The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Undervolting GPU

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by petar_b, Sep 20, 2009.

  1. petar_b

    petar_b Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    30
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Anyone has a utility to undervolt and underclock ATI and NV mobile cards ?
     
  2. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

    Reputations:
    2,389
    Messages:
    10,552
    Likes Received:
    7
    Trophy Points:
    456
    It's riskier than undervolting the CPU and yields less results, hence why people don't generally do it. Search the forum for older threads on it.
     
  3. Trottel

    Trottel Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    828
    Messages:
    2,303
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    It may or may not be possible via software based on the video card's voltage controller.
     
  4. SoundOf1HandClapping

    SoundOf1HandClapping Was once a Forge

    Reputations:
    2,360
    Messages:
    5,594
    Likes Received:
    16
    Trophy Points:
    206
    But if you're interested in doing so, GPU-Z can extract your vBIOS, and NiBitTor will edit nVidia GPU BIOSes.

    What kind of GPU?
     
  5. naton

    naton Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    806
    Messages:
    2,044
    Likes Received:
    5
    Trophy Points:
    56
    I tested nibitor on a Geforce GO 6800, and I couldn't undervolt. I'm not saying that nibitor doesn't work. All I'm saying that Mobile GPUs are designed/selected to use the lowest voltage possible. Hence, they are unlikely to undervolt any lower than their default/factory set voltage.

    In some case even overvolting is a problem, and sometimes the only way to do it is via hardware modding.

    Have you tried to improve your colling system by using better thermal compound such as AS5...
     
  6. petar_b

    petar_b Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    30
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    It's ATI 4670 that runs bit too hot and I plan to put new compound.

    However I have great results with undervolting CPU, so I thought I could do the same with GPU.

    I mean, these GPU have high working temp when doing graphic tasks, cca 100 C... That's way too much for notebook. I have seen Radeon BIOS Editor, but would like to test settings before flashing them back.
     
  7. Kallogan

    Kallogan Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    596
    Messages:
    1,096
    Likes Received:
    19
    Trophy Points:
    56
    A good old undervolting is more worthy than all the best paste compounds of the world ;-).

    From what i gathered, Ati's gpus don't handle undervolting as well as nvidia's ones.

    Especially a 4670 which is already an overclocked 4650. I mean, the guy on this thread manage to undervolt his 4650 to 1V from 1,1V but i don't know if a 4670 would handle this. You should look at this thread :

    http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=399430

    What are the voltages available in the radeon bios editor for your gpu ?