A Guide to BIOS OC HP 8600gs with drivers ABOVE 169.04

Ok, i signed up to this board with the sole purpose of informing those people that have like me, been stuck at using 169.04s to software overclock their drivers. Just recently, a new method that is relatively easy to be done has been discovered whereinby you can alter the clocks of the actual bios installation to change your stock values to whatever your highest OC values are. Then, when you flash the bios (same way you would with an HP update), your stock values are changed to those you have created instead of the default 500/1000/400 or w/e they may be. It is fairly simple and safe, and you can flash the default HP bios within windows in case you screw things up. I will explain better on how to do this. In the past, this hasn't really been documented to help the masses i believe, so i will be taking those steps and adding comments to the original method as i go along. This method should technically work with all RECENT HP laptops including those with 8400gs/7600 cards. I DID NOT FIND this method, but i did use it successfully and know what to look for when explaining the process.

A little history- With many laptops in the past, there was a method of combining a program called nibitor with another one called nvflash to flash a video bios with OC settings in dos. THis required a lot of work using a usb drive and several applications. This method also doesn't work for hp laptops. HOWEVER, the way to OC for all HP laptops is actually easier. Here are the steps to follow:

This is a disclaimer that if you screw things up, obviously its your own fault for doing so, and i am in no way to be held responsible.

Before you begin, i'm assuming you understand how overclocking works and you're not a beginner at it. If that's not the case, then go read a guide on how to overclock with Rivatuner while using the the 169.04 drivers that let you overclock (without the sliders resetting), until you figure out a stable config for your system. Each video card is different in how much OCing it can do. For those who already know what their stable clocks are with this driver, proceed below.

Step 1)Find a program called Phoenix Bios Editor Pro 2.2.0.1 (Dont ask me where you can find it- Those resourceful enough shouldnt have any problems). Install it to your hardrive.

Step 2) Download the latest bios that is appropriate to your machine from the HP website. Extract its content with winrar or find the folder it creates after running the setup file. (usually C:\ swsetup) or something similar. Make a copy of this folder and put it in your desktop. We will be using this folder to edit the bios file, and keep the old one in case that you need to flash back to your original bios.


READ THIS HUGE NOTE- I've noticed some people claiming in another thread that the 256 8600gs in dv9500s overclocks higher than the 512 8600gs in dv9700s. I cannot confirm this to be true because i actually own a dv9500t and have been able to push my clocks to a stable 685/1370/ 552 with both 169.04s and the bios mod i am now explaining.

Here is the important part that EVERYONE SHOULD UNDERSTAND. When i first began overclocking, i was using the bios version f.23, which allowed me to reach those settings. This was the latest bios at the time when i had bought my dv9500. later on, i downloaded the f.45 bios that is available for both HP dv9500s and dv9700s. Right away, i noticed that my overclock instantly became unstable and my computer hanged. I had to lower my clocks MUCH lower before they became stable. I reverted back to f.23 bios, and sure enough i was able to OC as high as before once again.


My theory behind why the 512s generally overclock lower than the 256s 8600gs is because of a bios limitation found in the later video bioses that were made available for the dv9700. I do not know if you dv9700 owners can install the f.23 bios since i cannot test it without having that computer, but if you could, it seems that you might reach higher levels of OC before your system hangs or produces artifacts. Those daring enough can try it, but be very careful in doing your homework and making sure that the f.23 bios DOES INDEED SUPPORT your chipset and hardware. WAIT UNTIL THE END OF THE GUIDE FOR A BETTER/SAFER SOLUTION TO TEST THIS THEORY.

Step 3) Download nibitor 3.9. Extract the files to a folder.

Step 4) Run phoenix bios editor and open the 30CCF45.WPH (dv9700), or 30CCF23.WPH (dv9500) file located on the bios folder that you copied to the desktop.

Step 5) it will display some alert messages. Check those out the first time you run it and make sure there is nothing critical but just some log messages alerting you that the chinese language is not fully supported etc., if it gives you some weird error message then don’t go ahead with the procedure. For my BIOS it gives me something like 10 to 20 alert messages when I load it. It’s pretty annoying so when you know everything is fine just check the box don’t show this again and click continue.

Step 6) Now, your video BIOS should be in your left hand side under the Option ROM folder in the editor interface. When you expand this folder and look through the files, look at the bottom of the program as you highlight each OPROM file. The one you need will display as NVIDIA VGA and it should be around 57-58 kb in size. Mine for instance is the one called "oprom2.rom", for the GeForce 256mb 8600gs, and it should be the same for all of you editing the f.45 bios. The file "OPROM1.ROM" SHOULD NOT BE TAMPERED WITH. We had a user try to edit those values and basically ended up with a black screen upon bootup. After you familiarized yourself with the editor, go to the directory where you installed the Phoenix Editor and look for temp folder. It is very important that you access the temp folder while the Phoenix Editor is open and reading your BIOS, otherwise it will be empty. Copy/Paste the video OPROM file in that temp folder to your desktop.

Step 7) Open nibitor and then go down the list of OPROM files that you have saved to your desktop. I believe nibitor will only read 1 OPROM file without giving you errors, and this one will display your correct default stocks for your card.
*NOTE- In my own experience, this BIOS will be read as an 8400 instead of an 8600 by nibitor. Do not worry, as long as the clocks match your default clocks, then this is the right file. Now is the time to change the default clocks of the 3d core, shader, and memory to those you were able to achieve using the 169.04 drivers. DO NOT FLASH any higher than this, as the same rule of stability applies. If by some reason you are getting artifacts in your tests or something is being weird, you can always reflash the default HP bios back in and it should fix all your problems.

Step 8) Go ahead and save the file with the same name ( you have to browse and overwrite the old one).

Step 9) Now go back to in the phoenix editor and highlight the OPROM file that you contains the default stocks to your card (for mine it was OPROM2.rom). With the right file highlighted, choose "change" at the bottom and then browse for the nibitor-edited OPROM file that you have saved on your desktop, and replace it. This will replace the stock values of your card with whatever you put in nibitor.

Step 10) Before you are allowed to save, the Phoenix editor requires that you do a change before the "Build Bios" option becomes ungrayed. Look at the first window that popped up when you first opened the bios. It will display your bios menu "main, configuration, etc". Go ahead and change the 'main' value to something like 'main1' and hit ok. Then go BACK in and change it again to "main", like it was when you first opened the bios file. Now the phoenix editor will allow you to build the bios. --> file---> build bios.

If everyone went correct, it should say that the build was done correctly. If not, then you did something wrong and you should start over. When it asks you to save, replace the 30CCFXX.WPH file located inside the copied bios folder on your desktop.

You can now exit the phoenix editor, and then go inside of the desktop bios folder you created and run showmsg1.exe.

The rest is as simple as installing any other bios update.

Reboot and see if your clocks are the ones you chose in nibitor. Then run some and see if the card is stable. If not, then you can always reflash the default bios and start all over again. It is not a very difficult or lengthy process, but i wanted to explain in detail to avoid confusion.

Now onto the interesting part. Remember i had mentioned that the f.45 bios or default dv9700 bioses seemed to allow less overclocking than the f.23 bios for the dv9500?

Well, i was able to achieve the best of both worlds by having an F.45 bios with a video OPROM from the f.23 bios that allows me to overclock higher. WARNING - I cannot make any guarantees that this is safe for your system, especially if you have a dv9700, but it works perfectly with my dv9500 which has the 256mb version of the 8600gs.

The methods for this are simple as well.

Download both the f.23 and f.45 bios to your hardrive.

1)Open the phoenix editor and choose the f.23 bios. Extract the right OPROM nvidia VGA file from the f.23 bios with the method posted above( copy the oprom from the temp folder while phoenix editor is opened,etc and place it on ur desktop)

2) Close the phoenix editor and open nibitor to change the stock values to the OC values (only do this if you already know what values you can achieve with the f.23 bios- Otherwise, leave it unchanged and dont mess with nibitor for now).

3) open the phoenix editor and this time open the f.45 bios. Replace the OPROM file with the one from the f.23 which you previously extracted (step 1) to your desktop. Save the bios and replace 30CCF45.WPH file that is found in the f.45 bios folder. Run the showmsg1.exe file in this folder and you will begin the flashing process.

This has given me the latest bios (f.45 displays when you hit f10 as you boot) with all the fixes it has, along with a more Overclockable video bios than the default f.45 bios.


For those of you dv9700 owners who want to give the f.23 bios a chance (at your own risk), do that replacing method i just mentioned so that the only thing that changes in the bios is the video part (everything else will stay intact to ensure maximum compatability with your system). If you are successful at flashing the f.45 bios with the f.23 video bios inside of it, then test what new overclock settings you can now reach with the 169.04 drivers. The one that really seems to change is the memory- you can OC a lot more in the f.23 video bios from my experience. Then take these values, apply them to the OPROM file with nibitor and once again replace the rom file with the phoenix editor and reflash your system.

Everything is running great over here and i am able to have the modded f.45 bios with 585 core / 1370 shader/ and 552 memory as default settings on the latest 174.60 drivers thanks to the f.23 VBIOS that i stuck inside of the f.45 version. These settings will not have to be changed ever again with software, but do make sure they are stable before you flash your bios.

Hope you guys have a similar experience.


UPDATE***- WHAT TO DO IF YOU SCREW THINGS UP AND BOOT INTO NOTHING BUT A BLACK SCREEN

- A member of the forum accidentally misfollowed a step and found himself in a situation where his display would only show black. Luckily, he was able to find a way to fix it and has shared it with us in case some of you are experiencing the same problems.

Originally Posted by mhp32
DISCLAIMER

This worked for me and It might not work for you so BE CAREFULL
as bios problems are various..


Here we go:
http://www.mediafire.com/?3ccb9m0kv0m

be sure you replace the disk bios file with your laptop most current bios file. (phoenix only)

My HP was stript ready to ship: no HD - also no battery

Held Win+B key
plug in AC adaptor
Powered on, it did some beeping
then I saw the light access of my flash drive, when the light stop I released win+b, it did some beeping then the cpu fan quick in (I knew then I was in good shape because it's the sound it make when the bios is flashing) then it stop and more beeping for 30 secs then it powered itself off .. done!

rebooted and I saw my bios.. felt good..

Hope you guys keep this files handy who knows..


UPDATE***- The F.51 BIOS recently released works as well as the others spoken of in this guide.

 

key part of this....you have a 8600m gs 256mb

i have the 512mb version

and the highest i can get is 675/460/1500
before system goes unsable

so this method you speak of will kill the memory limitation? (460)

 

and is that gddr or ddr memory?

 

Yea like i said, the memory seems to be more overclockable with the older f.23 bios. When i updated to f.45 (or even the version before that one that is available to dv9700s), my system became very unstable and had to downclock the memory a lot, so i ended up flashing back to f.23. Now i have the f.45 with the vbios of the f.23 so i can retain all the updates from the bios and still OC higher.

And even if you're scared to mess with VBIOS stuff, you can always just edit the default bios update for your card, so that u can OC with drivers other than 169.04, which is also a gain.

Aside from the small boost in card memory(512 vs 256), i believe the cards are identical, but you can correct me if i'm wrong. I havent done my homework on the new card.

 

been doing a lot of looking on this. someone posted that hp set the clocks on the 512 because of heating and power options. (this is a desktop replacement, leave my damn options up to me, HP!) (lol) nah, not scared to do the bios, just wondering if anyone has traveled this road before with our card (512). but i will be giving it a try for all the 512 gs card holders out there

and was your memory ddr2?

and how many unified shaders is your card showing? mine is showing 16

 

the memory is ddr2 and i believe its 16 shaders too.

 

so this is what gpu-z reports? interesting

 

yea, i just confirmed it with gpu-z. I was looking at riva tuner before, but gpu-z says the same. i'll post a screenshot for anyone who is interested.

 

working on your bios as we speak...bios clocked it at 675/450/1350
675/480/1350= crashed

gonna try the f23 oprom file now

 

here is the pic.
http://img169.imageshack.us/my.php?image=infobd8.jpg

 

and the plot thickens.....lol

wonder if this holds true to any 9700's with a 256mb card

 

Just so you know, I would bet there are lots of us watching to see how this goes. I for one am interested in unlocking some of my GPU potential on my DV9700t if possible, but I'm also willing to let someone else forge the trail for me, if they are so inclined
Please do keep us informed of your progress and guides are very much appreciated.
Good luck!

 

we'll know after this reboot....

 

Thanks johnksss for trying out.. let us know

 

it is showing up, but still cant go any higher than my max clocks....although i think i got lucky and hit a 685 but cant seem to get past the 480 on memory clock. i have my hp drivers installed now just to see if they will over clock, but they wont over clock..going to load the 174 drivers now and see what happends.

 

doing this won't let you overclock with drivers though. You will still need to use 169.04 if you wanna make changes through the drivers.

If you use the 174s, your sliders will reset, but the whole point is that they will reset to your already overclocked settings.

Like the picture i posted in the previous page, my default clocks are actually my overclocked clocks. YOu only need to use 169.04 to find out how far u can push it. With the f.23 video bios flashed, try seeing what u can do with the 169.04s in terms of memory. If you cant go any higher than 480 without the system becoming unstable, then maybe the f.23 bios doesnt work for your card like it does for mine, or maybe ur card just caps out at 480 to begin with.

At the very least, everyone should be able to reach the same OC settings they got through 169.04, but with every driver.

The rest was just speculation based on how the bioses allowed me to overclock. It might not work on the 512mb as ideal as it did for the 256 one.

 

that's what im thinking.....

 

can this method be used to over clock a cpu? just curious....

 

I wouldnt know how, but if there is a file to edit values, it would seem possible. The ideal thing would be for someone to find a way to enable hidden bios features, such as OC for gpu through the driver-level(aside from 169.04), and maybe even cpu OC.

Is anyone daring enough to try to undervolt the gpu to achieve cooler temps? I'm not sure if that will make overclocking more limited, but if it doesnt, you can potential run the same OC system with slightly cooler temps for the gpu.

Undervolting the cpu can be done with rmclock, so thats not an issue.

 

yep, did the undervolting, but couldn't get below 1.063

while being nosey in the bios file i seen all kinds of stuff...i just dont know how to enable it so that when you boot the bios, you can make changes to it . it had the multiplier/frequency/and a few other things.... gonna have to look further into this....i seen all kinds of options that we cant get to, but are in there.

 

Where did you find the f.23 BIOS file?

 

I tried your steps above and when it came time to build my BIOS file, I got
the following error message in the log file:
error : FI240D : 'BIOS.FFV' : unable to read input firmware volume
error : FI2402 : '_BUILD' : unable to read build options file in input firmware volume '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000'
error : FI2408 : could not find boot firmware volume

 

The only f.23 I could find was for an AMD processor. I downloaded it to remove the OPROM files for the video card. is this the correct f.23??

Also, how do I overcome the error messages Phoenix Bios Editor gave me?

 

Nevermind on f.23, I found f.23a on HP's web site.

 

Well, I'm not sure how but I over came the error messages and
updated the BIOS. I now have overclocked speeds that show up
in nTune.

Very Nice.

I'll test FPS tomorrow.

 

i'm glad its working for people. Now nobody with an HP laptop has to be stuck on the 169.04 drivers.

Johnkssss, did you undervolt the GPU with nibitor, or were u referring to something else? Also, if you did undervolt the gpu, did you notice any difference in temps while gaming, or any instabilities?

And yea be careful to download the correct bios for your chip. The f.23 bios is available for dv9500s under the older versions link.

 

Can you share your clock - memory - shader and what driver are you using?
that will be helpfull.
I try couples bios but when I run gpu-z it's crashing (I use the same clock as jhonksss)
thanks

 

all is well...trying to over clock th cpu now...lol. but it aint working

sorry about that zenica, was out testing things. but glad to see you got it working.

the best running stable clock seems to be 675/460/1350 gpu/memory/shader

this gives you a round about 3dmark06 of 2800-3000 (1280x1024 default everything) depending on what your doing.

haven't tested the undervolting against any games yet. will do it tomorrow though

 

Before I post results, I have two questions.

Should I use driver 169.04 or 169.09
and does anyone else use Vista Ultimate 64 bit?

I am unable to get RivaTuner to install due to a driver signing issue that Vista will not let me override.

 

did you disable the user account control?

 

I reinstalled RivaTuner but this time, allowed it to "update" and it seems to work despite Vista still giving me the driver signing error.

This first image with the 600\1200\450 seems stable. It plays DVD's
and can run DreamScene without a problem.


This second image with 675\1300\600 was stable only in the most basic
meaning. If I tried to play a DVD or a game, it would crash. This file was
with a f.23 video ROM and the stable numbers are with a f.45 video ROM.


I might try bumping the f.45 numbers a bit.

 

One thing to note: Vista will not refresh my Windows Experience Index anymore. hmmm

 

i couldnt get past 480 on memory clock speed

 

do a search for the datastore folder under c:\windows

delete all the files in it

then try to update your score.

 

BTW, nTune reports the GPU temp at 66 celsius or 151 fahrenheit.

To me this seems hot. Too hot.

 

Datastore?

 

Ah...
c:\windows\performance\winsat\datastore

 

correct


and my temps we're in the 80's C when playing call of duty

 

It refreshed, but damn, my memory came down a notch while my Gaming Graphics went up 3.

I want the lowest score to reach 5 damnit!

You and I have similiar specs, my CPU is a T7300, I have an HD DVD-R rather than the Blue-Ray
and my two HDD's are ST9120823AS Momentus 7200.2 Hard Drives.

Have you experimented with OC'ing the CPU??

 

trying to over clock the cpu now as we speak...im messing the with bios file

and not sure if you can get above a 5 with a t7300... mine is a t9300

 

will the bios mod work on the stock HP driver?
I will try..

 

sure. you just cant over clock it using rivatuner or ntune

 

Also is there a Bios guru out there that can unlock some of theses options
at boot, (write a mod tab) that would be so right, HP should have done this
the first time, at least with a HP specs like a d9700t - 9300 and 512 8600 card.
then why sell a good power laptop to underclock it - that a ripoff
ggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....................

 

this bios is just like the desktop bios from what i see. and all the options for chanign stuff are there...i cant seem to get them enabled...*LOL* damn shame.

 

Let us know how the CPU work comes.

I have a DV9700 that has the T9300 but I use that for work, can't
risk messing with the BIOS but I have thought of swapping the two CPU's
but I can't seem to find good schematics for the DV9000 series.

I did swap the screens so my DV9500 has the 1680x1050 setting.
I'd also like to add the fingerprint reader to my DV9500...any thoughts?

 

johnksss, what driver are you using now?

 

http://h20181.www2.hp.com/plmcontent/NACSC/SML/

http://h20180.www2.hp.com/apps/Look...pe=s-001&h_query=dv9700&submit.x=0&submit.y=0

to switch them cpu's, you will need to take the laptop completely apart.

and the fingerprint scanner is just buying a different face cover and installing the cable.

 

169.04 is what im using

 

John, you are my HERO!

An HP video showing what to do!?!

I love you man!

 

well, i can't take credit for that one...someone show it to me... *LOL*