Quick question regarding M15x 5850m voltage.

Hi

I just had a small question regarding the voltage of the 5850m that is in my laptop. I was running GPU-Z when I was playing games and I noticed that my voltage was stepped up to 1.15V. Last time I remember the default voltage was ~1.1v?

I flashed my vbios using the file provided on the Dell website and still no difference with the voltage, staying at 1.15V. I was just curious about whether or not this is a safe voltage to keep my gpu at.

Thanks

 

Now that sounds really weird. 1.15V will make the card runnin really hot, at least that's what I experienced. Maybe it's not that extreme when you don't overclock the card. However, 1.15 isn't suitable for daily use, only for hardcore benching imo.
What are your clock speeds? Can you provide a screenshot from GPU-Z, one from the first tab and one from the sensor tab, or even better, a logfile from a gaming session.

Edit: Standard 3d clocks voltage is 1.05 if I remember correctly, someone plz correct me in case I'm mistaken.

 

Ya, 1.15v is not right at all. Default voltage is 1.0v.

 

I have seen this situation occur when AutoTune is run in Overdrive. It invariably sets 3d clock voltage to 1.15v. Only way I was able to get rid of it was to uninstall and reinstall the entire Catalyst set.

 

I believe this is what happened. I managed to reinstall everything and fixed it all up.

Thanks for all the help

 

Good deal.

 

for the future keep in mind that 2d volts is .90 and 3d is 1.0

 

this is a good chance for me to post this issue. I have this 5870(nearly same as 5850) and I put new vbios to up its voltage from 1.05 to 1.1v but I used RBE and I set 2d clocks to i think .9v but it is 1.1v 24/7 even when I am just on the internet or something.

 

You shouldn't even need to touch the 2d clocks... Can you upload this vbios, so that I can take a look at it?

Edit: And maybe the original vbios as well.

 

Would that 5870 happen to be a Clevo card?

 

@revelator= yes. its clevo original source is babyhemi, but i bought it from I forgot his name right now.

@svl7= I really don't know how to upload the vbios but I have both the old and new right at my fingertips if I find out or you tell me.

 

Unless there has been a very recent change, the Clevo 5870m's do not support PowerPlay, so they do not switch clocks and voltages depending on the use. They have one speed -- the boot/3d clocks, with stock settings of 700/1000/1.15v.

 

the rev is right. clevo 5870 only has the 3d clocks. if your not over clocking then you can flash it with a lower voltage since the 1.15v is over kill for stock clocks.

 

Also, the Clevo cards support voltage steps of .01v, where as the Dell cards only support .05v steps. I had mine running 830/1100 at 1.07v.

 

I have it at just about it's limite, 800/1100 at 1.1v right now. the person I bought it from had it at 1.05, but I'm thinking of overvolting it again to 1.15 so I can OC even more. Can you overvolt them even higher than 1.15v? if so, what is the limit? Thanks for explaining that they don't change voltage, revelator. Do you mind explaining powerplay in more depth if it includes anything other than voltage change?

 

Powerplay drops the clock speed and voltage when the computer isn't doing anything that needs a 3D card (gaming, etc). With powerplay, when you're surfing the web, the card will usually be set to 100/150 and 0.9v to save power. When you start a game, it jumps up to 700/1000 and 1.05v (or whatever your 3D settings are). nVidia calls this "powermizer". If you don't have working powerplay on your card, it's going use more power and run hotter at idle.

The limit is 1.15v, but the card's going to run very hot under load at the setting.

 

I always manually underclock mine to 200/300 or 200/250 when in idle for more than 10 minutes and it idles in low 50s or 40s. Thank you for that great explanation. I remember having serious problems with powermizer on my GT 240m. Do clevo 5870s support powerplay in clevo systems? or just not at all?

 

Not at all. It's inexplicable, since PP is enormously useful, is part of the ATI reference vbios and, so far as I know, is available with virtually all other 5870m's.

 

That's a shame. I guess the best I can do is put it down to lower clocks when idle. Thanks for letting me know. Just to confirm my thought, I couldn't put dell bios in the clevo card to make it have pp?

 

No, you can't.

What are you using to test overclock stability? 800 seems low for 1.1v.

 

@jonnyflash: I run the fastest OCCT I can (6min) which has it at about 830/1100 but then I run crysis 2 and it driver crashes at anything above 800/1100. weird huh?
edit: and that's at like less than 80 degrees. thats why Im going to overvolt it again I think.

 

What do you have the shader complexity set to when you error check?

 

I think I left it at the basic one, default(0).

 

The default setting is better for testing memory I find, setting it to 8 will push the GPU as hard as possible. If it passes that, it should be stable.

 

ok, thanks johnny flash I'll try that.