Quote: Originally Posted by 3D_Paradox Hey i'v decided to go for the Dell XPS M1710 which comes with the Go 7900 GTX and i was wondering if it can be overclocked and by how much on air as it has a cooler built with it (heat pipe) and i don't plan on buying some kind of special cooling for a laptop so if someone has experience with this laptop setup or might know about this please help thanx .

Ignore the first bit that Dex says, laptops are for true hardcore gamers!

3D Paradox, the problem with Dell's top-end laptops is that they place a physical lock on the graphics chip that prevents you using coolbits or any other overclocking software to increase the clock speeds. I have a Dell XPS Gen 2, (specs in my sig) so I can help you out on this issue as the M1710 doesn't differ much from my machine. The only way to overclock (and trust me, this is the only way) is to flash a modified vid bios with higher clock speeds. I have done this about 30 times, with my old 6800 Ultra, and with my new Go 7800GTX. Obviously, BIOS flashing runs the risk of killing your card; but I've been fine each time.

In a laptop, heat is much more of a concern than in a desktop PC. Thankfully, the XPS chassis has good cooling and the graphics card can take a fair bit of heat. This is even more true with your 7900GTX, which due to being made on the 90nm process is quite a bit cooler than my 7800. When gaming and at safe overclocked limits, mine card will get to 100c or so. I've never experienced any artifacting. My 7800GTX runs stock at 400/1064. Currently I am running it at 440/1200 and it tears through games. I have benchmarked it at 475/1250 and managed to increase the 3dmark score by more than 1000 from default of 6700 to 7786.

Good luck and remember to be careful, your're at risk here if something goes wrong. Please don't try to clock really high unless you know what you are doing. BE CAREFUL! The card needs cooling, remember that.

With regard to cooling, the XPS chassis consists of two fans. There is a 3cm on the left, and a 2cm on the right. Here's a photo of what's in the machine:



I got some of these instructions and the photo from www.notebookforums.com, an extremely helpful resource for laptop owners. If you want more info, I suggest you go there.

I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY IF YOUR CARD DIES. IT IS ENTIRELY UP TO YOU TO ATTEMPT THIS PROCEDURE.

Anyway, to overclock your card, do the following:

Download NiBiTor here: http://www.mvktech.net/index.php?opt...filecatid=1421

1 Extract NiBiTor to you system and Launch it
2 Select 'Tools" from the menu
3 Select "Read BIOS", then click on "Select Device"
It will display : Deviceid: 0xxx (unknown), Click "OK"
4 Select 'Tools" from the menu
5 Select "Read BIOS", then click on "Read into NiBitor"
Click on "OK" on the Device unknown pop-up, Note: "Geforce7 series" will be listed in the drop down above the OK/Abort buttons.
6 Click on "File" then selecst "Save BIOS", call it default (This is to make sure you have a backup of the default bios in case of emergency. I recommend saving it to same folder you extracted NiBitor to, so it easy to find)

Ok now you have the vbios loaded in to NiBiTor, on the "Clockrates" tab you will see the 3D clocks. Now it time to edit the clocks.

7 Click in the box next 3D under core and enter the core clock you found in step 1.
8 Click in the box next 3D under memory and enter the memory clocks you found in step 1.
9 Click on "File" then selecst "Save BIOS" save it using any name you like (I recommend saving it to same folder you extracted NiBitor to, so it easy to find)

I have put Arctic Silver on my card, and I *seriously* recommend you do the same. I'm having a hunt for the docs telling you how to take the machine apart, but no luck so far. It's pretty simple though you do have to take off the keyboard and screen etc.

I use rthdribl to check for errors (http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/)
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To flash your card follow these instructions:

Download this, http://rapidshare.de/files/5954877/bcd.rar.html

Stick it on your C: drive for easy access.

Put all your modded roms in bcd\cds\cdromsi\files folder, create a couple roms so you don't have to waste CDs.

Put a blank CD-R in the drive.

Open a command prompt, and get to the BCD folder.

Start>Run> Type CMD> at the prompt type cd.. press enter cd..

Press enter a few times untill you get to C:\. To get into the bcd folder type cd bcd.

Once you are in the bcd folder then you can type bcd cdromsi

Then run "bcd cdromsi" once you are in the BCD folder to build your ISO image and burn it to your CD writer. It will burn the disk in dos.

Write down your BIOS names somewhere!

Reboot, press F12 a bunch of times so you can get to “Boot from CD rom”

Select the CD drive to Boot. Just keep hitting enter if you’re asked anything.

Once you get to the R:\ Prompt type with no quotes "nvflash R:\bios_name_in_cd.rom"
Press "y" to confirm

Reboot once you see the R:\ again.

It's recommeded that you reinstall your video drivers after every flash.

Hope this helps!! Good luck!