# NVIDIA Back to Dirty Tricks with GTX 900M Series Overclocking



## btarunr (May 21, 2015)

NVIDIA's driver team is at it again. The company drew outrage from the PC enthusiast community, for developing drivers that prevent GPU overclocking on its GeForce GTX 900M series notebook GPUs, in February 2015, with the introduction of its GeForce 347.29 WHQL drivers, blaming it on a "bug" that allowed overclocking on previous drivers. When called-out and under pressure from the community, it re-enabled overclocking on these chips, with the following GeForce 347.88 drivers, with an equally lame quasi-apology. 

Hoping that nobody would notice, the company seems to have reinstated the overclocking block, or "clock-block" as the community is calling it; with its R350 and R352 drivers, such as the GeForce 352.86. Enthusiasts in notebook-centric communities such as NotebookReview, discovered that the latest GeForce drivers prevent overclocking if it reads a "lock-bit" in the video BIOS. Below are the two excuses the company exhausted by means of mutual-contradiction.



 



*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## Selene (May 21, 2015)

The last two game ready drivers seam to have degraded the performance of my 780 Classifieds and have caused me to revert back to 347.88, get driver has stopped responding all the time, I think it has to do with my G-sync monitor.


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## erocker (May 21, 2015)

Back to dirty tricks? Pretty sure they never left from doing dirty tricks.


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## Hood (May 21, 2015)

I demand the God-given right to melt down my own laptop, and if the building burns down, so be it...(but let me check with my lawyer first, to make sure I can still blame nVidia)


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## GhostRyder (May 21, 2015)

Were back to this again???


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## Fluffmeister (May 21, 2015)

Presumably there is nothing stopping laptop users installing drivers I dunno... 160+ days old?


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## Dippyskoodlez (May 21, 2015)

Fluffmeister said:


> Presumably there is nothing stopping laptop users installing drivers I dunno... 160+ days old?



Games that wont work on the old drivers.


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## 64K (May 21, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> Were back to this again???



Looks like it. Maybe Nvidia thinks they didn't try hard enough to make it stick last go 'round.


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## Hood (May 21, 2015)

erocker said:


> Back to dirty tricks? Pretty sure they never left from doing dirty tricks.


Yes, they've expanded their Dirty Tricks department by 38% this year alone...my GPU company keeps up with the competition!  Those red team bastards were getting ahead of us with their latest dirty tricks, now we're in the lead again!  Good going nVidia, never wuss out and become "honest", that would be like giving up the fight!


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## Fluffmeister (May 21, 2015)

Dippyskoodlez said:


> Games that wont work on the old drivers.



True regular driver updates are nice, but I can't imagine there is any game breakers out there.

Interestingly I noticed 344.75 were released 183 days ago.


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## john_ (May 21, 2015)

I see Nvidia owners going full overclock, helping with damage control.


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## rtwjunkie (May 21, 2015)

Selene said:


> The last two game ready drivers seam to have degraded the performance of my 780 Classifieds and have caused me to revert back to 347.88, get driver has stopped responding all the time, I think it has to do with my G-sync monitor.


 
347.88 is where I am at now, and running great.  I plan to stay there until I find an inability to play a game.  Even Witcher 3 plays wonderfully on that "old" driver.


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## Fluffmeister (May 21, 2015)

john_ said:


> I see Nvidia owners going full overclock, helping with damage control.



Lighten up fella, that poke was an easy one to make.

Besides I personally think gaming laptops are stupid and often massively overpriced, but if they want to overclock them then they should be allowed to do so.

Beyond that this really doesn't affect me at all so. /shrug


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## the54thvoid (May 21, 2015)

May I also point out this article is from Bta who is apparently an Nvidia stooge.  Can we reroute the AMD driver posts to here please so?


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## rtwjunkie (May 21, 2015)

the54thvoid said:


> May I also point out this article is from Bta who is apparently an Nvidia stooge.  Can we reroute the AMD driver posts to here please so?


 
First thing I thought when I saw his post was all the people in the other thread accusing him of getting handouts from Nvidia to be their PR guy.


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## TRWOV (May 21, 2015)

john_ said:


> I see Nvidia owners going full overclock, helping with damage control.



huh? They're the affected ones, I would think every laptop owner with an overclocked nVidia GPU would be up in arms over this


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## Frick (May 21, 2015)

This article has the smell of qubit and it's not a good thing.


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## Tsukiyomi91 (May 21, 2015)

in the 1st place, they disabled it to ensure no one melts their GPU & now they re-enable it? what?  that kind of apology isn't gonna make any GTX900M users happy... IMO, keeping it stock for reliability is best since I know the risks of shortening the lifespan of the chip for a very small impact in which it won't reach desktop levels.


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## manofthem (May 21, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> First thing I thought when I saw his post was all the people in the other thread accusing him of getting handouts from Nvidia to be their PR guy.



I thought the exact same thing.  Oh it's funny how things go


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## GhostRyder (May 21, 2015)

Fluffmeister said:


> Lighten up fella, that poke was an easy one to make.
> 
> Besides I personally think gaming laptops are stupid and often massively overpriced, but if they want to overclock them then they should be allowed to do so.
> 
> Beyond that this really doesn't affect me at all so. /shrug


If you throw gas on the fire your going to get burned...



64K said:


> Looks like it. Maybe Nvidia thinks they didn't try hard enough to make it stick last go 'round.


Right, I mean really this should have been resolved awhile back.



rtwjunkie said:


> 347.88 is where I am at now, and running great.  I plan to stay there until I find an inability to play a game.  Even Witcher 3 plays wonderfully on that "old" driver.


I agree, upgrading drivers really is more meant for the CFX/SLI profiles.  I don't update my laptop driver to much unless I see something specifically saying words like "Fixed bug on (Insert Game)" or the likes.



rtwjunkie said:


> First thing I thought when I saw his post was all the people in the other thread accusing him of getting handouts from Nvidia to be their PR guy.


Its a trick, he's trying to throw everyone off the scent.
/sarcasm


Meh, I think the same thing I thought before.  Loosen restrictions on the top end GPU's and be tighter about the lower ones.  I mean most if not all laptops with a GTX 970m+ have some decent enough cooling to handle it (I can only think of 1 or 2 exceptions).


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## Haytch (May 21, 2015)

I don't know why, but I had a feeling this would reoccur.

Perhaps they are having some sort of issue with this series that they cannot resolve at the manufacturing level and are being cautious via the driver.

Hopefully we get more than an apology this time 'round and end up with an excuse.


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## Fluffmeister (May 21, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> If you throw gas on the fire your going to get burned...



This is true. 

But when I go fishing, I need to use bait...


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## Nosada (May 21, 2015)

Well this should put the record straight about TPU's (and bta's) rumoured pro-nVidia bias 

Let me reiterate my point from the other thread:

AMD and nVidia are screwing us over in the support department, the market needs a third player.


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## Selene (May 21, 2015)

Sorry I don't think my post was correct, the two new drivers for GTA5 and Witcher 3 causes problems with my 780 Classifieds(SLI) reverting back to 347.88 fixes the problems it causes for me.  I did more reading today and discovered that after 347.88 Nvidia has only been optimizing Maxwell GPUs (960/970 980 and Titan X) with its new game ready drivers.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/...as-performance-in-the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-/1/


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## tehehe (May 22, 2015)

Selene said:


> The last two game ready drivers seam to have degraded the performance of my 780 Classifieds and have caused me to revert back to 347.88, get driver has stopped responding all the time, I think it has to do with my G-sync monitor.


I have the same problem but with sli 970. It's really annoying. I get driver has stopped responding all the time even when browsing in chrome :/


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## Yorgos (May 22, 2015)

ahahahahaha,
so much fail in one comment.
Until next time fellows.... roflmao


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## Fluffmeister (May 22, 2015)

Yorgos said:


> View attachment 65038
> 
> ahahahahaha,
> so much fail in one comment.
> Until next time fellows.... roflmao



Explain.


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## HumanSmoke (May 22, 2015)

Fluffmeister said:


> Beyond that this really doesn't affect me at all so. /shrug


Me either and I have Nvidia dGPU laptops. I have/will overclock just about every piece of hardware I've ever owned, but I will only do so with components I've completely checked out personally. I don't overclock any all-in-one design assembled by low-wage semi-skilled labour at the behest of an OEM that often built its fortune on turning a blind eye to supporting its own products as soon as they were out the door.
For those who do overclock then it sucks royally,  but I'm pretty sure those people number a fraction of a percentage point of the total customer base. If I were someone that overclocked gaming laptops I'd probably gravitate to the premiere ODMs, and thus look to pressure them to bring the change - after all, some of these companies need every opportunity to differentiate themselves from the HP's and Dell's of this market.


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## nunyabuisness (May 22, 2015)

Hood said:


> I demand the God-given right to melt down my own laptop, and if the building burns down, so be it...(but let me check with my lawyer first, to make sure I can still blame nVidia)


GENIUS


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## Big_Vulture (May 22, 2015)

I would rather prefer undervolting methodes than overclocking. Anyway it is not nice from Nvidia closing users freedom.


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## the54thvoid (May 22, 2015)

After some jokes about burning things down, it occurred to me its actually a valid point. I work in the public service sector and the facility I work within is required by law to be safe for its users.
If a laptop is over clocked it generally has poorer heat management than a desktop. If there is a recorded and known risk of devices heating up to the point of combustion, or even non ignition burning, it is required by the manufacturer to mitigate that risk.
In a desktop, you might fry a card but it is not known to cause combustion. In a confined compartment space like a laptop, that risk is known.
The comment made about "checks lawyer to see if I can sue" is relevant in this respect. If I know I provide a product which when over clocked or over volted may cause harm to persons, I am vulnerable to legal action. Saying that overclocking is 'not allowed' doesn't remove the risk.
I am not defending Nvidia. It would be easier to say to the consumer that certain devices aren't designed for over clocking.
As for myself, it would never ocurr to me to overclock a laptop for performance increase and I run a custom water loop with over clocked CPU and twin gpu's with flashed BIOS'.
You want a fast gaming laptop? Then splash out some serious cash and be happy. Leave the over clocking to desktops.
One last point. I put everything under water to overclock.  Even if I was on air I'd buy a substantial air cooler. You don't get that inside a laptop. Nvidia are covering their asses and then looking like tools (sorry, are being tools) by not being honest about it (no surprise there).


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## R-T-B (May 22, 2015)

erocker said:


> Back to dirty tricks? Pretty sure they never left from doing dirty tricks.



Careful, remember if you call nvidia out too much, you'll lose all that money they pay you for FUD and drivel!

(If you are uncertain as to what I mean, check the catalyst editorial thread.  Some fun accusations there...)


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## HumanSmoke (May 22, 2015)

R-T-B said:


> Careful, remember if you call nvidia out too much, you'll lose all that money they pay you for FUD and drivel!


But conspiracy theories and a well maintained persecution complex are so much more entertaining than common sense. Besides, I think some communities must use a loyalty points system to get discounts on subscriptions. Three inclusions of the word "kickbacks" probably gets you a certificate...maybe even a ribbon!


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## ZeDestructor (May 22, 2015)

the54thvoid said:


> Nvidia are covering their asses and then looking like tools (sorry, are being tools) by not being honest about it (no surprise there).



What would you say they could do? the backlash over them disabling overclocking when they very deliberately stated that it was done for safety reasons to fix a bug (a bug, not a feature!) got so much backlash that they re-enabled it. No matter what they say, people will still spread the FUD (see GTX 970 memory configuration as an example of insane circlejerk FUD-spreading) and be whiny arseholes about it.


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## TC-man (May 22, 2015)

I guess Nvidia may ask premium for overclock-able (mobile) GPUs in the near future (kinda equivalent to Intel Core i5/7 K series processors)...


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## alwayssts (May 22, 2015)

TC-man said:


> I guess Nvidia may ask premium for overclock-able (mobile) GPUs in the near future (kinda equivalent to Intel Core i5/7 K series processors)...



More likely scenario imho:  nvidia will release higher-clocked and/or reconfigured parts that are higher performance than current mobile parts, but within range of their overclocking ability.  They cleary don't like when that happens.  On the surface the rationalization (QA) seems fair enough, until you realize it's an excuse, and the reason why Greenlight came into existence is so that no company made a '770' out of a '680'.  They really would like to sell you the same part again, if they can.

This has been my personal theory since the last go-round on this topic.

I think a plausible scenario is that at some point nvidia realized 16nm wasn't going to make the mobile refresh cycle, said something collectively to the effect 'oh shit', and then did everything possible to make sure those 'new' gpus will look like some kind of masterful efficiency/performance boost.

I'm not saying they ever intended overclocking to available in the first place, but with how badly they've handled the situation and clearly have gone out of their way to prevent people from doing it even in spite of tremendous outcry for 'removing a feature', there has to be a motive...

....and with nvidia, the Occam's razor usually points to it involving green.


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## Casecutter (May 22, 2015)

Fluffmeister said:


> Presumably there is nothing stopping laptop users installing drivers I dunno... 160+ days old?


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## newtekie1 (May 22, 2015)

I think nVidia out themselves between a rock and a hard place. They have given the option to allow overclocking to the manufacturer of the card. The manufacturer decided if they want to set the lock bit in the BIOS or not. However, nVidia's driver team then screwed up and allowed overclocking on all cards. When they found the bug, they fixed it. But it pissed off users. So they went back to allowing all cards to be overclocked. But now the manufacturers are probably bitching because they don't want to allow overclocking, that is why they set the lock bit in the BIOS. After all, the laptop manufacturers are the ones that have to deal with RMAs if anything goes wrong, not nVidia. And I believe nVidia has more legal requirements to the manufacturers(nVidia's direct customer) than they do to the end user(nVdia's indirect customer).


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## Zeblade (May 22, 2015)

lmao.. dirty tricks? Its THEIR card. you screw it up under warranty THEY pay not you. You have a simply little web site have no clue how the real world works. When YOU have to fork out hundreds of thousands because the few feel they have some right to over clock.. lol

back to your world.. oh its just TEXT..nothing personal


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## newtekie1 (May 22, 2015)

Zeblade said:


> Its THEIR card. you screw it up under warranty THEY pay not you.



Technically, it is the manufacturers card(ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Lenovo, Dell, etc.), and the manufacturer pays if it screws up under warranty not nVidia.

Though that made me just think of something else.  This overclocking lock, if I read the original article correctly, reading a lock bit from the BIOS.  So it can't be too long before someone figures out how to edit the BIOS to remove the lock bit and re-flash the unlocked BIOS.  Granted, flashing a GPU's BIOS is a bit more risky with a laptop, but then again so is overclocking.


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## RichF (May 23, 2015)

Nvidia "back to" dirty tricks?

_This just in... leopard back to being spotted._

I guess people are forgetting that the company _still_ lists the 970 as having 4 GB of 224 GB/s VRAM, even though that is a 100% verifiable lie — according to their own information.


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## newtekie1 (May 23, 2015)

RichF said:


> I guess people are forgetting that the company _still_ lists the 970 as having 4 GB of 224 GB/s VRAM, even though that is a 100% verifiable lie — according to their own information.



But it is a 4GB card with 224GB/s of total memory bandwidth. There is no lie there.


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## HumanSmoke (May 23, 2015)

alwayssts said:


> More likely scenario imho:  nvidia will release higher-clocked and/or reconfigured parts that are higher performance than current mobile parts, but within range of their overclocking ability.


...or someone in Nvidia's driver team was asleep at the wheel, y'know since Nvidia pretty much admitted the fact and already has a hotfix available to re-enable overclocking (available since about the same time you posted....now how suspicious is THAT!)


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## Fluffmeister (May 23, 2015)

Well that was an anti-climax.


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## Captain_Tom (May 23, 2015)

I switched to AMD to avoid Nvidia's hideous drivers many years ago.


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## HumanSmoke (May 23, 2015)

Captain_Tom said:


> I switched to AMD to avoid Nvidia's hideous drivers many years ago.


I switched to TPU to avoid AMD shills many years ago....I guess all good things come to an end.

...although I guess AMD's drivers should be pretty polished given than they are coding for 4 year old parts getting their fourth name....HD 7870M > HD 8870M > R9 270X > R9 M370X. If the driver team can't get it right after four years of trying, maybe they should try another line of work...although given the protracted problems with Enduro and Switchable Graphics, I'm guessing the driver team possess a large cache of incriminating material against AMD's board members.


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## Captain_Tom (May 26, 2015)

Tsukiyomi91 said:


> in the 1st place, they disabled it to ensure no one melts their GPU & now they re-enable it? what?  that kind of apology isn't gonna make any GTX900M users happy... IMO, keeping it stock for reliability is best since I know the risks of shortening the lifespan of the chip for a very small impact in which it won't reach desktop levels.



Think again.  I get a 25% performance boost from overclocking my 765m.  That puts it at or above the 650 Ti it is based off of.  I would imagine that a fully overclocked 980m could easily reach a 970.


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## Captain_Tom (May 26, 2015)

HumanSmoke said:


> I switched to TPU to avoid AMD shills many years ago....I guess all good things come to an end.
> 
> ...although I guess AMD's drivers should be pretty polished given than they are coding for 4 year old parts getting their fourth name....HD 7870M > HD 8870M > R9 270X > R9 M370X. If the driver team can't get it right after four years of trying, maybe they should try another line of work...although given the protracted problems with Enduro and Switchable Graphics, I'm guessing the driver team possess a large cache of incriminating material against AMD's board members.



Wow did I hit a nerve?  That is honest to god my experience.  

Sure the 765m in my laptop's drivers have been WAY smoother than when I had a 560 Ti (So maybe Nvidia is improving), but honestly that might just be because I don't update the drivers as often as my desktop.


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## Tsukiyomi91 (May 26, 2015)

I'm more towards running on stock speeds since mobile chips aren't design to be heavily OCed just to reach desktop class levels... unless it has some very sophisticated cooling system then bumping a few MHz is beneficial. My laptop's GTX860M boost clocks are sufficient as I dun expect much from mobile GPUs no matter how efficient they are. All I know is once you push it too much, the lifespan deteriorate much faster than your whole system's stated warranty e.g 2 years.


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## Captain_Tom (May 26, 2015)

Tsukiyomi91 said:


> I'm more towards running on stock speeds since mobile chips aren't design to be heavily OCed just to reach desktop class levels... unless it has some very sophisticated cooling system then bumping a few MHz is beneficial. My laptop's GTX860M boost clocks are sufficient as I dun expect much from mobile GPUs no matter how efficient they are. All I know is once you push it too much, the lifespan deteriorate much faster than your whole system's stated warranty e.g 2 years.



Dude my 765m is in a 13.3" netbook and shares its heatsink with a 56w i7.  The GPU running full speed overclocked never goes above 81c, and is usually in the low 70's.


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## Tsukiyomi91 (May 26, 2015)

with cooler pad on + air-conditioned room? Mine, being a 15 incher, barely hits 70c on load with the cooler pad on.


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