HOWTO: Overclock your NVIDIA graphics card

[Carrots171]

Disclaimer: Overclocking may shorten the life of your graphics card, damage/destroy your graphics card, or void the warranty of your graphics card. I am not responsible if your card explodes or is otherwise damaged. Use this HOWTO at your own risk.

1. Enable Coolbits. You don't need Coolbits to overclock but in my experience it does help. You must have at least the 7664 drivers for this to work. There's a guide on enabling Coolbits here:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=197&num=1

2. Download Nvclock. Don't download the one from Universe; it's outdated. Instead, download the source from the Nvclock website:

http://www.linuxhardware.org/nvclock/#download

3. Extract Nvclock

cd [path to where you downloaded the file]
tar -xzvf nvclock0.8b2.tar.gz
cd nvclock0.8b2

4. Compile Nvclock

./configure
make
sudo make install

5. Running Nvclock and overclocking
You can run the Nvclock interface using the command:

nvclock_gtk

Or this command if you are using Kubuntu: (I haven't tested this)

nvclock_qt

When Nvclock starts up, click on "overclocking", choose "2D+3D Clocks" from the drop-down menu, and start overclocking. Be sure to keep "Test speeds before applying" ticked. I would suggest bumping both the core clock and the memory clock up slowly and playing some of your 3D games to test for stability and artifacts. If your card has a temperature sensor, you can keep an eye on your card's temperature by clicking on "hardware monitoring" in Nvclock.

You can overclock your card through the console, too. In fact, overclocking through the console allowed me to reach higher clock speeds because the graphical interface doesn't let you go too high. Use the command to view information about your card:

nvclock -i

And this command to overclock:

nvclock -n [new core mhz] -m [new memory mhz] -f

You only need "-f" if the clock speeds you're setting are above a certain amount.

The clock frequencies will reset back to the original values when you restart your computer, so every time you restart/turn your computer on, you'll have to overclock. Of course, you can create a startup script or something to overclock for you when your computer boots up, but I don't recommend it because overclocking may cause your system to hang and you might get stuck with a computer that always crashes on startup.

Have fun! (And don't blow up your graphics card!)

[HydroDiOxide]

Is it possible to run nvclock at startup so that it adjusts my fanspeeds automatically?

[Pausanias]

Note that CoolBits is disabled by NVIDIA corporation for mobile GPUs. And nvclock is not able to set the clock speed on many GPUs, like mine (Quadro FX Go1400).

[Carrots171]

Is it possible to run nvclock at startup so that it adjusts my fanspeeds automatically?

Yes it is.

[mrazster]

Forget this post...

[HydroDiOxide]

So, how would I do this?

[PingunZ]

nice guide but I'm not gonna follow it cause I don't game on Ubuntu ( cs is the only reason for dual boot ) Is there any tool to overclock your cpu ( amd 64 ) or change your fanspeed ?

Keep up the good work man

Grtz PingunZ

[yetanothersteve]

There is no need to use a third party application to overclock your NVIDIA graphics card, nvidia provides the tools and you just have to activate them.

To activate the Overclock menu in the nvidia-settings panel, change your /etc/X11/xorg.conf to add in support for the Coolbits "Option" of "1". Back up xorg.conf first of course.

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA Default Card"
        Driver          "nvidia"
        BusID           "PCI:1:0:0"
        Option  "Coolbits"      "1"
EndSection

Then restart X (ctrl-alt-backspace or for a cleaner experience log off and then ctrl-alt-backspace)

Then run nvidia-settings and note the new clock frequencies menu item. Select it and do an auto-detect of your 3D Clock Frequencies. Write down the returned values, you can apply them but they will not stick past this X-Session. No need to run in overclock mode while reading these forums, eh?

screen shot of nvidia-settings with overclock enabled

Next, alter or create a startup script for your game or other application that you would like to run while overclocking the card. Here is my example for launching doom3.

#!/bin/sh
# Needed to make symlinks/shortcuts work.
# the binaries must run with correct working directory

# Steve added, overclock values from 
nvidia-settings --assign="GPU3DClockFreqs=381,861"
# End Steve added

cd "/home/ouz/games/doom3/"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:.
#exec ./doom.x86 "$@"   # the exec means stop executing this and execute something new, but we want the nvidia-settings to run again after doom, so drop the exec
./doom.x86 "$@"

# Steve added, return to normal clocks after game
nvidia-settings --assign="GPU3DClockFreqs=300,700"
# End Steve added

Or you could just run the

nvidia-settings --assign="GPU3DClockFreqs=381,861"

from a command line before the game and

nvidia-settings --assign="GPU3DClockFreqs=300,700"

after the game.

Big Note: The frequencies listed were for my GeForce6800XT. You really should Auto Detect appropriate values for your own card.

If for some reason you feel the need to overclock 2D the command line for that is

nvidia-settings --assign="GPU2DClockFreqs=300,700"

Keep in mind that the last assignment for memory speed, either 2D or 3D, will apply it to both 2D and 3D as there cannot be separate memory speeds.

To see all of your nvidia attributes, the command line for that is

nvidia-settings -query all

[fatsheep]

I'm using Coolbits to overclock my XFX 6600 GT and it works great except for one detail:

Everytime I restart, my overclock is erased and I have to reset it! Is there any way to get around this?

[~LoKe]

I'm not really sure what numbers to be changing, and I don't think it would be a good idea to start guessing. Here is my nvclock -i output:

loke@x04d:~$ nvclock -i
-- General info --
Card: nVidia Geforce 4 MX420
Architecture: NV17 A5
PCI id: 0x172
GPU clock: 333.000 MHz
Bustype: AGP

-- Memory info --
Amount: 64 MB
Type: 128 bit DDR
Clock: 333.000 MHz

-- AGP info --
Status: Enabled
Rate: 4X
AGP rates: 1X 2X 4X
Fast Writes: Disabled
SBA: Unsupported

-- VideoBios information --
Version: 04.17.00.45
Signon message: NV17 P73 Engineering VBIOS

Any suggestions for safe settings?