Overclocking the GT 540M

I can't say why, maybe it's the design of the Dell's, possibly my Samsung has better airflow and better cooling. My GT540m when it isn't OC'd still runs hotter than the Dell when it isn't OC'd but for some reason when it is OC'd it only goes up by a bit where as the Dell for some reason sky rockets. (Noticed from other posters)

For example if you read my settings above they're actually quite higher than yours and I don't break 86 degrees. 96 degrees is very bad. Stop OCing immediately or at least cut your OC in half. You want maximum 87 degrees from what I understand and even that is pushing it.

Not sure why but I can even put mine to 830 and not crash or have problems for 4-5 hours but then it does crash finally. 780/1000 is the sweet spot for me you just have to find your sweet spot. Shame that even 750 makes you crash though, I'd definitely try using MSI Afterburner if you haven't already but lower the OC.

For me it's still like a 10fps boost and before when I was running it at 830 even more-so.

Also regarding the games that had problems in the first place, go to google and search for "D3DOverrider" and run that prior to running those games on stock with no OC. Let me know if that helps. Had a similar problem with Dead Island dude and this turned it from a crap barely playable game to a masterpiece. Not even kidding the difference was staggering.

Going to try playing around with 801/1031 which is in between what I have now and what crashed before, see what happens just for fun

 

I'm running an ASUS K53SV-XR1 w/ i7 2630QM and GT 540M. I can run all my games continuously at 815Mhz Core, 1630Mhz Shader, And 1015Mhz Memory. For 3dmark I can run the core at 828Mhz, 1656Mhz Shader, and 1028Mhz Memory which will only run stable in 3dmark. My temps aren't high at all. I determined that having the cpu at full speed doesn't translate into more fps. It only increases the cpu/ and gpu heat a lot. I run at 1.5Ghz/1.8Ghz even less at times with no fps difference from running at full speed. I like how my games run with nvidia control panel in high performance mode, all optimizations on, allowing negative lod bias, and 0 frames read ahead. I also put physics load on the gpu. I know that the gpu core voltage is at 0.930V while maintaining stability at 815Mhz core clock. I suspect atleast 875Mhz Core clock at 0.999V with epic increases in throughput and minimal heat impact. Just make sure to dial back the cpu so you can let the graphic card eat. With turbo boost both cpu and gpu will easily run up to 80+C under load. However while running the cpu at anwhere from 1.4-1.8Ghz I notice huge temp reductions of the cpu and gpu sitting at 63-70C continuously with the gpu at 815Mhz Core, and 1015Mhz memory. I also wanted to mention I was pushing 100C before on both the CPU and GPU both at full speed on stock ASUS thermal paste. I voiced my warranty and repasted with IC Diamond compound. Noticed 20C decrease in temps. I bet if we can pull some more core voltage we can achieve 875-950Mhz without a problem. I think 875 would yield a solid 5fps increase from 815Mhz which would make a big difference. Right now from 672 to 815 I'm noticing roughly 10fps increase in all games.

**UPDATE**
I can run battlefield 3 at 815Mhz core clock, 1630Mhz Shader domain clock, and a 1075Mhz memory clock. So I was able to up the memory clock from 900Mhz to 1075Mhz with no artifacts. It was fine at 1100Mhz memory clock however I saw tiny amounts of artifacting, so I dialed back to 1075Mhz until the artifacts disappeared.

 

will u guys tell me that nvidia had released a driver for gt 540m. i wanna buy a acer laptop which contain gt540m, but ppl on nvidia's forum are crying for a driver update for gt540m. plz tell me is any driver out for gt540m? thanks

 

Yeah there are drivers available and they all work fine. However 280.xx I believe works best for me since I can tell it to use the nvidia gpu for video playback. However the 285.xx is supposed to have fps gains but i couldn't tell any difference and it locks out using the nvidia gpu for video playback so i'm stuck with the intel gpu for videos on 285.xx. I went back to 280.xx and have noticed the best all around compatibility.

 

Same here. 285th runs Battlefiled 3 much better. But the video player I use, Media Player Classic - Home Cinema, got forced to run on Intel GPU.

BUT there is a trick. Go to install-folder, rename it and add it in Nvidia CP. Then choose GPU you like.

Here is i have (in russian, but i guess it understandable):

 

Cool! I'll give it a shot. I use Kmplayer. Anyway honestly I couldn't tell any difference on battlefield 3 running the 280s over the 285s. I didn't benchmark but my fps is good on 280s as well as the 285s. I suppose with your trick, newer is better. Anyway I get 30fps avg at all ultra settings, no aa, vsync, and HBAO @ 815Mhz Core clock, 1630Mhz Shader domain, and 1075Mhz memory clock. I suppose the overclock speaks for it self it terms of fps. However once we can mod the gpu voltage I think it could easily handle 900Mhz which would have a hell of a boost in fps.

Later

 

A question on temperature...

If I play pretty much anything modern with a massive resource use (with no overclock), my CPU sits around 90C which is pretty hot, but the GPU stays a crispy cool 65C-70C. I'm quite surprised at this disparity - any ideas why? I'm this |----| close to repasting, just waiting for my new SSD to arrive so I can do it all in one go.

 

That's perfectly normal. You will see a good 5-10C drop on the cpu and more on the gpu with a repaste. What you should do rather than repasting and voiding your warranty is dial back the cpu clock. I've tried almost every game including battlefield 3 and having the cpu at full speed does not benefit from more fps. You can run it at 1.2-1.8Ghz max with no turbo and see huge cpu temp drops and still the same fps in game. So rather than repasting just dial back the clock while gaming. The bottleneck is the gpu and not the cpu. I repasted and voided my warranty but everything runs very cool. In game battlefield 3 at all ultra settings at 1280x720 I get about 30fps avg overclocked. I run the cpu at 1.2-1.8Ghz and it runs the same as at 2.9Ghz. My temps are mid 60s to low 70s. I saw an overall average of 15-20C drop in temps after using IC Diamond paste and using 91% alcohol on the core's and heatsinks to make sure they were perfectly clean and put 2 tiny dots 2mm apart on the long core i7 chip and 1 tiny dot in the middle of the gpu core. Anything other than ic diamond you will not see that good of improvements. I think the most ideal way to repaste the sandy bridge core since it's not a square, it's a rectangle. Use a tiny bead about 2mm long directly in the center to disperse better and not trap air in between the two dots like I did. You may see 1-2C drop from my previous temps on my revised repaste method. Running intelburntest after repaste I believe the cpu score hit 74C on 5 runs at normal load and 32 threads. Cores run just about the same. Before it rolled up to 86C or so and in game I would see 95C on the cpu and 85C on the gpu overclocked with stock paste.

 

Ok, I'll give that a try - do you just use the Win 7 power options?

 

I have an ASUS laptop and it comes with a utility that works really well at dialing back the clocks. I think it works the same as windows does. Try setting the minimum to 0% and the Maximum to 50% and see what your clock reads. Then stress it to make sure it stays at the lower clock. It's pretty cool since these core i7's have devastating performance and with all the threads, it gets a lot of work done at even 1.1Ghz max. I can pretty much run every game flawlessy at fine framerates at anything from 1.1Ghz to 1.6Ghz. No need to go paste 1.6 really and honesly 1.6Ghz is a little high. 1.4-1.5Ghz is usually ideal for any game. Just monitor cpu utilization on all 8 threads to know what the ideal clock would be for the application and to what degree you want to maintain temps.

*update* windows 7 power options works the same. Run like 60% to like maybe 75% tops and you will see big temp drops and test out your games and tell me if you notice fps difference.

 

Cool, thanks, I'll give it a try tonight. I have the i7 quad (i.e 8 threads) so I reckon as long as the game supports multiple threading quite well it should run fine at a slower speed - especially since the 540M would be the bottleneck.

 

I got a motherboard replacement and went from having to underclock GPU to 620/800 to be stable to running at 820/1040. Still testing it, but it's stable after 3 hours of gameplay.

 

I'd be happy with that. I can't overclock past 760/1000 without my games locking up after half an hour or so of gameplay. Still happy with the overall performance though. Or at least I was till I checked out the ASUS N55SF with its GT555M all wrapped up in a 15" laptop. Whats my ebay password again....

 

what resolution? and am assuming you don't mean in multiplayer - at ultra settings with hbao in anything over 720p on large scale maps you'll be dropping to 20fps frequently, even if you are overclocked

 

How good are the new 285.79 beta driver for overclocking a GT 540M,does anyone have this info ??

 

Chris89, just to clarify, you have an Asus, and repasting one of those voids the warranty.

Repasting on a Dell, as far as I know, does not void the warranty. The Dell documentation provides instructions on how to remove the heatsinks. I imagine doing anything to your computer that is not covered in the documentation would void the warranty, though.

 

How big a performance drop would i see if i underclocked my 540m card? I have a L502 XPS 15 2720QM i7, 8gb ram, GT 540 video card.

The reason I ask this in the overclocking thread is that I have been having lock ups even running my video card at stock speeds. One user on the dell tech help forums stated that the lock ups can be prevented if you underclock your card to really low numbers like 350/500 or something really low on the clock speeds you can manually toggle with nvidia control panel. This is deffinately covered by warranty as its not a software issue the games run fine on battery power but lock up on AC adaptor power.

Personally I think this is crazy since the stock speeds are 600+ /900 + but I would really like to game on my laptop while dell tech support is sending me replacement parts and techs out to waste money on this problem.

I wonder with such a harsh underclock will games like rift/swtor *beta/wow be playable? Currently at stock speeds I can play wow/rift/swtor at near max settings fairly smoothly 30-40fps but will lock up after 15-45 mins of play time.

Initially dells response was oh if it locks up when you use the GPU you should disable gpu and just run intel graphics... That was not acceptable so far dell has replaced mother board, replaced heat sink paste, and done diagnostics at dell repair depot... last time I called a few days ago telling them I still get the lock ups they decided oh we should send you a new AC adaptor to see if thats the issue... I am pushing for a replacement laptop since many owners of this system use it and can OC the card and play fine so I must have a lemon of a system.

Really sucks since this video card is not even high end but I cant use it reliably at even stock speeds. Anyone else have any advice on this error or if underclocking the card is even worth it?

 

Underclocking has huge performance drops on demanding games, however low demanding games like Need for speed pro street run fine at under stock speeds since the game has a 30fps lock with vsync you can't even tell. Always enable vsync if you having heat issues, It'll not allow the gpu to run at 100% if it's in sync with your display. Also the 280.62s are better than the 285s and I run faster in fps in all games with the 280.62. I see the 285s as nothing more than beta drivers stamped with a stable indicator. If your locking up, either your Operating System, Drivers, And Physical hardware are malfunctioning. If it's the hardware, make sure to repaste with IC DIAMOND 24 paste and NOTHING ELSE. Maybe Shin Etsu. Don't put arctic silver on because thats what they use from the factory. In months time it'll turn crusty and perform like crap. IC Diamond has an indefinite reliability term. Shin Etsu doesn't last long since it's kind of viscus and drys up fast. IC Diamond is just pure diamond and has the best Thermal Conductivity below pure silver, and gold. I would need to look at the Thermal conductivity chart of materials to confirm. Trust me if your having issues I would have no doubt that a re-paste with IC DIAMOND 24, a Fresh Windows 7 x64 load, fresh 280.62s loaded and setting your cpu's max clock to 75% and not 100% since the cpu and gpu share a heatsink. That way you can keep your gpu cool. Then I guarantee you should be able to run all your games at 800Mhz Core Clock and 1600Mhz shader clock. If you can't even run them at stock speeds after doing everything I said You need to update your bios with the manufacturers fan speed modifications in order to keep the cpu and gpu cooler. Sure the fan will be more noticeable but who care when our laptops are running cooler.

Later

 

The cpu in your laptop uses a hell of a lot of power and generates retarded amounts of heat compared to the 2630QM irregardless of the 45W TDP I believe. Just go into windows 7 power options and set the cpu profile to active and set the max to 60% then give it a shot. let me know since that allows your cpu to run slower and generate less heat therefore not allowing huge amounts of cpu heat to heat up the gpu making it unstable. Otherwise a re-paste of IC Diamond 24 thermal compound is 100% necessary. Get it on ebay, say the 1G compare. Yes it's expensive but it's expensive for a reason. IC Diamond performs better than all other manufacturers. They don't however perform as good as Indigo Xtreme thermal applications but that's completely different application. Clean your cpu, gpu cores and heatsinks with coffee filter paper and 91% alcohol until they look flawless and you don't see dirt on the coffee filter any long then you know they're perfectly clean. Apply a tiny dot in the middle of the gpu, and apply a dot 2mm long across the rectangle core i7 chip. Tighten down the heatsink and put everything back together. Your done. I would go to Your laptops manufacturers website and get the latest bios no doubt. Then uninstall the 285s, use Dot Net Cleaner and remove all nvidia drivers, remove the nvidia folder from C:\ and from C:\program files (x86) on windows 7 x64 and if there's anything else in program files. Then restart let windows install the default gt 540m drivers, restart again if needed. Then install the 280.62s and restart. Then you should be good to go. Let me know.

Thanks cya

 

Interesting tips I can try both the driver roll back and the power management lowering my CPU power.

BIOS and all that should be up to date I have reinstalled windows 7 4 times an used the dell website to get current stuff, tried all the different drivers for nvidia but never have tried dialing down the power allowed to my CPU.

It could be that this problem is due to the CPU/GPU combo I choose is not compatible at 100% power for this type of machine. I had never even considered that because I always assumed if dell was selling a spec combination I would be warned if any problems or conflicts may occur from selecting items that may have errors. Interestingly enough I could not build the same laptop I bought this one back in February 2011 if I went back to Dells website only the i7 you can choose are 26xx qm, 2760qm, and 28xx chipsets are available... hmmm... I wonder if the 2720qm is the problem from a compatibility stand point.

I know from the dell forums I am not the only one having this issue but it’s also a small minority of people with the same problem. Some customers complained enough to get replacement laptops others have only gotten replacement parts like me.

I will keep you posted after a couple of days testing lowering the CPU power/rolling back drivers.

 

I ran bf3 at 1280x720. 1366x768 was unplayable. Also setting shadows to low helps a lot. And to the guy with the 2720 i7 don't worry no manufacturer can run both chips at 100% without be right at the limit of stability. Unless u really paste u won't see the full potential of your laptop.

 

Well I dont think its a heat issue in this case I think it is a manufacturer deffect.

I turned down my power options on my power management tool to 60% and 50% and still like clock work my games locked up when im plugged into the AC adaptor right around the 15 minute mark. I made sure to turn down the max and min settings both for plugged in since thats when the error occurs.

I have been going through alot of hoops with dell tech support but I think they owe me a replacement laptop even if its refurbished as long as it works!

I even tried down clocking the video card as some other customer suggested and that did not work... well it did kind of work it made me be able to play longer with way worse frames per second. I went about 45 mins with out a crash before it happend again and did lose alot of performance.

I guess thats enough derailing this thread thanks for the attempted help back to tech support wars!

 

Download Msi afterburner and turn on on screen display make it display core clock and temp on the osd. Monitor temps in game And let me know. Download aida64 and go to stress and then statistics then allow it to monitor. Ill post screen shots if needed.

 

@chris89 what you talking about dude , i am playing bf3 @1600x900 at ultra setting except the shadow on low without OC also but i dont know the frame rate but the gameplay is sooooooo smoooth and i also playing skyrim @1080p on ultra setting except shadow on low also and the aa and af @ 4 sample .

 

That's cool sorry phone's auto correct sucks when you just wake up lol.

 

I have Packard Bell ts11hr-609TK with i5-2430m and gt540m, at default speeds with 285.62 drivers my results are strangely low;

3dmark11_P932_default
3dvantage_P3793_default
3dmark06_7458_default

any suggestions?

At these tests, my gpu temp at 56c most. I'm using Cooler Master LS1 laptop cooler.

 

GPU overclocked to 740, 900.

3d11_P1027_740,900_57C
vantage_P4193_740,900_57C
3dmark06_8201_740,900_64C

Furmark 81C max temperature.

 

Not good... I get approx that in 3dmark06 with stock settings (672/900), at 740/900 should get closer to 8500. Then again, it's a synthetic benchmark, the colour of your desk will probably affect it.

More concerning is the temp - in Furmark, overclocked to 815/1050, I get max 80C. At stock, closer to 68C.

 

I'll run mine in a bit. To get a good benchmark. Make sure your laptop stays cool. Set in power options cpu's min and max to 100%. Then overclock the gpu to 800mhz core, 1600mhz shader, 1025Mhz memory. That should be the baseline for 99% of laptops to be able to run stable at. I however am able to game for continuously 100% stable at 815Mhz core, 1630Mhz shader, and an awesome 1075Mhz memory clock. Give the 280.62s a shot. In my experience they are a lot better than the new 285s. I would run the 280.62s until the next fully stable driver comes out. Honestly the 285s are horrible. I hit like 85* on the cpu and 75-80*C with everything overclocked to the max and cpu at 100% and it is stable just hot. My temps are really good for how amazing the GT 540M is and the 2630QM. Our laptop's have devastating performance so don't think your laptop is crap. At stock speeds the gpu is simply ok. Overclocked it's very nice. I'll post my results later with screen shots.

 

I didn't change anything on the laptop before the tests. It's loaded with Win7 Basic, 32bit color palette, 3dmark set to basic color settings, I didn't change the power saving options etc. I've just disabled the Norton Internet Security.

Default performance values are %10 low to the crowd, but overclocked values are normal.

I've figured out something, furmark has reached 81C, but for example when I play il2 sturmovick cliffs of dover with overclocked settings, it barely reaches to 60C. This game is known with performance problems, I use 1366x768 native resolution and fairly high settings without any performance problems.

Second thing is my cpu never reaches to 3.0GHZ as it should with Turbo 2.0 while on the tests, at most to 2.9..Is this an issue?Or intel monitor is showing wrong speed.

Anyway, I'll try 800Mhz tonight and will test extensively, but before that, I'll shut of power saving options.

 

stable at 740/1480/900 with vBIOS mod at 0.83v 71C degrees in ArmA 2 full load

 

Same as djjonastybe , stable at 740/1480/900 with vBIOS mod @0.83v temps never exceed 75C on furmark ..

 

i'm at 815/1075/1630

 

how do you do a vbios mod? ive been trying to use nibitor but it can't find my own bios..probably due to optimus

 

on 830/1080 in Battlefield 3 quite often had the minimizing issue. It's that BF3 gets minimized, you get to desktop and only a shotdown of BF3 can cure it. I've read it's connected to overclocking thing, so I just put core to 820 and guess what, two 4-hours BF3 sessions went smooth and nice. I hope it will keep that way.

 

Last report. Last night I overclocked to 800 core and 900 mem. Temp reached to 80C at most with Furmark. Laptops' cooling system kicks in at 76C with speeding up the fan and it doesn't goes beyond 80C.

At most 66C with 3dmark06 with the score of 8549.

No problem at synthetic benchmarks, tonight I'll test with il2 CoD..

 

800Mhz gpu,1000Mhz memory
vantage_P4581
3d11_P1112
3dmark06_8842

at most 66C. Furmark 80C. Couldn't test with game.

 

The intel CPU monitor should be fairly accurate. Check your power settings are you already on default for "high performance" open the advanced settings and check your CPU power settings. If they have the max power rating to your CPU lower than 100% it may cause your chip to never realize its full potential.

When gaming most games having rely more on the GPU than CPU as others have posted to get more speed out of your overclocks and have less heat in your system you can safely down clock the CPU by lowering the power settings manually yourself so the CPU will run cooler (slower) allowing the overclocked GPU to handle more data with less overall heat.

 

I've tested 800Mhz gpu, 1000Mhz memory setting with il2 CoD.

No problems by hour of play and the temp reached 66C at most. I think I'll be able to use these settings by manual overclocking, I'll not use them as default.

 

It's completely stable at 800/1000Mhz settings. I'm overclocking with msi afterburner before gaming.

At the game, il2 sturmovick cliffs of dover, it reaches to 74C at most with these settings.

 

bump! i too need help on this.I got GT435m instead and ofcourse no optimus.!

 

me too!

overclocked my gpu first time today, i got pretty same asus than chris89 but i have updated to 285. furmark was like 78c after 5 minutes with stock clocks didn't try with overclocks. skyrim ran almost 10fps better with 815/1015.

to the point.

while i'm about to reinstall windows today, should i stay with 280 instead of 285? if the temperature is that high with stock settings i don't know if 285 is that good.. not sure if it's a driver issue though. could be my smoking

chris89 should make a little tutorial how to get the most out of our asus laptops i got n53sv btw.

 

had sum tests here.

for this test I used default clocks, 672/900/1344


for this test the clocks were 815/1015/1630, furmark temps 85c max after 10min.

 

Mine is N53SV too .
I'm playing Skyrim with 800/1000, with few tweak, I can ran at 30FPS. Tonight I will try 820/1000 and hope I can squeeze few FPS from it.

 

nicely nicely how did you set up your skyrim? it looks pretty nice when i put medium preset and 1366x768, performance is smooth as hell. fps average was around 40, highest little over 50 and lowest 34. there were not too much action on the screen though, might still get choppy on high setting. gonna overclock a little bit more later.

 

Very good results with stock speeds, I have 73xx from 3dmark06. Your cpu is i7, does it that much change the result from i5-2430m? Strange.

 

Hey Guys,

Seen some good figures but im completely confused by the jargon of 800/1000 for example.

I have got the following spec (brand new as of saturday):

Core i7 2670qm @ 2.2ghz (overboost to 3.1ghz.... what a bugger)
540m 2gb
8gb ddr3 ram

I have been testing the nVidia tools utility and Throttlestopper for the CPU whilst downloading some microsoft widgets to check the temps and rates at which GPU and CU are going.

Here are my results.....

Overclock settings:



3d Mark 06 Score:



and a break down:



my BIG question is, when the benchmark gets to the CPU component, as you can see its like 1.5-2.5 frames per second. now im no genius, but i believed the core i7 to be a pretty top notch processor, having it constantly run around the 2.8ghz mark too.

Why is it so low? and yet my 3d mark so high?

So far ive improved games between 8-10fps realistically in scenes which have not got alot of action going on, and around 5fps when in battles for example.

Any help on this is appreciated.

Ive learnt alot from this thread, thanks to everyone who has contributed

 

Hi,

My cpu is i5-2430m, 2.4Ghz-3Ghz, with the same card at 800Mhz with 1000Mhz memory speed, my 3dmark score is about 8842..So your systems' performance is very good.

CPU Red valley test scores are also very normal.

But the important thing is the temperature at extreme conditions, test the temp with furmark, please be ware that the temps above 80C is not recommended.

 

Hey

Yes I have brought them down to more moderate settings for long gaming sessions.

the above results would be if i had cooler conditions and maybe less than an hours gaming or something, but just proves what it can do

 

So...has anyone played with over-voltage on this card? The EVGA Precision tool allows over-voltage from .975-1.150V ? Just curios?