next to someone with a MacBook, LOL.

 

Yeah, I agree. I tried Crysis 2 on battery....maybe playable with much lower settings - I run it maxed while on juice with DX11/HRTP/All Maxed and its smooth....not a cat in hell's chance on battery lol.....I didnt spend long enough trying to work out what game settings it would be playable with....but it would be nice to "go portable" with some decent settings and still have a battery after a while!

I suppose that is the "trade off" right there....

 

It's been weird because all M18x users got no throttles at all now with GTX580M SLI with the modded vbios whereas M17x ppl still got the thermal throttle at temps > 77°C...so it should be MOBO related I guess...

 

pau10w - agree, it's odd. I don't understand why that is. Maybe they are not necessarily following the right steps. The updated Dell vBIOS for the M18x 580M seems it might be the same one for the M17xR3 580M. Maybe they haven't applied that firmware update. Not sure, buddy.

 

Quick question. Are you guys disabling SLI before flashing the cards?

 

No, I didn't need to do that.

 

Hi mate i have the same problem i get the white screen also and its not heat that is the cause did you find a fix for this?

 

FurMark is not a essential program. When it works correctly, it's fine. When I doesn't, it's just trash. It has bugs and is very stressful on your GPU. As a benchmark tool, it's kind of worthless. Not many of us really use it for that. You may be having a driver issue causing the crashing and white screen problem.

If you are just looking for a means of stress testing to verify stability and temperature control, there are other options when FurMark does not work correctly. You can try OCCT. It works just as well for stress testing and it is far more versatile.

 

My personal opinion is that Furmark is useless. What's the point in testing your GPU under conditions it will NEVER be faced with in real life?

All it does it place excess strain on your hardware.

It's like driving your car up a 50km long hill at 30km/h in 4th gear to see if it overheats.

 

Firstly, thanks for this.

I'm on a M17x R3, and as far as I know, this hasn't totally fixed the throttle on that. Could it be because Volatge in the P1 state of the M17x goes down from .87 to .85, and has no way to modify it?

P0- 1500/1240/0.870
P1- 1500/1240/0.85 (changed shader, but voltage mod is disabled).

 

Correct. You'll need to use a modded BIOS to stop the voltage throttling back.

 

.

Thought this would eliminate the need for that. Still holding out for that VBIOS from Dell.

 

The modded BIOS works fine for me. I suggest giving that a go

 

hey, i'm sorry but, does this also apply to the M17X R3 owners with 580M too?, because the topic says " Alienware M17xR3 and M18x: NVIDIA GTX 580M Throttle Fix - No vBIOS Flashing Required " just wondering!, I own an M17X R3 with 560M thou, just maybe if i might want to swap it with an 580M

 

Just finished doing my vbios mod, got rid of the throttle for good and I tested it out in many games. BTW Skygunner was kind enough to share the zip folder with all the original vbios roms that was posted by Red Line, here is a link to them since megaupload is down, I tried using the ones Mr. Fox provided but the non OC one still presents throttling.

580M vBIOS.rar - 4shared.com - online file sharing and storage - download

The one I used is "AW_GTX580M_06_P1_P0_matched_087.ROM"

 

I'm glad you got everything up and running. 1 down, 2 to go(DPC Latency, Prototype Overlay)

 

i got my m18x at the end of December, it's nearly a month old, would it be worth doing this mod? what improvements will i see playing bf3

 

Yes, the only difference in applying the fix is you only have to make adjustments to P0 and P1 for a single GPU. If you use the batch file method, yours will omit the two lines referencing the second GPU. The M17xR3 has a BIOS limitation. You will eliminate the load throttle using this fix, but the M17xR3 is still adversely affected by the throttling that happens at 79°C. That will need to be fixed by Dell through a BIOS update like the one they provided for the M18x.

The benefits will be no throttling on any game.

 

yes, I use to get slight fps dips because of the throttling, now at my settings there is no dips what so ever. Constant 60 FPS as far as I can tell

 

okies fantastic, i'll start reading the frist page and give this a go thanks