Enabling AMD Overdrive on Radeon Mobility Cards NOTE: Use the information in this document at your own risk. If you do not feel comfortable implementing these changes to your system, do not attempt them. If you cause damage to your system by mistake, you alone are responsible for the outcome.

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2 Save your existing vBIOS to create a new file for modding. You can use GPU-Z or Trixx to save the vBIOS. Personally, I find Trixx the easier utility to use, but either works fine. Simply select the card you wish to extract the BIOS from and click the “Save BIOS” button. The vBIOS should be the same on both cards in a CrossFireX setup, but I prefer to save a copy of the vBIOS for each card individually. If I ever restore the factory vBIOS, I use the file that came from each card to re-flash to factory settings.

3 Using Radeon BIOS Editor (RBE) load one of the vBIOS files you extracted. Click the “Load BIOS” button and browse the folder where you save the vBIOS, select the file and click “Open”.

4 On a Mobility card, AMD Overdrive is not enabled with factory default vBIOS. You will see an error message like the one above if Overdrive is not enabled. Click the “OK” button.

5 On the “Clock settings” page you will see the factory defaults loaded for GPU and RAM clock speeds and voltage for each of the steppings that correspond with the AMD Powerplay states. (As a side note, if you click on any of the lines inside the scroll box under “Powerplay states structure”, the corresponding states will be highlighted above. This will help you understand how Powerplay functions with factory vBIOS settings.)

6 On the “Additional features” page you will see where we adjust AMD Overdrive limits using “Method 2 – No hash” to do so. The sliders are how you adjust the maximum GPU and RAM clock speeds available using Overdrive. If you know the maximum clock speeds your system runs with stability, use those clock speeds as the maximum values for Overdrive.

7 Once you have set the maximum GPU and RAM clock speeds (1), click on Save BIOS (2) and select a file name and location (3) for the modded vBIOS. NOTE: If you have a card that lets you increase clock speeds in only 1GHz increments (like the 6970M) you will need to repeat the process of moving both sliders to the right, save the vBIOS and repeat. Each time the value doubles. Continue adjusting clock speeds by moving the sliders to the far right and saving the vBIOS repeatedly until you reach the desire maximums. Simply overwrite the existing file every time.

8 If you have a video card that allows you to select maximum speed setting without going through the repetitive steps, simply move the sliders to your maximum stable speeds and save the vBIOS as shown in the previous slide.

9 Once you have the desired speeds selected (1), click “Save BIOS” (2) and then you will be ready for flashing. Click the “Get WinFlash!” (3) button.

10 If you would like to scope out the new settings in the modded vBIOS prior to flashing, click the “Load BIOS” button and point RBE to your modded file. You will notice on this screen you no longer see the warning message about AMD Overdrive not being available. The box labeled “BIOS has been pre-modified using RBE is checked by default and details on the vBIOS load on this page.

11 Click through the “Clock settings” and “Additional features” pages. (This screen shot is showing all Powerplay states have been modded to run at factory default clock and voltage maximums for a 6970M card.)

12 On the “Additional features” page you will see the new settings for maximum GPU and RAM clock speeds that are set in the modded vBIOS.

13 Launch ATIWinflash and click the “Load Image” button.

14 Browse to the vBIOS file that you wish to flash.

15 You will see the selected vBIOS file in the “Filename” box. Click the “Program” button. The flash process with begin for the active video device. If you have CrossFireX, when the flash process completes, reboot and repeat the flashing process for the inactive video device (shows as “ATI Radeon Barts” in the red box above). Reboot and the flashing process is complete on both video cards. NOTE: If you selected clock speeds that exceed the limits of your card during the vBIOS modding steps, your system will most likely freeze during the flashing process. You may receive visual confirmation that the flash was successful even though the system locked up. You may have to hold down the power button to forcibly shut down and reboot. This is a good reason to only set the modded vBIOS to allow overclocking to you maximum stable clock speeds.

Editing the Registry for Overdrive on AMD Mobility

16 Click Start > Run and enter regedit in the Run dialogue box, then click OK. Click Edit > Find and enter Overdrive2 in the “Find what” box, then click the “Find Next” button. You want to be in the key location as listed in the regedit status bar: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ATI\ACE\Settings\Graphics\OverDrive2 (As an alternative to the Find feature, simply browse there using the tree if you wish.)

Editing the Registry for Overdrive on AMD Mobility

17 Change the value of the key “Accessible” in the right panel from "Nobody" to "All" (right click on Accessible, select Modify and enter “All” in the Value Data box). Then drop down to Overdrive3 and Overdrive5 in the Graphics section and make the same changes, then reboot.

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Click on the pad lock icon to unlock AMD Overdrive in CCC. Adjust GPU clock and Memory clock using the sliders. Click Apply. If your system has CrossFireX (dual GPU) select the second GPU and adjust GPU and Memory clock. Click Apply. Enjoy Overdrive!

Unfortunately, manual fan control is not available on AMD Mobility GPUs. (The adjustments to fan speed will not have any effect.)

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Hope this helps anyone having a tough time figuring things out… enjoy – “Mr. Fox” Notebook Review Laptop Forums (All credit goes to NBR Forum members “The Revelator” and his tutor “custom90gt” – if this helped you, please give them rep.)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/613189-amd-overdrive-bsod.html#post7938879

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