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Overclocking a 540M

Forum Index > Tech Support
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1 2 Next All
DragoonPK
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
3259 Posts
December 23 2011 23:10 GMT
#1
Hi TL,

I just recently bought the Witcher 2, and as most of you know its a pretty demanding game. While I have no problems running the game at 30fps with a mix of low-medium settings, I was wondering if I am able to get more out of the card if I overclock it.The resolution I am currently playing at is 720p. My current laptop specs are:
Intel core i5-2410M 2.6ghz
4GB DDR3 Ram
500GB HDD
1GB 540M
Windows 7 64-bit

I was thinking of using nvidia system tools to do the overclocking, what do you guys think? Is it worth it to overclock a 540m?
poopman
Profile Joined September 2011
Canada83 Posts
December 23 2011 23:11 GMT
#2
Overclocking a laptop isn't the smartest idea... I suggest you don't
trancey
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
United States430 Posts
December 23 2011 23:14 GMT
#3
most laptops run hot, if you overclock it, it'll probably die in a fire.
Boblhead
Profile Joined August 2010
United States2577 Posts
December 23 2011 23:14 GMT
#4
scatman is correct. You shouldn't overclock anything on a laptop. Unless it has a turboboost which it doesn't. Your bettter off playing on lowest settings. You should of gotten a 460m or 560m for gaming.
DragoonPK
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
3259 Posts
December 23 2011 23:29 GMT
#5
I figured as much, I just wanted to see if there is a way to make what I already have better. Thanks anyways, I don't game much on my laptop other than SC2 and a few exceptions (Witcher 2 obv) so its all right.
DarthXX
Profile Joined September 2010
Australia998 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-12-24 00:10:19
December 24 2011 00:05 GMT
#6
Its worth a shot, just because it heats doesn't mean it's not worth a try like the people above suggested.

So long as your watch your temps, it should be fine. You can use Hwinfo in combination with MSIAfterburner On Screen Display Server to have your temps shown on screen while gaming. Before you try a game with the new clocks, get Furmark and do a burn test while monitoring temps.

edit: what is ur laptop model
Slipspace
Profile Joined May 2010
United States381 Posts
December 24 2011 00:15 GMT
#7
actually this generation of laptops actually run hot because of the processors and not so much the graphics processor

my laptop has an AMD graphics card but the same generation of intel processor and i can overclock it for about a 20% performance increase and the graphics card temps never go about 70ish. Whereas the CPU always hovers around mid 80s while gaming.

Unless Nvidia is different, you're probably fine doing a small overclock with a program like sapphire trixx.
ilikeredheads
Profile Joined August 2011
Canada1995 Posts
December 24 2011 02:08 GMT
#8
mid 80s for CPU is quite high.

Look, it is not advisable to overclock your laptop because laptop and cooling aren't exactly best friends. Combined with the fact that laptop fans are very hard to clean in general, it is not worth the risk. Even if you own a gaming laptop, I still don't recommend it.
Amui
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Canada10567 Posts
December 24 2011 02:16 GMT
#9
you can overclock a laptop GPU if you try. I'm good enough to replace all the thermal pads and stuff with stuff of my choosing and even after lowering idle/load temps by 4-5C it's still not worth overclocking for the tradeoff of battery life/temps.
Porouscloud - NA LoL
Slipspace
Profile Joined May 2010
United States381 Posts
December 24 2011 02:21 GMT
#10
On December 24 2011 11:08 ilikeredheads wrote:
mid 80s for CPU is quite high.

Look, it is not advisable to overclock your laptop because laptop and cooling aren't exactly best friends. Combined with the fact that laptop fans are very hard to clean in general, it is not worth the risk. Even if you own a gaming laptop, I still don't recommend it.

sandy bridge gets hot in laptops
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20285 Posts
December 24 2011 02:25 GMT
#11
Last time i bought a laptop with a decent GPU, i had to underclock it by about 20% to prevent it overheating and crashing the computer while melting the back and underside of the laptop casing.

Dont overclock laptops.
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
Slipspace
Profile Joined May 2010
United States381 Posts
December 24 2011 02:39 GMT
#12
On December 24 2011 11:25 Cyro wrote:
Last time i bought a laptop with a decent GPU, i had to underclock it by about 20% to prevent it overheating and crashing the computer while melting the back and underside of the laptop casing.

Dont overclock laptops.


or don't overclock laptops that go over the heat threshhold
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20285 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-12-24 02:45:59
December 24 2011 02:41 GMT
#13
On December 24 2011 11:39 Slipspace wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 24 2011 11:25 Cyro wrote:
Last time i bought a laptop with a decent GPU, i had to underclock it by about 20% to prevent it overheating and crashing the computer while melting the back and underside of the laptop casing.

Dont overclock laptops.


or don't overclock laptops that go over the heat threshhold


Most of them are borderline there anyay and have very little room for overclocking. It is best to leave OCing to desktops with upgraded cooling solutions IMO.
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
Slipspace
Profile Joined May 2010
United States381 Posts
December 24 2011 03:02 GMT
#14
On December 24 2011 11:41 Cyro wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 24 2011 11:39 Slipspace wrote:
On December 24 2011 11:25 Cyro wrote:
Last time i bought a laptop with a decent GPU, i had to underclock it by about 20% to prevent it overheating and crashing the computer while melting the back and underside of the laptop casing.

Dont overclock laptops.


or don't overclock laptops that go over the heat threshhold


Most of them are borderline there anyay and have very little room for overclocking. It is best to leave OCing to desktops with upgraded cooling solutions IMO.


or you can actually monitor your own laptop and determine if its safe to overclock or not instead of blindly assuming all laptops should not be overclocked because of a bad experience
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20285 Posts
December 24 2011 03:31 GMT
#15
On December 24 2011 12:02 Slipspace wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 24 2011 11:41 Cyro wrote:
On December 24 2011 11:39 Slipspace wrote:
On December 24 2011 11:25 Cyro wrote:
Last time i bought a laptop with a decent GPU, i had to underclock it by about 20% to prevent it overheating and crashing the computer while melting the back and underside of the laptop casing.

Dont overclock laptops.


or don't overclock laptops that go over the heat threshhold


Most of them are borderline there anyay and have very little room for overclocking. It is best to leave OCing to desktops with upgraded cooling solutions IMO.


or you can actually monitor your own laptop and determine if its safe to overclock or not instead of blindly assuming all laptops should not be overclocked because of a bad experience


Most laptops will have very similar results with the same hardware, it is generally accepted that overclocking laptops is a bad idea because of lack of extra cooling room, thats why i said it
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
Slipspace
Profile Joined May 2010
United States381 Posts
December 24 2011 16:09 GMT
#16
On December 24 2011 12:31 Cyro wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 24 2011 12:02 Slipspace wrote:
On December 24 2011 11:41 Cyro wrote:
On December 24 2011 11:39 Slipspace wrote:
On December 24 2011 11:25 Cyro wrote:
Last time i bought a laptop with a decent GPU, i had to underclock it by about 20% to prevent it overheating and crashing the computer while melting the back and underside of the laptop casing.

Dont overclock laptops.


or don't overclock laptops that go over the heat threshhold


Most of them are borderline there anyay and have very little room for overclocking. It is best to leave OCing to desktops with upgraded cooling solutions IMO.


or you can actually monitor your own laptop and determine if its safe to overclock or not instead of blindly assuming all laptops should not be overclocked because of a bad experience


Most laptops will have very similar results with the same hardware, it is generally accepted that overclocking laptops is a bad idea because of lack of extra cooling room, thats why i said it


if the laptop has sufficient cooling, a small overclock isn't going to hurt anything. overvolting is where you could run into trouble but even that is ok if you know what your laptop can and can't do.

just download a temp monitoring program and see what your numbers look like when the laptop is stressed before you do anything
Myrmidon
Profile Blog Joined December 2004
United States9452 Posts
December 24 2011 16:56 GMT
#17
In many situations, multiple CPU or GPU options will be offered for the same model of laptop, while the cooling solutions for some options may be the same.

Sometimes you can just run a GT 540M (nominal 672 MHz) at GT 550M (same chip, nominal 740 MHz) speeds, or something like that.

But more often than not, the hottest configuration for a given laptop is really too much heat for the system to handle when fully stressed. It's not the lower-end configs that are overprovisioned, but that the higher-end configs are underprovisioned. As a practical matter, I wouldn't assume much headroom for overclocking on most laptops, that would make it worthwhile.

Maybe not if you've got a dedicated GPU that more or less shares the same cooling path as the CPU, and you want to overclock the CPU (if possible) to run CPU-only tasks where the GPU will be idling. It really depends.
DragoonPK
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
3259 Posts
December 24 2011 17:21 GMT
#18
I tried messing around the with the graphic clock and memory clocks. I set the graphic clock to 800 and memory clock to 1000. I got a significant fps boost while playing Witcher 2. At 720p, the game now can run at high with 24-30 fps with fraps on. I checked the temperature after around 15minutes or so and it was at 70 Celsius. Is that fine?
Myrmidon
Profile Blog Joined December 2004
United States9452 Posts
December 24 2011 17:41 GMT
#19
70C is great for a laptop under load, at least as far as CPUs and GPUs are concerned.

As a check, try some different games or maybe even something like OCCT or Furmark (or maybe slightly more realistically, 3DMark) to get a gauge on a worst-case scenario.
viralintruder
Profile Joined August 2011
Jamaica140 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-12-24 17:55:17
December 24 2011 17:43 GMT
#20
Trust me, I have an Aspire 5750G-6496 with a 540M, and the thing spews heat like a kiln. People have told me that it smells like it's smoking when it's been active for half hour or so [the card, not the cpu]. I WOULD NOT suggest you overclock it, it WILL burn it up eventually.

Edit: I don't have a cooler at the moment, I just elevate mine. I can't help but worry that in the near future my card will just die on me one day, it runs that hot.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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