So, to sum up, NVIDIA graphics drivers version 258.96 may create trouble on the Asus M50Vn with a GeForce 9650M GT running Windows XP. If you experience random crashes with this notebook and those drivers, try to downgrade to 197.16.

After finally fixing my problems with the GeForce 9650M GT in my Asus M50Vn laptop, I thought maybe I could improve its performance even more than by just updating the drivers. Before going further, 2 things I have to let you know:

• The usual disclaimer: overclocking is risky, you do it at your own risks. If it destroys your computer or burns down your house, you knew it could happen.
• Overclocking this particular card, in my Asus M50Vn laptop, resulted in a strange, unexpected side effect: it screwed up the default clocking of my card: when the computer boots, the shaders are underclocked by 20% (1100MHz instead of 1375). It’s not really a big deal, but it’s still a high-probability risk that you ought to know.

That being said, let’s move on to the OCing itself.

Preliminary research

Before touching the clock, I thought I’d try to find some information about it. I failed to find much, actually. I didn’t find the specified maximum temperature, even on the quite useless specfication page on NVIDIA.com or on Notebookcheck (NB: the latest isn’t really accurate about the card details). Yet I found some forum posts discussing the acceptable temperature range. It seemed consensual that anything under 70°C is totally safe, but this isn’t really helpful since at stock clock my GPU already reaches 65-67°C in a room at 17°C (edit, 20100627: and up to 79°C when the room is at 24.5°C). Someone mentioned an arbitrary limit of 80°C, more or less confirmed on another BBS. Since this is already 15°C higher than my current temp, I thought it would be more than enough as an OCing limit. I kept browsing around, and globally the ideas are, as long as you raise the frequency progressively:

• Artifacts (and/or performance drop) should appear long before the cards gets damaged
• Normally the card automatically shuts down/crashes the system before and instead of getting damaged
• As long as you don’t touch the voltage the above statements should really apply
• As long as the GPU doesn’t overheat too much it shouldn’t age prematurely

So you get the idea: nothing’s 100% sure. But I thought that was safe enough for me, so I went ahead.
Final note: a component’s ability to get overclocked is due to product binning. That is, the manufacturer makes sure that the component runs at least at the specified performance. So it may run just barely at this level, or up to quite much higher. This means there is a high variability between supposedly identical (same part number) components. So, if you happen to have the very same GPU as me, it doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to reach the same frequencies and you should progressively find your own frequencies, NOT copy/paste mine!

Getting the software

Update your drivers if needed. For this you can either go to NVIDIA’s driver downloads or pick my mirrored 195.62_notebook_winxp_32bit_international_whql.exe, which work fine for my GF 9650M GT on Windows XP 32 bits (NB: this is for mobile GPUs, ie for notebooks).
Then, although there are other overclocking tools available, I chose NVIDIA’s: NVIDIA System Tools with ESA Support 6.05 (mirror). For a more recent version check the link in the “Additional Software and Drivers” section of the previously mentioned driver download page.
Install all this, restart if needed.
Finally, get GPU-Z, which will be useful to check frequencies and temperature.

Finding the good overclock

Start by finding your full load temperature. For this you can either use a GPU burner like FurMark (mirror for version 1.7) or simply run a demanding game for like 5 minutes (purists will say you need to run it much longer, but 5 minutes already give you a good idea) and check the temperature in GPU-Z.
Once you’re done, open NVIDIA’s control panel (you can reach it from the global control panel or from the NVIDIA task bar icon). In the menu, go to Performance → Device settings. That’s where you can change the core, memory and shader clock frequencies. I chose to remain on the “very safe” side, so I first used the “find optimal” function. This gave me the following frequencies:

• core clock: 696 MHz (stock: 550 – diff: +26.6%)
• memory clock: 460 MHz (stock: 400 – diff: +15%)
• shader clock: 1640 MHz (stock: 1375 – diff: +19.3%)

Although those figures didn’t seem that big to me, after some research it turned out to be a rather large overclocking capacity. Do not apply those settings immediately. Instead, we’re going to increase them progressively while quickly checking the stability. I chose to run Crysis Warhead as a test, because it’s very demanding so I don’t reach a vsync or a CPU limitation, and because it has a feature to display the FPS count (using the developer mode as explained on Wiki4Games). Basically, I stayed at the same safe place in Crysis Warhead and switched back and forth to Windows (using CTRL+TAB or CTRL+ALT+DEL): I increased one of the clock at a time, by roughly 3% every time (ie, increments of something like 20 MHz for the core, 10 for the memory and 30 for the shaders; it takes some time because every time the overclocking tool tests the new speed before applying it), checked with GPU-Z that the frequency was actually changed, checked the result in Warhead (FPS gain, artifacts), then repeated.

My final overclock was 630/450/1550 (validation), but I could have gone further: I just decided that the 10-12% performance gain was good enough not to take higher risks. But it’s up to you to decide how far you want to go. Going farther than the auto-overclock seems a bit unwise, though. Once you’ve chosen your frequencies, run a demanding game or Furmark for 5 minutes and check the temperature in GPU-Z (compare to what you reached before the overclock: I used to be around 67°C at stock speed, i reach 69°C with my OCed speed).

Turning on and off the overclock

When you exit the NVIDIA control panel, it will ask you whether you want to load the overclock at start-up. It’s best to choose no, because if for some reason it makes the PC crash, you might be in trouble to disable it. Instead you should save your overclock into a profile (the “Save to profile” button becomes available once you apply the overclock), then go to Performance → Profile policies and configure the profile to load either when you run a specific game or a dummy program. I chose the second option because with it I don’t have to add rules for every games I use, plus I can decide every time whether or not I want to overclock. As a dummy program I chose MTTFWin, a Windows tweaking freeware that I don’t use anymore. You need to make 2 rules: load the overclocked profile when MTTFWin is loaded, and unload the overclocked profile when MTTFWin is stopped.

Apply, and you’re done. When you launch your chosen application (tip: place it in the Quick Launch bar!), the GPU will overclock (check in GPU-Z if you want).

Download links:
Linux 64 bits
Linux 32 bitrs
FreeBSD x86
Solaris x86/x64

If you’re on Fedora 12, remember that we have an installation guide for you

• Get the required dependencies: yum install kernel-devel gcc
• Grab the proper NVIDIA drivers there
• Get rid of nouveau. That’s the hard part. I found several methods but none of them worked. Most notably, most or all of them required me to install NVIDIA’s drivers (they propose to use the RPM Fusion repository, but I wanted to use the drivers straight from nvidia.com, in order to be more easily up-to-date) then follow some instructions to make it beat nouveau. The problem is: NVIDIA’s drivers from nvidia.com refused to install with nouveau already running, so I had to kill it first. The solution I found was:
  1. blacklist it: edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and add blacklist nouveau at the end
  2. blacklist it again in Grub: edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and add rdblacklist=nouveau at the end of the line starting with “kernel” in the proper section (NB: I have this file because I’m using Grub from an old Ubuntu installation, but I was told that Fedora 12 uses Grub 2, which has a totally different configuration file structure… I don’t know it, sorry)
  3. set the default init level to 3 (otherwise, nouveau will load when the GUI gets loaded): edit /etc/inittab and replace id:5:initdefault: with id:3:initdefault:

  This is the only working solution I found. As long as the GUI gets loaded, nouveau will get loaded too and the NVIDIA drivers will refuse to install. You will easily know if nouveau is loaded by the size of the font in the console: if it’s a large font it’s okay, if it’s a small font because the console is like in high-resolution, you did something wrong and most likely NVIDIA’s drivers will refuse to install

• reboot
• run the NVIDIA drivers installer (during the process, when it asks you whether it should try to update config files, say yes)
• reboot

You’re now done. I chose to let the default init level to 3 because with every kernel update we have to reinstall the NVIDIA drivers (the version installed for the previous kernel will crash with a various severity, most likely preventing you from running the installer). To load the graphical desktop after booting in init level 3, just log in as root and type init 5.

Sources I used:

• Fedora 12 – Nouveau + Nvidia Driver Solution
• Howto install nVidia driver on Fedora 12 (and just disable the nouveau driver)
• RPM fusion – nVidia – Nouveau compatibility
• RPM fusion – nVidia – Fedora 12
• Gnome Fedora 12 (Xorg 1.7.1) + 190.42 + Xv = instability
• Installing the Drivers as Provided by nVidia

Update (June 20): added dependencies, this also works for Fedora 13.

During the last month, I tried really hard to find a way to upgrade the GeForce 9650M GT drivers on my Asus M50Vn laptop. At first I tried every possible version, both under Windows and Linux, which at least gave me the occasion to post an updated version of my old Fedora Core 3 nVidia drivers installation guide. Then I gave up for a few weeks, until yet a new stable drivers version got released (version 195.62 on December 4). I tried those ones again… only to be a victim of yet the same bugs. This was too much, I had to at least notify the customer service about the apparently broken drivers.

So there I went, to nvidia.custhelp.com. Created an account, submitted a “wtf you could at least test your drivers on the supposedly supported 9650M GT” claim, and went back to my slow but (almost) stable 180.70 drivers. To my surprise (it was a Saturday), I quickly got a rather large reply, asking for more information. A few hours later I was told that:

[since I] have installed Windows XP on [my] laptop which is not shipped as OEM, [...] drivers on NVIDIA website will not work because the NVIDIA graphics driver for laptops works only with preinstalled operating system with laptop

Therefore, [they] request [me] to kindly contact [my] laptop manufacturer to get the compatible and updated driver for [my] laptop graphics card.

This came a bit as a shock, since I wondered how they’d expect to see customers with OEM Linux, and also I wondered what’s the point of providing drivers if they can’t replace the traditionally totally outdated version provided by laptop manufacturers (NB: for the M50Vn laptop, Asus provide no Windows XP drivers and their Vista drivers were last updated in August 2008). But this made me go to the Asus driver download website (precisely to be able to tell NVIDIA how outdated Asus was ). And after some browsing there, I found this:

BIOS 212
Update VBIOS to fix VGA flicker and freeze problem.

Looks like the solution, doesn’t it? So I updated the BIOS, reinstalled the newest drivers… and everything worked fine, finally.

Congratulations, problem solved

NB: after some research, it turned out that my model wasn’t the only one affected. For instance, in A possible solution to Nvidia 9650M GT DriverProblems and [Résolu] Karmic / Nvidia 9650M GT / Freeze de l’affichage, it’s mentioned that the same problem and fix occurs in M70Vn, N80Vn, X72VN and any M50 Asus laptops, as long as it has a GeForce 9650M GT graphics card. Just make sure that you grab the proper BIOS, from Asus Support (downloads). The version of the BIOS fixing this issue may vary depending on laptop model.

NB2: since this is a BIOS issue, this applies to any OS: the issue occurs (and the fix works) as well on Windows XP, Vista or Seven, but also on any Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora…), and I guess also on Solaris and FreeBSD.

First I grabbed BIOS version 212 from here (mirror) (search for M50Vn, then choose any OS (the BIOS updates are OS-independent).
Then I went to the instruction page Using ASUS EZ Flash to Update BIOS. It may help you to find how to load EZ Flash, otherwise the other instructions aren’t that useful: they say you need to unzip the BIOS file to a floppy or an USB key… Great, the M50Vn has no floppy drive, and I don’t have a spare empty USB key. But actually, you can just unzip the BIOS file on your first partition, in the root folder. I unzipped it into C: (so, C:\M50VAS.212).
Then it’s simple:

• INSERT THE (charged) BATTERY: in case of a power outage, you’ll be glad you did
• Restart the PC
• During the early boot, press F2 to enter the BIOS (yeah, on their guide they got the keys wrong, at least for the M50Vn)
• Find EZ Flash (I already forgot where it is, but seeing how raw that BIOS is you’ll find it easily) and launch it
• Find the BIOS update file, and use it to flash the BIOS
• At the end of the process, you’ll get a success message and the PC will shutdown. Congratz, you’re done Without a floppy, and without a USB stick

Bonus: if you don’t want to bother searching the slow Asus site, I mirrored BIOS 212 for Asus M50Vn on Megaupload.

Additional info: I was upgrading from BIOS 207.

On my laptop (Adus M50Vn), I’ve had a lot of trouble with Linux (both Fedora 11 and Ubuntu 9.10) lately. After trying to update my NVIDIA graphics drivers on Windows XP, it turned out that the same problems starting to occur their too. So I was able to conclude that these issues were probably caused by the NVIDIA drivers and not by the OS itself. For Windows, I reverted back to the latest version I had installed without problem, version 180.70 (18 Nov 2008). For Linux, Ubuntu let me downgrade to 173 from the hardware drivers control panel (which at the moment seems to apply only to graphics drivers), and at first I didn’t understand why there wasn’t any other old version available (there were 2 choices only: 173 and 185). Then I did Fedora, but for this I had to go to NVIDIA’s website since Fedora doesn’t offer automatic installation for proprietary software. I eventually managed to find the legacy drivers page, which explained why Ubuntu let me only pick 173 as an old driver: it’s the latest legacy driver. Here is the Linux/FreeBSD/Solaris driver download page: http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html. Just pick the 173.14.20 and it should work fine. And actually, I just tried the 190.42 and it seems to work okay too on Fedora so you may want to try that one instead nvm it’s buggy too (NB: the 195.39 doesn’t work well on Windows XP: performances are much better but there are some important glitches).
Don’t forget that for Fedora (or any Linux installation which implies using NVIDIA’s official installer), with every kernel update you’ll need to re-run the NVIDIA driver installer… so keep it somewhere easy to find. Full installation procedure on Fedora 11:

1. CTRL+ALT+F2 to go to a text console
2. su to connect as root (of course you can also use sudo)
3. init 3 to shutdown X
4. run the installer (cd /directory then ./installer.sh). During the process it should be able to successfully update Xorg.conf.
5. init 5 to restart X without restarting the whole computer