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 .

Overclocking laptops is not recommended. They're hot enough as it is and the cooling simply isn't up to the job.

However, if you take it apart and apply some proper performance TIM on the sinks, you may be able to push it a little.

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/)
__________________________________________________ _________________

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!

So did you try it? A thanks would be nice anyway, that post took me about 20 minutes to write...

Quote: Originally Posted by reflux So did you try it? A thanks would be nice anyway, that post took me about 20 minutes to write...

LOL, Welcome to the club, If I had a nickel for everytime I spent that long on a post only to find out it was too much trouble, or no response at all...

Especially when it comes to flashing a vid card!

I am not sayin this guy won't, just kinda made me smile cause I have thought that before

That was a damn fine post! +Rep

Maybe I scared him off with my first post in this thread, sorry Dave!

It is however, as Necro says, a damn fine post

Useless? rep from me, when I saw all that you typed up I was like "daaaammnn"

I would go as far to say, sticky this post/ make a new one and google will pick it up.

Reflux that was a very helpful post, you got a 14-point hit.

Those things really get to 100*C? I think I'd freak if anything in my PC got that hot

Quote: Originally Posted by j-dogg Reflux that was a very helpful post, you got a 14-point hit. Those things really get to 100*C? I think I'd freak if anything in my PC got that hot

Thanks to all you reppers, now I have my second rep bar! w00t!!

Yeah, it gets to around 90-100c in really demanding games. nVidia are apparently not worried though, because the throttle-down-to-prevent-core-damage temperature is 115c.

But back to my visits to random crashville, I don't think it's overheating cos it crashed about 10 minutes ago while emerging from hibernation with the CPU at 31c. Still, it's the first time its crashed for a few days.

If your sure its not hardware related then just do a install of windows! I know you hate it but the sooner you get it over and done with the better.

In other news today i just recieved word that I will be getting a free 8megabit broardband connection, the only downside is that its got a 50gb download limit, not sure if I cans tick to that !

Quote: Originally Posted by j-dogg Reflux that was a very helpful post, you got a 14-point hit. Those things really get to 100*C? I think I'd freak if anything in my PC got that hot

Wait a sec j-dogg.... who stole my "art" and re-made your sig again? LOL

Woah!, omg, my greatest apologies to everyone who posted in this thread especially to reflux and i must say that out of all the informative posts i've seen that is the most informative one unfortunately i never got the laptop in the end. Instead i got a new comp (in my sig) and the Gigabyte 8800GTS a couple of weeks ago. But i will be upgrading to C2D in about a month along with a new/full time job to help upgrade further . Again thanks for that post anyway and i must say this is quite embarrassing for me .

Lol i just realised after making that post that i didn't have a sig and that this is one of those forums that doesn't update ur sig for every post only the ones posted after updating the sig...

Quote: Originally Posted by 3D_Paradox Woah!, omg, my greatest apologies to everyone who posted in this thread especially to reflux and i must say that out of all the informative posts i've seen that is the most informative one unfortunately i never got the laptop in the end. Instead i got a new comp (in my sig) and the Gigabyte 8800GTS a couple of weeks ago. But i will be upgrading to C2D in about a month along with a new/full time job to help upgrade further . Again thanks for that post anyway and i must say this is quite embarrassing for me .

Heh, don't worry about it. I got a shedload of +rep and it got stickied.