acer 6920g setfsb overclock and upgrade - 9600 + ssd + overclock = happy

Ello,

Just thought id keep the 6920g owners happy.

BTW dont read this if you actually have a warranty, this would well and truely void it

The 6920g is 100% able to overclock with a simple(ish) hardware mod. This involves grounding pin 4 of the PLL to unlock the TME LOCK.

On reading around multiple forums, i found a board schematic diagram for our motherboard and thought after all this time 'no guts no glory' go for it.

Ive already upgraded the graphics card for the nvidia 9600m GT 512meg DDR3 card from the stock 9500m GS, and the 320GB hdd for a SSD samsung 128GB, and 2 sticks of 400mhz 2GB memory. So last thing is a cpu upgrade or overclock.

Oh and before people say about the memory. only 3GB or 3.5GB in a 32bit os. ie windows 7 home premium (acers free upgrade). You CAN use the full 4GB without restriction, you just need to use the kernel patch. google it people.

The PPL chip is located under our keyboards in the middle and left a bit of the motherboard. The board is missing the 10k resistor to ground the pin4 giving the unlocked PPL. Reading around people have tried grounding using a 10k full size resistor, but on trial and error, the resistors not needed. You just need a steady hand and a bit of wire.

BTW: remove the power before doing this. AC and battery.

ok, so this might be a bit hardcore for some people, but pretty easy for others with a steady hands, tools and guts.

ok so popping our keyboards off, doesnt need a full dismatle, just a flat small scredrivers down the edge on the keyboard to pry it away from the retaining clips on the top panel. The keyboard lifts off and is connected via a flat ribbon cable thats easy unclipped.

Theres a screw in the hdd slot on the backside of the laptop. Open the back case and unscrew this. It holds the middle of the top panel down, underneath the keyboard.

Next you will find that the top panel of the laptop is actually covering the PPL chip.

This is where you either chicken out or get the cutters out. The panel is made of a soft black plastic and the reverse of the panel has a metal stick on foil. Figuring its a mag sheild, but dont quote that. Anyhoos, theres no wireing on the backside of the panel so its easy cut. You lift the panel and snip to shape. If your careful you will keep the threaded screw hole, and use later on in the grounding.

You will expose the PPL chip. Its the one with ICS written on it. Pretty much every 6920g ive seen has the ICS 9LPRS365BGLF chip and is hardware locked. Thanks acer..

Well once youve exposed the chip and see the missing resistor connections, then its time to solder and ground the pin4. A small gauge wire thats been stripped about 4mm one end and about 6mm the other is needed. Once youve tinned the 4mm end (coat the wire in solder, dont solder the board makes life easier). once you have this wire you just need to hold over the 2 connection points on the board and tap the wire with the soldering iron till it melts the solder on the wire and connects firmly to the board.

The other end of the wire needs to be grounded, this can be done to any of the screw holes on the motherboard. Lucky as theres one next to it. Give it a quick sand to make sure its a good connection. Or just scrape it a few times with the screwdriver. Instead of the dull copper, you wanna see the nice shiney surface.

If you kept that screw hole from the panel nows the time to use it. Push the screw you took from the hdd bay, back up through the hole, loop the 6mm end of the wire around the screw, and hold the threaded screw hole over this. Now tighted the screw from the hdd bay and it will hold the wire tightly to the board and ground fully.

Also using the screw hole to hold the connection means it can be easily disconnected to run the cpu at stock again with the PLL locked.

right so thats your PPL unlocked, reboot and go into windows and run SETFSB. Find the PPL in the list, and click GET FSB. Then its upto you what you clock your chip to.

Im going for the intel x9000 2.8GHz chip in a few weeks, so will let you know the overclock on thats. should easy push the mid 3GHz.

Ps. going to try and upload some pics with this so if it 404s them then im buggered it up somewhere, gimme time to fix it

If theres any comments or questions message me, or even better post in the forum, as thats what its for

all the best 6920g'ers.

Rob aka Mister Mojo


the pics

The 6920g, under the keyboard with cut away panel and the wire soldered in place.



Close up of the wire soldered in place, Pin4 to ground, the ground being the screwhole.



The SSD installed in the HDD bay. and the 9600m GT inplace under the heatsink.( oh and the other 6400 mem was swapped into a different system when i took this). and note the BIOS battery hanging out, this was for easy bios wipes if you happen to BSOD or lock for any reason when clocking.

 

hi, hats off to you. this is way beyound me and i'm happy with my 6920g for now as its still running well after 4 years.
i did swap the graphics card for a couple of years (until is packed up) and the wifi card (for 'another reason') and i've swapped out the dvd for another harddrive.

a question for you mistermojo.. do you know if this will take 8GB of ram? thats the only upgrade i really need atm