7811 overclocking help

I'm trying to oc the 9800m gts on my 7811, but I can't find a good tool. ATItool doesn't work, apparently because I'm running a 64 bit os. RivaTuner also doesn't work. When I try to raise the clock settings, even when selecting "Performance 3D" from the drop down box, the shader and memory clock maximums are below the stock settings. nVidia System tools does actually work, and I successfully overclocked, which was great. The problem is, I want to be able to know when my gpu temp is too high. nst contains a tool where you can program a tone to sound or a message box to pop up when the temperature goes to high on your gpu, but it doesn't seem to work. Is there any other tool that does that?

 

I just monitor my temps with rivatuner in game... my clocks in sig never take me above 70c while gaming... i am even running two external monitors...

 

Wow, that's really amazing. Mine approaches 70 when only slightly overclocked. What games do you run, and what drivers are you using?

But more importantly, how do you monitor clocks with RivaTuner?

 

Do a search for temp monitoring something should pop up about Rivatuner, and i play mostly Warhammer Online but i also have Spore, Crysis, and WoW on here. Crysis sometimes made it to 75c but that's still nothing and i've used many different drivers and all were had same temps. i'm using nvidia 179.28 Beta right now (whatever is on nvidia site...)

 

But i prop the back up. if you dont' do that, give it a try also clean out the vents if you havn't done that yet either.

 

Ok. I play Far Cry 2 a lot, and that's the only thing that brings them that high. Except Fallout 3, but that game is just straight up broken. What are the temps on your T9600? How does it run compared to the P8400? I'm thinking of upgrading my processor soon too.

Oh, and I don't prop the back up, but it's on a cooling pad. I keep vents clean though.

 

Is it safe to overclock the GPU at all w/o a cooler? I always thought you needed a cooler at the minimium before you should even try it. I didn't think just propping up the back would be enough for a slight OC.

 

I would buy a cooler myself, but it isn't necessarily, um... necessary.

 

I'd be careful overclocking. My P7811fx is at the Acer repair center in Temple Texas this very minute because I installed S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadows of Chernobyl and played it on the default install settings. Never overclocked my laptop, and had a Laptop cooler fan going under it at the time. Didn't realize what was going on untill I started seeing artifacts and switched over to my desktop to see Rivatuner reporting 103 degrees celcius. Needless to say the mobo, gpu and hdd all got smoked. My advice, turn down the aa of any game immediately after install. It got really hot playing Crysis and FarCry too. I turned aa down and that seemed to help. Just didin't think about it for Stalker... Could be that I just got a unit without enough thermal grease. I don't know. I do know it has been at their shop for about a week now and I can't wait to get it back.

 

I run Far Cry 2 all the time, and it doesn't have much problems. Mostly under 70 at 1080p and settings on high. I wouldn't ever turn on aa. Just raise the resolution. So yeah, you probably had a defective unit, or it got dusty or something.

Edit: I mean I wouldn't ever turn on aa on this machine. If you have a card that can do it at that resolution on new games, then go for it I guess.

 

Just ran my own tests with the same 698/988/1798 clocks Mormegil83 has in his signature, with only the back propped up and no cooler. I scored 9570 on 3DMark06 using XFastest's latest drivers since I prefer them over the Nvidia and Dox ones. Considering I used to only score 88XX, I'm really happy since I also haven't done a CPU upgrade and no cooler. Maybe if I get a cooler one day I'll push it more, or if I get a CPU upgrade I'll break 10K, but for now, I'm more than satisfied.

 

well a cpu upgrade will definitely put you over 10,000, and those are good clocks to run and not ruin anything

 

Thanks for the input. I've been wondering about others and their experience with this.
I'm not positive I follow you correctly. Should I go into the Nvidia control panel and actually disable aa? I've never really thought about it and usually leave it on the auto setting. You know where Windows lets the program decide if it needs aa or not, and I suppose what level of aa as well.

I am grateful for any input, When I get it back I want to be informed and prepared to utilize it to the fullest. While maintaining a long and useful life.
That laptop is an amazing piece of work and even though it fried I still have nothing bad to say about it. I can't wait to get it back.

 

You just got a "Lemon" P-7811 as people here would say..
With the P-7811 it has always been either you get a overheating (Lemon) system, or a beautifully working system.

 

I got 10,750 with momergil's 698/998/1798 overclock and T9600... I used Dox's Nvidia drivers though

 

How do I know if I have a lemon? I'm pretty sure I don't, as I push it pretty hard, and it always runs fine. I still can't shake that screensaver incident from a while ago though. I still sometimes find myself awake at night worrying if I damaged my card, but won't see the effects of it until it deteriorates to a certain degree. I mean, other than that, it runs great. The 7200 hdd runs a little hot, but it's one of the things a cooler really helps with. I'm also thinking about maybe lapping my cpu, to see if that helps even out the core temps (core 0 is always higher than core 1), but I can't afford to void warranty right now.

 

As long as it runs fine and the temperatures are good you should be alright
What do you mean by screensaver incident? What happen? Also core #0 will always run hotter than #1. My #0 runs 4c hotter than my #1. Don't worry about that

 

Hmmm. Your comment makes me wonder what the odds of getting a lemon back from the repair center are. Have you heard if anyone else has had one repaired? And were they happy with the repair?
I suppose I should pony up for the extended warranty once I get it back. Sucks too 'cause that inflates the sale price to being much less of a bargain.

 

Ur odds of getting a lemon back unfortunately are no better than buying a lemon to start with people have had to return them up to five times. I even returned one before i got one that is fully functional.

Coolers are useless IMO with this notebook. didn't make temps any better than just propping up the back so i don't even take mine out anymore... my new CPU doesn't get hotter than 55c and that's hours of Warhammer witch maxes my CPU 75% of the time. i watch on a second external display using the task manager performance tab

@jdg
you can monitor fps and gpu temps in game with riva tuner. i have mine display in the upper left corner of games at ALL times to make sure nothing crazy is going on...

 

I wouldm't bother with extended warranties. you'll know right away if you got a lemon... such a waste of hard earned$$$

 

Hey thanks for the advice. I agree about the coolers. It made a small difference, but not much. I will use the temp server and make it visible in-game as you suggested when I get it back.

Also, did you 'return' yours to a repair center, or to the retail outlet where you bought it? I am just wondering if I should have tried best buy before using the warranty...

 

Mine i took back to bb within the first 14 days and got a replacement on the spot (after they ran tests for like 3+ hours. i got board wondering around the store so i got my oil changed met my fiance for lunch then went back and waited some more lol)

 

Alright, I found out how to monitor all kinds of temps in RivaTuner, but I still can't find out how to display them on screen, other than selecting the always on top option, but I don't want a giant box on screen while playing games.

 

Beautiful, just beautiful. lol

 

I think I can help you with that.

First open Rivatuner, then choose the top customize button.

The far left icon should be 'Hardware Monitoring', select it. Now the nice window with the bar graphs should open.

At the bottom you will notice a 'Setup' button'. Select that.

Now a 'Hardware Monitoring Window should show. Look in the drop down list for your 'GPU0\Core tempurature' or something similar. Single click on that . The 'Setup' button just below that field should become active. Click that.

Look down at the bottom and you should see the option for 'Show GPU0\Core tempurature in on-screen display. Check the box.

Then choose 'Run server'.

Enjoy. Hope that helps!

 

Almost forgot. After you get finished there, and before you exit the Hardware Monitoring (remember the nice barcharts) window be sure and check the red circle. It enables background monitoring... If you don't it stops when you close the Hardware Monitoring window. Kinda ruins it...

 

I found it! Yay. Now, is there a way to determine where the temperature appears on the screen?

Yeah there is. I found it. Time to do some overclocking

 

Dang, I tried out Mormegil's settings, but they're too high for me. Far Cry 2 ran only a tiny bit slower in heavy jungle. 3dmark06 score dropped by about 400 points. It was firefly forest that took me down. Everything else was way faster, but ff framerate was in the teens for some reason.

Edit: Oh yeah, temps seem OK. Peaking at 70C, so not much higher than usual. I ran again after lowering clocks to 650/900/1700. Things ran a lot smoother this time. firefly forest started off faster than usual, but about 2/3 way through, it suddenly dropped to the teens again. I still performed better overall than with factory speeds, but not by a lot. I can't isolate what's causing the problem this way though. Would it be better for me to set clocks back to factory settings, then raise them 1 at a time. I would raise core clock first, until I reached the point of diminishing returns, then I would set it back to the factory setting, and start raising memory clock, and then shader clock, recording the max setting for each. Then I would set them all to their max settings, and see if it still ran OK. Or would that not work because the clocks have to be raised at the same time for things to work correctly or something?

Edit again: Wow, just ran FC2 with the above mentioned clocks. Got an increase of over 5 fps. Pretty good. I'd still like to know if the method described above would work, because I want to find my ideal clocks. I still don't know what's going on with firefly forest though.

 

Dont waste your time trying to find stable clocks.. The ones morm is using should work fine. I spent 2 weeks testing to find the most stable clocks on the 7811FX - and now many folks use them without a hitch. This downclocking you're seeing sounds like TZS0 downclocking the CPU briefly in Firefly. Use HWMonitor and see if TZS0 peaks at 98c. 698/998/1798 was stable for hours of gaming.. may wanna consider a BIOS change to adjust your ACPI/Kernel settings for power. If not in RAID - use 9c.05.00 for most stable TZS0 or 9c.12.00 - Then you should be able to game @ those clocks all day long.

 

I'll check my TZS0 temp then. Thanks for the tip.

 

98C on the money. Nice call man. I'll switch to 9c.05, as I'm not running a raid yet. And yeah, it's definitely downclocking. Temps go to below 60C.

 

TZS0 was my arch-nemesis with the x9100 CPU. if the new bios doesn't completely fix it use 688/988/1788. You'll still net huge gains and with the newer BIOS you'll have less chance of problems. Also, replacing the CPU paste with AS5 and making sure your thermal pad is seated properly you'll never have that issue again.

 

I downloaded 9.05, but I'm not sure how to install. I read your guide, but where do I put the files? Also, I looked up how much a kit from Arctic Silver costs, and it's like $10. I was going to lap my cpu to try to reduce heat, but if it's so cheap, I might as well apply new paste.

Edit: Can I use the same thermal pad though?

 

You don't want to lap the CPU unless its got the metal lid on it (which AFAIK no mobile cpus do). You could polish the heatsink itself but since its attached to the graphics one it'd be a huge pain, and probably not gain you much. I'd just pull it off, clean it and the cpu and use MX-2 or arctic silver ceramique and reinstall it. One of the keys is take your time tightening the screws so you get a nice even seat on both the graphics and cpu when you reinstall. The thermal pad for the GPU you'll want to leave, just take a look at it and make sure its seating correctly (should have a nice imprint of the GPU in it if its like most notebooks, I have't pulled mine off just yet)

 

Don't you have to disassemble the laptop to even get at the GPU?


Edit: Ok, found how to upgrade bios, and it looks like it succeeded.

 

I believe the GPU and CPU are covered by the same heatsink that is under the large access panel where the memory and pci-e cards are also located. The CPU is in the middle with the largest part of the heatsink (you can see the flathead screw mechanism that holds it in the socket) and then it travels over to cover the GPU as well unless I'm mistaken and that's the chipset or something else? My impression was they were together and used the same heatsink though, they're the hottest components in the notebook so I'd imagine that would be the case.

 

Maybe. In any case I'll find out soon enough. I updated my bios, but it didn't fix the problem. Still reading 98C on TZS0. I'll have to get some AS5 and apply it. I don't know how though. I did find a guide, but would it be good to follow?

http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/appinstruct/as5/ins_as5_intel_dual_wcap.pdf

Maybe I'll also try 9.10. Also, will this void my warranty? I'm kind of worried, as I've never done this before. Is it hard to apply the grease correctly? And do I need to get thermal paste, or does the heatsink just clamp on?

 

Probably you would want to use these instructions and I'd get ceramique over AS5:
http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/appinstruct/cmq/ins_cmq_singlecore_expsd.pdf
if you really do want to use AS5 use these instructions:
http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/appinstruct/as5/ins_as5_singlecore_expsd.pdf

 

I took out my heatsink and took pics of the cpu and gpu. I don't know how this compares to others, so if you have experience, tell me if there looks like there is a problem. And that is a fingerprint on the heatsink. It seems to be doing fine though.

CPU:

GPU:


CPU heatsink:


Edit: sorry, that was a dog, not a cpu.

On an unrelated note, I may or may not have dropped a screw in my computer. If I don't hear it jiggling around, and temps are normal, is it a problem?

 

Just popped mine apart as well, I think the thing with the blue glob may actually be the PM45 chipset though, it has an i on it and no nvidia logo. That and the blue glob was nowhere near the middle, it was only covering about half on my laptop. If it was the gpu i would think it would have been overheating. There's another heatsink on the left side of the laptop that I think may go to the GPU. Yours looks ok but putting a better thermal paste on the CPU should still help, just like mine there's a nasty mess of thermal paste on there and its probably not real good paste.

As for your screw, it could short something out if you did lose one inside the laptop? Which screw would it have been?

 

It's one of the screws that held the cover on. It may not be in there though.

And it the blue glob isn't the gpu, where would the gpu be? Anyway, the gpu doesn't really have overheating problems. Anyway, what is the TZS0 temp, and why is it going so high? It only does it when I overclock the gpu, and even then it only increases gpu temp by like 1 or 2 degrees.

Edit: I should not that my cpu temps seem to be down a little though. Temps when playing portal the flash version (like it more than the real game lol) were below 50 consistently, when usually they stay at 52 or 53. I did spend a lot of time making sure all the screws were tightened to the same level.

 

See that little blue pad? It looks torn, you need to be VERY careful. But without getting your finger oils on it, remove it..then place it on the metal part of the HEATISNK, not back on the chipset.. just make sure that it is going to line up when you bolt the heatsink down. But, place it on the heatsink and make sure it is pressed on their so its flat(dont use your fingers, remember...oil). So, press it on the heatsink so it's flat, then reseat the heatsink and there should be a small screw, #5 if I remember right.. Tighten that one down first, but not fully.. That's the one locking the Blue thermal pad in place.. then tighten 1-4, then go back and finish #5. BTW - That's the PM45 Northbridge Chipset. That can be a major cause of TZS0 - just be careful with that pad..you don't wanna have any gaps between the heatsink and the chipset.

 

Dunno, maybe it is and its just not well marked? I'm surprised you lost a cover screw, at least on the 7805 they have clips that hold them to the cover.

 

Ok and E-wrecked is in to confirm its the northbridge, which brings the question how the heck do you get to the GPU? lol

 

So what do I want to use to touch it? Some plastic gloves or something? Am I trying to get rid of that little tear, so should I smear it around a little? I also noticed that when I google TZS0 temps, the first things that come up are all about the FX line. Is this a known problem with it, and is it due to tearing on the thermal pad? It seems like it should be hot all the time then, not just when I oc to a certain degree.

 

Hey E-Wrecked, I noticed in a previous post about this you said applying AS5 caused it to get really hot really fast. Why would that happen?

 

Use some plastic wrap on your fingertip or something.. just dont user your fingers bare. Keep it CLEAN as possible. Dont go trying to much or squish it. Just place it on the heatsink and line it up to where that tear doesn't overlap the Chipset, if possible. Or, just make sure it's not visible when you carefully reapply to the heatsink. It's a delicate process.. but you don't wanna mess up that thermal pad. And, while it has nothing to do with OCing..once the chipset breaks a certain temp it's a glitch that makes it peak at 98c.

And how do you find the GPU? You take the whole computer apart. No need..they do a great job with that thermal paste.

EDIT: Don't even think about applaying AS5 to the chipset. You'll screw yourself. Just make sure the pad handles its job.

 

AC5 is ok on the CPU though, right? How did you get your chipset to stop overheating? I don't get how it can be a glitch. Can't the fix it with a bios update?

 

AS5 is overrated. get some Artic cooling Mx-2 and apply it on there... Mx-2 is cheaper than AS5 (i think) and isn't electrically conductive.

The best way for you to stop the tzs0 is by underclocking the cpu

 

Well I've had most of it apart already for the BT mod, which I got the wrong cable for so it's coming apart again next week when I get the right one... I get the impression the motherboard has to come off the case though to do it which is still quite a bit of work beyond getting the palm rest off. The temps aren't bad either so maybe I'll leave well enough alone... (that's easier said than done for me, lol)