My Nvidia GTX 880M Test Run Review

The vBIOS mod was released today. It's pretty awesome. Now, if I can just get my cooling under control...

 

...which already went life. First results are in. Looking good. I'll keep my fingers crossed until my 880M arrives

 

Please post feedback on the vBIOS for svl7 and johnksss in the thread where you received it, and be sure to buy them a cold one as a show of appreciation.

 

Oh very nice. I'm keen to hear what the vbios runs like.

 

No need to wait or wonder. Have a look here for an example.

 

Had a quick mess. +74 clock, 50mv voltage - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4700MQ,Alienware 04WT2G

Will play more later this evening.

Ok, I ran another quick run with different settings in Nvidia Inspector.

Settings

+103 Clock
+470 Memory Clock
+112.5mv
Highest temp - 93c

3D Mark 11 Score

I will be repasting with Liquid Ultra later this evening, so I'll post up new scores later. Temps aren't nice, but it's to be expected with a Kepler based card I suppose.

 

Hey bro, at 1.125V you're GPU voltage is way too high for such a low overclock. Try something more like 1.035V or 1.050V first. You should be able to run a +500 on memory with that lower voltage as well. That should help your temps. Max out the Power/Temp target sliders, with priority to Power over temps.

 

I shall try that. Thanks my man.

Ok, I did as you suggested. Here are my results. Sorry if my program layout is not up to standards.



3D Mark 11 Link

 

I have got the new 880m vbios but am having a problem with gpu-z saving my original bios. It says 'could not extract file, nv flash not found' bios reading not supported? Any ideas?

 

Make sure you have the 880M selected. At the bottom of the CPU-Z screen is a pull down menu to switch between Intel graphics and the Nvidia card.

Sent with love from my Galaxy S4

 

Yeh i have it selected and i get the error message. Do i need to put the nv flash files somewhere?

 

Nope, GPU-Z saves the vbios independent of nvflash.

You have stumped me.

 

Just tried afew versions of gpuz and run as admin, no luck

 

Ok I used Everest to dump the vbios file. It's extension is .dmp and not .rom. Anyone know if this is ok?

 

Well i was going to flash my card but I have encountered another problem. With the new version of nvflash it says 'cannot run in dos mode'. An older version lets me enter dos mode but will not execute my file ' no video adapters found'. Stumped yet again. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

Ok guys, so I ran my last test on this AW 17. However this time, I ran with an i7 4710MQ, but according to 3D Mark 11, it's an i7 4712MQ?.. anyway, below are my results and setup. I apologise if the program layout is a bit off.

Results - 3D Mark 11

Setup





I tried with 50.0mv to begin with, with the above settings. However, I encountered a driver crash mid way through the night time jungle test, so this's why I bumped up to 62.5mv in the end. The test was carried out with ICD 7 on both the CPU and GPU. I'm yet to try with Liquid Ultra, but I will most likely try Liquid Ultra on my AW 18 once I get around to testing that.

If you guys can think of any other head room to OC more with this AW 17, please fire away.

I would like to thank both Slv7 and John for releasing this vBios out in the wild. Your work is highly appreciated guys. I've also donated so you guys can have a cold one. Enjoy fellas.

 

Sounds like you downloaded the Windows version. You will get that error if you try to flash in DOS using the Windows version or vice versa. Maybe someone that has already flashed their 880M will post a link to the version that worked for them.

Edit: Looking at some of your other posts, there is something else that may be going on. If you are running Secure Boot cancer in your BIOS, you may need to disable that. Not only might flashing the firmware be a problem, but your screen might end up going black due to the firmware signature being modified. I know some people think it's fancy and all that, but it's there to stop you from enhancing your machine. Fundamentally, stopping "unauthorized modification" is why Secure Boot exists. Switch to Legacy Boot or UEFI with Legacy Option ROM and your problems might vaporize.

 

You just need to disable UEFI and secureboot for the vbios flashing procedure (just boot dos in legacy mode).

You can then restore both UEFI and Secure boot, the modified vbios works fine with both (at least on my AW18) so it looks like they kept the UEFI driver intact in the VBIOS (in fact there seems to be a certificate for it inside the VBIOS.)

Secure boot might prevent you from reading/writing from/to the MXM ROM/EEPROM but it won't be verifying it's content is "legit" once flashed.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

Thank you guys I have successfully flashed the new vbios. It was the version of nvflash being windows and not dos. No throttling

 

Just be careful of windows flashing, it has a higher error rate.

 

Really? I didn't know that. I always vbios flash from windows and do a reset. No problems yet

Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

 

Flashing ATI/AMD MXM cards in Windows is downright dangerous. I have had at least a dozen "bricked" AMD cards flashing them with ATIWinFlash and I have resuscitated a few for people that don't own an M18xR1/R2. Not sure what is different about it, but it's definitely a greater risk. I have never had it fail with NVFLASH for Windows, but I still think the risk is greater than doing it in DOS. I don't stress about it since I can easily fix it, but if I did not have an M18xR1/R2 I don't think I would ever risk flashing the GPU in Windows ever again. To me this is more than enough reason to never get rid of an M18xR1/R2. It's a very useful tool to own, and will be until the MXM form factor changes and the modules are no longer compatible.

 

Another quick question, using nvidia inspector I can change my base clock fine, but the memory and voltages reset to defaults as soon as I click apply. EVGA precision doesn't work either...?

 

I don't know why that would happen. Maybe try re-flashing the GPU a second time.

It could be that the settings are sticking, but the GPU is not under load so the integrated graphics is taking over and the GPU is taking a nap. You can check this to find out by using GPU-Z. Click the question mark (it's a button) on the right side. Switch to the "Sensors" tab and then click the button to begin the graphics test. See if the core, memory and voltage match your OC settings when the GPU has some load put on it.

Here's an example of this.

 

It's likely for some process to interrupt the flash and it has strict time outs on it so just borks it up.

 

Thanks, the gpu does need to be under load before the settings stick.

 

I overclocked the VRAM, the system crashed a bunch of times and now the GPUs behave worse than a freaking intel HD,

I've tried everything, reflashing the stock VBIOS, reinstalling the driver, The 327.23 driver won't install here (I can't seem to do that inf mod properly for the 880M) I don't know what to do, I am starting to get desperate here.

Here is the latest score with the muzzled GPUs
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4900MQ,Alienware 0FT9KT

 

Man, that's really strange. I don't understand what is going on there. Never seen anything like that before. That's lower than I've ever seen for discrete graphics that I can remember.

It seems like there is no power going to the GPUs or something, yet the Futuremark System Information scan shows what looks normal. If you open GPU-Z does everything look right? What if you use the GPU-Z load test (not full screen) and switch to the "Sensors" tab while letting the test run in the small window? See anything unusual doing that?

 

That sound like the card hasn't flashed fully. I've seen a GPU behave this way before because of a bad flash. Try flashing in DOS to see if that fixes your problem.

 

The GPU was flashed fine. It appears to be a value set directly in the GPU by the NVIDIA driver to make it purposefully underperform after a definite number of GPU crashes occured.
Removing the AC + disconnecting the battery for about 10 minutes fixed it. (I was swapping hdds to try another version of windows, when I put the original HDDs back, the issue was still fixed even though I didn't touch any registry values or the driver, so it's definitely set on either the GPU or the motherboard, thankfully the change doesn't seem permanant so long as you cut the power to the board entirely.)

And for those who still think this is some value set in Windows, not even doing a system restore could fix this.

 

Yes the GPU will go into a safety mode after a certain number of crashes. Though usually a restart is enough.

 

You're right... but I don't understand why a restart doesn't always fix it like it used to with older drivers. I really wish I knew exactly what the deal is so it could be circumvented.

It used to be that a video driver crash made Windows have a hard lock-up where I had to hold down the power button to restart. That still happens sometimes, but I have noticed it much less now. I more often now see a crash to the desktop instead, GPU clocks and voltage get reset, and no hard freeze. I'd rather have the Windows lock-up problem from overclocking instability to be honest.

 

A restart will not fix this new issue. It is not that simple. and there are multiple layers on how/why or how long it will stay like that. And since no one wants to sit around and wait for it to fix itself we force it to try and run normal. I have an idea or two about that but then that's on an alienware. Not sure about a clevo or msi.

 

Not the only one with a muzzled 880m GTX. I just got my Clevo P157SM-A from XoticPC on Monday and now gotta deal with this lol. I wish I could say I crashed it a bunch of times while messing with it but no it was like this from the get go.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7 4900MQ,Notebook P15SM-A/SM1-A

 

what happens when you install the 327.23 driver ?

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Made no difference
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/8427609

 

This card is really horrible, since I bought this card from upgradedonkey, I never managed to make it work properly. My problem is the same that when you had tested this card. But how I can resolve this hard throttle ? how you do this ?

Mathieulh explain that problem can come in the card :

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-18-m18x/750830-just-got-my-880m-twins-42.html#post9684189

I tested to reinstall with new ssd, but nothing changed for me :\, now I don't know what is possible to apply the latest driver without problem on this card.

 

Wow, Im really happy I cancelled my AW18.....

This is just sad, but whos to blame? Alienware (aka multicorperation DELL) or nVidia? nVidia makes such good desktop GPU's so why are they failing at the mobile side?

 

For me clearly Nvidia and the new drivers but why they do this ?

edit : I really like to know how john can remove this hard throttle in his test ?

 

my throttle look like this with the new driver :



337.88 driver :
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3840QM,Alienware M17xR4

 

Well, now we see at least one clue about what is happening. Do you see what I have circled in blue? The Performance Cap Reason is "Power" according to that table.

What do you have your Power Target set to? Are you prioritizing power or temps? Is this a stock vBIOS or mod?

 

Stock vbios, the modded vbios crash when windows start with the latest driver

 

What about the other questions?

 

I don't know, I don't change anything and I have not install this software

 

I see that the Power and Temperature Target slider is locked down with the stock vBIOS. That will never do.

 

what program is this and will it work on the r2?

 

That's EVGA Precision X

EVGA - Software - EVGA Precision

and its using this skin

http://sdrv.ms/1bGHy3x

 

Bing, bing, bing... that is the correct answer.

 

somewhat offtopic but...for unknown reasons, gpu-z (0.7.8) isn´t showing the perfCap-option.
instead i see a power-consumption-graph (i´m using a 880M + 337.50 video-drivers).

one must enable this somewhere, or is something funky going on?!

 

It is interesting that is shows up with 880M for some systems but it does not for others. It could be very useful for troubleshooting performance issues, so it would kind of suck to not have it. Maybe it somehow varies by motherboard rather than GPU. It may depend on whether GPU-Z receives the information. If it is not being reported, perhaps the data field disappears. The Performance Cap field in GPU-Z is a sensor and it shows up for both video cards with my both of my 780M SLI setups. This is also a new piece of data that I never had before 780M. I also have the Power Consumption field in addition to Performance Cap.