Overclocking the GT 540M

It seems like whatever it uses to poll the card causes the card to periodically activate. NVIDIA System Monitor also tends to show full clock when the card is off, but it doesn't appear to cause the card to go active. I'm assuming it reports the intended clock speed when it has no data.

 

@DakkonA , Which is the best overclocking tool ? Is MSI afterburner OK ? I cant able to use rivatuner due to 64bit signed driver issue. heard MSI is developed from Rivatuner .
other than FRAPS which shows the FPS , is there a way to show the GPU temp while playing games ?

 

I use the MSI AfterBurner OSD to display GPU Temp and FPS.

I tried BFBC 2 with everything maxed out except shadows which were on medium and also with 8xAA and 16xAF on DX11 mode and it does ~40fps average.

Clocks are 760/975 for this game, any higher sees artifacts.

 

I used Nvidia System tools and I really like it. I did a small overclock to 550m speeds (740/1480/900) and set a profile rule to load the overlocked profile when I launch a game (you can set up a list of the games that triggers it) and load the default profile (not overclocked) when I close the game. Pretty cool.

MSI Afterburner is really cool too, you can customize it to show an overlay in one of the corners of your screen while playing a game with gpu temps, gpu usage, gpu ram usage, framerates, and more (or less).

 

thanks guys ,

I ran a 60sec full screen FURmark and temp touched 85c on consecutive runs , Is it normal ?

I am worried about temps .

 

one more thing , will dell entertain my request to send thier technicians to apply a new thermal paste ?

 

Yeah, it's normal but I don't like it either.

 

Yes , in-game temperature doesnt exceed 80c , Just played BulletStorm for an hour with MSI afterburner showing GPU temp. It never crossed 80c , most of the time it was 77c only. even dipping to 70c.

Havent OC`d yet , will OC and check the temps

Thanks lamer01

 

How do you guys un-link the core clock and shaders? I can't seem to...

 

Nvidia System tools is definitely the easier way to overclock a laptop GPU.

 

You really don't want to. They're linked for a reason.

 

Oh crap, that sucks

 

Why does that suck? The shaders operate optimally at a particular ratio with the core frequency.

 

Because my card starts to artifact around 1600 on the shaders and 800 on the core, I wanted to increase the core frequency and leave the shaders...

 

guys , what is ur OC value and maximum temperature or temperature its getting around ?

i haveOCd to 750/935 and temps are around 77c most of the time..

 

i have 800/1600/990 and 91max in Furmark, waht do you think of my temp? is to high? or acceptable?

 

I was getting artifacts in the 90 degree range so keep your eye out.

 

Temps aren't the prime driver of artifacts. I can run my card up to 100 C with 864/1012 clocks without artifacting.

Note that the laptop will shut off if the card hits 105 C. These things are pretty well designed to protect themselves, so I wouldn't be *too* worried as long as the temperature is stably below 100 C under load.

 

DAkkonA , 100c under load is OK ? IMO , its too much of temp , also there is possibilty that so much temperature can affect other internal hardware , particularly the 3.0 USB on left side , the magnet of the left speaker ( I read in on thread , heat can affect the magnets ) and also i think CPU shares the same heat pipe with GPU , so any increase in heat pipe temp will affect CPU too ...

IMO anything below 90c is good ?

Furmark does increase the temp a lot.
One thing i found is while running on using a 1080p furmark bench , it uses 11% of our 2GB memory and temperature seems to be around 77
but when i bench at 720p , where the memory usage is only 3% , the temperature rose to 88+ .. , thats why i think IN-GAME temps are lot lower even at 100% GPU usuage.
any thoughts about this ?

 

one more thing i want to ask , does a cooling pad any worth in our model ? the fan is on the side and not much heat under the surface ? what do you guys think ?

 

Probably true, Naveen. I haven't looked at temperature without Furmark, but its fairly safe to say must games won't put nearly as much processing load on the GPU.

Yes the GPU and CPU share the heat pipe, but the CPU readily downclocks if necessary and the GPU does too in worst cases, throttling to the ~200 MHz core clock level if the temp reaches 100. When I ran Furmark and Prime95 together (with standard GPU clocks), both ran fine without throttling, though the CPU was no longer in Turbo mode. I'd probably get a system shutdown if I ran both together with the overclocked GPU.

I'm not too worried about the exhaust heat and those components. That's what I have a warranty for.

Some people have found good results with a cooling pad, but I don't use one.

 

Guys.. At such high overclock settings, do you guys get errors when running stress test with program such as GPUTool ?

 

Guys, I know this is a little off-topic, but I'm freeking out.

Every game I play (Crysis, for example) crashes minutes after I start. but when I play using integrated graphics, it never crashes.

I have the latest Nvidia driver (260), the latest directx version, and I don't know what else to do.

Please...help!

 

The latest Nvidia driver is 271. Get it from Nvidia's website. Dell's driver, though often preferable due to some customization, is quite out of date in part due to an incompatibility with the webcam that doesn't exist with the Nvidia generic driver.

 

ya , i agree thats why we have warranty , but dell is known to replace good parts ( imean the original) with refurbished ones , which IMO are far from par with original component . this is just my thought.

DakkonA , my first furmark nech came around 540 FurMark - OpenGL benchmark and VGA Stress Test - Scores | oZone3D.Net

but i dont know why , now its giving me only 130 or soemthing , I resetted the nvidia controla panel globla setting , also re-installed furmark , still i get only 130 points , I tried running the furmark with nvdia 540M using rightclick , just to make sure it runs with nvidia , but still it says primary renderer is intel HD graphics , GPU 1 is 540M , please help

 

I am having the exact same problem...

 

@XPS-15 , i think it has to do with verde , its the one which constantly updates all the list in nvidia control panel , i think some very recent update from nvidia through verde , should have messed with furmark. If other members can also confirm the furmark becnk @ 720P , we can be sure its not single problem , but something all 540M owners are affected..

 

Here you go, my OC results) not too shabby. Temps are fine, but CPU could be a little lower. Want to change thermal paste in a while!

 

I'll play the Witcher 2 this evening and tell how it goes)

 

that's my best run so far! can't get over 810/1000 though... Nvidia 275.27 used)

 

can u run some 06 and vantage?

 

for some reason my display doesn't support 1280x1024 so vantage won't start. also after i updated to 275.27 drivers 3dmark 06 quits after 800/1000 OC (using 270.61 i was able to do 850/1000) and 3dmark 11 does 810/1000 just fine regarding drivers.

 

nice, breaks 10k. That's what i was hoping for. Puts it in line with the 555m

 

Does it run at all? I hear it's still beneath the minimum requirements. Because I didn't keep informed about all the nuances of hardware for a while (it takes a really good new game for me to bother about my hardware), I thought my 8600m would be good enough if the recommended settings (sometimes it was called recommended instead of minimum) are a 8800. Because it's such an old card I would have thought a fast modern laptop card could easily keep up, but I've read the 540m is still about 40% (!) beneath the 8800 GTS.

 

That's what i've got from Witcher 2 at Min. in-game settings and 1366x768 resolution:
Avg: 26.517 - Min: 15 - Max: 38

Nvidia 275.27 drivers and 810/1000 OC!

 

Also, my best run so far and after a minor modding (i took off the sticker from the vent hole on the buttom plate and shaved 2C on both CPU and GPU)

 

Firstly I would like to say hello to everybody in this forum. Its my first post here and I have a serious problem. Few days ago I bought Asus k53sv I know its Dell forum but Asus have gt 540m nvidia card so maybe you can help me. After reading this topic for few days I tried to oc my gt 540m, downloaded system tools mentioned in first post and started to oc. First i set 750 core 950 memory, benchmark it using 3dmark 06. Result was something above 9000 points. Temperature related to GPU-Z was ok, less than 70 Celsius. With this settings I was playing starcraft 2 for few hours on ultra settings without a problem, temperature was ok. After that I wanted more so I set core to 800 / memory 1000 Benchmark 3dmark06, no artifacts, everything smooth. Result 10027 so I started to play witcher 2 on low settings. After 15 minutes or so suddenly BSOD happened. I restarted and since that windows can't recognize my nvidia card. I tried to install latest nvidia driver, but it stops, cannot find proper hardware. In device manager gt 540 is listed as standard VGA adapter but doesn't work - device can't start. So only Intel graphic card works already and I can't start any latest game. I hope gt 540 isn't broken, don't know how to check it. I only know windows can't start it. Do you have solution to my problem or any advice, please help, this laptop is only one week old. Thanks in advance.

 

How exactly did you install the 275.27 drivers? I tried and it just said that it couldnt find supported hardware.

 

Make sure you download the VGA driver V8.17.12.6721 from this site ASUS K53SV drivers
This is driver 267.21 and will run.

2 days ago I received this laptop and after a clean install of Windows 7 my 540M was also listed as "standard VGA adapter".
So I wanted to install the latest driver from the Nvidia site. The driver setup said also something like "cannot find supported hardware".
After I downloaded driver V8.17.12.6721 from the site above, this driver setup did run properly.

 

i formatted, and i just installed the intel driver 1st from dell's site, and then i installed the one from nvidia.com worked w/ no problems

 

Thanks for reply. I've installed latest drivers from ASUS site but nvidia card is still not recognizable. I think I tried everything and my GPU due to overheat is broken. Maybe I should OC more carefully. I will give it back to service, hope they will fix it.

 

How high did the gpu temperature went up to?

 

75 or so, not more than 80 Celsius. Without screen artifacts or any suspicious symptoms. Just sudden BSOD and restart. After that only Intel card works. Do you know if core and memory clocks are saved in GPU BIOS and service can read them ? If so I think I may lose my warranty.

 

hard to believe you killed it with those temps. my card goes over 80 at stock speed.

 

I found the 275.27 driver on the nvidia site
NVIDIA DRIVERS 275.27 BETA
Working well for me so far.

 

what do you guys consider to be a sustainable temperature? Anything under 100 C?

i'm hitting around 95 at 750/950 while playing brink. I think I may be in need of a repaste.

 

that's hot, i hit 85 max w/ a 780/980oc

 

95 is pretty bad, pal. i would consider anything below 80C as perfect and 85C as suitable, not more. It just can die in a range of a few months to a year. My card at 810/1000 OC stays at 81C after repasting, but to get to the heatsink might be a little challenging.

 

thanks guys, i'll keep it stock until i repaste.

 

That is very high, mine is at 75C at 780/985. Try proping up the back and pointing a fan at the laptop. Should help.