8600M GT BIOS to convert m1530 to 8700M GT

Has anyone done any BIOS level over clocking? I was looking at turning my m1530 video card into an 8700M GT. The 8600M GT DDR3 and 8700M GT are identical except the former runs at 475/700 and latter runs at 625/800. I've seen people over clocking their m1530 anywhere between 675/900 to 710/950. I don't want such an aggressive over clock because it doesn't make THAT much of a difference when you start pushing the envelope and thermally you could run into problems. I was thinking of 650/800 or 650/850.

I also wanted to change the 2D from it's ridiculous current 169/600 to 150/300. I may consider 150/200 but I'll have to see if there's a reason the RAM is that high (maybe Aero needs it or HD-DVD playback will get effected).

There are also settings for voltages. Maybe consider lowering voltage a bit, but I don't know. These are just some ideas. If anyone has gone down this route, do share your input/thoughts/BIOS

 

The 8700 has a dual rank memory bus, so that's a physical difference. I also believe it has a higher thermal need. (30W VS 25W for now I think) so I doubt it's possible.

 

8700 is also physically built on a different platform, so you can't just "change" it to a 8700 by overclocking or bios... but you can get almost the same performance.

 

Just overclock the gpu with rivatuner, saves all the hassle and potential dead gpu due to a bad flash.

The 8700 draws more power and afaik, sits on a different connector to the 8600 so you could have some problems there. Imo, it isn't worth doing.

 

So how do you safely over clock the 8600?

 

I too would like to know this, I've downloaded Rivatuner but as yet am far too wussy to do anything.....

 

and how much more heat will that generate? I notice that my gpu runs hotter than the cpu's do! GPU is between 57-64C Is't that a bit hot?

 

From what I gather....no. I think high 80's, 90's would be cause for concern, I could be wrong though.

 

rivatuner to overclock it, and then play a game, check for artifacts and temperature. you might want to get a temperature sensor, but realistically, use your judgement. look at the screen, are the pictures distorted? Is your computer too hot to touch?

 

Idle? Yes. Check out your "standard 2D clocks" [in Riva Tuner]. I think someone mentioned that your defaults are 169/600?! That's pretty high, compared to my 170/100. I'm not sure, though, because I'm using XP. Maybe Vista just needs all the GPU memory power.

Does it also get unbearably hot when you touch your laptop? Might want to get a cooler first before you even think of OC-ing...

My GPU idles at mid-high 40's C [44C right now]. When gaming, it depends on the game. 53C [lowest] on some, 65C [highest] on others. Everything else in between. Mine is the DDR2, though. I don't have a cooler [yet]. And I also don't OC -- just running at default clocks, 475/400.

 

My clocks are as follow according to riva tuner:
3D High: 513/702
Throttled (3D low): 297/301
2D: 182/602 (A07 BIOS made it go from 169 to 182... interesting)
Temperature goes between 65 (2D idle) and 75 (highest I've seen after a LAN party for a few hours playing UT2004 - I'll see how UT3 affects temperature when it arrives in the mail).

I do have some bad news. I tried yesturday for almost 2 hours to do the BIOS overclock but couldn't do it. Our video BIOS is basically just a stub and all the real BIOS information pertaining to the video card is in a section (called a module) of the 2MB main BIOS EEPROM. There are extractors for AMI bios', but I haven't been able to find an extractor for the DELL bios'. I don't even know if such a tool exists.

Presumably, if we had such a tool, we could strip/demux the video BIOS module from the main BIOS and then run NiBiTor on that module, modify what we wanted, then multiplex it back into the BIOS and reflash.

I suppose if someone wanted to, they could just get elbow deep in Hex code, but that's assuming there isn't a strange compression algorithm on the BIOS, and they can find the checksum portion of the BIOS and recalculate it with the changes... an awfully laborious and risky maneuver.

It's too bad . Anyone with an MXM card could do it, but m1530 users have GPU's built into the motherboard. Also for those who think the 8700M GT is different from the 8600M GT, I'd like to see your references. I've checked it all out and they're completely identical GPUs (and no pipelines pixel/vertex shaders have been disabled on the 8600M GT) with same memory bandwidth. If you overclock your 8600M GT (at the driver level) to 625/800 you'll get the EXACT same performance as the 8700M GT on all benchmarks.

 

Quite the difference alright! It must be the combination of OS, cpu, memory, hd, gpu, screen etc difference between your system and mine?

 

Its very easy to OC this notebook...When gaming I use 710/900 and get some very nice fps. If anyone still wants any easy way to OC the card just reply below.

 

What program and what do you do?
I'm not sure I want to try OC'ing as my temps are pretty high already...

 

rivatuner, it's ridiculously easy to overclock the gpu with it.

Forget about temps, the cooling system is more than capable of coping with a big overclock on the graphics card. As it doesn't add much heat anyway.

 

Yes, Rivatuner is good to o/c it, and also to monitor temps. The card overclocks very well, but I really dont recommend pushing it to the limits the way you would a desktop card. Also I think Rivatuner has some innaccuracy when it comes to the core speed.

And you should monitor CPU temps as well, as the heat from the GPU will affect the heat of all components.

 

i was wondering if any of you have replaced the thermal compound with some arctic silver 5 and if so how much did it help

 

You will still have heat coming from the gpu that is already hotter than the cpu...