Hey guys, I posted this on the NBR forums and thought I'd share it here also. It's a rough draft but I'll update it as I go along. My testing environment has been within Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 on my Alienware m15x. Enjoy!



WARNING: YOU WILL VOID YOUR GPU WARANTY (AND QUITE POSSIBLY YOUR FULL WARRANTY) BY FOLLOWING THESE INSTRUCTIONS AND CAN PERMANENTLY DAMAGE YOUR VIDEO CARD IN THE PROCESS. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING THAT MAY GO WRONG. FOLLOW THIS GUIDE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Ok, this is a rough draft and quick guide to volt modding your m15x 8800mGTX gpu to bring down some of those alarming temps. Some of you tech heads might know exactly how to do this but this is for those who don't.

Why would you want to do this? Well, the m15x is an amazing little piece of machinery, and a gaming wet dream, but as we all know it doesn't exactly have the best cooling system in the world. After ATITool stress testing brought my gpu to a max of 104C and Crysis brought me to 101C, I felt a little nervous having my gpu temps so close to the critical threshold value for the 8800m gpu which is 105C. Now, I haven't been able to reach 105C, and I want to make that clear. So, technically the card is performing within it's allowed technical and thermal parameters. However, for my peace of mind, I wanted to see if I could lower those temps just a few degrees.

What I'm outlining here is a way to modify the voltage settings on your gpu bios with a very slight decrease in voltage. I'm not doing anything crazy here and would be very surprised if anybody ran into problems with their card because of this. If I had strong reservations or doubts, I wouldn't be posting this guide. That being said, nothing is 100% certain in this word, so you do take a risk.

Tools you'll need:
HP USB Drive Boot Key Software
Dos Boot Files
Nibitor 4.2
Nvflash 5.67(must be 5.67 or above)

1. Ok, insert any usb key in a free usb port and start up the HP USB program in administrator mode (Vista) or normally in XP. We want to select the USB drive in the first drop down box and FAT as the filesystem in the 2nd drop down box. Check "Create a DOS startup disk" and point it to where you unzippd the Dos Boot files. It should look like this:



Add a name for your usb key such as "USBDos" and click start. You'll get the following warning:



Click Yes, of course!

2. Ok, now that the USB key is created. Unzip the Nvflash files into the root of the USB key. you should have 3 Nvflash files in the root. The important ones are:

cwsdpmi.exe
nvFlash.exe

Great, now let's make a backup of your gpu vbios so that we can put it on the usb key along with a custom created one with the new voltage settings that we want to use!

3. Boot up nbitor. If you are using Vista, you will need to right click on the main executable and choose "run as administrator". On the main screen, click "Tools -> Select device". Choose your card and hit "ok". Go back into "Tools ->Read bios->Read into nibitor" and the main screen should be populated with all the correct values at this point. It should look like this:



Ok, what we need to do first is make a backup copy of your vbios so that we can revert to the original if anything bad happens. Click file->save bios, and name it stock.rom. Save this rom directly on your usb key!

Ok, now that we have a backup, let's make our new bios... Click on the voltages tab as shown here:



Ok, what we're interested in changing are the 4 values located here. Choose the following values:
Extra: 0.95V
3d: 0.8V
Thrtl: 0.8V
2D: 0.8V

(You can do a lot of other .01 increment adjusting with the voltage editor and VID values but I was trying to keep this guide simple and the .05 increment serves us well in this case.)

It should look like this:



Click File->Save Bios-> and name this new bios 80VE95.rom on your usb key.

4. Ok, we've got everything we need to successfully flash your gpu with the new bios. So, let's double check what should be on this usb drive. It should have been successfully formatted as a bootup drive and should have the following files on it:

cwsdpmi.exe
nvFlash.exe
stock.rom
80VE95.rom

Also, plug your laptop into a good power source. You don't want the battery dying on you during the flash process.

5. Reboot! When you see the alienhead logo, hit F12 to access the boot menu. Choose the USB key. It should look like this:



Hit enter and it will dump you at a dos prompt. I'm the paranoid type, so I choose here to make ANOTHER backup of my rom with the nvflash utility. Type in the following command and hit enter:

nvflash --save stock2.rom



Now, we're ready to flash the rom! Type in the following and hit enter:

nvflash 80VE95.rom



It will ask if you are sure. Press "y" to continue, and the output should be:



Ok, that's it! Easy, huh?

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CAUTION:

Ok, let me stop and stress something. The step 5 that we just covered needs to be memorized by you so that you could do it with your eyes closed. I would recommend practicing the F12, usb key bootup choice, and all the nvflash commands so that you could do it blindfolded JUST IN CASE you had any sort of problem that prevented your gpu from displaying upon bootup. If this ever happens, you can follow the steps in 5 and flash your original bios to the card with "nvflash stock.rom" or "nvflash stock2.rom".

Now, if it makes you feel any better, I've never had to do this and I've flashed my fair share of gpus. The reason is that the gpu has a set of startup clocks that are fairly low and conservative. If you are going to have any instability issues, it's usually after you start booting up into Windows.

Anyway, we aren't making any drastic changes here. We made a very small voltage drop and I would be extremely surprised if anyone had problems from applying this mod. IF YOU HAVE ANY ERRORS IN THE FLASH PROCESS, DO NOT REBOOT THE COMPUTER. Reflash with the original stock.rom and wait for a successful flash. THEN restart.

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That's it! If you've followed this guide, you now have a gpu that should be running a few degrees cooler within stress applications or games.

6. Reboot and you're ready for testing.


Results:

ATITool Max from 104C to 98-99C
Crysis Max from 101C to 96C

100% Stable

Notice that the first time I did the 104C stress, I only ran ATITool for 9 mins so I might have gotten it higher. I ran the new stress test for 15 mins. That's a 5-6C decrease in temperatures with a very mild lowering of gpu voltage on the reflashed bios. I am VERY pleased with the results so far. NO ERRORS.

New max (98-99C):



Old max (104C):



Crysis New max(95-96C):



Crysis Old max(101C):




New 3dmark96 Score (for stability testing, not increased scores) Perfectly Stable with no errors.



Old score was 9188 (no screenshot). I'm not sure why m new score was so much higher. It's possible that I wasn't using the new beta drivers with the first score but I'm not sure.

That's it! I've had 100% stability so far and am very pleased with the decrease in max temps. I hope you've found this thread informative and let me know if you have any suggestions or corrections. Thanks.

2 great finds in the same day. Love it! Good job, Groove and Marker01!

That's really involved, thanks for posting Groove. With the m9700, I can undervolt with just Systool and a couple clicks, and it dropped the temps about 5 degrees with a minor drop in voltage.

Keep in mind that every vid card will be a little different, so the settings each card will find stability might be a little different.

Thanks guys, and you're exactly right Hammer.. no 2 pieces of silicon perform exactly the same so everyone's sweet spot may be a bit different. Honestly, 5C was really all I was looking for and I don't plan on getting ultra aggressive with the values. Gaming at 96C in AoC or Crysis makes me feel much better than 101C. It's funny, only the next-gen games bring my temps up that high. Guild Wars, Oblivion and other "older" games are several degrees cooler which is to be expected I guess.

with your m15x your temps are 101 degrees with crysis man that is high...

Yep, it's a hot gpu though... I read a m1730 user's temp log today and even in that behemoth with all the fans, he still peaked around the same temp at 96C although the avg was a few degs cooler. I mean, the m15x does have thermal issues but nothing that's horribly broken in my opinion. I'm still very much enjoying the machine, I just wish it had stronger fans. I think people can be assured not to have any deal breaking thermal issues as long as they avoid ordering the X9000 processor... The X9000 is almost guaranteed to downclock under stress and the only fix at this point has been to undervolt the cpu with RMClock.

yeah with my laptop cooler I keep my temps with my7950 gtx card down to 80 C while gaming on crysis...

holy crap awesome.

stickied!

Thanks Steve

Also, to everyone else, you can use this same method to overclock and underclock the core and memory frequencies to the card which should be relatively intuitive as you follow through this guide. I might expand the walkthrough to include instructions on how to do this. I just wasn't concerned at all with overclocking since my m15x runs hot enough as it is, but some of you might want to do this, especially if you own a different notebook. I've talked with one person who has also underclocked their card as well as undervolted and gained substantial battery life...

Great job Groove!