Getting the most out of 8600m GT

Hey all. I'm relatively new to PC gaming, and the Inspiron 1520 I purchased recently is the first rig I've gotten specific for gaming. Consoles just werent cutting it for me, I suppose. =P

Anyway, I hear a lot about people installing new drivers and overclocking their card. Can somebody give me some information about how to do these things? Thanks a ton =D

 

laptopvideo2go.com drivers are much better than the dell drivers. Thay are desktop versions of nvidia drivers that are modded to work with mobile cards. This guide should help http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=64910.

 

Thanks for the link, installing now.
How about overclocking?

 

You can check out nTunes or RivaTuner for OC'ing. Most seasoned pro's would recommend RivaTuner, hands down. However, I wouldn't dismiss nTune just yet, simply because it can OC with any ForceWare drivers.

However, just a word of advice:
If current gen consoles like the PS3/XBox 360 aren't "cutting it for you", then chances are, the 8600M GT won't cut it for you, either.

 

I wasn't referring entirely to graphics. I've just found that the type of games I'm interested in (rts, fps, action-rpg) are more plentiful and better-playing than I can get on consoles. =P

 

Isn't overclocking dangerous for the parts of your computer...?

 

8600m GT will overclock nicely without any voltage bump usually.

Most get GPU up to about 600 (from 475 stock) and DDR2 Memory up to about 500 (from 400 stock). This renders about a 20% framerate improvement in general. I haven't tried to up the voltage, but if you really wanted to push it I'm sure you could go higher, but probably not by much and at the risk of further degredation of your system hardware due to higher heat.

 

htwingnut...how if you really wanted to would you go about upping the volts? I tried pulling the BIOS from the card and there were no such options. Are you thinking a hardmod?

 

when you're going to install new drivers(any kind of drivers) you should uninstall the old ones.

 

Good Question. I haven't tried to up the voltage yet, and am not sure if it is even possible. I was stating theoretically based on o/c'ing of desktop cards and CPU's.

If it didn't overclock as well as it has then I probably would have investigated further.

EDIT: Just saw Nibitor has settings for voltage modification. I'm leary to touch it though. If someone else shows significant success without any major heat issues then I might try, but as it is, its running everything great I throw at it. But it looks like the voltages are set, and can't bump it or enter your own. Maybe there's a way I dunno.

 

Yeah, thats what I was refering to. If you load up your 8600m's BIOS into Nibitor, the option to change the voltage is disabled. As well as things like memory timings and so forth. I'm thinking Nibitor isn't compatible with the 8600 mobile series just yet.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=201289&highlight=Voltage

 

Thanks but that doesn't discuss how to bump the voltages.

 

Ohh sorry you're right you need to use Nibitor, then click on :

Tools > Read BIOS > Select Device...
then
Tools > Read BIOS > Read Into Nibitor...