Overclocking my Laptop's GPU. Worth the risk?

So I have GeForce GT 540M 1GB video card and I'm thinking about overclocking it prior to Mass Effect 3 being released.
I played the demo and the game runs well at 1280x600 resolution and anti-aliasing on with an average of 50 frames per second. But I want to notch up the graphics a bit like activating dynamic shadows. When I do that the frame rates drops between 40-45ish. It might not seem much but it is definitely noticeable.

However I've never overclocked a GPU before especially a laptop one. I'm worried about overheating.
What would you suggest?
If I do overclock it would an external cooling pad be sufficient?

Here are my specs:
Asus 15.6 K53SV-XP1
Intel Core i5-2410M CPU @ 2.30GHz
4 GB RAM
GeForce GT 540M 1GB

 

What kind of notebook do you have? Good cooling is essential.

I use MSI's Afterburner when I overclock (stock speeds now) as it lets me see everything, temps, gpu load etc.

Also keep in mind that unless you have a solid overclocking chip, you may not see much improvement. Here's a link for afterburner. It's very easy to use, but reading the manual is recommended. Hope this helps.

MSI Afterburner 2.1.0 released

 

Ok I added specs in the first post.

Also I heard somewhere that laptop video card drivers prevent overclocking. Is this true?

 

Some apps, like AMDs overdrive do below what some cards can do, but I don't think it's at the driver level.

Rivatuner (or afterburner, evga precision etc) which are built on rivatuner, will let you enter what ever figure you like. I believe they're voltage limited though.

I'm betting you would hit a temp. barrier before you got high enough to bump voltage anyway - I personally won't even touch it in my laptop, and this thing has wicked cooling. You'll have to play it by ear.

Add 10-15(some say 25) Mghz, check for stability and monitor temps, repeat until you see artifacting, image corruption or blue screens then back off 20 Mghz or so.

Do you have an idea what your load temps are at stock? That will give you an idea how far you can push it.


EDIT: I found this GT 540m overclocking thread here.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/563356-overclocking-gt-540m.html

It's 40 pages though - ugh....some good info scattered here and there in it.

 

Thanks for advice and I'll check that thread out.
Also by load temps do you mean the temperature when running a game? And what is a good software to monitor hardware temperature?

 

Yep, exactly. I like HWMonitor for most temps.

CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting

Afterburner is excellent for gpu temps though. You can have it running on the desktop while playing, then just mouse over along the temp. readout. I'm not sure the exact length of time that will show on the screen, but it's enough for you to see what your max. temp. was over the last 5-10 minutes was.

Oh, never answered your earlier question - I have no idea how warm that laptop normally runs, but I'd bet a decent cooling pad would help. I've also got an HP dv6 which has crap cooling and the belkin pad I got for it keeps it in check.

From what I've read, if temps stay decent you should be able to get a decent overclock out of that chip. Overclocking is never guaranteed though so YMMV.

Post some results if you would after you start ramping it up - I'm curious what kind of performer that chip is.

 

ok I installed Afterburner and I see that the Core Clock and Shader Clock is linked. Should I keep it linked or would it be better if I unlink them?

 

Keep them linked, because maintaining the ratio guarantees stability.

About temps, use GPU-Z, and they're fine as long as below 95C.

There really is next to no risk involved in this overclocking.

 

Yes - a shader overclock will add a good kick. I've never tried for a max overclock on notebooks, but it can't be much different than desktops other than temps being more a concern.

I've always worked them linked until I find max stable overclock, then sometimes, unlinking them and raise core, lower shaders or the other way around - tweaking like that is how you'll find best performance. That can get tedious though, and I never saw any real world gains from that level of fine tuning.

I have to stress though, keep a close eye on temps and stability. Overclocks are never guaranteed and if pushed too hard could result in damage. But if you're temps stay within check you'll most likely be just fine. I don't know what max safe temps are for that chip.

 

Well I played a game for a couple hours and the max temperature for the video card was 75 Celsius which isn't too bad. However the CPU temp was 83 which is a concern.

 

Those are great temps. The 83 on the CPU is nothing to pay any mind.

 

40fps is very playable in my terms.

When you have the ATI 5650 and a 1080p screen you learn to set your standards low...

 

I have to defer to the others on i5 temps, but that gfx temp looks great so far.

@Cakefish - my other lappy has the 5650, nice chip at 1366x768

 

What risk?

 

My Gpu is overclocked nonstop for 3 years now... as long as you clean it and replace the TIM at least once or twice a year, you're good.

 

Monitor temperature and if you don't let it exceed 90 degrees for extended periods of time or run crazy voltages, you shouldn't damage anything.

 

As long as the temps are within spec, the risk is much smaller. Even non-OC'ed GPUs can die within a year. There is always an increased risk running an OC but as long as you monitor your temps and keep your notebook clean, then you mitigate most. Seems like everything is running fine so far and you don't have anything to worry about with a CPU in the low 80s.

 

For the OC in my sig I get about 70 on CPU and 76 on GPU Mem die (hottest point).

 

I noticed that Fan Speed is locked. Is it supposed to be like this?

 

The readme file has a lot of good info.

Unwinder (or MSI, whoever is handling this now) may find a way to add it to certain cards in the future, but if the hardware itself doesn't support it there's nothing they can do.

I'm not familiar enough with Nvidia mobile chips to say if any of them support this feature or not.

 

OCing a laptop, especially a weak video card is essentially useless.

 

The 540m is not a weak Graphics card for today's gaming requirements. If my 9800m gts can handle games as well as it does, so can his card with the proper OC'ing.

 

Said the guy who have 6990M !

 

where it's actually the weak cards that need to be overclocked, rather than the powerful ones that already have enough abilities, lol.

I'm rocking over 50% OC on mine, for like 3.5+ years now