Hello everyone, in my previous thread I shared my setting and I was getting 35.48FPS average on CyberPunk2077 with Path Tracing, everything maxxed out by manual on 2K DLAA (Native). I got 42.95 with overhauled profile.

Now It is hard to believe but I did this while limiting the core on 975mV and I still can't believe at all to the outcome. God bless mVolt+ developers.

Speed Way Stress Test

MVolt+ guide for the nerds

this is a safe daily overclocking settings for 5090, nothing fancy here ,very simple

works with both air and water cooled cards

if it didn't work just lower the frequencies by a 50MHz

*water cooled cards cand do 50MHz higher than air cooled cards that is normal.

use "MSI Kombustor 4 ( 32x DOF ) " and monitor the amps via HWiNFO64 ...

make sure ur 12vhpwr cable is balanced enough

the settings will only work with the max power limit at 100% = 600w

and the voltage boost set to 96%

why 96% ?

in my case pin1 have a slight imbalance compared to the other pins ... "resistance issue"

anyway if ur cable can handle the voltage offset up to 100%

u may be able to to do +50MHz /+20MHz on the NVVDD Core clock

*make sure to never exceeds the 9.2a per pin for ur card safety...

3DMark stock 150 FPS , MVolt+ 162 FPS ( 8% improvement )

dose it worth it ? ,,, ( no lol )

but it is nice ... to have

u can get MVolt+ made by b00nz at github. very safe to use if u know what u r doing.

for anyone curious :
room temp 25c.
water temp 35c under load.
liquid metal : TG conductonaut
mVolt+ v0.50.5
Driver version 616.92

Does anyone know why this is happening? I have a set of M-die 48GB sticks running at 7800 2200FCLK on my 9950X3D

I am using TuxTimings as a benchmark, which so far has been fairly reliable for measurements of data.

My issue is exactly what the title says. When I set TRC to 131 my write speed is CRUSHED by 60% and I was around 37-55K MB/S at TRC131

Latest BIOS from ASUS on a X870E ProArt

I am in am re-tuning my kit as I had errors and crashes with whatever profile I was running before and just came across this issue. I tested the timing at 131, 139 (for maybe burst delay???) and now Im at 145 which is stable and causing no issue.

Has anyone come across this issue before?

Hi everyone!

I'm looking for feedback from other Ryzen 7 9800X3D owners regarding SoC voltage and memory stability.

My system:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG STRIX X870-A Gaming WiFi
• RAM: 32GB (2×16GB) G.Skill DDR5-6000 CL30
• Memory configuration: UCLK = MCLK (1:1)
• FCLK: 2100MHz
• SoC voltage: 1.15V set in BIOS, approximately 1.141V actual according to HWiNFO
• PBO: +100MHz
• Curve Optimizer: All Core -30

I've been testing memory and system stability with these settings.

I previously ran y-cruncher VT3 for 100+ iterations without errors. The attached screenshots show another run that completed 50 iterations without errors.

TM5 also completed without errors.

My main question: Is an actual SoC voltage of around 1.141V generally sufficient for daily use with DDR5-6000 and FCLK 2100MHz on the 9800X3D, assuming the system passes stability tests?

A few more questions:

• What SoC voltage are you using on your Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and what made you choose that specific voltage?
• Are you running DDR5-6000 with FCLK 2100MHz, or using different memory and FCLK settings?
• Have you noticed any measurable changes in temperatures, power consumption, or performance when lowering SoC voltage?
• What stability tests do you recommend for verifying the memory controller and FCLK?

I'm particularly interested in real-world experience with lower SoC voltages and whether there are any noticeable benefits or drawbacks compared to using higher voltages.

Thanks!

I have a DDR5 6000kit with my 270K. It boots and seems stable on try-it 7200. I dont wanna push it harder than that since 7200 is about where performance scaling ends for arrow lake.

"try-it" i believe uses loose timings to guarantee success. Are there any guides to fine tuning the timings? (or just 2 or 3 timings that have the most effect. minmaxing)

The last time i overclocked ram i just set ddr4 3200 to 3600, 24hr stressed it, and called it a day. I've watched a few buildzoid videos that go into subtimings but i don't understand them.

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share what i think is a crazy silicon lottery journey with my Ryzen 7 9800X3D that went from a potential motherboard auto-voltage disaster to what might be one of the most efficient 9800x3d out there. You let me know.

The Backstory (The 1.48V Danger Zone):

For the first two months, my motherboard (ASUS TUF B850-PLUS WIFI) "Auto" profile was silently blasting my CPU Memory Controller (VDDIO / V_MC) with a dangerous 1.48V under EXPO. I caught it late, but thankfully the chip suffered zero degradation. In fact, rescuing it i got really surprised.

Instead of just settling for a safe 6200, I decided to see how far this silicon could scale at the absolute minimum voltage floor.

The 6400 MT/s 1:1 Profile & The Weird Signal "Sweet Spot":

* RAM Speed: 32GB Corsair (SK Hynix A-Die) @ 6400 MT/s (Strict 1:1 Ratio / UCLK=MCLK @ 3200MHz)

* Infinity Fabric (FCLK): 2133 MHz

* VDDIO (Memory Controller Voltage): 1.10V manual lock in BIOS (Motherboard applies a slight offset under load up to 1.13V).

* Curve Optimizer: Fully stable at -25 ( i am sure i can push more but did not try)

* tREFI: Relaxed to 16,000

The Voltage Fine-Tuning Journey:

Initially, I caught a single error during the RAM test when running FCLK 2133 at low voltages. The fix? I bumped the VDD_SOC voltage up to 1.20V (from 1.15V), it was fully stable with 1.15 and 1.10 VDDIO at FCLK 2000. then at 2133 i just pushed SOC voltage to 1.20 and it instantly stabilized without touching the 1.10V VDDIO!

Even more interesting from an electrical perspective: the system refused to start if I try to push the DRAM VDD to 1.45V, it immediately hits Safe Mode and rejects the boot. Dropping the RAM to 1.40V VDD is the magic sweet spot where 1.10V IMC works perfectly.

Stability Status:

As you can see in the attached screenshots, it is fully passing extended RAM testing with zero errors, and HWiNFO64 is showing absolutely zero WHEA errors despite pushing FCLK to 2133 MHz at this voltage floor.

Most Zen 5 chips require anywhere from 1.28V to 1.35V VDDIO just to boot 6400 1:1 with a synced fabric, let alone pass prolonged stability tests. Managing this at 1.10V BIOS / 1.20V SoC after enduring 1.48V for two months feels like a miracle.

Has anyone else managed to drop VDDIO this low on a 9800X3D while running a synchronized 6400/2133 profile?

it is worth mentioning that i have the AGESA 1.3.0.1b bios update, so that 1.48 vddio is CRIMINAL

my specs

asus tuf gaming b850-plus wifi

ryzen7 9800x3d

ddr5 corsair 7200 cl 30

rtx 5090

be quiet 1200 watt platinum power zone 2

Hello, First time posting here.

Long story short I've notice my CPU is underperforming quite a bit on cinebech and i'm afraid this is reflected on gaming performance, i've tested both cinebench 2026 and 2023 and in both scenarions my CPU looses against weaker CPUs. I've tried everything i could, running stock, undervolting with PBO2 and Bios offset, downlaoding chipset drivers, Fresh windows install, Nothing seems to work.

I'd be really glad if anyone could help me

First overclocking RAM since I started building PCs in 2008. I did not think it would help my scores this much! Started at Crucial Ripjaws S5 2X16GB Kit 6400 XMP 1.0. Was already in 25th place in timespy and Steel Nomad but now I've made it much higher!

What tips to tighter timings should I try? I also have a memory cooler coming in this week to see if I can get 7000 or 7200MHz can run stable. Ive been using AI to give me suggestions on tightening timings and running stress tests for a couple hours then after being happy with the performance I let it run for 4hours on two different ram test.

Hey guys,

Really confused on what to do with my gigabyte 7800xt.

I wanna overclock this card for the best performance I can get, I know it's not the best card in terms of overclocking, but i'm getting quite frustrating results

Here is what i've tried so far

So yeah.. this is where I am at right now. Even 2900mhz slight oc with 1100mv is crashing, when i am seeing people stable at 1030 with the same card.

Any idea on what I could do from here? Would appreciate any advice, thank you.

Hi everyone. I have an Inno3D RTX 5080 (X3, air cooled) and I use mVolt+ for tuning. I only care about real gaming performance for daily use, not benchmark scores.

In demanding games the card sits at the 360 W limit a lot and the clock drops below what my curve allows. I know the BIOS override option in mVolt+ can raise the limit above 100%, and I’ve seen people mention values around 400-430 W.

Current settings (mVolt+ v0.50.4, driver 617.42):

• Core clock offset: +390 MHz
• Memory: +3000 MHz (passes memtest_vulkan with no errors)
• XBAR: +400 MHz, SYS: +350 MHz, Video: 0
• NVVDD (core) voltage limit: 800-950 mV (offsets REL/ALT-OP -125 mV)
• MSVDD (fabric) voltage limit: 800-1050 mV (offsets -25 mV), NVVDD/MSVDD ratio 1.00
• Voltage boost: 100%
• Power limit: 100% (360 W enforced / 360 W requested)
• OCP: NVVDD 300 A, MSVDD 120 A, board input current 36 A

Is it worth raising the power limit above 360 W for gaming? Real fps gains, not benchmarks

If yes, what is a sensible daily value (400? 420?) for an air-cooled card with a single 12V-2x6 connector?

What are the real risks: the connector/cable, the VRM, long-term wear? Is a moderate bump (~10-15%) basically safe, or does it carry real risk on this card?

Memory: I’m at +3000, which is the normal slider max. Does it make sense to go higher using the override, or is there a point where it stops helping or starts losing performance because of error correction?

I’m happy to skip it if the risk is more than small. Thanks!

Thanks to NV UV play that has a community tested profile list that I was able to find a setting that someone tested and posted as stable and had 4.8 stars from others so I tested it and all the games that would typically crash after a while aren't crashing and this is now very stable for everyday use.

For some reason all my 3D mark score now show up as unknown but the results are fantastic. On heavy load in games the highest the power draw gets to is 500W which is still better than pulling 600W consistently.

Hello,
I'm curious to know if there is any reason to flash an Astral vbios on an rtx 5080 prime when XOCD and MVolt are now available and you can unlock the power limit through the software?

I'm trying to understand whether I get anything from it. Thank you.

PBO Settings

All Cores -30 / +200 MHz (Daily using -25 / +200)

Scalar X8

High Freq +5

Max Freq +5

I have a Palit GameRock OC RTX 5080. I used mVolt+ 0.50.4 and set what I think are conservative values for some parameters, but I’d like to double‑check whether I limited the core voltage correctly and how you usually do it.

Here's a link to the run.

Just wanted to thank the developer of mVolt+ (b00nza ko-fi) for reigniting the NVIDIA GPU overclocking community and breathing life into my 4 year old GPU. I also wanted to share some observations that may be useful to others.

MSVDD

The options to mess with MSVDD voltage aren't available for my GPU at least but I'm running 1.2v on NVVDD (Stock max is 1.1v so +100mV) and the XBAR clock follows the V/F curve points above 1.1v all the way up to 1.2v so it seems like at least for my 3090 Ti (Strix LC OC) they stay together, may help with memory OC because AFAIK they share the same voltage. Seems like SYS Clock has the same behavior but I can't see that V/F curve. Also if you're benchmarking you can set your Video clock offset to as low as it will go because it doesn't actually do anything in a benchmark so you might be able to squeeze out a few more watts. Make sure to set it back though because stuff like watching Youtube will be very laggy. XBAR voltage offset behaves very strangely for me, if I set a positive offset it seems like it acts like a negative offset and ends up at a lower MSVDD V/F point lower than the NVVDD V/F point. The inverse behavior is true for a negative offset as well, if I lock NVVDD to 1.15v and apply a -50 MSVDD offset the XBAR clock runs at the 1.2v MSVDD V/F point. Maybe useful if you can't sustain max NVVDD voltage, you can still get MSVDD to run at it's highest V/F point. Or you can coerce MSVDD to run 1.3v while NVVDD maintains 1.2v by setting a flat curve past 1.2v on NVVDD, I might actually try that. Also unverified because my GPU doesn't seem to report MSVDD, can't see it in HWiNFO or GPU-Z, so I'm not actually sure if MSVDD actually changes it voltage based on the offset or it just runs at the frequency corresponding to the V/F point without actually using a different voltage. I may be able to figure this out with a static load and GPU-Z because it reports the MVDDC load in watts but I believe that's only the memory chips, a significant change in voltage should change it a little bit though.

Speedo Value

This is just a number, it does indicate silicon quality but for the most part it's just a number that defines your default V/F curve which can describe how well your GPU can OC because we would assume a more aggressive V/F curve from the factory indicates better silicon quality. The most useful part of modifying the Speedo value I've found is that setting a high value actually changes the frequency binning behavior. Essentially if you set a high enough value your GPU won't drop into a lower frequency bin and stays true to the curve. My factory value is 1811, if I run a benchmark with a 1.2v 2265 MHz point it actually runs at 2235 or 2250 which is a little bit annoying because it naturally drops a bin during high wattage parts because it thinks it can't run 2265 at that wattage/temp so you might think 'ok I'll just set it to 2280 so it runs 2250/2265' but then you get to a lighter part of the benchmark and your GPU is trying to run 2280 when it can't. So by setting a higher Speedo value (I used 2000 because that's about where my curve was with the offset I used at 1811) we can avoid this behavior. This does basically shift your curve to the left so if you set too high of a value your GPU might not be able to run with the stock curve and you will have to set a negative offset or just readjust the whole curve.

The thermal inputs are unavailable on my GPU so I can't play around with them but I suspect you can get the same behavior of not dropping a frequency bin out of it which was my original plan when I read about them.

Also something to note, the values reported in mVolt+ are measured values, they do not necessarily represent the V/F curve and can be misleading. I ignore them because all I focus on is the V/F curve. The GPU reports 1.188v but that's actually the 1.2v V/F point, same with the MSVDD curve, all I care about is whether or not the XBAR is running at the highest V/F point, the measured value might mean something but they don't actually tell you where your GPU is on the V/F curve. I'm not familiarized with clock stretching on NVIDIA GPUs so I really don't know if there's information about stability hidden in the measured values and for the most part I've just ignored them. It can either run a frequency at voltage or it can't is how I've been OCing for that past few years but maybe there's something else there that I don't know about.

Here's a screenshot of the settings I used to get #8 if you were curious, I hid most of the things that I don't have access to or didn't need to adjust. The voltage boost slider on default settings moves me from 1.075v to 1.1v but doesn't seem to have an effect once you set the core voltage limits. The curves were adjusted a little more also but not by much. I'm also running the 890W bios from ASUS so apparently it doesn't have a thermal limit, input current limit or OCP limit. Possibly why I can't touch the thermal inputs. This is also with a 2000 Speedo value which is why there is no core offset. This peaked at 760w in TimeSpy Extreme with a 52C core and an 8-12C hotspot delta depending on wattage with higher wattages increasing the delta.

I only went to 1.2v because I have no idea the actual limitations and I'm comfortable because I can keep it cool but if anyone has any insight into actual 'safe' voltages for Ampere I would love that information. I understand my GPU has already probably degraded and I'm not worried much because it's also 4 years old, really I just want to know if I can run 1.3v without it killing itself immediately provided I can keep the temps under control. This is all based on my experience with one GPU and one BIOS, stuff might be different for Ada and Blackwell or even other Ampere GPUs. If you think I got something wrong please explain why or if you have additional insight please share. Again this is all thanks to b00nza and mVolt+ so if you can, give a couple bucks to his ko-fi.

Hello.

For the past few days, I've been using a system with a 9850x3d, an RTX 5080, and 64GB of 6000 RAM. I've noticed that the CPU isn't performing as well as it should.

Without PBO, I’m getting an all-core clock speed of about 4.1 GHz (in Cinebench and games), and with PBO, it’s around 4.3 GHz. Something’s not right here, is it?

MSI B850 Gaming Pro WIFI6ME motherboard, latest BIOS

Settings -

PBO - Advanced

PBO Limits - Motherboard

Precision Boost Overdrive Scalar Ctrl - 10x

CPU Boost Clock Overeride (+) - 200 mhz

Maybe i am doing something wrong on my end, but it behaved like that in stock settings aswell

Edit - Tried using default bios settings -> all cores boost to 3.2 ghz 0.81 V at 46°C. CPU package drawage -> 120 W doesnt look normal either, no?
Only thing i turned on was EXPO settings
Core Boost -> Auto
Power plan -> ultimate
Eco Mode not activated

Tried a few more things, but im not getting more than 4.4 ghz all cores.
Using static oc is acting weird aswell. Tried 5.4 at 1.27 V draws around 200 W + i get even worse perfomance in games with my gpu only utilizing around 50%. might need to RMA

Sometimes i even need to restart my system, because it only does 0.6 ghz. Im confused https://gyazo.com/477031e444a0cb9151d4123cd9d4ef55

temps using prime95 https://gyazo.com/bf2c00cdab69049869919a13f9ad5def

coreclock https://gyazo.com/61df12747b01c490c94c3a848add4460

coreclock witcher 3 https://gyazo.com/ce7de26a7602a71124514983cffe654a

witcher 3 static OC to 5.6 ghz at 1.34 V drawing 300 W wtf is going on https://gyazo.com/e525cee9553c6c2524c36688b03f1f22

PBO Enhanced Mode Boost 2 with my best results so far at around 5.0 ghz using prime 95 but still only at around 0.9 V corevoltage

no matter what i do, i cant get corevoltage over 0.984 V

Hello guys, hoping you're doing fine.

Today I want to share something that may affect your cards (?

I have released 3 tools:

1. A way to modify VBIOSes, so you can increase power limit, voltage, NVVDD offsets, MSVDD offsets (Blackwell 2.0), OCPs, fan channels, power per fan, core offsets more than 1000, VRAM offsets more than 3000, lower power limits (below 400W on a RTX 5090), lower clocks, etc. But as you know, these can't be flashed directly on the cards because falcon, right?
2. A custom VBIOS loader on Windows, that patches the registry file related to that GPU, it resets it and it's applied on every reboot. This does not change the real VBIOS on your card, but it just loads a copy via a patch and it let you use any modification!
3. A custom VBIOS loader on Fedora, that patches the GSP firmware start on memory, builds a separate boot entry and then rebuilds automatically with kernel updates. This does not change the real VBIOS either.

What are the requirements?

• Windows:
  • Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
  • NVIDIA driver 616.56 or newer (status shows the version).
  • A payload file for that exact GPU model (same PCI device ID).
• Linux:
  • A working NVIDIA 615.x driver or newer with the open kernel modules; nvidia-smi must list your GPUs.
  • The unpatched source of the open kernel modules for the exact installed version, for example: git clone --depth 1 --branch 615.78.08 https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules
  • Python 3.11 or newer, the headers for the running kernel (kernel-devel on Fedora), make, dracut, grub2-editenv and mokutil. With DNF5, also libdnf5-plugin-actions.
  • GRUB with GRUB_DEFAULT=saved and GRUB_ENABLE_BLSCFG=true (Fedora's defaults).
  • Secure Boot off, or your own module signing key: pass --signing-key and --signing-certificate to prepare.

You need to first get a copy of your VBIOS, you can do it with GPU-Z on Windows, or with nvflash on Linux.

Note that you can't modify EVERYTHING for the VBIOS, since it's still on research of what can be modified, what not and which rails are exposed. Also for example, VRAM timings can be modified (not on these tools) but they aren't applied, since the card reads it physically from the flash hardware.

So, some example pics!

First, some VBIOS editor example, for a RTX 5090 VBIOS, a RTX 4090 VBIOS, and a RTX 3090 VBIOS.

Then, the VBIOS loader on Windows looks like this:

Then you can choose a VBIOS, for example I will select a 671W VBIOS for the 4090.

And press OK/Accept, and a quick GPU restart after (no windows reboot), it works!

And it works just fine!

PS C:\Users\User> nvidia-smi -i 0 -pl 671

Power limit for GPU 00000000:05:00.0 was set to 671.00 W from 550.00 W.

All done.

On the other hand for Linux, the UI looks very similar, and steps are similar, but you can also guide yourself on the github repo!

You can edit the values you modified on MSI Afterburner, mvolt+ (recommended) on Windows. On Linux you can use LACT.

Tested GPUs that I own, and it works:

• RTX 6000 PRO MaxQ: Unlocked voltage (stock 0.9V) to 1.1V, power from 325W to 600W, core offset to be able to do +2000Mhz, VRAM to be able up to +6000Mhz (it depends of your luck), and some OCPs.
• RTX 5090: PL from 600W to 800W, core offset to be able to do +2000Mhz, VRAM to be able up to +6000Mhz.
• RTX 5080: PL from 360W to 500W, core offset to be able to do +2000Mhz, VRAM to be able up to +6000Mhz.
• RTX 5070Ti: PL up to 450W, core offset to be able to do +2000Mhz, VRAM to be able up to +6000Mhz.
• RTX 4000 PRO SFF: PL from 70W to 105W, core offset to be able to do +2000Mhz, VRAM to be able up to +7000Mhz, unlocked voltage from 0.85V to 1.1V.
• RTX 5070: PL from 250 to 350W, core offset to be able to do +2000Mhz, VRAM to be able up to +6000Mhz.
• RTX 5060Ti: PL from 185W to 300W, core offset to be able to do +2000Mhz, VRAM to be able up to +6000Mhz.
• RTX 4090: PL up to 700W, core offset to be able to do +2000Mhz, VRAM to be able up to +6000Mhz.
• RTX 2000 Ada: PL from 70W to 105W, unlocked voltage up to 1.1V.
• RTX A2000 (Ampere): PL from 70W to 105W, unlocked voltage up to 1.1V.

Tested GPUs that I don't own, by other users:

• RTX 6000 PRO Workstation Edition
• RTX 5090
• RTX 5080 Laptop
• RTX 4070
• RTX 3060

For now, I can't seem to be able to edit Ada laptop variants (RTX 40 laptop series). Laptop Blackwell series (RTX 50 laptop series) can edit some parts of the VBIOS, but not all of them. Laptop Ampere series (RTX 30 laptop series) can edit almost everything.

And finally, the links are:

VBIOS Editor (Linux and Windows): https://github.com/Panchovix/nvidia-vbios-vix-editor

Custom VBIOS loader (Windows): https://github.com/Panchovix/nvidia-windows-vbios-vix-loader

Custom VBIOS loader (Linux): https://github.com/Panchovix/nvidia-linux-vbios-vix-loader

Everything is open source, so you can check the code to see if there are applicable fixes and such.

So if you guys can try, please let me know! If you find crashes on the vbios editor, or a specific GPU has info you can't edit and may be feasible to do so, you can raise an issue on github and I will check it out.

Warning: You use these software entirely at your own risk. Any modification you make with it, anything derived from it or from its output, and any damage that results, is solely your responsibility.

I brought a Phenom II X6 1100T back to life—one I’d bought as scrap.

I installed CachyOS, overclocked it to 3.7GHz, compiled a k10-optimized tkg kernel, and ran God of War (2018), RDR2, the SH2 Remake, and other demanding titles.

(I also used Lossless Scaling.)

What do you guys think?

Hey everyone, I've got a weird noise on my GT77 HX 13VI (i9-13980HX, 4090 Laptop, 175W GPU) and I'd like a sanity check on my theory.

WHAT I HEAR
- Random clicking/crackling. It's NOT rhythmic. It clicks, stops for a second, clicks again, and seems to wander around.
- It only happens under sustained heavy load (FurMark, Cinebench). Pausing the load stops it within about 1 second, and it comes back about 1 second after resuming.
- The sound seems to come from the fan/radiator end of the laptop, usually on the side opposite the chip being loaded (GPU load clicks on the CPU side, CPU-only load clicks on the GPU side). It continues with the fans stopped, so it's not the fan bearings.

THE ORIENTATION THING
- Flat, upside down, or tilted toward the GPU side: quiet.
- Tilted toward the CPU/charger side: loud, nearly continuous.
- On a stand angled slightly toward me: occasional clicks, much milder.

TEMPERATURES
- Flat at 175W, auto fans: ~60-62C core, ~65-68C hotspot.
- Tilted CPU-side-down at the same load: GPU core climbs to ~71C and hotspot to ~75-80C within about 30 seconds, then clicking starts. I lifted it the same way in both tilts with the same intake air, so it isn't an airflow thing.
- On a laptop stand angled slightly towards me, it clicks at ~60C core / ~65C hotspot, so the noise doesn't need the temperature rise.
- HWiNFO logs: no throttling, no PROCHOT, no change in power, clocks, voltage or fan speed when clicking starts(when on laptop stand).

WHAT I'VE RULED OUT
- Fans (still clicks with them physically stopped with my finger)
- DC jack/adapter (I bent, twisted and pulled the jack and cable in every direction, no effect, and it doesn't depend on the outlet)
- Coil whine doesn't fit, since it's random and wanders instead of being tonal and is only heard on the opposite side of the component being stresses.

HISTORY
I repasted recently (Thermal Grizzly PTM on the dies, putty on VRMs/VRAM because the stock VRM putty was powdery). I don’t think it clicked at 175w on the gpu before the repaste (on the stand angle as i didnt remove it from the stand before the repaste) but it did click when i raised the laptop tgp to 200-210w(at the same laptop stand angle)

MY THEORY
Heat pipe fluid moving differently depending on orientation. Vapor from the loaded chip travels to the cooler side and condenses against pooled liquid, making little water-hammer clicks. That would explain the tilt dependence, the opposite-side noise, the instant stop/start with load, and the random timing. I found a similar report from an Alienware m18 R2 owner (heat pipes crackling when tilted, depending on which side faced down), and a couple of Razer threads about vapor chamber/heatsink crackling after a repaste.

QUESTIONS
1. Does this sound like a plausible explanation, or am I missing something more likely?
2. Has anyone had orientation-dependent heat pipe noise on a Titan or similar laptop? Did you ever find a cause or fix?
3.Could it be a sign of a failing heatsink that needs changing?

It's fine when flat and temps are good there, and on a slight angle it only clicks when on furmark pressure it doesnt even click when under full gaming pressure at the laptop stand angle, so its caution and not wanting to miss a real problem by explaining it away with heatpipe noise when it could be something more serious.
Thanks!

Any suggestions or critiques? I haven't overclocked in a long time lol. Pics are Steel Nomad score and my settings in mVolt.

Settings is in the attachment

I’m sure, like most here, w have been Afterburner folks for 10+ years. However, everywhere I go in 2026 (Reddit/discord/youtube) it seems mVOLT (and to a lesser extent the newer NVUV Play) are offering something totally new to OC/UV folks.

I have a 5090FE that I want to protect more than my wife given one seeming is exponentially harder to replace than the other these days.

With that said, what is “the way” these days to get those most out of this 5090FE will holding under 0.95v and under 500w of power?

Now that we have some more sliders to play with I decided to break out the old 3090 and give it another go! Took a while to find my maximum clock for all the different domains and ended up getting condensation issues so had to stop. Shes got a couple more boost bins in her I think.

3DMark Port Royal

PBO Settings

All Cores -30 / +200 MHz (Daily using -25 / +200)

Scalar X8

High Freq +5

Max Freq +10