Overclocking a mid 2010 15" Macbook Pro (GT 330m and through BootCamp)?

Hey guys,

This is more so a "is this dangerous?" thread than a "how do I do it?" thread, because I have already been doing it.

I have the higher end 15" mid 2010 MBP with the GT 330m gpu. My NVIDIA drivers drivers are up to date.

I am using my MBP on windows to play SWTOR, but with stock clocks I am not getting playable fps, even when everything is on low/off.

So I downloaded MSI Afterburner and have increased my clocks from 500/1100 to 650/1430. The memory clock won't change even if I force it, it just stays at 867.

Is this safe? I have been doing this since late November for a couple hours maybe 3-4 days a week on average, and there was about a week that I didn't go on my laptop at all because I was away. I go back to stock clocks when I stop playing.

Temps are ok. Normally when OC'ed I was getting around 88-90 when my fans kicked in finally. I propped the sides up with some books allowing air to get under my laptop and now I'm getting 80-84 (around 82-83 avg) when playing.

I'm just nervous that I'm really damaging my gpu by doing this. I am by no means a OC expert, I am only doing this so I can get enjoyable fps. But if I'm really killing my laptop I might just have to stop... thoughts guys?

 

It should be fine (i overclock my 540m all the time) but some adivice about those temps. When you are on mac osx download a program called smc fan control. Then set fan speed to a higher level and boot into windows and your fan speeds should stay on high, thus keeping your temps lower. Hope i helped

 

Sorry to rebump this, but I've been using it so far and it works like a charm! Thank you so much!

However I am just concerned that having both left and right fans blowing at max (6000rpm) all the time on windows is hurting my laptop. I'm not that educated when it comes to overclocking, but I am just curious if overclocking and having my fans on full blast whenever I go on to windows (to game) is hurting my laptop in the long term. Does anyone know?

 

You will potentially wear out the fans much faster by having them at max all the time. The fans ramp up automatically as temperatures increase, so there's little point in setting maximum speed from the get-go.

 

The point of that is when I load my game the fans don't kick into full speed until after a minute or two. With this and overclocking temps reach about 100C-105C until the fans reach max and reduce the temperature to a stable 83-85C.

I don't want the extreme temps cooking anything in my machine so I wanted to keep my fans on.

Now, is 100C for a minute or two potentially a worse threat than having my fans on full blast whenever I log into windows? I'm not sure, what do you think?

 

Fans are a lot cheaper to replace than a whole logic board...

I manually spin my fans up to max speed if I know its going to need them in a minute anyways... and keep my temps down.

 

Not to mention, if you're only doing it when you play the game, I don't think those couple extra minutes are going to add up to much over a year or two.