Official 7900gs Overclocking Thread

I've read where a mate in Australia lost his card in a bad flash. There may be a lot of users who has or will lose their card to un-reported heating problems in the next year or so

I wonder how many calls Dell has received stating that “my video card just quit working”

I don’t think there will be that many as the cards do and must run rather hot. I see about 4-5C increase in my OC so hope that this will not cut down the longevity of the card by any huge amount.

The GS7900 has TDP of 20W with a 90W supply. The 7800GO has a TDP of 35W so the 90W supplies should hold up fine to an OCed GS7900? I would like to know what are the over clocked GS7900 actual wattage ratings.

 

Ok but ive been reading this over and over... Has anyone figured out if the Gateway NX860XL owners can OC their 7900?

 

I'm actually running my 7900 GSX with a configured GTX bios that I undervolted to 1.05 volts instead of the stock 1.24. It's stable under 600/800 and you can easily come close or top the 5k barrier on 3dmark06 (1280x1024 default settings) with no artificing (with my system, anyway). I toned it down to 540/740 to reduce heat, and so far so good. still a little hot, about mid 80's c (i8kfan with 8 degrees offset) under heavy, heavy load and prolonged gaming.

 

I was wondering the same thing as LosingFaith was, as to what kind of damage the 1.24v mod will do to the 7900GS in the long-run. I'm keen on trying to get close to 5000 3D06 marks as it will significantly benefit the fps in my games, however I don't want to 'wear out' or strain my GFX card unknowingly.

Oh and JacktheCrow, does that mean that you got the GSX running at 1v? If pushing the GS at 1.24v does result in significant wear in the long run, I may have to follow your lead and have the GSX at 1v.

EDIT: Is it also possible to burn onto and boot from a CD-RW, or is it not recommended?

 

Yes, I modded the GSX bios to undervolt to 1.05 instead of 1.24. It runs cooler than 1.24v and won't put (theoretically, anyway) so much strain on my 90w power supply and give off as much heat. At the same time, it runs almost as stable as 1.24 and infinitely more stable the the stock GS voltage of 1v. I have yet to check the max frequencies my card can handle on 1.05v, but i really don't care to. near 5k marks on 3dmark06 is perfectly good enough for me.

I can post or send you my bios if you'd like to flash it. Or you can do it yourself using nibitor.

 

OK, I'm gonna risk it, but I'd prefer to do it myself because I don't want to screw anything up and I want to know exactly how to do everything.

I was looking at two options: either modding the GS bios to 1.24v with around 575/1150 or 600/1150 clocks, or using the GSX bios found elsewhere, but now that you've mentioned the GSX with a 1v running at 575/740 I'll give that a go. How did you go about modding the GSX bios you mentioned? I was going to boot the GSX ISO and load up the 575/740 rom (1.24v), and then when back in windows I'd use NiBiTor and edit the 1.24v to 1v.

Oh and how exactly do you change the voltages using NiBiTor, I noticed that when going into Tools>Voltage Table Editor and changing the voltages of the roms, the help button described how it will not affect the actual voltage as it's actually down to the VID of the GFX card - so how would I go about successfully changing the voltages?

Any help with all of this is much appreciated.

 

I think I know what you mean. When Nibitor states:
"A entry consist of a label eg. '1.3V' as identifier for the driver
and the actual VID eg. '03' which is set to the voltage regulator.
You must note that the voltage label is not responsible for the
output voltage, it is only used by the driver to select correct
VID. So changing e.g. '1.3V' to '1.9V' will NOT give you
voltage of 1.9V, the voltage set by the entry's VID
will still be 1.3V."

This means in the table editor, you are able to set "identifiers" for known voltage settings. Meaning, it sets variables that will enable you to choose which voltage to allow, as this table does not change the current voltage in the VID/Exact mode. Once you have set the desired voltage tables, go to the "voltages" tab and select them to their respected slots. i.e. I first set a voltage identifier of 1.05 volts in the voltage table editor, then go back to the voltages tab and select it on exact tab for the 3d voltage identifier.

Respectively, I have set 3 voltage variables for my modded GSX bios; 1.05 volts, 1 volt, and .90 volts.
I set 3D to 1.05 volts, Thrtl to 1 volt and 2d to .9 volts. The original GTX bios only set 2 identifiers: 1.24 volts and 1 volt. I've seen this configuration on other GSX mods so i decided to base it off others who have tried and tested it.

There have been some talks about whether this step really does induce 1.05 volts on the card, and until someone actually opens up their lappy and measures the voltages running through, we can only surmise. So far, for me anyway, the change of voltages correlate to lower heat signatures compared to stock the 1.24 volts.

When your done editing the bios, you will need to create a bootdisk (via floppy/cd/ or usb drive) and flash the edited bios into your comp.

Hope this helps.

 

Wow, you've really been a great help. That's exactly the bit I was worrying about, with the different VID's and how to configure them so that they would work properly. What I'll do now is edit the voltages of the bioses that I want to try, save them along with the contents of the bios flashing ISO onto a USB drive and go from there.

Thanks, you've been a real help, I'll keep you updated as to how things go too.

 

sure, no problem. let me know how it turns out.

best of luck.

 

Hi JacktheCrow,
Thanks for replying to my quite old message. I've been happily playing at stock for a few months but am still keen on upping this baby again. I'll check out what you've said and see if I can do it with a bit more confidence now.

Cheers.

 

no prob; but Hellz hasn't replied for a while...so...hopefully he didn't fry his gpu trying out my suggestions....

 

can u use any vga bios on mobile vgs cards?

e.g. bioses from www.mvktech.net ?
there are pretty much desktopcard bioses so i wonder if u can flash them on mobile cards as well. i think about buying a toshiba laptop, editing a gs or gtx bios and flash it right away (after having edited V and clocks). also i have been flashing tons of different and edited bioses on desktopcards but this would be my first go card. had best results with xfx and evga bioses so i would use one of those 2 manufacturers.

also: what are the stock V on 7900GS cards in 3D, 2D and thrtl.?

 

I wouldn't try it. I'm not sure what the settings are on desktop 7900 xx series but I'm almost positive it can cause problems if flashed on to a mobile platform, since they are set with an entirely different heat signature and power output in mind. And even if you did, your gains probably wouldn't be any different than flashing a bios from mobile to mobile. In addition, i believe it's significantly harder to flash a bios onto a Toshiba laptop versus a dell with a 79xx build since i think the bios is flashed directly onto the GPU. Again, i'm no expert on the toshiba, so maybe you can shine some light with your experiences that may dictate the possibility of this.

The stock V on a 7900 Gs I belive is 1 volt all around. Although, I'm too lazy to double check.

 

hi, i've never OC'd a videocard before, but have done cpu's. Do i increase the clock in increments or should i just go to like, say 450/1100?

 

Increments would be the safe bet...however, go read up on what kind of overclocks have been successful with your video card so you can get an estimate of it's capabilities...

edit: that is, if your board will allow you to adjust your clock frequencies without flashing. If you have a 7900gs you can install an unlocked version of the bios that allows you to tweak the clocks without constantly flashing.

 

I just flashedmy e1705 to 4851100 setting in the iso and now all I get is a black screen. Everything "appears" to be working as far as getting harddrive activity, etc but I never get anything except a black screen. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

Just a warning to everyone. These modified bios files will not work with the 7900Gs cards in the newer e1705 laptops. I was able to recover my laptop from the blank screen of death by following advice on www.notebookforums.com. I just wanted to let people know that if you just got your e1705, don't attempt to flash your card.

 

thanks for the note mam4983, I was just gonna post regarding some discussions about new dell revised bioses and their inability to flash old gs modded bioses. Hopefully everyone makes backups of their bioses just in case incidents occur when flashing.

Have you tried editing your original bios using nibitor and flashing that into your card? Theoretically it should work, since youre using a current bios, simply changing the clocks/volts.

 

Looks like this is Dell's response to us modding our 7900GS to GTX speeds and buying them on the cheap.

 

I haven't tried editing my bios but there is some discussion going about this at notebookforums.com. One person has reported that he has edited his bios and has been able to overclock his card, although he is currently having some issues with windows locking up during boot up about every 3 or 4 boots. I still need to calm myself down from thinking I had killed my laptop before I try again

 

Having read through the forums, I've seen many people talking about getting the 130 watt supply because of overvolting and OCing their 7900gs. I believe I may have a cheaper and better solution overall.

The TDP of the CPU's on the core duos is 31W and core 2 duos is 35W. However, using the rightmark cpu utility you can undervolt the CPU. Of course, test for stability by running 2 prime95's. I've got my core 2 duo at 1.062v for 100% load and it's perfectly prime stable, never has issues. That is almost .2v under stock, which is about 15% less power drain from the CPU, or about 5W. To use an extra 5W during an OC of my 7900gs, which has a TDP of 20W, I would need a 25% OC, which would be around 440/1100 OC, which is actually where I'm at. So I'm actually breaking even. No need to worry about the power supply. Oh, and this also works during low cpu load times, my undervolt is at .95 volts for the CPU at idle, and that is also perfectly stable, and another 2W off of my power. Good for the battery, when you're not gaming.

And to mam4983:
I have a e1705 that is only 3 weeks old and it OC's just fine. The problem may be that you went to 485/1100 without modding the voltage (from what I could tell). I can't get past 450 without artifacts at stock voltage, although it varies from gpu to gpu. Still, I think 485 might be too high.

 

Help!! my 3d mark06 result is insanely HORRIBLE!!
i'm getting max 3800+ with an OC 485/110 with voltage mod..
and 3200+ stock.

my config is T7200, 2 gb ram @ 667, 80 gb hd @ 5400, 256 mb 7900 gs, 17" 1920x 1200 screen.

i installed the 3dmark06 and did not register it, running it with all the default options and viewing the results on net.

What's wrong with my system!!??

 

um....that's not a horrible 3dmark06 score at all.... especially considering considering the lowest score on the top 5 score list on the first page is 4100....

 

i read ppl are getting past 4000 easily with a bit of OCing without voltage mod..

and even the Notebookcheck website ( http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-Go-7900-GS.2133.0.html) says its around 3800 stock.
True that they stated results may vary..but i dunno where's the bottleneck in my config!

freaking de-moralising...

 

Are you by any chance running Vista?

 

Ok people,

Like many of you, im a performance freak.

I have a 7900 GS on my laptop (Dell E1705,9400).

I really want to overclock my card, But I have 0% experience in this field (Although I am very technical in general with computers).

So heres what I want:

A significant performance increase without having heating issues or Voltage issues.

What's the most I can overclock the 7900GS without having to worry about Voltage or Heat?

In other words, a conservative boost.

Thanks people!

 

nah...not going in that direction any moment soon..

 

If you use the i8kfanGUI program to keep your cpu/gpu at decent temperatures, it should rarely be a problem on almost any OC. However, I went with 440/1100, a mild OC, and my fan is probably running 20% more often, but no big deal. The GPU never goes about 66c while playing Oblivion, and doesn't pass 67c while using atiTool.

My 3dMark05 went from 6000 stock to about 6850 at 440/1100. About 13% faster. Well worth it considering only a little more heat and no voltage increase.

 

Greetings. First time poster, here to look for help getting my 7900 GS overclocked.

I have a Dell Inspiron 9400 with nVidia 93.81 drivers installed. The control panel that comes with the 93.81 drivers has an easy way to overclock the GPU. I've tried using that, but it doesn't want to keep the overclock settings. It gives me a license agreement to agree to in order to use it, I set it to either Optimal (412/1088) or the usuall people state here (450/1100), I click Test, and one of two things will happen:

1) The screen goes COMPLETELY wild with lines and colors in all directions, and it won't stop until I hard reset the laptop.

Or

2) Nothing happens during the test, which I assume it must be OK, I click Apply, it gives me the license agreement yet again, and then it automatically goes back to choosing the Factory Clock Settings!

Either way, the Control Panel method is obviously designed so that you can't really overclock it from there. But, I want to push it a bit further than the factory settings. I'm a little wary of trying to do it from the BIOS, and I don't have any blank discs in order to do so. What can I do?

 

I just updated my drivers from 93.81 to 95.97, thinking that it was perhaps the drivers not letting me for some weird reason. No change, the CP overclocking option still won't let me set it to what I want.

Any ideas?

 

Guys i need some help, i just got a dual pipe 7900gs and it installed great. I would like to overclock but i have 1 dilemma. The bios reads 05.71.22.16.13 and ive read that this is for rev 0, however my card had a sticker on it called rev 1. I dont want to fry this card just to be able to overclock it from atitool or nvidia control panel.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

edit: ive flashed the card using stormlifter bios, it works fine. the 450.1000 bios will set the memory clocks at 800 so that is wrong. ive used the 450/1100 at the moment.

 

Sorry if this info is already buried somewhere in this overly-long thread...

WARNING!!!

If you recently purchased a Dell Inspiron e1705 (not sure when the problem starts, but the one I received on 3/2/2007 has it) you do NOT want to flash with a BIOS that you read about in the forums (i.e. http://stormlifter.net)

You will whack your video card and you will not have any display. Apparently the newer laptop video cards are not compatible with these drivers. Even reverting to "stock.rom" on the CD will NOT work.

If you were stupid enough to do this anyway, there is good news - you can still get it back. You can download the correct video driver from:

http://www.mvktech.net/index.php?option=com_remository&func=fileinfo&filecatid=2012

Then use UltraISO to add this ROM file to the boot disk on this web page. You can then boot the CD (booting blind unfortunately) and restore a working rom.

I renamed the rom in the ZIP file as test.rom, then used UltraISO to add it to the disk and burn a bootable CD.

Then, boot to CD (hopefully you set this before you whacked your card, or else you have to boot CD blind and you are on your own for the proper key sequence). You can go blind like this:

1) Boot the CD
2) Wait for the first batch of CD activity to subside
3) Hit down arrow, enter (this will put you in 'max memory' boot mode)
4) Wait for about 60 seconds - you'll see some cd activity, about 15 seconds of no lights, then some more lights
5) Verify that you are at a blind DOS prompt by hitting 'dir'. If you see the CD light go on and spin, you are in good shape

6) Type 'nvflash -4 -5 -6 test.rom' and hit Y Y Y

7) Pray that your sins in life don't overweight your virtues.

8) While it's flashing, you'll see the 3 lights on the left of your display (num lock, shift lock, etc) alternate. After its done, it'll beep.

Turn it off and pray!

 

Hi here are my results I used this thread to overclock
thx for that

My specs :

M1710
Genuine Intel (R) CPU
T2500 @ 2.00ghz
Geforce 7900 GS 256mb

4835 @ 635/1200 * 1280 x 1024
Highest tempature was 64C

I tried another run with 3dmark06 with resolution 1280 x 800
My results : 5221! and still @ 635/1200
http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w34/apiXx3dmark06/3dmark06apiXxscore2M1710.jpg

Greets apiXx

p.s yep watching my temp closely with ik8fan

 

good to hear your flash was a success. Make sure if you're using the ik8fan utility for temp monitoring to set the 8 degrees offset.

good luck.

 

btw u guys think I could go higher? or stay at this?

 

you COULD go higher. just as long as your gpu temps stay out of the mid 90's, you're ok. Although, 64C seems reaally low. make sure you've got the 8 degree offset if you're using ik8fan. Also, i think standard res for 3dmark is 1280x1024, not 1280x800. The latter tends to inflate your scores. Remember, OC only until you comfortably find a setting to play games in, not just to boost your score...because while it may be possible to increase your score a few hundred points, its not worth adding another 5C on your gpu, when it won't even be noticeable when youre running the actual game.

 

Ok thx for the info

 

Should I do 8 degree offset for GPU only or for all? cpu , memory etc..??

 

just the gpu.

edit: Just remember, I don't think 3dmark heats up your gpu like some actual games do -- F.E.A.R and Company of Heroes especially. Oblivion, not so much for some reason...partly, perhaps, because of poor coding, thus it doesn't use the gpu it its max capacity.

 

ok thx again

 

Can anyone else confirm that it will not work on the new machines? If so, is there a fix for it yet?

 

This is true! I purchased mine less than a month ago and tried a small overclock with it and this happened. Luckily though, I sent it back to Dell and they fixed it, though when it came back then hard drive had a major error that couldn't be fixed so it was not the only thing wrong with the laptop. So I now have a replacement, works a lot faster than the last one.

 

okie all you new owners i got mine tweaked.i placed full instructions on this site. http://stormlifter.net/canvas/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=29 worked like a charm..good luck

 

Hello!! I just got my Inspiron 9400 a month ago and was already craving more power!!! I was a little worried that editing my bios would be quite risky but after doing some research i became fully confident!! Actually flashing my nvidia bios ended up being easier than first expected! Thanks to programs like Nibitor and Nvflash made the job a sinch!

I first flashed my 7900 gs bios last week at 440/550 @ 1.0v. This gave me a 3dmark05 score of 7352 and 3dmark06 4026. All in Vista 32-bit and Forceware beta drivers 101.41. I was definitely pleased with the performance increase but after reading about ppl upping the voltage to 1.24v I again wanted....MORE POWER!!!!!

So then a couple days ago I upped the voltage to 1.24v (apparently it's safe lol) and overclocked the card to 550/550. Now i'm getting 3dmark05 scores of 8445 and 3dmark06 score of 4650. At the same time i'm using the I8kfanGUI util and adjusting the fan settings and monitoring the temps. While playing FEAR my temps are maxing out in the high 70's C (that's with the 8 C temp offset). That should be a safe range for this GPU......i've read a lot of ppl running their cards in the 80's at full load (that's too hot for my liking!!!).

As for more overclocking I definitely want to stay put....right now my performance is pretty darn close to a 7900 GTX and is perfectly stable.....not a single blue screen yet and 0 artifacts.

I'm happy!

 

Question!! I've been running for a week now at 550/550 and i've just begun playing with the voltages using Nibitor 3.1 to see if i can get my temps down a bit. Right now i'm running at 1.08 V and perfectly stable....no artifacts or blue screens. Now the question is why is everybody using 1.24 V when flashing bios to anything over 500mhz gpu clock speed?????? All i see is ppl using 1 v or 1.24 v when flashing their vid bios. Very few ppl use anything in between.

 

is downloading rom & iso illegal?

 

No! its not illegal.

 

I want to overclock my GS7900 card. I just bought a XPS M1710 2 weeks ago.

Does the problem effecting the New E1704's GS7900 cards apply to my system too? or because i have a XPS dual pipe model am I safe to over clock it?

my Video Bios Version is: 005.071.022.028.001.000

What REV. card do I have?

 

that's a rev 02..........so as far as i know you'd have to use Nvflash to create a backup of your bios and then edit it with Nibitor. For my system it was quite easy as I have an external floppy drive so i just got windows to make a bootable floppy disk and then save my roms on there. Both utils u can get off guru3d.com along with instructions.

 

I've been using 1.05v for a while running on the gtx bios. There's been some discussion of the throttling down from 1.24v a few posts back and I posted a few recommended configs i thought were pretty stable. I also have it undervolted when in 2d for battery saving measures.