[HOW TO] Overvolt with AMD 12.3! [tested with 6770M]

Although I am into overclocking and such stuff (like every techie), due to my job I have very little time to research. So I saw this post...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...ips-how-overvolt-hd6770m-catalyst-12-2-a.html

...and I thought to myself: Kudos to him [thanks xAcid9!], but...it can't be that hard.

In a few words, I want it to be simple.

So after 10 minutes of research (literally), I discovered this little and simple trick.

1. Download MSI Afterburner.

2. Open "Run" from Windows Start menu and type: "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSI Afterburner\MSIAfterburner.exe /xcl" (or whatever installation path you chose) [there is a space between .exe and /xcl]

3. It will popup a message saying that you have to restart, click OK, then restart.

4. Open up Sapphire TRIXX (I had it already, you can download it from here....I am using version 4.1.0...it should work with newer ones).

5. OVERVOLT WITHOUT MERCY.

6. I cannot guarantee that it will work for everyone. I am using an HP DV6-6091NR with Win7 x64 SP1. Drivers are HP's latest and greatest and on top of those I got AMD Catalyst Driver v8.95.5 (12.3) [thanks prebuss!] If it doesn't work for you, please don't be sad...there's always hope!

7. As always, if you screw it up, don't blame anyone else but yourself. Know what you're doing before you actually do it.

9. Feel free to test this trick with newer drivers. It should work. (12.6 anyone?) I would, but...no time.

8. You can thank me later.

 

Dayyumm.. u're right. After enabling XCL in Afterburner, Trixx is available for overvolting now LOL.

I still prefer doing it thru CCC because of the hotkey function though. One key combo for overvolt and another one for undervolt(only work for 2D clock).

Oh wait.. doesn't 12.3 suffered from sticky 3D clock problem? Wont that make your GPU constantly overvolt?

 

First of all thanks, because if I didn't see your post I wouldn't have bothered.

Well I'm used to TRIXX, so it works perfectly for me. Plus it makes the "installation" much much easier. To each his own!

No, I'm not gonna wait ... no sticky 3D clock problem and no constant overvolt.

I am telling you dude, IT'S PERFECT!

As always, proof attached.

 

Nice, but mine suffered from sticky clock problem.
What about 12.4?

 

Haven't tested it. It should work work though. But why try 12.4 when you can try 12.5/12.6 beta?

 

I'm currently using 12.6 beta. Cat 12.4 gave the best performance for me on stock clock but i can't overvolt because having sticky clock problem with it.

 

I see.

Well I confirmed that TRIXX 4.3.0 and Catalyst 12.6 work just fine when you use the XCL trick.

 

now my only question is whether 12.x drivers+overvolt are stable and cool enough for Battlefield 3.

 

Define "cool enough". For me the limit is 85°C. That said, I do go over it. With the amount of overvolting I've pushed my 6770M to (1.055), I hit 100°C on FurMark. No game will make your card go as nuts as FurMark will, though. But it is very stable! Ran FurMark, Max Payne 3, 3DMark11 and Battlefield 3. I can play Battlefield 3 on MAX settings (Ultra everything) and AA 2X, with framerates between 22-42 (averaging at 30's). Not bad at all. The temperature though hits 90+°C...

The only time I've seen it fail is with FurMark, when hitting 98 -100°C. The driver stops responding blah blah blah...

To sum it all up, stable yes. Cool enough, probably not. That's why I'm ordering a cooler!!

This card is something special...using overvolt + overclock I made it perform 25%+ better! 3DMark11 went from 1450 to almost 1900, stable.

But again, I do need a cooler.

 

Even with a cooler I would be very wary of running it with temperatures that high. Some guy in the dv6/7 7000 lounge fried his laptop running FurMark. A cooler can only help get cool air to the system, the job of removing the (very) hot air is still left to the single fan and heat sink shared between the CPU and GPU. IMO you're just asking to fry something on your motherboard.. Laptops really aren't meant for overclocking.

 

Wait, what do you mean, that high? Because if you mean 90°C, then you probably don't think that the "safe" threshold is 85°C. So what is it for you?

Right now, I hit 90°C when gaming. But I don't game a lot, really...I'm just an enthusiast. The cooler should bring it to 85°C levels. (because it will provide cool air plus lift it off the surface) If not, clocks are going down.

FYI, it's been running like this just fine, for 9 consecutive months. The things is, it went just fine through winter (my max was 85°C because of the ambient temperature).

But now, with ambient temperatures higher, so did my laptop's. I will use a thermostat to have ambient temps hover at 26°C/79°F. It will be more comfortable for me as well.

 

cool enough for me is anything below 85C. i've been playing Battlefield 3 for months now, using SONY drivers (based on Catalyst 11.6) while overclocking and overvolting with TRiXX. after uninstalling Realtek HD Audio drivers and using Microsoft's generic HD Audio drivers, my system has become very stable, and i can play the game for a couple of hours without any crashes.

so if i can get more performance with cooler (or the same) temperatures with new drivers + the overvolt mod, i'm willing to update the drivers.

 

works on 12.4b as well

thanks man

 

I can play without overvolting Max Payne with 850/990 clocks without crashing. If I overvolt it I will be able to increase these clocks, will I?

How far is overvolting dangerous?

 

Well, the thing that fries graphics cards is heat. So you can overvolt/overclock all you want until you hit a certain thermal threshold (e.g. 85C).

Yes if you overvolt you will probably be able to increase the clocks, but do so in small steps.

 

Well, considering that your driver is a full year old, you should probably update. Especially if your playing newer games (battlefield included), that benefit from those drivers.

I think the driver that improved performance for Battlefield 3 was 11.11 if I remember correctly. So, in my opinion, you need to be running at least that.

 

darxide im having constant crashes on BF3 and i'm not really sure why..

did your system really got more stable without realtek hd audio drivers ?

i dont think i've got realtek though.. i have the beats audio something.. but i'll definetely try uninstalling drivers for that and using microsoft's..

 

8.95.5 drivers do not have that problem.
Yours suffered from sticky clock probably because you had used another version (there are a few drivers' versions with CCC 12.3).

What OC settings (voltage, clock) have you discovered to be the most stable, w/o an extra cooling pad? Thanks, johny.xmarks and xAcid9, rep added for both of you

 

No problem man. All we can do is contribute a little, right? For me 870/1070 @ 1.055 does it. Temps hit 90C but I'll order a cooler.

BTW, kudos for the Senns. I got me the 449's.

 

beats is just a marketing term plus some software tweaks, i believe; they don't make audio chips. the companies that do are Realtek, Creative, C-Media, VIA, and probably some others. so you got to have one of those chips in your laptop (probably Realtek which seems to be the most common one in laptops).

yes, i used to have constant crashes in Battlefield 3. sometimes they would happen one hour into a game, sometimes 10 minutes into a game. but they would happen A LOT and very often. after uninstalling the Realtek audio drivers, i only had two crashs in Battlefield 3 in two months.

 

I've tried those settings (870/1070 @ 1055). And I can say that this is... AWESOME! without O/C I had 17fps avg in Furmark and with O/C 21 Although you are right, it needs better cooling. But I would use a little bit lower o/c settings if I would like to play intensive games for a longer time (w/o cooling pad). As every intensive game would squeeze GPU more than 99 degrees Celsius and I really don't like that.
Print screen below with O/C.



EDIT: am I the only one, who gets constant freezes (for ~2 seconds) on Max Payne 3 and sometimes even the game crashes? However, the fps increased ~ 5fps. If I could just figure it out what was the problem of that freezing...

 

darkxide, could you please help me out on how to do that ?

i beg you, please please please... i wanna be able to play bf3 without crashing, its so frustrating..

thanks man!

 

To my knowledge no game will push your GPU as far as FurMark. For example using 870/1070, my temps get up to 92C maximum, while in FurMark I hit 100C easily. FurMark is built to do that. Yea I also get 21fps instead of 17 and 1258 at the benchmark.

As far as the freezes/crashes go, try reinstalling the drivers first. If that doesn't work, either lower the clocks, or increase the voltage. I am having no freezes/crashes whatsoever. 870 is the max I can safely reach on my GPU without crashes. Memory can go beyond 1070, but since it doesn't provide a significant boost, I just keep it symmetrical. But keep in mind, each card has a different ceiling. I think that freezes indicate too high memory clocks.

 

Doesn't it depend on GPU memory size? You have 1 GB. I'll try to play with those O/C settings, and I'll let you know

 

@prebuss
is that with TurboBoost on? try turn it off?

mine.. overclocked to 865/[email protected] with CM U3 + TurboBoost=Off

GPU temp slowly raised to 90c and hit max@91c. after 13mins, CPU temp reached >85c
and that made my system fan entered jet engine mode thus dropping the temperature a little.

 

Am i the only one with 1040mhz max memory clock? How both of you can go over that?

Do you guys mind exporting registry in [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}] and upload it somewhere? I want to compare our PP_PhmSoftPowerPlayTable value..

 

xAcid9, THANKS! Disabling Turbo Boost worked!

EDIT: In afterburner I can set max to 1040 as well, although with Sapphire I can set up to 1200mhz.

my exported reg file

 

Glad that help.

 

just uninstall Realtek HD Audio drivers (if you have indeed the Realtek audio chip) from Control Panel > Program and Features. the reboot, and Windows should reinstall its own drivers for it.

 

Anyone?

 

^ i have a 6630m. i checked my registry and PP_PhmSoftPowerPlayTable does not exist there. i have to say that i'm using a Catalyst 11.6-based driver though.

 

i think it's only available once u've enabled overdrive with msi extended overclocking. you gonna need catalyst 12 driver though.

 

No need to be sad. Here you go. (I renamed it as .txt so the forum will accept it)

 

The only thing VRAM size matters for, is texture resolution in games and anti aliasing. Clock ceilings have nothing to do with the VRAM size. For example, someone with 1GB VRAM can reach higher memory clocks than someone with 2GB. It depends on the card itself, not the memory.

 

Use TRIXX. If you are using TRIXX already, then your card can't go any further.

 

Thanks.. it seem the table is identical just that ur GPU use ati2mtag_VancouverA inf section and mine used ati2mtag_Vancouver_PXAI.

Dayyumm... it works. Thanks.

 

I've already posted and uploaded my exported reg file in the previous comment. Just used edit function.

 

Was hoping this might work on my DV6Z w/ 6750m, but sapphire trixx does not show a voltage for the 6750m. The core and memory overclocking works fine however.

When I run MSI afterburner with /xcl nothing happens..... I am going to try the 12.2 drivers.( NVM theyre only for intel CPU system.. looks like DV6Z is still outta luck)

 

Are using Fixed switching? because this method wont work on Dynamic switching.

 

I will try settings to fixed, however for some reason having ulps disabled or having fixed switching set caused horrible performance. This only occurred with drivers 12.4+ for me. Might try a different version.

 

Always check your GPU clocks with MSI Afterburner or GPU Caps Viewer when u get horrible performance...

 

can i bother you guys with something to experiment (especially johny.xmarks and xAcid9)? if possible, could you please run the command "MSIAfterburner.exe -xcl" (which, as you know, e xtends clock limits) and take a snapshot of the whole registry, then run the command "MSIAfterburner.exe -rcl" (which resets clock limits) and take another snapshot of the whole registry, and compare the two snapshots and report the difference here?

 

I am using Driver Packaging Version 8.882.2.3-110930a-126477C-HP

I have already installed MSI Afterburner and TRIXX some time ago last year.
Although there was no method I had used during the software install, the voltage options were already unlocked.

Appears that my default voltage was already 1.05v or from what I understand 1050 in TRIXX.

I currently run with the above defaults an overclock of 875/1150

Is it safe to max out the voltage to 1100 which I would think is 1.1v?

 

what you're running is Catalyst 11.9 which has unlocked voltage. that was the last driver branch with that feature, and AMD removed twaeking with the voltage from the newer drivers.

1.1v is 50mV higher than 1.05v (which is 1050mV and is what TRiXX shows). i think it should be safe, but maybe you want to try increasing in 10mV steps instead of going the full 50mV way.

 

About updating video drivers on a mobile platform, they all seem very limited, therefore I don't tend to bother as the vender. They are slow at getting them out if at all. If what I am using works, then I tend to just stick with it.

Maybe it is better to stick with this one, as the voltage is unlocked right out of the box.

Yeah I couldn't imagine that 1.1v would have much of an impact over a stock 1.05v, it is hardly a large increase.

I found at 1.1v it didn't really get me very high if at all. Seem that with 1.07v and increasing the clock slowing but carefully I was able to reach 935MHz until it locked up.

I also found that going directly to any speed over about 910MHz would locked up immediately no matter what the voltage, as this must be at the physical limitations of the 6770M graphics adaptor.

 

Any software can i use to compare such large file? Notepad++ and Winmerge failed..

 

DiffUtils for Windows will work. but now i'm not sure if it's a sane thing to do or not to find the difference between the two registries.

anyway, many thanks to you for trying to help me.

 

i have no idea how to use that.. lol

 

oh sorry! i found something much easier to use. it's called WinDiff and is included with XP SP2 Platform SDK. you can download it here. it's a stand-alone executable and does not need to be installed.

i just used it on my own laptop (comparing two 320MB registry dumps), and it worked just fine. it took a while to process them and looked like it had frozen, but eventually came back to life and showed me the difference.

 

Thanks for that.. without XCL there is no PP_PhmSoftPowerPlayTable in

1. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Video\{52B344FB-DF0D-4B07-8C59-9855BB5DB8C7}\0000]
and
2. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000].