Overclocking the GT 540M

I gave my fried laptop back to the Asus service here in Poland. I hope they won't recognize its my fault and change it for another working model.

 

it seems that i'm going over 90 even at stock clock. i suspect a crappy paste job

 

Here guys, decided to share my Dirt 3 OC results

This is before OC

and my 540m at 810/1000

 

I got the Thermaltake Massive 23 LX cooler, put clear tape across the front and back 2" of the metal mesh that the air comes through, and took the bottom plate off the computer. I think the one large fan in the Massive 23 works well for this computer, with the air intake of the computer in the middle of the bottom.

I just ran Furmark burn in test at 1920 x 1080, and got max temp of 75c, avg frame rate of 6fps, for 15 minutes, at stock clock.

What's the consensus for the best overclocking tool, MSI or Nvidia? I really want to break the 10,000 fps barrier in Solitare.

 

Nice temps! I still wait for Notepal U3 to be delivered, get a little review after that) what temps do u get from 2820qm (a little off topic )

I mainly use Msi, cause i've got used to it after a PC OC (voltage, fan control), also it carries all the necessary info about my GPU. While Nvidia alows you to switch clocks and creates profiles. When i need higher performance i just switch to max OC and play, no profiles my view...

 

When you guys say, 780/960 - which Fields is this for? I see 3 fields: "Core Clock", "Memory Clock", "Shader clock"

I'm on the second tab labeled "Stored Profiles" on the Nvdia Control Panel

 

Got it YAY!

 

Core clock acts like a CPU clock except on a GPU. Mem clock is how fast data is transfered to VRAM. Higher res will have a better pay off for Ocing the mem. Shader clock is how fast math calculations are done. Shader clocks are doubled from core clock and combined with it, this is basically the mathematical and instruction-processing part of the core.

So you raise core clock in 20Mhz increasements and check stability in 3d mark/Unigine Heaven for a few runs e. g., when you see artifacts or the systems hangs, back doen 20Mhz from the last point to make it work safer. Then come to the memory slider and repeat) Of course, the best way to check GPU OC stability is actual gameplay. The results can be quite different from bechmarks...

 

I like msi mostly because of the on screen display for monitoring GPU temp and FPS

 

That's a big "+" for Msi aswell

 

Boy, you're not kidding about MSI. That was easy. Using FurMark, I benched at 1920 x 1080 (everything else at default), and got up to 810 /960, with a score of 427, max temp 71c. I haven't gamed yet, but we'll see how it goes then.

I was glad to see that the clocks don't stay that high all the time, but looking at MSI hardware monitor, the clocks do bump up from an idle of 51 / 135 to the max for a few seconds, with only a 2 or 3 degree rise in temps, and then drop back down for many seconds. What's up with that?

 

Another happy overclocker in here. Nice score and temps, BTW. Just check a few games for a complete stability and you're good to go

 

I just got the dell xps 15 and when i run occt i hit 90c pretty quick even on the stock clock.

 

welcome to the club

I've tried repasting and a passive cooler, still hovers around 90.

 

should i let it go above 90?

 

yeah you'll be okay. These machines seem stable in the 90s. I think the shut down temp is 105.

 

i traied 740/940 on my gt 540m and it crashed. i dont know why cause the temp is "good" 82- 84.

Can u tell me how mach OC you do to play crysis 1 without crashed.

 

Well, my temps never exceed 80C even when OC'ed! But did u try to bump the clocks little by little or just set 740/940 and ran Crysis?

 

even i tray 730/930 and it still crashed few mitunutes aferte star playing =(

 

Are you sure you have all the updated drivers for all video related components? What resolution/s and settings are you trying to run and on which games/benchmarks?

My first L501x with the GT 420M ran smooth as glass at 740/960 on Black Ops and Dirt 2. You shouldn't have any problems whatsoever with those clocks. 740/960 SHOULD be the starting point of overclocking the GT 540M, but then again, everyone will get similar but different results.

 

I can play most of my games in 780/980 fine. my problem is just for crysis, i think thath may be this game is very sesitive.

i have the lasted drivers, and play crysis in 1360x780 witch the CCC pack in level 4. it put the game like normal very high quality. its like a tweak and i get more fps and quality than the normal mode set on high. arround 20-28 fps. but i want to overclock some to get arroun 2 or 3 fps to make it more playeble.

 

This card OCs really well. I wasn't expecting it to be much better than gt420m(max stable OC at 780), but it turns out I can OC this over 830, haven't tried higher but at 830 it runs furmark and games for hours without crashing.

Temp is a bit high at ~87, I suppose a repaste will bring it down to ~80.

 

My Gt 435m stable overclock is 800/990/1600 and i get a 3dmark Vantage gpu score of 4332 and a 3dmark 11 graphics score of 1129. Max temperature during benchmarks 72º and after playing crysis for a while 78º. Nice to see that i still get the same oc's as the gt 540m users. I'm using the nvidia driver 275.33.. great driver by the way

 

Hey, Im having a problem when i try to install a new graphics driver. It freezes during installation making the whole computer un-usable. Ive tried uninstalling the drivers but it just stops while "removing optimus". How can i remove the drivers so that i can put new ones on?

Cheers

 

Do you have some OC'ing software running on the background? What are your options in Nvidia Control Panel under 3d (you may switch internal/discrete graphics options)?

 

would a cooling pad will be of any help??

Have: Dell XPS 15 L502X | i7 2630QM | GT 540M 2GB | 4GB | 750GB HDD| Backlit keyboard |

 

As for me i've got notepal u3 recently and i like the way i can arrange my fans on it. My temps droped 3C for CPU/GPU. But usally the temps can remain the same, it's the laptop fan, which doesn't need to blow at max with the use of cooling pad thus reducing the noise)

 

That's some pretty interesting score i've got )))



Downscaling sucks, sorry for that...

 

Hey guys.

I've tried to overclock the 540m in every way possible. But I always have artifacts and, sooner or later, the drivers crash.

Any ideas? What should be the MINIMUM overclock I could do that would work?

 

Hey guys, kinda new to overclocking, but I just OCd my 540M to 775/980 and scored a 10530. Is it just me or is that way above average? From what the website tells me, only 25 out of ~600 scored within this range. Oh also, is this a stable OC or should I tune it down a little?

 

my [gpu] hits 95 playing bfbc2 is this norm?

 

It depends on the CPU you have in your system, 3dmark06 is very CPU intensive! If you have a quad core - the score is pretty much average. Yes, you can keep those settings, nothing hurtful for your rig

Nope, mate. That's way too high... you'd better get your system RMA'd

 

that's pretty normal for these machines

 

I'm reading through the posts here and got somewhat confused about the overheating issue. I had the impression that the overheating (80-90C) was something everyone had with these machines, but some people have reported that their temps stayed in the 70s even after an overclock.

Is the overheating issue simply a "luck of the draw" deal? If so, how do you convince Dell that your machine is faulty in the case that you want to exchange it?

 

Hey thanks, Oh btw I managed to up it to 800/1000 so far no problems and while running crysis 2 and dirt 3 temps only got no higher than 77. Pretty good id say, yes? Here's my new 3dmark06 score: 10797 3DMarks (and btw, I have a Core i7 2600QM 2.0Ghz)

Oh also, how do I get my computer to load the custom clocks whenever it restarts, because I keep having to set it manually...

Edit: Just pushed it to 840/1060 no problems so far, seems like this is as high as I can go without getting and graphical anomalies. Temps don't go above 80 and I just scored 11220 3DMarks on 3dMark06

 

Cool results in here, man! congrats... Seems like you received a really neat chip What OC'ing program did you use, so we can figure out how to load the sutom clocks? Also waht set of drivers you have installed?

 

I have the nvidia program posted on the first page of this topic, and I have the 275.33 drivers installed.

 

If you want, just download Msi Afterburner set the latest settings strait in the main window and click apply at startup and you're good to go! also it's possible to create different custom profiles of your OC's. another cool feature is MSI on-screen display server which allows you to check GPU temps/memory usage/fps in games!

 

So is this program better to use than nvidia's? Also is it safe & stable?

 

I haven't noticed any difference in performance and stability between different OC programs(MSI, EVGA, nvidia system tool and nvidia inspector which I prefer to use), but that's only from my limited experience so might not be true.

 

agreed! no difference in stability, i don't really think there should be any! so anyways MSI has a lot more cool features with monitor window (to check GPU temps and usage) and a lot more spreaded than Nvidia equivalent. Works both for ATI/Nvidia and updates are frequent

 

Okay I'll try it out, thanks a bunch!

 

I got an Acer 5742G recently, and it's a shame I've discovered that the laptop can barely handle the extra 300mhz turbo boost on the i5 without causing both the GT 540m and i5-480m to overheat (a little over 95C) during graphically heavy games at stock - Crysis, BFBC2, Just Cause 2, etc.

Upon disabling turbo boost using Realtemp I managed to shave a good 7C off both my CPU and GPU without noticeably affecting performance. I assume they're both sharing the same heatsink inside the laptop or something, but the exhaust is very warm indeed. On top of that, I also bought a Zalman notebook cooler which saved me another few degrees.

After some light testing, I have managed to get my GT 540m to 760/930 (though, not much change in temperatures vs stock). A higher memory frequency seems to invite annoyingly discrete artifacts (very occasional black flashing, etc). The same happens at 800mhz core. When I get time I'm going to pinpoint the best core clock for stability (probably 780mhz) and also work on a less-stable overclock profile for those games that aren't as sensitive to artifacting.

Overall I'm glad to at least be able to - essentially - upgrade my GPU to a GT 550m for free right out of the box.

 

OC'ed my 525m to 780/1000 and got 81C max in furmark with a score of 621 and 72C max in 3DMark 11 with a score of 1267. I think I'm liking these numbers so I'll stick with them for the time being

 

i just OC'ed my 540m to 790/990 and in 3d mark06 i hit 82C . but when i'm gaming(st2,mass effect) i hit 92~95 c ... if i change the pasta on the heat sink well it help to reduce the heat??

 

Hello all. I just picked up an xps 15 yesterday. Ran my initial benchmark and thought I'd post it for consideration before I begin overclocking too much.

Specs: 2630QM, 6GB, GT525M
Baseline: 7501 on 3DMark06

Does this seem low? According to notebookcheck that's in the average range for the 525.

I didn't have time after work last night to play too much, but I tried one overclock and it made it through 3DMark.

680/1360/900
8406 3DMark06

These seem kind of low compared to some of the results in this thread. I have yet to do a fresh OS install, but this is on the 275.33 Nvidia drivers. So, are these results low, or am I crazy?

EDIT: I've played around with several levels of OC, and can't seem to get anywhere near what a lot of you are seeing. I have yet to see any artifacting, but I'm having serious amounts of heat. I believe my scores are being affected via the CPU/GPU throttling performance due to the heat levels. I've reapplied AS5 twice, results are the same. :-(

Thanks,

Eric

 

OK. I've gotten a little more out of it. She's still running hot though.



I don't think I can go any higher given the temps I'm getting. This is after application of Arctic Silver 5 and removing the black filters from the memory access panel to increase flow.

This was at 780/1560/1000 on a 525M.

 

Hi guys! I recently bought a Dell XPS L502X. I usually play modern warfare 2....but i have "freezing" problems. I have gt540m Drivers uptaded 175.33 but after 5 minutes (not hot enough) the game freeze and it sound like a buzz sound and after that u must restar the computr...I tried everything but it doesn´t works....please i need some HELP

THANKS!!!


L502X-> GT540M-2630QM-4GB-SSD AGILITY 3 (120GB)

 

I play modern warfare 2 too, here's what I do: set the power plan to balanced and go to and go to change advanced power settings and set processor power management to 99% (minimum and maximum), this will turn turbo boost off and your game will just play fine at normal clock speeds and shouldn't freeze.