Finally overclocked my Dell Inspiron 1720 with Good Results

First off, this may not be the EXACT right section for this type of thing but I'm in the helping mood so I really wanna post how I did it. However, if this is in the wrong section would a mod or someone kindly move it. Thank you.

Anyway...It was a very long process..I didn't do it all at once.

So I get my Dell Inspiron 1720 "gaming" laptop from Ebay refurbished for 1,317 monies and I was extremely excited....I was hyped at the Direct X 10 compatibility (8 series card)and the fact that I had such a decent computer for games finally. 2 gigs ram, 2 ghz duo core Intel processor, 120 Gb Hard Drive and of course the 8600M 256 card...

Little did I know that this thing ran like CRAP!. I mean...sure it played all the old gen games perfectly, Doom 3, Unreal Tournament 2003-2004, Age of Empires III blah blah. Those are long and gone now so who cares...but when I tried playing current games like Timeshift, Bioshock, Call of Duty 4 and Crysis (don't even get me started with Crysis). It worked but...let's just say the games were not at all enjoyable. Always under 10 frames per second...15 at best....I was saddened to realize this as you can assume

I set a standard for my games which is ATLEAST 1280 X 800.. if a game can't run smoothly at that resolution I would simply consider it unplayable. I'm that much of a graphic whore, can you blame me? After all I have a 17 inch widescreen with a native resolution of 1920 X 1200.

At the time of purchase...I was getting around 2600 3DMark06 scores. It was so bad that I couldn't stand to watch the benchmark in action. The faries, the army, and that big red dragon trying to eat the boat all looked like crap running at 7 frames per second and less.

So anyway I started googling different ways to increase performance and eventually got around to using Rivatuner's NVstrap drivers to allow me to use the 8600 GTS Forceware drivers which dramatically rose my 3DMark06 score from 2600 range to around 3200. That's pretty good and all for just a driver change. Dell drivers are so bad...anyway, it allowed me to play UT3 on 1280 X 800 with Max settings at around 30 Frames per second average. Not bad... but then I ran into Bioshock and Clive Barker's Jericho. Bioshock ran well.....in small rooms that is. As soon as I got into big rooms or rooms with a lot of commotion it always went laggy and it got to the point where my aim started sucking and it caused deaths for me. Sad story yes? And let's just say..when I played Jericho I quit after 25 seconds of gameplay...yes it was that bad.

This pissed me off because this laptop that I recently purchased was supposed to last me years into the future. I wanted to be able to play games years from now so it was kind of disappointing to not be able to play current games. So I tried overclocking...Didn't work...everytime nTune or Rivatuner would change the Mhz it would just go back to the default stock settings. I figured it was Dell treating their customers like babies and just disabling overclocking altogether... I was wrong ofcourse.

I recently downloaded and installed the 8600 GTS beta drivers 169.12 from nvidia.com (Currently the latest) and I tried overclocking and it worked like a charm. The sliders finally stayed where they were put. So I start experimenting... Now to the benchmark and overclocking results (what you came here for) sorry to bore you with the backstory lol.

So ofcourse I have the cheap 8600 so my stock was 475/400 like all or most I Dells I would assume.

Keep in mind again that I'm not using 8600M drivers. My computer recognizes my video card as the 8600 GTS (Desktop card) because of the NVstrap drivers that you can enable with Rivatuner. So I'm using the 169.12 Beta drivers right off the nvidia site. Not modded or anything.

Also NOTE that it is Winter here in NYC so my room temperature is not exactly "room temperature"

Out of the Box 3dMark06 Score NON OVERCLOCKED

http://service.futuremark.com/orb/resultanalyzer.jsp?projectType=14&XLID=0&UID=11398651

8600 GTS Driver 3DMark06 Score NON OVERCLOCKED

No link for this one but I remember it was around 3200 range.


OVERCLOCKED SCORES

(I started with a high increase because I read on a lot of forums that the 8600M card would overclock really well. )

And of course the format is Core/Memory in Mhz

600/460

http://service.futuremark.com/orb/resultanalyzer.jsp?projectType=14&XLID=0&UID=12306212

3660

600/500

http://service.futuremark.com/orb/resultanalyzer.jsp?projectType=14&XLID=0&UID=12305709

3955

620/500

http://service.futuremark.com/orb/resultanalyzer.jsp?projectType=14&XLID=0&UID=12306989

4016

620/525

http://service.futuremark.com/orb/resultanalyzer.jsp?projectType=14&XLID=0&UID=12307645

4126

650/515

http://service.futuremark.com/orb/resultanalyzer.jsp?projectType=14&XLID=0&UID=12320201

4155

GAMES (All run at 1280 X 800 resolution on MAX settings. No anti-aliasing w/ Fraps used for framerate bench.)

Jericho - 23 FPS average It plays better than it looks trust me. WATCH MY VIDEO at the end.)

UT3 - 35-60 FPS average

Bioshock - 25-60 FPS depending on location of course...

Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare - 30 FPS average

Unreal Tournament 2004 on 1920 X 1200 resolution on MAX ("holy sh*t" settings). 100-200 Frames Per Second. LMAO no kidding.

Anyway those scores were the results from 3DMark 2006. Just because it passed the becnhmark doesn't mean that it was stable it just shows the results. Now from my experience. Around 620-630 is MAX stable for the core and around 510-515 is the MAX stable for the memory. Atleast for the way the Inspiron 1720 is built. Temperature ranges from around 41C when Idle to 57C while gaming WITHOUT a cooling pad or any kind of device for cooling (I get my cooling pad this week from ebay so I'll be going a bit higher later on). Anyway once I touched 650 for the core or over 520 for the Memory I would get the driver crash in less than 10 minutes running Bioshock which obviously isn't good. Another time I went 650/550 and it INSTANTLY crashed literally as soon as I got into the game (Bioshock again) so beware that around 650/550 is the CRITICAL zone. You don't wanna completely destroy your chip, I don't think it'd happen with a Laptop but who knows...better safe than sorry. I'm currently using 630/510 just to be safe kinda....it is stable...so far. I haven't had any 3-4 hour sessions of gaming yet but I managed to play Bioshock for around 20-30 minutes so I would assume it is safe for now.

If you're curious as to how my laptop is running now and you're bored you can watch this video I created on Youtube. It's a video of me running through the Clive Barker's Jericho Demo with my overclocked setup. It runs really well in my opinion.

Link-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrx7sL-Kp1o

 

Thanks, just a few questions though as I have the same setup.

What are Rivatuner Nvstrap drivers.

Why and how did you install 8600 GTS drivers from nvidias website as they are desktop card drivers no?

Why didnt you use the laptopvideo2go drivers for laptops, which are basically desktop drivers modified to allow installation on laptops.

Other than that thanks for sharing and welcome to NBR

 

ROFL!

That just made me laugh.

Anyway, glad you are satisfied with your notebook now. Good job with the OC.

 

Well,from 2600 to 4100...holy crap man, that's like over 50% increase .. how are the gpu temps looking?

 

The reason I use the 8600 GTS Drivers is because it makes things a bit more simpler for me. Rather than messing with inf files and all that, all I have to do is go on nvidia.com and look for the latest beta driver (I prefer beta for some reason...always works better) and just download it as if I had the 8600 GTS card. I'm staying with the 8600 GTS because remember there was a huge increase in just changing drivers. I never tried the 8600m modded drivers yet but I don't think I have to because from what I hear these are the same drivers that you're using but modded for the 8600m. Why do that when nvidia currently is actively supporting the 8600 GTS so I can just readily download from there whenever they provide new drivers.



But let me explain exactly how I changed them.

1. Startup Rivatuner and go to "Low-level system settings" in the "Target Adapter" box.

2. The "Low level system tweaks" window will popup and you will get two tabs. One being fans and another being "NVStrap Driver"

3. Click Install(if they aren't already installed) on the bottom of that same window so that the driver actually starts being utilized. If it isn't installed I think the whole box should look grayed out (no settings to mess with)

4. Skip down to "PCI Device ID settings" it should be in the 2nd box down and set the "Graphics adapter identification" to custom. This will allow you to trick your computer into believing you have any of the cards listed under the drop down menu. Hence the term "graphics adapter identification"

5. Check the box that says "Use ROM straps for PCI DeviceID programming"

6. Select the 8600 GTS as your deviceID.



7.You're done so just reset your computer and you will be able to use 8600 GTS drivers from now on as if the card was on your system. Impossible....but don't tell your PC that lol shhh

I'm going to class now so if you have any questions just leave it here and I'll do my best to answer them later on when I get back.

 

woo hoo........daz a gr8 job that uve done with overclocking
its really amazing that your temps are pretty good
a little over clocking on my machine makes its reach 75 degrees

GOOD JOB

 

ha, whats funny is im working on this too but you beat me to the post... nice job man

 

WTF? My Inspiron 1720 ran 3751 out of the box and I'm pushing 5k now on 169.04 forceware drivers oc'd @650/550.What are the rest of your specs? I only spent $1214 shipped for mine,and with the dealing I was able to swing and savings and such,it was only a little over $600.

 

Yet you settled for an 8600M GT?

 

Thanks man, much appreciated +rep for you

 

Nice desktop wallpaper! What's that from, Silven?

 

great post !!

i have the 8600gt but not overclocked it eyt,im just trying to get my drivers and everything sorted 1st, i installed dell forceware thing,band then the modded 169.04 inf , but the 169.04 forceware wont isnstall ? is forceware just the driver or the forceware settings too ?

i got 3400 odd on 3d mark 06 last night,and ive not tweaked any settings at all in anything yet , is that good ? i can run cal of duty 4 fine and it looks and runs brilliant

i played crysis demo earlier on med settings and it was alright

ive had ati cards on my last few laptops trhe last few years so im nmot familiar with nvid and how it all works and runs best ,so im just trying to get some help and suss it all

im just not sure if forceware is just the drivers or all the settings aswell for overclocking etc ? i have the overclocking option in mine but ive not fiddled with it yet, but i just wondered if i can actualy update the forceware version to the latest one and also have the 169.04 modded inf driver or if i dont actualyt need to update the forceware ? its justa little confusing

some links and a fulle xplanation on whats best to use and do if i completley uninstalled all nvidea stuff and drivers would be an great help if poss ?

thanks all and keep up the good work

 

Glad that you get to overclock your card so well, and in term made this guide. I am interested however in how stable it is when i games; my 8600m gt couldn't reach as high of a clock but even if I lower to speed to only around 500 core, and 460 mem, I would have games craching on me after a little of 30 minutes of game play. Do you think you can play some GPU intensive game for a period of time like maybe an hour or so to verify the stability?And is the 169.12 driver more stable? 169.04 is what i am using and the driver constantly crashes on me.

 

oh god we have a night elf player -.- , mass glaive throwers attack!

 

This post is GREAT ^.^
Is there a performance increase "if you tell your computer there is a 8600 GT in it (not a 8600M GT)" ???
And what about temperature,... if you do this ?

 

hey everyone

im running the 169.04 modded inf driver

i just disconected my net, and closed the virus stuff and all running programs, and ran 3d mark 06, all standard uncustomised settings and no overclocking

and got a score of 3870 ,ive got another 400 odd from somewhere form when i ran it yesterday

i was going to change drivers and test them out,but im not sure i should mess with it now as by reading what others have said ,thats a good standard score ??

what should i do? ??


thanks

 

Are you running Vista or XP on your notebook? I ask as I've heard of plenty of random small issues when using Vista for OCing depending on the program and am myself debating which to install on my notebook when I get it.

And very nice results, I'm hoping I can do something similar to my 8600 when I get it.

 

im running vista 32 bit

im quite happy with 3870 as an unclocked standard speed

ive never dabbled with overclocking before, so i dont know if i should try, or maybe if i should just overclock a tiny bit just to test my drivers/settings allow for overclocking and it doesnt revert the setting abck like some have had ?

 

I was actually asking the OP... But yeah... I guess I should have specified.

 

Not exactly sure if theres a performance increase right off the bat ...but I do know that I get to use better drivers without having to bother with modified drivers. . And that in itself gives you an actual performance increase. Drivers mean a lot more than you'd think.

And yes I do main Night Elf in Warcraft III (Frozen Throne). My profile is "xsilvenx" on the eastern server ^_~ heehee.

I'm definitely running Vista. It doesn't detract so much from gaming the only problem is of course the requirements are a bit much but if you have 2 gigs ram and duo core you'll be fine. What's with the hate on Vista anyway lol...I've gotten EVERYTHINg so far to work with Vista. If you have problems you can actually go to properties and run some programs in compatibility mode. It actuallly works extremely well for old software. For example Gamebridge installation on Vista is impossible...but if you set it to Windows XP service pack 2 compat. mode then it works heh.

I was actually playing Bioshock for quite a long time last night and my computer didn't have any problems. There are so many variables as to what makes a GPU NOT crash that you can't really compare your setup to mine....for example ; room temperature...laptop size...fan efficiency...dust...My numbers probably won't work for some even with the same computer. there was one guy I saw that OC'd to 650/540 and I still can't touch that without crashing so yah...I just did the best I could and I run stable at around 630/515.

Might be Warcraft III or World of Warcraft...I'm really not too sure but you'll definitely find it on the Blizzard website if you want it.

I wasn't gonna go buy an XPS(too expensive)...so I settled for an Inspiron with a decent GPU. At the time I didn't know that it was gonna perform so badly so I guess there was a bit of ignorance ..but whatever, I'm happy with it now.

Well the only difference I can see is our setup is that my processor is 2.0 and yours is 2.2. So that may be the reason for the difference in 3DMark06 scores. Everything else from what I see in the sig is EXACTLY the same as my Laptop. Only difference is the processor.

By the way I am using the DDR2 version of the 8600M so if you're using the DDR3 version like I've noticed some of you are then obviously your card isn't quite in the same tier as mine so don't compare them because yours may be a bit better lol.

 

Hmmm that jericho game looks pretty badass... i'm wondering if i should get it or not. If silven's inspiron 1720 could barely run it at stock, then i doubt my hp pavilion dv8000t with an nvidia 7600 could run it smoothly. Overclocked, i can get about a 2250 in 3dmark06. I'm looking to run the game at maybe 1024x768 with no AA and medium graphics settings. Do yall think the game would be worth getting?

 

Followed your guide mate and everything seems to be working fine except that when I close the lid of the laptop it goes into sleep mode which is good but when I re-open the lid I hear the fans turning back on which is also good and all the led's lighting up which is also good but the display is just a black screen....I am forced to restart to solve this....any pointers here?

 

temps are at 62 max when playing bioshock for an hour 600/500. anything higher crashed bioshock.

 

Wow... so i got Clive Barker's Jericho... let's just say that performance is total CRAP. Even the main menu lags at 15 fps. I'm only running it at 1024x768 with everything on low... i would expect an overclocked geforce go 7600 would at least be able to get 20-25 fps at those crappy settings, but so far i've gotten only 12-20. The image quality looks pretty crappy at such low settings, so I really don't understand why it's so laggy. I've got pretty recent drivers (169.06) too... anyone else experience anything similiar with this game?

 

ew you actually got Jericho? you should have read some reviews first that game is pretty bad imho.

 

eh it's pretty fun so far... killing zombies is satisfying. my fps goes up by 5 or 6 once i'm in the indoor setting, but still it looks pretty bad.

 

Oh yah, one thing I forgot to mention is the fact that since these are desktop drivers provided from Nvidia and not run through Dell at all - The power saving options won't really be that in tune with your laptop so if you set your power options to "sleep" when lid is closed then you're gonna run into problems like that. I get them too if I use things like "sleep". If these power saving features are really important to you I suggest just uninstalling the NVStrap drivers and just use the modded 8600M GT drivers that they have at laptopvideo2go. I just turn them off though, I usually have my computer plugged in anyway. Even if I'm at school it's always plugged in so meh..your situation may be different though. Gluck with that and sorry for leaving it out lol.

Oh and Jericho isn't such a bad game...lol I like it. Of course I didn't exactly "buy" the game lolol. But yah it's pretty decent, it's no masterpiece but it's fun...which is what games are all about. People are looking too hard for movie quality scripts in games nowadays lol.

 

*hasn't read the 2 other pages*

That's because you ran the test a 1024x768, wich gives significantly higher result than 1280x800 and 1280x1024

 

I tried this a few days ago and thought everything was working fine. My 3dmark06 score went up from 3162 with the latest laptopvideo2go.com driver to 3243 with the beta 169.12 gts driver. I didn’t try any games or anything else.

So tonight I fire up America’s army and check my fps and I am only getting 12-20 max. with the gts driver. So I reboot and retry same deal. Changed settings back to stock 8600m gt in Riva tuner reboot and reinstalled laptopvideo2go driver and everything’s back to normal, fps between 35-60.

Not sure why this happened but going back to the 8600m gt settings and driver fixed it. So heads up to anyone thinking about trying it.

 

Strange...Did the lower fps happen for all of your games or just America's Army?

 

can you overclock with all of those gts drivers? or just that beta driver.

 

The only game I tried was America's Army.

 

i'm a bit afraid to overclock my 1720. isnt it dangerous? i cant afford my notebook to be destroyed as i need it for college...

 

it depends:
if you oc to 700mhz core/ 600ram: yeah probably will meltdown
if you oc to 478(+2 increse)mhz core/stock ram speed: it won't do anything to your computer
just remember not to overclock too much like me(jking ). stay at the safe zone
then youll be fine

 

The card has an intelligent thing on it that says "hey that's to much, I crash" before any problems can happen

 

i tried this and i apparently i can't overclock it. i was able to oc and i installed gears of war on my laptop and something went wrong and i couldnt fix it so i ended up reformatting my HD and reinstalling vista. i've done exactly as you have saaid in the ur guide but apparently everytime i OC and click ok it reverts back to its original. im running 163.75 drivers. and advice would be appreciated.

 

Some driver ver. will not let you OC. try 169.09 with moded inf from laptopvideo2go or the beta 169.12 gts driver if you changed it to a gts in Riva tuner.

 

Okay, so I tried this with same drivers and here are my results:

I can play Bioshock and Crysis with no problems at all, even over long periods of play and clocked at 600/500.

3DMark05 and 06 both crash when OC'ed unless it's a very very insignificant amount. WoW and SimCity Societies also crash, especially when in dual screen mode. Both of these games crash when the card isn't even overclocked.

Now, just recently, I was playing WoW with default clock ratings and I was getting some glitching. Flickering across the screen, checkered textures, extremely exaggerated polygon dimensions (ie. someone's sword extended to touch a mountain in the distance), and some other stuff. Is the card overheating or is the driver just bad for the game?

Also, I get flickers randomly on my desktop.

 

overclocked mine to 580/445 and got 4149 at 1280x854, temps didn't break 70C.

 

Looks like your card is physically damaged...I mean if that stuff is happening on non-oc'd settings then what else could it be other than the cooling for the gpu just sucking...... Because that happens to me when my 8600 starts overheating it's kind of a heads up really cuz if I don't quit the game at that moment the driver crashes because it gets too hot.

 

Re: Finally overclocked my Dell Inspiron 1720 with Good Results
Followed your guide mate and everything seems to be working fine except that when I close the lid of the laptop it goes into sleep mode which is good but when I re-open the lid I hear the fans turning back on which is also good and all the led's lighting up which is also good but the display is just a black screen....I am forced to restart to solve this....any pointers here?
__________________

i have the same problem , is there any issue
i got 4386 on 3dmark2006 with 600-505, i don't want to get higher
thanks a lot , gears of war get 30% faster

 

how do ypu monitor gpu and cpu temperature, i tried NHC but it doesn't work on vistao

 

rivatuner works well... I dunno about CPU temp though (it dosen't matter unless you overclock it).

 

Hello ^^

At first, thx to XSilvenX - i have tryed your tutorial and it works fine. But i have the problem with sleep-mode too... And another Problem, if i start vista and show at first (without overcklocking) on the stats of my temp etc, rivatuner show me a mem takt at 799Mhz
I'm sure, that is a wrong value, if i ever make this with my card, i think it will be destroyed ^^
After a OC and back to defaults its all ok.
Anyone else with this problem?

But now i have tried the driver from the LaptopVideo2Go site / 167.43 with moded inf. and a normal geforce 8600m gt setting. It works wonderfull. Don't ask me because the 3dmark value's - i have testet it and it was 100 points lees then bevor, but i acept it because the sleep mode works now and i can close my inspiron without a problem ;o)

Sorry for the bad english, but i hope it was good enough ;o)

Greetings, Curon

 

XSilvenX,

Cheers for that! I've managed to do the whole Rivatuner NVStrap thing and it's worked like a charm. My New Inspiron 1720 now shows recognises the 8600 GTS Beta drivers...awesome.

Can you give me full details on how I can overclock this now though plus any pitfalls. I don't want to mess this up so I would appreciate a step by step guide.

Cheers
Oly

 

Hey peeps. just working my way through this process on my laptop but have ground to a halt.. switched the drivers n that ok but now trying to overclock the card in rivatuner but the values just keep jumping back to default.

Anyone know how to make them stick? Cheers.

 

testing sig

 

how about now