Newest GeForce GTX 900M Drivers Disable Overclocking, Users Grab Pitchforks
Nvidia surprised members of the overclocking community this week when it pulled OC support from drivers for its 900M series mobile graphics cards. Although Nvidia hasn’t gone out of its way the GTX 900M cards as being overclocking-friendly, many users (particularly those who bought laptops with higher-end cards like the 980m) were overclocking – until the latest driver update. Now, Nvidia is telling customers not to expect OC capabilities to return.
Nvidia at CES 2015
The Nvidia driver in question is GeForce R347 (347.29). The driver doesn’t have overclocking tools and third-party tools are not supported. Some users responded by heading over to the Nvidia GeForce forums to lodge their complaints, hoping to get a response from an Nvidia representative – and it worked.
“Unfortunately GeForce Notebooks were not designed to support overclocking,” wrote Nvidia’s Manuel Guzman. “Overclocking is by no means a trivial feature, and depends on thoughtful design of thermal, electrical, and other considerations. By overclocking a notebook, a user risks serious damage to the system that could result in non-functional systems, reduced notebook life, or many other effects.”
Guzman goes on to say that Nvidia’s mistake was to allow overclocking in the first place, rather than to take it out. “There was a bug introduced into our drivers which enabled some systems to overclock. This was fixed in a recent update. Our intent was not to remove features from GeForce notebooks, but rather to safeguard systems from operating outside design limits.”
Nvidia’s explanation did little to calm forum users, who had left another 150 comments before publication. Whether Nvidia considers the situation resolved isn’t clear, but laptop owners who bought gaming laptops with overclocking in mind aren’t likely to put down their pitchforks anytime soon.
Nvidia at CES 2015
The Nvidia driver in question is GeForce R347 (347.29). The driver doesn’t have overclocking tools and third-party tools are not supported. Some users responded by heading over to the Nvidia GeForce forums to lodge their complaints, hoping to get a response from an Nvidia representative – and it worked.
“Unfortunately GeForce Notebooks were not designed to support overclocking,” wrote Nvidia’s Manuel Guzman. “Overclocking is by no means a trivial feature, and depends on thoughtful design of thermal, electrical, and other considerations. By overclocking a notebook, a user risks serious damage to the system that could result in non-functional systems, reduced notebook life, or many other effects.”
Guzman goes on to say that Nvidia’s mistake was to allow overclocking in the first place, rather than to take it out. “There was a bug introduced into our drivers which enabled some systems to overclock. This was fixed in a recent update. Our intent was not to remove features from GeForce notebooks, but rather to safeguard systems from operating outside design limits.”
Nvidia’s explanation did little to calm forum users, who had left another 150 comments before publication. Whether Nvidia considers the situation resolved isn’t clear, but laptop owners who bought gaming laptops with overclocking in mind aren’t likely to put down their pitchforks anytime soon.
