How-to: Nvidia Overclocking in Linux - Overclock.net

Caedis · 05-08-09

In my pursuit of the optimal Linux gaming rig my journey must eventually lead to overclocking. It’s where all these extra copper heat pipes, Arctic Silver, lapping, and custom driver compiling lead up to. Be warned, overclocking is an obvious breach of any and all warranties your card may have. Only do this if you are prepared to accept the risk. Take your time and bump up the clock speeds slowly. If you ignore this advice and just crank everything to max you’ll get artifacts and/or burn up your GPU. Take it from me, speaking from very personal experience, don’t rely on the GPU’s thermometer to shut down your system in the event of to high temps. It doesn’t always work and taking that kind of chance can be costly.

The process below is described for Ubuntu and other Debian-like Linux distributions.

If you haven't already done so, check my post on how to install your Nvidia GPU's drivers.

Do all this in terminal to avoid any accidents.

Code:

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Scroll down to the section that resembles the following

Code:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Add this to the bottom of the section just before the “EndSection” delimiter.

*Please type this in by hand, don’t copy it just in case your browser is decoding this page funny. X wont put up with strange characters like your browser does.

Code:

    Option "Coolbits" "1"

So your device sections should look similar to the following:

Code:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    Option "Coolbits" "1"
EndSection

After that reboot your system and check your Nvidia control panel.

If your X server won’t start you need to go to

Code:

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

and check your GPU device settings as described above and make sure your using the same form as the rest of the xorg.conf. Duplicate how the rest of your conf file looks. And restart your computer or restart X

Code:

sudo killall gdm
sudo gdm

If even that doesn’t work then I suggest you validate that your graphics drivers are compiled perfectly for your running kernel. If all else fails simply delete the coolbits entry in your xorg.conf file.

Making the changes permanent

Install the nvclock utility (It can set and probe the GPU’s from the command line)

Code:

sudo apt-get install nvclock

in your Gnome menu go to: System > Preferences > Sessions
or for Ubuntu 9.04 and above: System > Preferences > Startup Applications

Click [Add] on the right side

Name: Set GPU Clocks
Command: nvclock -n <your preferred GPU clock> -m <your preferred Memory clock>

After that your clocks will be set to the values you specified above on every reboot or restart of the X server. Additionally you can add a “-f” to the end of that nvclock command to force the clocks without checking if they are reasonable. Only do this if you know for certain that the frequencies wont make a bon fire in your case.

Enjoy!

This guide was from my blog at Caedis.net

Tator Tot · 05-09-09

Nice work man.

Its not the fanciest of methods, but it does a damn nice job (used this method on my 8800GTS 640's)

Caedis · 05-09-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tator Tot

Nice work man.

Its not the fanciest of methods, but it does a damn nice job (used this method on my 8800GTS 640's)

ty ty, yeah I like to keep it simple. And this is a clean, simple method that works every time.

Dawlish7 · 05-09-09

Yup great contribution to a great new member! rep+

Da5id · 05-09-09

Since i'm now using Linux almost all the time i see myself buying a nvidia video card when i upgrade instead of ATI. :sigh: :tearsheds:

Tator Tot · 05-09-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Da5id

Since i'm now using Linux almost all the time i see myself buying a nvidia video card when i upgrade instead of ATI. :sigh: :tearsheds:

I'd give ATi a bit more. Their drivers as far as quality goes, shot through the roof recently in comparison to their old drivers.

A bit more time, and with them being open source now, we should see at least some awesome custom drivers.

More so that the HD4000 series is such a hit, and HD5000 just around the bend.

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How-to: Nvidia Overclocking in Linux

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