here's how to lower temps on "260M GTX only" by FLASHING and guide on how to for 280M GTX

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Note from AW Mods -

Be aware that using the following process may damage/brick your system.
Since you are overwriting the BIOS of your GPU, for obvious reasons,
damage resulting from this process will most likely not be covered by Dell.

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
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have you ever wanted lower the temps for your video cards in the M17X.

here's what you have to do.

download the zip archive attached to this post and unzip it somewehere in your desktop.

download the latest version of "nvflash"

make a bootable USB drive or floppy disk (if you don't know how to, google it)

copy the files: 260M.rom, 260M_OR.rom (original 260M bios) and the latest version of nvflash into the bootable floppy or USB

device

then reboot with the drive in your laptop.

disable from the bios the 9400M G (only allow dedicated video cards to be enabled, disable integrated graphics and hybrid)

if it doesn't boot from the device, when booting press F12 and choose to boot from where the bootable disk is


NOTE: if you don't feel comfortable flashing both video cards you can first flash the bios in the second Video card, the non

primary one. then play a game and see if you get BSODs or crashes or, if you notice the desired decrease in temperature and all is

good. I suggest "HWMonitor" to keep track of your temperatures.


now typre the following to only flash the second video card:

nvflash.exe --index=1 -4 -5 -6 260m.rom then hit enter (where "index" indicates which installed video card to flash)

press "y" everytime you are being asked so then wait until you see a successful message (literally, don't do anything while it's

flasing)

reboot to windows and see what's going on.

if everything is good, then go ahead and repeat the steps up until you are ready to reflash again then type this:

nvflash.exe --index=0 -4 -5 -6 260m.rom (this will flash the primary video card installed)

once it's all done reboot and enjoy.

Important considerations to make:


undervolting the video card can be very beneficial by lowering the video card's temperature, therefore delaying the fan's higher

states or almost permanently decreasing them (fans run quieter).

the big drawback though is that you cannot overclock your videocards the way you used to. this is becasue you remove the juice

they need in order to hit those higher clocks.

this mod works only with the Geforce 260M GTX. "NOT" the 280M GTX

in order to modify the 280M GTX, you just need GPUZ, download it and dump a bios image of the video card and modify the bios with Nibitor 5.4

(download Nibitor 5.4, it is the latest version available at the moment and the only one that will read the 260M GTX with version

5.3 as well).

Nibitor allows you to modify the voltage of your videocard in the voltage section. do not change anything else or you'll be asking

for trouble.

ONE THING YOU SHOULD ABSOLUTELY NEVER DO IS TO CHANGE THE DEVICE ID OF YOUR VIDEOCARD (example: you have a 260M GTX and want to

change device ID to 280M GTX or vice versa, it'll brick your PC unless you buy new videocards and replace them) don't do it!!

if your purpose instead is to reach higher overclocks, then you can still change the voltage to something higer and see what you

can get out of it (not recomended cause you'll also get much higer temperatures and louder fans).


with this said, have fun!

thanks,

P.S. voltmod can be very particular. you might be lucky or not, you just can't tell for sure until you try. for this reason I cannot guarantee that you'll receive great satisfaction by lowering the voltages of a 280M GTX since I don't own those video cards and therefore have not tested them myself.

 

Will this work for the m15x

 

what does the m15x use?

if it is a 260M sure you could try, but your chances of bricking your PC are higher if the laptop does not have an integrated graphic chip like the m17X with the 9400M G.

but you can try the same way I described for 280M users.
don't grab any files I posted just to be safe.

 

can't believe nobody is giving this a shot.

this can really decrease your temps a lot.

just to bring up some examples:

I was playing Assassin's Creed 1 for about 30 minutes and the temps of both 260M GTX didn't even reach 50 degrees celcius. they were 49 and 46 respectively.

not to mention the fans, it looked like if I was browisng the internet, very quiet, no need at all for the fans to kick in that laud.

I played need for speed shift for about the same time and the fans did kick in this time, but it took them longer to do so, almost when I was about to quit the game.

when I checked the temps they were 60 and 47 respectively.

if you are careful doing this mod, this is the way to go to keep those video cards cool.

I've done it to all of my laptops. on the Gateway section there is even a thread I started explaining how the undervolt increased stability and smoother FPS in the Gateway 7805u FX, because it was probably set by default to a very high voltage that was causing framerate choppiness and dropouts.

I don't think this is the case with the 260M GTX. I didn't notice an increase in stability and smoother FPS. though, it is worth a try for the lower temps and quieter fans.

I forgot to say something on the first post. I mentioned that overclock is much more limited when you undervolt the videocards.

well, you can still overclock the video card's memory. cause the undervolt only affects the GPU, not the memory.

so I still oveclock the memory and things still run quiet and smooth.

thanks,

 

Thanks ONE_J for the very detailed intructions in this guide! however, i think the reason no one tried this yet is because most people here are looking for ways to get the "most" out of their gpu in terms of FPS and not in terms of lower fan speeds and lower temps, as these systems already run cool anyways. I have a M15x with a 260M and the gpu never goes over 65degrees playign the most demanding games like crysis and MW2 for hours and hours.

So IMO, there isn't really a need to go through all that trouble to lower temps, because 65 is already pretty damn cool for a lappy pushing this kind of power, ( i've heard the asus reaching 80+, sometimes 90+ in some cases) and most of the time it hovers around 55degrees anwyays. As for fan noise, well, if yoru playing a game, you most likely have 1. Earphones or 2. have the volumed maxed so you won't hear the fans anyways.

Now if your intention was to get longer battery life i could see how this can be useful, but i doubt it'll extend bat life that much longer. the way i see it, if you want to game on the go, bring your power adapter, find an outlet, and stay plugged in. Because 60mins flies by while playing a game, and getting that extra 10 mins isn't worth all the trouble really.

None the less, excellent post and you'll be getting my +1rep.

 

^^^^ agreed, the advantages of this is not worth risking bricking a laptop. could be good for other models but M17x and M15x runs super cool already.

 

hi,

I understand your point.

thanks for the appreciation anyway

if I have time during this weekend I would like to spend some time testing a higher voltage then see how far I can push the GPU's . it would still be a dangerous mod, but maybe someone out there might find it informative if their purpose is to push the GPU's limits.

I personally prefer running hardware at standard clocks (with a few exceptions here and there) and at cooler temperatures whenever possible, but it doesn't hurt to know what my options are. so I'll try this and will report some results.

I noticed that for the 260M GTX the standard voltage is 1.0V and for my mod I set it to 0.9V which is the same amount that is required when running 2D applications or in 3D with Aero on.

there was also another entry that was 1.03V which is slightly higher than standard voltage.

although you can set a much higher voltage with Nibitor, I will give a shot only to that one (1.03V) that was already included in the list of "allowed" entries.

I already suspect the gain won't be significant for such little amount, but I'll try it and see.

thanks,

 

hi,

I ran some tests and have to confess that were rather disappointing.

I've actually seen other people pushing their GPU's higher than I did without probles, while me with the voltage mod was stuck at a certain point with the core and shader clocks.

I ran 3dmark03 tests and took some picts.

the first test was overclocked GPU's at stock voltage (1.0V):

650/1000/1600

the second test was overclocked GPU's and overvolted cores (1.03V):
(I overclocked the memory a little bit more here to compensate and give more available bandwidth becasue of the higher core and shader clocks, otherwise I just want to clarify that the memory is not affected by the volt mod at all and therefore can go even higher than 1050mhz regardless of the core voltage, but I decided to keep it there).

700/1050/1700

the third test is my favourite (compare max temperatures), factory default core, memory and shader clocks at undervolted cores (0.9V):

550/950/1350

thanks for taking the time to read this.
images will speak for me. I will post the results respectively as above mentioned:

 

Please dont run 3dmark03, it makes me cry,

Atleast run 06 or vantage,

And try an OCCT power test, the gpu temps look great.

 

I know

the only reason I do is because I purchased it a very long time ago and I am still getting most out of it

 

Sorry to bump a slightly old thread, but I was wondering if one of you could actually upload your DEFAULT bios, with the 1 volts. Cause I have a 260M GTX Asus version, which is default .95 instead. And when I use NiBitor, it doesn't list 1 volts as an option, only .95 and .85 are available options.
I tried using 280M GTX bios, with 1 volt, said that the bios didn't match the device.

Edit: NEVERMIND! ALREADY FIGURED IT OUT, SRY

 

i am not testing this as I did a case mod, and dont need it. BUT for people who want to but dont want to void the warranty, AW will not check the bois on the video card... if it is broken, they will send a tech over to replace it/them. all in all it "should" be safe to try this as there will be no way AW will know what you did.

 

the m15x 260m bios is already undervolted to 0.9 by default. this is why the 260m on the m15x is rated at 65 watts rather than the advertised 75.