Deadboy90's GPU Overclocking guide

I have seen alot of people asking questions about how to overclock their GPU's and while im happy to help it can get wearing typing the same thing over and over again. So I decided to make this thread so folks have an easy place to find their answer! Note however, you do this at your own risk and while its HIGHLY improbable that a simple GPU OC without messing with the voltage will hurt your m11x, I accept no responsibility for anything that happens to your machine. On the other hand it can improve your FPS signifigantly, possibly by as much as 10fps or more!

Step 1:
Download and install MSI Afterburner. MSI Afterburner

It's a simple program and in my opinion the best one! You can also download EVGA precision if you like as it lets you set the sliders higher but it's unlikely you will need the extra slider space beyond the 585/1405/1030 max in MSI.

Step 2:
After opening you will see there are 2 programs, MSI afterburner and Kombustor. Lets focus on MSI for now. After opening it you should see a screen like this:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/713/oc1v.jpg/sr=1
The voltage and fanspeed slider will be greyed out and are unusable but the three remaining sliders, Core, Shader, and memory are the importiant part, move them up 5 to 10 mhz at a time and click apply.

Note: for those of you with an r1 and r2 Overclock of 550/1350/875 seems to be the magic number; it works for most people with most games, you can set it to that and do step 3, im not sure what the magic number is for the r3's 540m.

Step 3:
Now it's time to test your OC. Open Kombustor and select the "GPU Burn-in" button and watch your GPU go! Look at the numbers in the upper right corner while the burn in test is running, it should have your temperature and clockspeeds and these speeds should match up with what you set in MSI. If not make sure you clicked "Apply" after setting your overclock. Leave it go for about 15 minutes and if it goes without crashing go back to MSI and up your sliders again. Repeat as necessary untill you hit your Maximum stable overclock! You will also notice a big spike in temperature. (It's noy called "Burn in" for nothing lol) these temps shouldn't exceed 90C for the r2-r3. for the r1 I would say about 80C. Note however, that just because you are stable in Kombustor doesnt mean you will be stable in games. Try your Overclock in them too! Should you get artfacts while playing you clocked the memory too high, set that slider lower.

Step 4: a crash
A crash can look a few different ways, it can be a screen flash followed by the GPU clockspeeds in the upper right hand corner of GPU burn in going down signifigantly. It can also be a BSOD, or nothing may happen and the clokspeeds shown in Kombustor simply drop. In any case your need to reboot your laptop and try again at a lower clockspeed.

Remember: Overclocking is an art not a science, some GPU's will clock higher than others and some might not OC at all! But if so dont get discouraged, you still own the world's only 11 inch gaming laptop!

 

I think there's some problems overclocking a GPU on M11xR2.
Even slight overclocks can result in game crashes/ BSOD.
Some games even needs to be underclocked.
Guess it is the motherboard issues.

 

if you are having BSOD's at standard clocks I think you can send it in to have it fixed provided you are still under warrenty.

 

Happening to me too. Almost Impossible :s

 

OC'ing the GPU and my M11xR2 do not go hand in hand either. It can take a slight OC but anything moderate causes a BSOD or lock-up straight away.

Great guide though deadboy.

 

Thank you for the guide. On my R2, Kombuster crashes at the same point every time, even in the case of an extreme underclock. I start the burn-in test and about 5 seconds in all the clock frequencies drop. Am I doing something wrong or is this the sign of a more serious problem?

 

Really thats the first im hearing of that problem, I cant imagine why an r2 335m wouldnt take an overclock, maybe the different BIOS? that seems pretty strange. you could always try the BIOS volt mod and see if that helps at all, more voltage=more OCing. In this case for the r1 and r2 from .9 to .95 and theres one for the r3 now, you can get them here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-flashing-increase-voltage-7.html#post7348742
Much love to DavyGT for coming up with these!

 

Yep. Did tried BIOS volt mod and it's still the same.

 

Huh well that sucks. Sorry I cant provide more information but I have an r1 so i cant really try anything. Is there anyone out there with an r2 that does take a decent GPU oc?

 

The voltage mod helps a little bit for me but not much. If I remember correctly, tassadar held the record for an insanely high overclock on his R2 with his 'magic' 335m. Haven't heard from him in a while though.

 

Well I suppose you r2 peeps can take solice in the fact that your CPU's kick the crap out the C2D.

 

Core shader 804
Shader Clock 1608
Memory clock 1050
R3 i7 8gbs ram average 75*
Are these good results? I haven't had a lock up yet lol.
And i have the 2gb 540m if that means anything

 

im not sure how good that is as i have an r1 but the 2gb doesnt mean a thing, it useless.

 

Original Overclock
Core shader 672 801
shader clock 1344 1602
memory clock 900 1031

According to burn in I have an FPS increase of 13, and a temp maxing at 76*
I feel like i could push it more but 13FPS seems good enough for me.

 

thats looks ok, maybe a 15% increase, a nice bump.

 

Hi deadboy
Did you play The Witcher 2? (with 2.0 patch of course)
Do I have to OC my GPU to play it? I've never OC GPU but I've heard that game is quite heavy on our m11x

 

yea I do play it and it IS a GPU killer. Even on low and me OC'd to 550/1350/885 it's at 99% GPU usage, but i manage to eek out 25-30 fps. (and at stock speeds about 15-20) TW2 was the first game that the 335m simply could not handle. (The second was BF3) if you have an r3 though you should be fine.

 

Owwwwch, after 1 hour of gaming with Dragon Age 2 (with 551/1322/874 OC) my m11x r2 locked up, the cursor was still moving and the sound was still playing but the game was hanged.

Well, I think I should test with 500/1200/850 settings.

 

If you got an hour at those settings then you should be ok with maybe 535/1320/870, try that

 

Thanks for your reply. May I ask you which driver did you use? And what version of TW2 did you play?
Because I've heard that in the latest patch, they removed DRM and fixed 3d driver issue, which should give some increasing in performance.

 

I use the 197.xx dell drivers for the r1 and with the 2.0 "Dark edition" but i never installed the 3d when i was testing the newer drivers.

 

How come I can't get my M11xR2 (see sig) past 5700s in 3dMark06?! I tried all these settings with no luck. I am stable at 158MHz and getting around 25 secs in wPrime with TS.

 

5700 point? Should be above Intel HD and below normal GT335M clock.
Are you overclocking your GT335M?
R2 motherboard has issues with the GPU overclock so I'd recommend to try the benchmark again with normal clockspeed again.

 

I don't touch GPU overclocking as I noticed significant drops in points with the 335m. What a shame.

I am just OC'ing the CPU to 158MHz via BIOS and TS 30/100. I am also using the 290.53 drivers for the 335m.

I run 3dMark06 1.2.0 Advanced Edition with default settings. However, I have my M11x going to my FX2490HD monitor via HDMI. Could that be the culprit? Even though I have it running at basic resolutions on 3dMark06?

 

If you have EVGA precision/ MSI afterburner, it is good to ensure the GPU usage is at about 99% or it means your card is not utilised well. Also, check the graphics clocks to see if it's dropping.

 

I use MSI AB. Do you mean to check that usage and clocks are at those numbers while running Kombustor or when idle?

 

When using kombustor. See if the GPU clock is at 450/ shader at 1080/ memory at 790. check the GPU usage too!

 

I'll check it out when I get home and do some runs. Hopefully I can maximize it a bit. But back to the question, do you think having the laptop hooked up to the external monitor might account for the lower points in 3dMark06?

 

Did you have 3dmark whitelisted? Otherwise it's running on the integrated gpu

 

My guess is that 5700 is too good for intel. GPU throttling back?

 

Couldn't test it last night, but I can guarantee you that 3dMark is whitelisted. Why would the GPU throttle back even when not OC'ing it?!

 

Run Kombustor and check the clock/shader/memory speed on the right. let us know what they read.

 

Thanks deadboy, running around with The Witcher 2 on 530/1272/851 and after over an hour, no freeze at all. Get around 25-30 frame/sec on the prologue battlefield (lowest settings and 720p resolution of course). GPU temp is about 60*C
OC gives me about 5 extra frames, which turns from lag and frustrated to playable

 

Okay... so if overclocking the memory too high is what causes the artifacts, what issues come up from overclocking the core/shader too high? Is it just temperature increases?

 

It might cause further downclocking (driver crash), BSOD or application crash

 

yep, right on the nose. However after some testing I have found that the memory is the most importiant factor in OCing. While running Kombustor I overclocked just the memory and got 5-6 fps increase. Then i put that back to stock and OC'd the shader and core and got only 1 fps increase. Then I tried both and got 7-8 fps increase over stock. So yea, memory OC has the most effect of FPS.

 

help me. i have r1. i used evga and i set it to your settings but error. its crashing. help me. tnx

 

all GPUs are different and some OC higher than others, yours clearly cant go that high so you need to try a lower overclock. (And try and find AJslays GPU BIOS mod, it gives the 335m more powers so you can overclock more.)

 

where i can find AJslays GPU BIOS mod? please guide me. i want to overclock my gpu

 

You can Overclock without it, just try that first. slowly move the sliders up 5-10 mhz at a time and test the overclock with Kombustor. if it's stable then move it up again 5-10 mhz more untill you find the settings that you are most stable at. If you wish to jump right in then you can try 550/1350/875 and go from there.

 

ok. 5-10 mhz for core,shadder and memory? if i move the core to 5 then i will also move the memory to 5?

 

you can but it's unlikely that you will be able to get the memory to be stable with no artifacts above 900. The core and shader will be higher than the memory.

 

My stable result:Core 540Mhz;Memory 840Mhz;Shader 1400Mhz !
I'l try more Hz's

 

hey what's the default core/mem/shader speeds? i cant recall this for the life of me, and i dont have my m11x with me (overseas)

 

In the early days I did have to not OC the GPU for WoW, but today with SWTOR I run at full pelt on CPU and GPU.

Only change recently was my 8Gb RAM did not allow the SPD hack so is stock, but still OCs the CPU to 170 stable.

R2 i7, Bios-A03 GPU Volt mod, CPU@170, GPU@585/1405/973

Temps on full gaming load after hours go 70-74 C (with just a biro or the lead under the rear)

 

your stable at that OC?! christ that high!

 

I have a question on this overclocking stuff. Once you have experimented and found your oc levels and applied them will the gpu always run at these levels until you change them again. I mean do you have to apply the changes every time you boot before playing or does it boot overclocked?

Tom.

 

Yes, though I have not run WoW in some months and that was a finicky thing.

I regularly play SWTOR on it for hours at a time driving a 1280x1024 screen via the DP (needs must when camped at a friends away from home mid week).

Initially I did not clock the GPU this hard as it would crash, but like I say it hangs in there now. Only difference was newer drivers and newer games.
Here is when I initially got it this high several months ago.

I have been amazed because in the bios the highest stable I could get was < 160.

Overall the M11x is far more stable than my desktop... not that it says much for my long in the tooth Q6600 desktop

 

if you are using afterburner you have the option to save your OC and enable it when you boot your computer.

 

awesome ta. I have just downloaded afterburner on my R3, however I only have core and memory sliders, there is no shader?