Well, there are two ways to overclock the GeForce 6800 (Go or ultra). You probably void the warrenty if Dell finds out you overclocked or fried your chip.
To get the drivers that I used in this guide, go here:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/
I used the version 77.70 although you are more than welcome to try other versions. The difference? Some are more stable than others. Which is the most stable? Depends on the computer really. The only way to really know is try them out.
On to the OVERCLOCKING!! This first section is the easy, 30 second method. Directly after is the more advanced method.
To get here: START -> Control Panel -> Display (Icon) -> Settings (Tab) -> Advanced (Button) -> GeForce Go / Ultra 6800 (Tab)
A quicker way is to right-click on your desktop and under NVIDIA Display click on Laptop Display.
Go to "Clock Frequency Settings" (menu off to left).
Once in the panel, select "Manual overclocking" (it'll pop up with a disclaimer for you to read. Just scroll down to the bottom of the disclaimer and then you can proceed).
There is a pull-down menu called "Settings". Make sure it is set to "Performance (3D)" (like in the picture above). You don't need to overclock 2D apps.
The easiest and safest way to overclock is to simply hit the "Detect Optimal Frequencies" button and the fastest safest clock settings will be automatically chosen.
Make sure the "Apply these settings at startup" is checked and you're done!
One note about this method. The automatically detected settings can be different every time you "Detect Optimal Frequencies". In fact, some have auto-detected crazy numbers (like 500MHz for a Core Clock Frequency and 1000MHz for a Memory Clock Frequency). These are not realistic. To get more realistic numbers, run a 3D program (Doom3, UT2004, 3DMarks05, etc) to get your video card to warm up first. Then proceed to "Detect Optimal Frequencies". Thanks to the members who caught this error.
=== MORE ADVANCED METHOD ===
Now, if you want to try to go higher than these auto-detect settings, you have to be more careful.
First, you need a program called RivaTuner. This can be found here:
http://www.guru3d.com/rivatuner/
Opening RivaTuner, looks like this:
First we need to turn off the "force testing". When you change your clock frequency settings normally, you have to test your settings to make sure they work. Well, anything above the "Automacially Detect Frequencies" (which is where we're headed) will fail the test.
Go to the Power User tab. You'll have to say that you are a power user. Expand the "RivaTuner 2.0 RC 15.6 \ NVIDIA \ Overclocking" (pic shown below).
The value for "DisableInternalClockTest" needs to set to 1. Right click on "DisableInternalClockTest" and click on the illuminated light bulb (see pic).
Next we have to turn off one more test. Go to "RivaTuner 2.0 RC 15.6 \ Overclocking \ Global" and expand (click on the + next to it).
Again, we need to change the "DisableClockTest" to 1. Same procedure as above. The pic below illustrates.
Ok, now we're ready to start changing frequencies (MHz). Go back to the Main tab. Then, under "Driver settings", we're going to click on he box next to "Customize". See pic below.
You want to click on the first (left-most) icon (the video card) which are the system settings. This will open another window.
Put a check in the box next to "Enable driver-level hardware overclocking" and select "performance 3D" in the pulldown menu to the right.
Under "Startup settings", put a check in the box marked "Apply overclocking at Windows startup ... ".
So now comes the fun part. The two sliders (Core Clock and Memory Clock) are where you overclock your video card. I would move them in 5 - 10MHz increments and then test. Hit the "Save" button and click Apply to use those settings. How to test? Glad you asked.
You should use a program that taxes your video card. Most modern 3D games will do it. For a program everyone has access to I would recommend 3DMarks05 found here:
http://www.futuremark.com/download/?3dmark05.shtml
Run the benchmark at least a couple times to be sure there are no errors. What you are looking for are "stars" (random colored pixels just floating), textures popping in and out, colored stripes, freezing, etc. This is your video card going too fast.
Once you've found the frequency where you START to see video errors (stars, popping textures, etc) then drop the MHz back about 10MHz for each slider. Then, loop the 3DMark05 benchmarking demo for a while (1 hour+). This will heat up your video card so you can make sure everything runs smoothly while your video card is heated up (it's most taxed state).
Now, the question, "Will I fry my video card?" It's possible but rather hard to do. See, the video cards GPU (graphics processor unit) has a thermal sensor (thermometer) in it to make sure it doesn't overheat. Plus, your video card can operate at VERY high temps. I've read some people with GPUs in the high 70's celsius. The video errors you see while testing are because your video card can't go that fast, not because you're melting things.
Your video card will cease to operate and shutdown before it even gets close to melting. My GPU runs around 48C idle and around 70C after an intense gaming session.
I've found that overclocking the memory clock doesn't really speed up performance all that much compared to overclocking the core clock. Overclocking results will be different for everyone. Somes cards overclock more than others. If yours goes higher than mine, awesome! If not, don't worry.
Hope this helps.
