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

Hapatingjaky said:
Seriously, no one at HardOCP knew who ManuelG is? LOL.
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Seriously, ManuelG has never been an official point of contact for me at NVIDIA and I have never interfaced with him to my knowledge. When reporting of something of this nature we find it important to check with our official NVIDIA contacts.

Given his status on the NVIDIA forums is the only reason we posted it to begin with this morning, but still thought it was worth a follow-up that this is an official company-wide position.
 
Darth Millennial said:
Hello.

This is Bob.

Bob is an douche intelligent Consumer and technology enthusiast.

Bob bought a computer system marketed by the manufacture as overclocking capable after lots of research to ensure it had a good cooling system with plenty of thermal headroom .

Bob discovered he can safely and responsibly overclock his graphics card and safley gain a ton of extra performance while engaging in a fun and enjoyable hobby

Manufacturer A Gets really greedy and wants to force Bob to buy new machines more frequently even though Bob already spend a ton of money on new lpatops with a fair degree of regularity; and thus disables Bobs ability to modify the hardware he Paid good money for.

Bob is now mad he can't engage in a hobby he enjoys.

Bob is mad now because Ignorant Morons defend Company A because they know nothing about current laptop hardware but feel the need to be snarky dicks about something they don't understand.
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Fixed that for you !
 
Thanks for the update, KB.
I'm not 100% familiar with the driver landscape on laptops, not being a gaming laptop owner, but is this something individual OEMs could re-enable if they wanted?
 
I must be in the wrong place is this the Hardforum or Softforum ?

Nvidia protecting the masses against their own stupidity - please , this is all about them protecting their next gen and unsold inventories and giving you less for more $.

They are taking away the choice of overclocking and people are lapping up the coolade ..

Its not like nvidia has had thermal limiters and tdp limiters built into its boosting baked in its drivers since fermi - oh no the laptops will melt with a mild gpu overclock as throttling won't kick in as designed.

Once AMD have something competitive in the laptop space this will backfire .

I just hope with so many here easily agreeing with NV on this one they don't turn their sites to desktop overclocking as it seems a typical overclock on the last gen cards is enough to keep up with the new gen these days (780ti vs 980) and hence they are going to need some protection from their last gen going forward.

Bathed in a coldsuite i await the flaming !
 
Laptop gaming to me is what you do when you are constantly on the move and can't expect yourself to be tied down for too long.

That being said laptops for gaming is a pile of junk. Don't care what Nvidia, AMD, or Intel has in those machines cause manufacturers haven't given a crap about the heat output. These things run far too hot and don't offer better solutions when it comes to cooling. A Desktop though will happily run hardware that's 3x faster at a far cheaper price without the worry of melting down.

I'm not worried about Nvidia preventing consumers not being able to overclock on their laptops, cause you wouldn't want to anyway. But they did it not because of a bug but because consumers are pushing their laptops far too hard which is killing their machines too soon while under warranty. They're worried about their bottom line, not because they made a mistake in the driver code. That's just nonsense.

With all this talk about FrozenCPU it made me realize that PC computing had left behind the art of water cooling. We need it more than ever cause these parts aren't going to run cooler. Anyone who thinks that heatpipe technology is enough is overlooking todays problems. Just look at the coolers of graphic cards back in 2000.

radeon7200_t.jpg


Compared to the cool running GTX 980, which btw still hits 70C.
102b.jpg


And look at the massive coolers we put on CPUs which can still hit 80C under load.
91UNx7QSvpL._SX522_.jpg


We need to bring back water cooling, and we need to bring it to laptops as well. We have the technology to fit a water cooler in a laptop. It might even take less space compared to this massive heatpipes we run all over the place.

Just look at this mess, and it's still not enough to cool it proper.
Small%20%283%20of%209%29.jpg
 
OtsLaPc.jpg


So take a look at the temps of a stock 980M 8GB in a Clevo P750ZM notebook.

Under 67 degrees! It can easily do a +400 MHz overclock, well within safe temps.

Thanks to jaybee83 from NBR for the table.
 
iaTa said:
OtsLaPc.jpg


So take a look at the temps of a stock 980M 8GB in a Clevo P750ZM notebook.

Under 67 degrees! It can easily do a +400 MHz overclock, well within safe temps.

Thanks to jaybee83 from NBR for the table.
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Glad to know samples of 1 are statically significant for calculating reliability and warranty costs.
 
Darth Millennial said:
You fixed it for yourself. There is no such thing as safely overclocking a LAPTOP! :mad:
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Please.

The laptop in my sig, I can apply a 10% overclock and still keep temps under 80C during summer when it's 80F in my room.

Enthusiast grade laptops designed to house TWO 100W TDP mobile GPUs are more than capable of handling an overclock.
 
Thanks for the table iaTa .

So we know some mobile GPUs can overclock very well producing minimal extra heat that the cooling systems in high end laptops can easily cope with.

For the other lower end laptops there is and was always protection in the drivers even prior with thermal throttling limits and TDP limiters.

So knowing that there was always very little risk of any harm where does that leave the community ? will nvidia reverse this ?

The older heads here know the answer to this .. we mod our own drivers or make our own hacks to get around this.
 
Sorry Apparently my last comment was too personal. Fair enough I apologize for that and I will put it another way.

Everyone here saying that Laptops GPU's cannot be safely overclocked and/or will melt ETC. is wrong Flat out wrong and every single person making that claim is speaking from a position of Zero experience and/or pure ignorance; and is simply defending a terrible anti consumer decision being made by Nvidia.

Anyone that is fit to actually call themselves an enthusiast should be outraged by what Nvidia is doing here.

Laptop GPU overclocking Just like Desktop Cpu overclocking is 100% safe (with the possible exception of some extreme fringe cases) Just like Desktop GPU Laptop GPU's are designed to throttle long before they can ever be damaged and furthermore just like Desktop GPU's Laptop GPU's will not throttle if cooled properly (which they are in any decent notebook)

Laptop overclocking just like desktop overclocking is a fun and safe hobby with very little real risk of damaging your hardware and anyone stating otherwise is either willfully ignorant of the truth or intentionally spreading lies and information.
 
kinjo said:
Sorry Apparently my last comment was too personal. Fair enough I apologize for that and I will put it another way.

Everyone here saying that Laptops GPU's cannot be safely overclocked and/or will melt ETC. is wrong Flat out wrong and every single person making that claim is speaking from a position of Zero experience and/or pure ignorance; and is simply defending a terrible anti consumer decision being made by Nvidia.

Anyone that is fit to actually call themselves an enthusiast should be outraged by what Nvidia is doing here.

Laptop GPU overclocking Just like Desktop Cpu overclocking is 100% safe (with the possible exception of some extreme fringe cases) Just like Desktop GPU Laptop GPU's are designed to throttle long before they can ever be damaged and furthermore just like Desktop GPU's Laptop GPU's will not throttle if cooled properly (which they are in any decent notebook)

Laptop overclocking just like desktop overclocking is a fun and safe hobby with very little real risk of damaging your hardware and anyone stating otherwise is either willfully ignorant of the truth or intentionally spreading lies and information.
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What does this have anything to do with it.
This was a pure business decision. Nvidia and the OEMs realized what was goingn on ad did some math:

On one side, A, they considered the loss of "good faith" with the super hard core enthusiasts, and the dollars attached to it.

On the other side, B, they considered the costs of warranty repairs, RMAs and other customer service costs.

In the end, they decided that A, which is a niche of a niche, represented a smaller cost than B. Besides, what are you going to do, go buy an AMD-based gaming laptop? These days, not likely. The people buying this caliber of laptop are getting Intel Core i7 based systems with an Nvidia gpu. They know there really is nowhere else for those customers to go, so they have the entire lifespan of these new laptops (say 3 years) for those customers to be entirely satisfied with their computers before they even have to consider dealing with the costs associated with A above.

This was a smart business decision, and if you think about it, it would be the decision you'd make in the same position. Now, I know that doesn't get you back your minor overclock on a gaming laptop (still LOL), but don't rage against a company making a smart move.

Be disappointed, move on and mod your own drivers. Or wait for them to be modded, it's only a matter of time.
 
Modred , you miss the point.

You are right It was a business decision .. that certainly involves saving them $$ and it was a smart move for them yes yes. But the money comes from forcing people to upgrade to their new gen rather than overclocking the last gen and letting them release less significant upgrades year in year out.

IMHO there never was any significant cost of RMAs warranty repairs etc outside of what could normally attributed to normal hardware failure. I think it was a guy in this thread who had 3 dead 6990s at stock ? in 18 months .. or maybe at ocn .. either way hardware can go faulty regardless of overclocking so how you isolate it to overclocking killed this laptop IDK.

Where i think NV are been shortsighted is people have long memories, within 3 years Amd will be competitive again in the laptop space. Once burnt twice shy and then a significant chunk of the laptop market will walk on the next purchase.

Don't forget the money is in the high end gaming laptops .. not the run of the mill laptops.

If NV was really concerned about the warranty then an opt out clause to enable overclocking would resolve their issue but that has not been done because warranties / rmas are not where they would loose money.
 
Well maybe they didn't consider that many people will now revert to VBIOS modding and they will likely have to contend with even more RMAs than before.
 
jwcalla said:
So basically never?
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lol possibly .. well believe me you want some choice for the sake of pricing.

Once nividia starts to roll out 10-15% upgrades per generation like on desktop (because they can still remain ahead) then we are all in trouble.
 
iaTa said:
Well maybe they didn't consider that many people will now revert to VBIOS modding and they will likely have to contend with even more RMAs than before.
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That violates the warranty, so no costs there. Minimal shipping costs at best.
 
kinjo said:
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.
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QFT.

I've overclocked my 680m and made sure it didn't throttle, eeked a little more performance out of it.

OFF TOPIC: Also, I'm a cripple in a 3rd world country, so I NEED my computer to be portable. Am I stupid for paying that much, $2700 at the time, for a gaming laptop?

NVIDIA wants people to PAY for the high-end chips, instead of overclocking a lower end chip and getting comparable performance. Simple as that.
 
Well if you annoy consumers unnecessarily as in this case it is not good business practice.

Lets work that one through , Nvidia disables a feature that was enabled that many enthusiasts bought their laptops with the intention of doing either overclocking for performance or undervolting for extra battery life - customer flashes vbios and bricks their laptop (doubtfull but possible) .. nvidia\oem then denies any warranty due to non standard bios .. hmm bet that customer will buy that brand again if they have any choice in the matter.

I doubt that's a win for Nvidia there.
 
Orthello said:
Well if you annoy consumers unnecessarily as in this case it is not good business practice.

Lets work that one through , Nvidia disables a feature that was enabled that many enthusiasts bought their laptops with the intention of doing either overclocking for performance or undervolting for extra battery life - customer flashes vbios and bricks their laptop (doubtfull but possible) .. nvidia\oem then denies any warranty due to non standard bios .. hmm bet that customer will buy that brand again if they have any choice in the matter.

I doubt that's a win for Nvidia there.
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Fair, but it's not a loss either. First, that's not the kind of customer the OEM wants, since they will cost more money in dealing with a customer incompetent enough to brick their laptop.
Nvidia doesn't care either because there is no real competition in this space. AMD simply doesn't have any comparable laptops to go up against an i7/980m combo.
So worst case scenario, that customer goes and buys some other brand laptop with the same nvidia chip.
 
Ashbringer said:
Laptop gaming to me is what you do when you are constantly on the move and can't expect yourself to be tied down for too long.

That being said laptops for gaming is a pile of junk. Don't care what Nvidia, AMD, or Intel has in those machines cause manufacturers haven't given a crap about the heat output. These things run far too hot and don't offer better solutions when it comes to cooling. A Desktop though will happily run hardware that's 3x faster at a far cheaper price without the worry of melting down.

I'm not worried about Nvidia preventing consumers not being able to overclock on their laptops, cause you wouldn't want to anyway. But they did it not because of a bug but because consumers are pushing their laptops far too hard which is killing their machines too soon while under warranty. They're worried about their bottom line, not because they made a mistake in the driver code. That's just nonsense.

With all this talk about FrozenCPU it made me realize that PC computing had left behind the art of water cooling. We need it more than ever cause these parts aren't going to run cooler. Anyone who thinks that heatpipe technology is enough is overlooking todays problems. Just look at the coolers of graphic cards back in 2000.

<SNIP IMAGES>

We need to bring back water cooling, and we need to bring it to laptops as well. We have the technology to fit a water cooler in a laptop. It might even take less space compared to this massive heatpipes we run all over the place.

Just look at this mess, and it's still not enough to cool it proper.
<SNIP IMAGE>
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Your post demonstrates that you don't understand how technology has changed in the past 15 or so years, how peoples' expectations have changed, the competitive market forces that are pressuring hardware manufacturers to design components that require additional cooling, and don't understand how manufacturers harvest and bin dies according to the results of testing after production.
 
Thank you big brother NVIDIA. Please let me know when I can give you more money.
 
Hapatingjaky said:
Kyle, you guys should use him as a contact. The guys a fuckin genius and great at getting shit done, especially for drivers. He regularly posts on Guru3D, Rage3d etc.

Been great for me getting driver issues fixed, like the DP Port no display issue on the 970/980.
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Ask him why he supports those communities but not this one? He could easily post here as well too.

NVIDIA is very specific about who can interface with HardOCP and who can't in my experience. NVIDIA knows HardOCP can be its best friend or worst enemy all at the same time. HardOCP has a lot of sway in the market as we can, through our readers, impact purchasing decisions. That said, review sites that impact purchasing decisions make it in this industry, and those that don't fade away for the most part.
 
I know this is probably a big ask for what alot of people see as a niche issue, but is there any chance we could get this stickied to the front page for a few days to help with awareness.

I mean lets be real if Nvidia did the same thing to dsktop enthusiasts it would be front page news till it changed and the forums here would practically catch on fire from all the Nvidia hate. I know alot of people here see Laptop Overclocking as silly but honestly things have changed alot in the llaptop space over the last ten years and there is a large laptop enthusiast segment that could really use the support from their desktop bretheren.

Nvidia is hoping to get away with this BS by flying under the radar and believe me if they do the next step in a couple years will be a hard lock on their desktop GPU's and by then it will be too late to fix the damage.

"
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out&#8212;
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out&#8212;
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out&#8212;
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me&#8212;and there was no one left to speak for me."
Martin Niemöller

An extreme example I know but the principle applies albeit not the scale or importance if the issue.
 
Overclocking laptops is fine, see, I do it all of the time!!!

Laptop breaks down!!! Hits [H]ard|OCP forums

MSI Laptops suck
Asus is garbage
Nvidia blows
AMD is a joke

etc etc..
 
Here is another example of why "notebooks should never be overclocked" LOL. In these runs my 980M cards temps peaked at 70°C. The anti-laptop-overclocking nuts are simply misinformed and out of touch with technology, or they wasted money on a cheap machine that is not worth owning.

Fire Strike Extreme run... http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/5921625


And, a "regular" Fire Strike run...


Bottom line is there is no reason not to overclock a decent laptop for benching... been doing it for years now without consequence. No need to overclock for simple gameplay, but life would be far too boring if all there was to do was play games. If you cut corners and buy a junky laptop to save a few bucks, it might get too hot, but thermals are never an issue with a good machine.

It sure did take them a LONG time to discover and fix that "bug" LOL. If they are going to be liars, they should at least try harder. They're not very good at it.

980M SLI - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4930K,Clevo P570WM powered by PremaMod.com


780M SLI - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3920XM Processor Extreme Edition,Alienware M18xR2


680M SLI - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3920XM Processor Extreme Edition,Alienware M18xR2


580M SLI - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2920XM Processor,Alienware M18xR1
 
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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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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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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My Sager NP8278 - massive cooling and i know i could push the CPU and GPU up cause temps never get hot..

Mine, Now that is how you cool a laptop:
http://imgur.com/a/YMUXp/embed#0

So no, not pointless unless your buying crappy MSI single fan cooled laptops..
 
Would you rather have a device that works as purchased ALL the time, or one that works 10% of the time because it's throttled itself after you decided to change it's operating specifications?
 
Only n00bs get their rigs throttled, if your throttling your laptop you're doing it wrong....

Either way, why doesn't NVIDIA let the user decide for them selves instead of deciding what is best for them?
 
i'd be angry if i was an owner of one. I used to oc my nvidia 7800 Go GS from 375 to 450 if i remember right, thats a huge boost.
 
MrGuvernment said:
Either way, why doesn't NVIDIA let the user decide for them selves instead of deciding what is best for them?
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If I had to guess I would say because the user decides to overclock their laptop but doesn't accept the risk and consequence. If something goes wrong, they send it back to the vendor and expect them to cover the costs.

Now call me a liar.
 
Not liar... just wrong. Laptop owners that screw things up out of ignorance are no less honest than desktop owners that make the same mistakes. People that don't know what they are doing causing problems is a universal issue that has nothing to do with the platform they choose to mess up.

Examples of damage to laptops caused by overclocking are almost non-existent. This is absolutely a fabricated excuse on NVIDIA's part, and the most reasonable explanation is that NVIDIA cut some corners on Maxwell somewhere along the line and are trying to prevent their engineering mistakes from being discovered.

People that are not part of the laptop overclocking culture have no way of knowing what they are talking about, so the lame comments that reflect ignorance on the subject are somewhat understandable. However, this is extremely frustrating to the experts on the subject that know better. It's almost like being double-crossed by a relative that should be very supportive in spite of their ignorance.

I think the chances of seeing damage being caused as a result of people trying to undo what NVIDIA has arbitrarily done to screw their customers could be greater than all of the damage combined that resulted from overclocking.
 
Modred189 said:
It's because of those laptops that this was done.
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Ya wind turbine, loud as air plane, single fan on i7 laptops and high end video cards, all so they can claim to be the thinest and lightest!

jwcalla said:
If I had to guess I would say because the user decides to overclock their laptop but doesn't accept the risk and consequence. If something goes wrong, they send it back to the vendor and expect them to cover the costs.

Now call me a liar.
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I won't i do agree with you there, that is likely the reason why.
 
mope54 said:
What data are you basing this claim upon?
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I am under NDA so some things cannot be disclosed about my data sources, but publicly moderator in an enthusiast forum with over 18K posts and over 13K rep points and many, many years of direct involvement. If that isn't good enough, keep believing whatever you wish.

CreepyUncleGoogle said:
FTFY :)
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Assumptions are dangerous. I build my extreme systems from components, both laptops and desktops. Using your logic, since you did not make your own CPU, GPU and motherboard, we are on a level playing field. In addition to that, also no different than desktops, they don't overclock themselves. Now that I have addressed your technical concerns, seek counseling for your attitude and everything will be as it should be, LOL. Have a nice life.
 
Mr. Fox said:
I am under NDA so some things cannot be disclosed about my data sources, but publicly moderator in an enthusiast forum with over 18K posts and over 13K rep points and many, many years of direct involvement. If that isn't good enough, keep believing whatever you wish.
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So a moderator, on an internet forum, with a prolific posting history is your source?
53247394.jpg
 
Mr. Fox said:
I think the chances of seeing damage being caused as a result of people trying to undo what NVIDIA has arbitrarily done to screw their customers could be greater than all of the damage combined that resulted from overclocking.
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Hmmm.... Starting off with "I think..." and then claiming NDAs are keeping you from backing up your claim...

I think you're just plain wrong. I'm using I think, but yes, this is just my opinion. I'm guessing that there are FAR more pseudo-enthusiasts, college kids, (and younger,) who's friends will say, "you should overclock that laptop" and they get all excited about free performance. Then go and fry it, or start experiencing instability, and then attempt to return the hardware. This group HAS to be bigger than anyone who has any clue about how to purchase a laptop that has proper cooling, and then the necessary knowledge to properly overclock it. Any amount of the former group, and a company is going to start looking at ways to prevent it.

I've worked at two of the largest software companies in the world, and I will tell you one thing. Everything revolves around the cost of technical support. "How many PSS calls will this bug generate?" is a VERY frequently asked question during a development cycle. I can't imagine it's much different for a hardware company. "How many $ will we lose to people attempting things they aren't qualified to do?" would probably be their equivalent question.

Who knows, you may be right, I just tend to doubt it. Like I said, what I wrote is educated guessing.
 
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