Saturday, May 23rd 2015
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NVIDIA Restores Overclocking on GTX 900M, Again
NVIDIA re-enabled overclocking on its GeForce GTX 900M series mobile GPUs, by releasing a new hotfix driver (GeForce 353.00 Hotfix). Launch drivers originally allowed overclocking on NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 900M series mobile GPUs. NVIDIA disabled overclocking with its R347 drivers, stating that overclocking was originally allowed due to a bug, drawing outrage from the PC enthusiast community. NVIDIA then re-enabled overclocking with its 347.88 drivers, with a quasi-apology. Then, without making much noise, the company disabled overclocking (or the "clock-block," as the enthusiasts are calling it), with its R350 drivers, which stayed on even as the drivers graduated to R352 series.
Following our May 21st report uncovering this, the company slipped out a driver hotfix, late last night. Version 353.00 Hotfix comes with a single item on its release notes, which reads "Fixes a regression that prevented overclocking the GPU on some GeForce Notebooks" (read: Whoops!). So gaming notebook owners have the freedom of overclocking their GPUs to tweak up eye-candy on the latest games, such as GTA V and The Witcher 3, which would have been buggy and unplayable, if users reverted to older R347 drivers, just to be able to overclock.
DOWNLOAD: GeForce 353.00 Hotfix for mobile GPUs
Following our May 21st report uncovering this, the company slipped out a driver hotfix, late last night. Version 353.00 Hotfix comes with a single item on its release notes, which reads "Fixes a regression that prevented overclocking the GPU on some GeForce Notebooks" (read: Whoops!). So gaming notebook owners have the freedom of overclocking their GPUs to tweak up eye-candy on the latest games, such as GTA V and The Witcher 3, which would have been buggy and unplayable, if users reverted to older R347 drivers, just to be able to overclock.
DOWNLOAD: GeForce 353.00 Hotfix for mobile GPUs
19 Comments on NVIDIA Restores Overclocking on GTX 900M, Again
They originally created the lock bit to allow the actual manufacturers of the cards/laptops to decide if they wanted to enable overclocking. We have to remember, nVidia isn't the one responsible for warranties here, the laptop manufacturers are. The lock bit was a feature of the GPU that the manufacturers knew about, and likely something nVidia even advertised to them as a way to help protect the laptops from damage from overclocking.
The problem is that nVidia's driver team screwed up when they copied the desktop driver and didn't lock out overclocking. When they discovered the bug, they fixed it. But the end users got pissed.
So nVidia re-enabled overclocking. The problem here is that likely didn't sit well with the laptop manufacturers. And nVidia probably has more legal obligations to the laptop manufacturers than they do to the end user. After all, the laptop manufacturers are nVidia's actual customers. They are the ones buying the GPUs from nVidia. The end user is then the customer of the laptop manufacturer, not nVidia. Really, nVidia has no legal obligation to the end user. And remember, the latest drivers don't totally lock out overclocking, they only lock out overclocking IF the laptop manufacturer decided to lock out overclocking.
So now they are stuck doing this juggling act to keep the laptop manufacturers from being mad, and to keep the end users happy.
The real question is how long until someone figures out how to remove the lock bit from the vBIOS. Then this won't be a problem. If you want to flash you card to enable overclocking, go ahead. It voids your warranty, so the laptop manufacturer is off the hook and happy, and you are free to overclock your laptop's GPU.
Seriously, this whole saga is starting to look like "much to do about nothing" I wonder why this drama makes it to the front page news... Talk about first world problems :rolleyes:
The chips thermally throttle anyway, so overclocking is not going to harm them, only cause users instability if they go to far, it won't cause any damage to the silicon of the GPU, so your point is invalid.
Hopefully the clock block (sorry) won't return.
@newtekie1 That does sound like a rock and a hard place indeed.
I think one way out of it is if a flag can be set permanently in the GPU if it's ever overclocked (the digital equivalent of a paper seal over a screw) so that when a dead laptop is returned, it's checked and if set, warranty can be denied.
To make things transparent, a small utility can be made available to the end user so that they can check for this bit themselves, along with a prominent warning on the laptop on a removable sticker that overclocking will void the warranty.
Some fine details would have to be worked out to reduce the chance of false positives etc.
I wouldn't mind trying it on my old H.P. lappy with a first gen APU, it's slower than an early Celeron, or at least feels like it.
I still overclock my laptop's 780m sli to 135mhz on the core and 350mhz on the memory.