NVIDIA Drivers Remove GPU Overclocking From Laptops With Maxwell Based GPUs?

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Over the last few weeks there have been complaints from laptop owners with Maxwell based GPUs that GPU overclocking features have been removed after updating their drivers using the GeForce Experience Update. Someone that appears to be a customer care representative going by the name of "ManuelG" in the GeForce forums stated last night that overclocking features were a "bug" and that NVIDIA has removed overclocking to safeguard systems from operating outside design limits. If true, this is obviously bad news for laptop owners with Maxwell based GPUs. We have reached out to NVIDIA for comment and we will update you when we know more.

Update by Kyle: I just talked to NVIDIA about the validity of this post on its forums and it did inform us, "Yes, that is an official statement from our group."
 
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Just have a one time warning popup if it detects an overclock about the risks and let the owners decide?
 
TY so much Steve for getting this on the front page hopefully this issue will get the attention it deserves, and maybe if We enthusiasts all let Nvidia know how we feel we can get this terrible decision reversed.
 
NVIDIA taking a page from Apple's playbook. They're basically "bricking" those GPU's.
 
I predict a hack that reverses this in 10 days, although I'm sure Nvidia won't care because if you have their drivers they can then offload blame for hardware failure on you, which is really what this is about.
 
amddragonpc said:
NVIDIA taking a page from Apple's playbook. They're basically "bricking" those GPU's.
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No, no they are not.

"Bricking" means rendering something completely unusable, as in making something as useless as a brick. People "brick" devices by experimenting with them, and some manufacturers have "bricked" devices with bad firmware updates.

These GPUs do not cease to function, neither do they deliver less than was advertised, so let's not get dramatic and use terms that don't apply, just for the effect.
 
OCing a laptop is pointless. You're lucky if it doesn't throttle down from thermal reasons on stock.
 
In other words, we can't let you do it, because of possible liability and lawsuits. It's not us it's our oem partners that told us to do this because of warranties and stuff like that. They matter more to us than you do so please with all due respect go f**k off. :)
 
Not that I have actually purchased a new laptop... ever except for work, but if this continues, I will think twice about buying or recommending a laptop with a Nvidia GPU.
 
What's the difference in Intel locking their processors to make more profits off "K' processors and what Nvidia is doing? I don't see people with pitchforks aimed at Intel so this is perfectly within Nvidia's rights to do so. Even if they sell the same GPU later with an overclock for 20% more. Their tech and it's within their rights to manage it as they see fit.
 
This, tbh, doesn't bother me. The post is right on point, as we ALL know here at [H]: Overclocking is no trivial matter. It's about proper cooling, power components etc. Without that, you're playing with fire, and when you're talking about a highly integrated system like a laptop, failure of one component usually means failure of the entire unit. If their products aren't designed to OC, then why put themselves and their customers (laptop OEMs) at unnecessary risk?

After all, the number of end users who will actually notice are VERY few.
 
Overclock a laptop GPU? Good luck with that staying stable and hitting the thermal throttling sooner.
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
OCing a laptop is pointless. You're lucky if it doesn't throttle down from thermal reasons on stock.
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So much this. Heck, you're lucky if it doesn't overheat and die running stock. I have a maxwell based 860m in my laptop and OC'ing it never even crossed my mind. If there were any way to make it run cooler without giving up much performance I would do that instead.
 
They say the voltage was locked so I doubt thermals are going to make a difference.

It's more likely Nvidia wanting to prevent people returning a laptop as "defective" because theirs won't OC the same as someone else's.
 
GaryJohnson said:
So much this. Heck, you're lucky if it doesn't overheat and die running stock. I have a maxwell based 860m in my laptop and OC'ing it never even crossed my mind. If there were any way to make it run cooler without giving up much performance I would do that instead.
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The anti-nVidia zealots are pretty much latching onto anything at this point. Look at the guy above getting all dramatic and going to boycot future laptops with nV on-board, laffo.

We had the same thing going on a few years ago when the tables were turned and it was all anti ATI rabble rabble. Who overclocks a laptop GPU anyway?
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
OCing a laptop is pointless. You're lucky if it doesn't throttle down from thermal reasons on stock.
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BS, I game on an Asus G750JM and enjoyed the extra performance from Oc'ing, plus I just like overclocking! The CPU is still able to be overclocked, and quite easily, drop the voltage and you get a cooler running system with better performance.

I hadn't looked in depth to see why I couldn't OC the GTX 860m anymore, assumed I did something wrong after uninstalling a program. Thanks for posting this, at least it wasn't me! But it IS frustrating. Sure, if you do it wrong you could hit the thermal limit and throttle, personally I've never had that problem. GPU wise the oc's weren't spectacular, memory on the other hand oc'd quite nicely and gave around a 5fps bump (GPU and mem combined). Go check out some of the Asus forums for specifics.

I will be selling this soon to pick up a 970m LT, really nice boost in perf there.
 
GaryJohnson said:
So much this. Heck, you're lucky if it doesn't overheat and die running stock. I have a maxwell based 860m in my laptop and OC'ing it never even crossed my mind. If there were any way to make it run cooler without giving up much performance I would do that instead.
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That was the beauty of under volting, which was allowed through NVTweak or another program. Runs cooler with better performance. Now? Not allowed =( There are some BIOS' available but I haven't tried them. Wasn't worth the extra few percent on the chance you brick your system.
 
Wow I am just amazed at the level of misinformation here.
Laptop GPU overclocking is know different than desktop, as long as you buy a quality laptop that can keep the thermals undercontrol it is very safe. I have Oc'ed the gpu on every laptop I have ever owned and thave never had one die inside warranty (infact I have never had a laptop gpu die period). furthermore the performance gains are not small and are often in the neighborhood of 20% +.

People here saying Laptop GPU overclocking is not beneficial/safe if done properly are either woefully misinformed or just plain talking out their ass and have never owned a real performance laptop before.
 
DarkStryke said:
The anti-nVidia zealots are pretty much latching onto anything at this point. Look at the guy above getting all dramatic and going to boycot future laptops with nV on-board, laffo.

We had the same thing going on a few years ago when the tables were turned and it was all anti ATI rabble rabble. Who overclocks a laptop GPU anyway?
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I have overclocked laptop CPUs and GPUs before. If you know what you are doing, it can actually give a decent performance increase. Enough to go from unplayable to playable on some games.

I would feel the same way if ATI started blocking overclocking on their laptop GPUs.

The only reason for this to be blocked is because the OEMs want to use crappier parts than they currently do.
 
cyclone3d said:
I have overclocked laptop CPUs and GPUs before. If you know what you are doing, it can actually give a decent performance increase. Enough to go from unplayable to playable on some games.

I would feel the same way if ATI started blocking overclocking on their laptop GPUs.

The only reason for this to be blocked is because the OEMs want to use crappier parts than they currently do.
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Amen Spot on assessment man!
 
Mugato said:
That was the beauty of under volting, which was allowed through NVTweak or another program. Runs cooler with better performance. Now? Not allowed =( There are some BIOS' available but I haven't tried them. Wasn't worth the extra few percent on the chance you brick your system.
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The better thing to do might be to lower the voltage and clocks together dynamically based on load... which the nVidia driver already does I think if you set the power management mode to "adaptive." It would be nice if it had a few more settings to tweak though.
 
Modred189 said:
This, tbh, doesn't bother me. The post is right on point, as we ALL know here at [H]: Overclocking is no trivial matter. It's about proper cooling, power components etc. Without that, you're playing with fire, and when you're talking about a highly integrated system like a laptop, failure of one component usually means failure of the entire unit. If their products aren't designed to OC, then why put themselves and their customers (laptop OEMs) at unnecessary risk?

After all, the number of end users who will actually notice are VERY few.
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Lots of people do not understand this concept as we are not talking about spacious towers with massive 240mm fans. Even running a heavily multithreaded program that only maxes out the cup cores can hit the thermal,limit for many laptops.
 
amdgamer said:
Lots of people do not understand this concept as we are not talking about spacious towers with massive 240mm fans. Even running a heavily multithreaded program that only maxes out the cup cores can hit the thermal,limit for many laptops.
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Neither are we talking about JUST 980m's in big ass Asus ROG 17" laptops. We are also talkign some lower spec cards and some 860m cards in chassis that contain much less cooling.
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
OCing a laptop is pointless. You're lucky if it doesn't throttle down from thermal reasons on stock.
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So much this. If you are OCing your laptop, you are just an idiot. Laptops are a finely balanced compromise of power/heat/battery.
 
Modred189 said:
Neither are we talking about JUST 980m's in big ass Asus ROG 17" laptops. We are also talkign some lower spec cards and some 860m cards in chassis that contain much less cooling.
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Exactly. This is to cover a full range of hardware out there, and keep idiots from frying their machines, then trying to claim warranty service for "defective" hardware. The ratio of this type of user to the type who has proper cooling in a laptop, knows what they're doing, etc. is very one-sided.

Maybe since ASUS advertises as being overclockable, they can release OEM drivers that still allow it or something. However, I very much see the point in keeping your average idiot from producing magic smoke, and passing the cost onto the company that sold it. I'm not a corporate apologist, but I could see this being a problem for a company. Getting a ton of returns because people didn't use the hardware correctly.
 
shad0w4life said:
Are people seriously trying to defend nVidia by saying OCing on a laptop is stupid?!

Buy a quality gaming laptop, they have intake, exhaust and other extra cooling fans for that reason. ASUS ROG is a great example, the case is designed around airflow through the chasis.

Which they even advertise as overclockable!
http://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_ROG_G750JZ/
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They advertise this for suckers like you. Anyone who understands PC thermals knows OCing a laptop that is already HEAVILY compromised is an exercise in futility. I know its blasphemy around here, but 99% of overclocks are just masturbation. I stopped OCing stuff around the Celeron 300A era.
 
lollerwaffle said:
No, no they are not.

"Bricking" means rendering something completely unusable, as in making something as useless as a brick. People "brick" devices by experimenting with them, and some manufacturers have "bricked" devices with bad firmware updates.

These GPUs do not cease to function, neither do they deliver less than was advertised, so let's not get dramatic and use terms that don't apply, just for the effect.
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Might as well be a brick, you lose what you paid for!
 
Hornet said:
Care to explain how does disabling overclocking prevents the hardware from functioning as intended?
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LOL. DISABLING the overclocking of the GPU means its not functioning as intended. You've LOST functionality.
 
amddragonpc said:
LOL. DISABLING the overclocking of the GPU means its not functioning as intended. You've LOST functionality.
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NOT when that functionality was never intended. You just as might say "Restoring the intended functionality."
 
Spire3660 said:
They advertise this for suckers like you. Anyone who understands PC thermals knows OCing a laptop that is already HEAVILY compromised is an exercise in futility. I know its blasphemy around here, but 99% of overclocks are just masturbation. I stopped OCing stuff around the Celeron 300A era.
Click to expand...


Why are you even reading a website that overclocks pretty much well everything they get?

I'm surprised that they get such drastic performance improvements when they OC CPUs and GPUs though for just being 'masturbation'

I overclocked my G73JH, worked great, the intake and exhaust fans on that laptop are great, even better when it's winter and I'm in my basement, nice little space heater.
 
If an OEM that uses NVidia GPU chips in it's Laptop models wishes to neuter them, that is entirely their option.

Certainly there are "gaming laptops" out in the world which allow overclocking.
These generally have specially designed thermals and can tolerate the heat produced.

But if you OD your HP laptop from overclocking or overvolting and expect HP to honor the warranty, that's just not right......it happens, and I'm sure that's why the OEMs were behind neutering the drivers.
 
Ever notice how, when nVidia makes a mistake, either deliberately or accidentally, it's a "bug"...;) nVidia's PR has always stunk, imo--it's like reading material written for ten-year-olds...!

Anyway, I will say this...laptops are absolutely the worst platforms for 3d gaming...go to practically any game forum you'd care to name and the majority of problems posted *always* come from laptop owners. Laptops use custom OEM hardware in most cases, resulting in the owner not being able to use the retail drivers as listed on AMD/nVidia's sites--many are restricted to getting drivers from their OEM. FOr instance, the following is cut & pasted from the AMD Mobility GPU driver page:

Description:
This driver is not intended for use on AMD products running in Apple Bootcamp platforms. Users of these platforms should contact their manufacturer for driver support.


If you experience difficulty while using the AMD Catalyst Mobility driver(s), we recommend reverting to the driver provided by your notebook vendor. Please contact your notebook vendor for their most recent graphics drivers.

***Important!***

The AMD Catalyst™ Mobility driver supports only AMD Enduro™ platforms that are based on second and later generation AMD A-series APUs or third generation Intel Core family. For a complete list of supported APU products, please refer to the release notes.
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If you do a lot of gaming you can do yourself a gigantic favor by building a desktop for your games (and whatever you do, stay away from Intel IGP's if you want to 3d-game!) A decent discrete 3d card w/ at least 2GB's of dedicated (not shared) VRAM is the ticket.
 
Spire3660 said:
So much this. If you are OCing your laptop, you are just an idiot. Laptops are a finely balanced compromise of power/heat/battery.
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Some laptops are more specifically cheap poorly made ones. Clearly you have never owned a real performance laptop.

There users over at places like notebook review forum who's Lapptops would put 90% of people heres desktops to shame.

If this were a case of a specific OEM say HP or Lenovo locking Overclocking at a bios level over heat/warranty concerns people would not be up in arms, but this is a lock that applies to ALL laptops even though there are many laptop manufactures (Alienware, Sager/Clevo, MSI) who's laptops are designed with very high end heat sinks with ton's of thermal headroom to support overclocks safely.

But it sounds like you have never owned a Real laptop or even bothered to look into the issue before commenting hence your ignorance and massive stupidity.
 
Update by Kyle: I just talked to NVIDIA about the validity of this post on its forums and it did inform us, "Yes, that is an official statement from our group."
 
Hello.

This is Bob.

Bob is a douche weasel.

Bob bought a computer system with a specially designed proprietary cooling setup that can't easily be modified and isn't designed to operate outside of a very narrow TDP window.

Bob discovered he can overclock his graphics card and against all reason and logic considering the above facts Bob does this anyway.

Manufacturer A discoveres their goof in enabling these overclocking features in the first place and disables them via driver update.

Bob is now mad he can't ruin his hardware voluntarily.

Bob is mad now because he should have bought a desktop he could modify and fuck with to his hearts desire rather than a laptop designed with a specific use case in mind.
 
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