Overclocking Notebook GPU'S

I am a newcomer to the notebook scene, and I would like to know if there are any safe ways to overclock a notebook graphics card, say a 9600M GT. Any help/links would be appreciated

 

rivatuner, very little amount of drivers will let you overclock.

 

You could use a number of programs to Overclock.

Rivatuner
NVidia NTune
AtiTool
EVGA's Precision Utility.

here's a guide.

 

thanks a lot for the link. Is overclocking recommended at all? Would your notebook be stable?

 

OC'ing is not recommended at all, it will shorten your laptop's life.

 

if you do it right, you will gain some speed and increase the heat ouput by a small margin. It also depends on the overclockability of your graphics card and how well the cooking system is in your notebook.

 

thanks for the quick responses. Do any of you have experience overclocking your notebooks?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3000755

 

its hard hitting the right drivers... i tried over 10 of em so far. and none of them could be OCed and whats worst is some of them didnt even have regular features..

 

and yet, Nvidia offer tools on their website to do just that...

OC does indeed shorten your GPU's lifespan... but we are talking a lifespan that is far longer than your laptop's usefulness.

Who really cares if you GPU goes from 15 yrs to 13 yrs lifespan when there is no way in billy blue blazes you will be using it in 13 years.
Ask yourself how useful that 486DX33 or even a Pentium 133 is right now...

IF you overclock... then watch temperatures.
If you do that, and keep your fans clean and cooling at optimal you will probably prevent FAR more damage than you could ever do with a moderate overclock.

 

don't overclock...u know, overclockers stop talking after a year of overclocking...coz, they would never talk 'bout their crashed notebook. i want to know if there's any OCers OC their lappies regularly and last more than 1 year...

 

I don't suppose you bothered to read the sig... 1 year and counting of 25%ish overclock whenever I game. (often)
Highest GPU temp = 69C.


I have a pile of laptop pieces not far from my desk... almost every single one of them died from power coupling or physical/electrical failure... not heat failure from GPU or CPU.

Ease it up, test it, watch it.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

 

As I said, the successful rate are fairly low. It doesn't work for everyone.

 

Success rate is NOT low. Chips are made in batch, and tested to see if each one performs at the specified speeds. In order to have the highest quality and probability of a good chip, they spec the chips lower than what they are actually capable of. Sure sometimes you only get 5-10% improvement. But in many cases you can get much more.

My 8600m GT stock is 475MHz GPU / 400 MHz Memory. I've been running 600MHz GPU / 500 MHz Memory for about a year now with heavy gaming. This is about a 25% improvement, and I know many other people have had faster clocking success than myself.

Heat is the biggest factor. Run it faster, it will increase heat output. But remain within spec, there's really no risk of harming your GPU. Just be smart about it when overclocking, take minor steps. Some people crank up the speeds to some insane level and then their PC's keep locking up and wonder why.

 

Thats a bit of a wild statement considering all the recent press regarding nVidia's GPU failures, and the recent report which suggests that the 8400/8600 series aren't the only ones that could potentially fail due to heat problems. People are having their GPU's fail without doing a single thing to it, suggesting that OC'ing possesses no risk is a bit ridiculous considering that you are talking about what appear to be faulty products with suspect manufacturing.

 

I have an 8400M GS and was unable to OC, someone else suggested driver 169.04 and they let you OC using RivaTuner ot ATITool. I only bump up the settings when I play Bioshock, to try and get a few more FPS.

 

OCing is not for everyone... but any enthusiast willing to put in the time and patience and vigilance can do this to some degree relatively easily.

Note OCing people tend to monitor temperatures very closely... and having a faulty GPU show thermal issues within the warranty period due to the first steps in OCing is actually desireable.

Understand the faulty pieces are faulty because they fail at STOCK clocks.

 

I am thinking of OC'ing my 9600M GT, but I see there are a lot of mixed feelings about OCing, and after hearing people's opinions on the subject, I dont think im going to go through with it.

 

Having GPU's fail at stock speeds is a quality and manufacturing issue, nothing to do with overclocking.

I never said there's no risk, just be smart about it and realize that you are actually voiding your warranty (in most cases). If you take your time, and o/c in steps and test accordingly, the risk is minimal.

People complain that they can't overclock their chip, well that's the chance you have. My 8600m GT and memory can't overclock near as much as many others have done, but it's "free" performance.

Companies like eVGA take advantage of the OEM process and hand pick and test components and factory overclock. They essentially do an additional "quality check" and have their own range of overclockable GPU's and memory chips.