Step by step guide - Overclocking ATI and undervolting Core 2 Duo in Vista (+results

Looking forward to some explanation of RMClock

 

alright here is what i got. as shown on my sig.

before:
gpu: 450/365. cpu: full voltage on mutiplier 12: 77 celcius when gaming.

after:
gpu: 520/400. cpu: 1.15 volts on mutiplier 12: 71 celsius when gaming.

i got better temperature and a litle bit more performance.
i dont get much as ikovac but its still an improvement.
btw, im running XP.

 

Hey destiny - I put some basic settings to the original post. Check Undervolting section.

That is good! On my old notebook 5 degrees meant one fan speed lower! I am pretty sure you can get even lower voltages and even cooler temps in games. But your result also proves the power of undervolting.

Cheers,
Ivan

 

Is there any way to lower voltage on AMD Turion based laptops.
Thanks

 

Thanks!! I will check it out

 

Great Giude!

 

Ok, tested the guide now NHC doesnt show any of the multipliers or any voltages.
RMClock in profiles gives me only 1.050V minimal vlotage value, yet when i go to monitoring tab it shows 0.962V...

any clues??

 

i get 560/520 on my x1400... stable too

 

Hm strange. I found that t7300 has lowest voltage of 1,0375V but again in the same table T5600 has the same lowest voltage and I know it is wrong. t5600 lowest voltage is 0.95V.

Do you get temp drop? If you do - leave voltage numbers to RMclock (don't bother). If you don't - then I suggest you to download the latest rmclock available, since I had problems you are describing with some other rmclock versions. That was the only reason why I have ignored RMclock for a long time, since I couldn't get it to work right.

I hope this helps,

Cheers,

Ivan

 

Thanks ThomasH!

Cheers,

Ivan

 

Yes I am still confused about that GDDR2/GDDR3 overclocking issue. How am I supposed to know that when all software tells me GDDR2 and people obviously cannot overclock as high as I can telling me it must be GDDR3?

Two solutions:
1. I have GDDR2 and ATI x1600 or x1400 with GDDR2 can be overclocked well over 500 MHz.
2. I have GDDR3 and other people have GDDR3 with x1400 and all software is wrong.

Hm.

 

Hmm, i think ive got the latest one - 2.30.1
in the rmclock monitor tab it shows that for a 8x it goes down to as low as 0.962V. Temperature drops down - it is sure [ie. when i turned it on now - went down from 62 to 52/54 degrees - ive got my laptop on my knees]

is there any sort of temp that i should be guiding myself to? like fot T7300 idle should be lets say 60, while gaming should be around 70??

 

Hi destiny,

I'd expect t7300 to reach 75 in games if the gpu is under the same heatsink (usually the case). GPU can reach 80-90 or even more and actually is heating the undervolted cpu under the same heatsink. I base my guess on x700 and x1600 gpus.

I'd expect lower idle temps than 60. My t5600 idles at 40!

In your case I think gpu is keeping your idle temp high. Undervolting helped a lot, but I would try another thing: underclocking gpu in windows.

Download Ati tray tools or any other ati tool that can do dynamic profiles when in 3D (games) or in windows. You may try with CCC too if you want, but changes are not too big.

The story goes like this - disable powerplay and then find the LOWEST GPU/MEM clocks for your graphic card that make aero run smooth and then default or OVERCLOCKED speeds for gpu and mem for games. Save those two profiles and turn on automatic overclocking in ATT. This way you will get even lower temps while in windows and superb performance in games.

I read the Powerplay White Paper and I think that advanced PP (turning off some gpu parts) works even if it is not enabled in CCC. Aero uses all GPU parts so powerplay in vista aero doesn't help too much anyway.

on x700 the extreme underclocking to 90/90 gave me 15 minutes more on battery and no visible difference in temp. On x1600 at 130/120 it gives me 2 degrees less on idle. If your card produces a lot of heat this can help. Unfortunately there is no undervolting GPU that I know of.

Underclocking GPU can freeze comp. Especially when playing films. I recommend trying it at half the default speed - it should work.

I hope this helps,
Ivan

 

Thank you for this wonderful guide I have gone through all 12 pages, but as i am not a very experienced laptop user, some things still remain unclear. I`ll be glad if you could help out once more
1.This guide applies to XP as well, am i right?
2.Does GPU overclocking results in significant battery life time decrease?
3.Is there a way to overclock nvidias? In fact, no one ever mentioned here this type of GPU like 95% of laptops` cards were ATIs
Thanks in advance!

 

The 8510p actually runs two heatsinks and one fan, so I'd expect it to be even cooler...but then again I'm not an expert

 

Hi kaserx,

1. well yes.
2. Not really. I expect 10-15 mins decrease if any.
3. yes. I suggest yo to search the forum for nvidia oc guides.

Cheers,

Ivan

 

I've run into a problem.

nhc doesn't work... its says something about invalide reference to and instance of an object not created. This is obviously some kind of programming error I dont know why it would work for some people but not me. I know its a .net program and it compiles on first use and its not compiling right I guess. Anyone esle have this problem?

I tried rmclock and while the program loads just fine it doesnt change the voltages. I've set it but when I check the cpu info tab it changes nothing. It also thinks I have 12 multipliers and it should only find 11... strange.

Any help would be great.

Edit: I got nhc to wok although I am still unable to change voltages.

 

Same, I installed NHC but it won't let me change any voltage options?

 

NHC wouldn't let me change any voltage options either so I got RMClock instead and it works fine. I lowered my multipliers of my T7500 from 1.350V to 1.150V and it pretty much lowered my core temps by 10C at full load.

 

I also got rmclock to work. The only problem is I have to launch it under full load (orthos) to detect my processor correctly. Otherwise it reports one processor 2ghz and the other @ 2.2. I dont know if it down clocks one or its just a reporting error, anyone have any idea??

 

Hm strange issues. NHC is still beta so i guess that could be the problem. Some laptops simply do not show voltages in NHC. RMClock can be tricky too. I actually didn't like it because even when it shows right cpu, voltages and multipliers, it doesn't work as it should. Now 2.30 version works ok on my comp.

I wish you luck with undervolting with either of the tools.

Cheers,

Ivan

 

Hey, does this make any sense to anyone? I've got an Asus G1s, and I've used RMClock to undervolt the CPU when idle and when in performance mode to 1.050V, however last night when I was running Orthos the CPU temp still reached 75 degrees... I'm running it again this morning without doing anything and its still slowly going up to 75... shouldn't the underclocking lower the temperature?

 

It should. That was the issue with RMclock I was describing in the previous post. RM clock doesn't work always. Even if you set the correct values it doesn't actually undervolt. I guess you will have to try with NHC, or like in my case wait for some RM clock version that finally works as it should.

I wish you luck,

Ivan

 

One little detail..... Must RMClock or NHC be running on sys tray to ensure the CPU is running undervolted?

 

Yes. That means the program is actually running otherwise the Clock goes back to normal. Also, apparently RMClock has started to work with me and my idle temps and Gaming temps are a bit lower... Maybe 5 degrees... I expected more, but I guess I'll settle for that.

 

I've got a quick question.

My wife has an older inspiron with a ghetto Celeron processor, but the beast heats up like crazy. I've cleaned the old thermal paste off and put some silver goop on it and that helped for a short while. Would RightMark CPU clock work on her lappy? And would it be an effective way to cool it down? I'm afraid her fan is going to go out any day.

Thanks in advance, and props for the article, I'm going to test out my T7300 tonight!

 

Ermm okay. The voltages in NHC don't show. I'm left with some blank screens and I can't type anything in there. Heh. I'd really love to undervolt and overclock because I just downloaded the Crysis demo. xD Help anyone?

 

Kierk, I used Rightmark CPU ( http://cpu.rightmark.org/). It's great. I've only undervolted my processor to 1.012 (some have gone sub 1.0) and I don't get higher than 60 C in Crysis MP demo.

 

I also used RMClock as NHC didn't show voltages. I managed to take my T5450 down to .950V (from 1.250V) when running at 1.66GHz and my temperatures are down a fair bit but could be lower, but that's due to powerplay not working 100%

 

Ive noticed on mine that my T7300 has its own some sort of undervolting... There are 3 settings in pwoer options on mine - Power Saver, High Performance and Balanced, and when I switch to Power Saver ie voltage on 8x goes down to as far as 0.8V!! During any tasks it is equivalent to around 45 degrees

 

True, but that also underCLOCKS your processor. So performance decreases. I'll try RMClock. Thanks, y'all.

 

Yeah, I know. But for me RM Clock only allows to lower the voltage to 1.050V so there is a big difference between them. Let us know how Your experience with it went.

 

Yes. That is my experience too. However, even with that decrease (I came down from about 1.350V default) I've stayed around 60.0C, even with my 8600M GT clocks at 600/850. (1200 shader) So that .3 decrease has been incredible.

Now, I can roam around the wilderness of Oblivion on max even with several [hundred] mods running at around 30 FPS. It's phenomenal actually.

 

nice guide. i cant see voltages using nhc

 

Have you tried RMClock? See if it shows.

 

Destiny, you need to go to "Advanced CPU settings" and at the bottom make you you've selected "Mobile" for your chip type. Then you have options to go much lower, but I wouldn't try going much lower, I couldn't get mine stable under 1.0, at least no on the 8x 9x or 10x.

 

Thanks for that Meetload13! I will try that! Whats Your config BTW??

 

Has anyone gotten these to work with vista 64? I have not been successful at getting either or these apps to run. Usual error is it cant load the NHC driver.

 

I added my setup to my signature. Let me know if you want any more specs.

 

Can this be made a sticky please?

 

Wait. I just underclocked it even more down to 0.950V and my CPU runs at 45C under no load. Which is pretty sweet when I'm in high performance mode all the time instead of power on demand.

 

Heh - Chaz has already put this thread into his summary posts/threads. I know this thread is popular since I have seen it mentioned or even copied on other forums and sites! Well the NBR one is the original one anyway! People like you and others make it sticky in a way, since every post brings this thread to the front of the gaming forum. So keep up! Admins will take care of it if it is necessary.

Cheers,

Ivan

 

Good for you Kierkes, but the real power of undervolting is under the 100% load. I get around 14 degrees lower temps in games for example.

Ivan

 

I dont see the options for voltage in notebook hardware control

the voltage tab is there but all the multipliers are blank...

 

Try using RM Clock. Maybe it helps.

 

Thanks, Ivan. I didn't check my CPU under load, but I just found out it is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than before, in the 15-20 degrees range.

 

got the same prob with mine

 

rmclock works though for me


i can give ya a hand if you want with it ?

 

would u please, pm me then?!

 

blackbird, or just write it down and post for everybody