For anyone considering upgrading from their lower grade i3, i5 or i7 to 920XM

Do it. Everyday usage is just so much better. I put my old i7-720qm in my m15x before I sold it, and its such a night and day difference, doing everyday tasks. EVERYTHING runs better, games all run much, much better. Even browsing the web is a huge difference. Took me a few tries to get the thermal paste just right, but now my temps are amazing finally after buying a new heatsink and repasting one last time. I was definitely debating on upgrade GPU first or CPU, and I'm so glad I hopped on the 920xm. Managed to get it for 191$ on eBay. Without any overvolting, can run 26x on all four cores without any issues or temp issues. Here's a quick screenshot while typing this out.

For anyone having strangely high temps, and repasting isnt working. Replace your heatsink. I was hesitant but ordered one for 10$ free shipping, and it fixed my issue. There isn't any real way to look at your old one and tell if its bad. I even did the hot water test to see if it was transfering heat to the fins and it was, so not a very valid test.

 

Another pic, running 1024m on wPrime. View attachment 108251

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about this upgrade. I've seen plenty of people asking about it and it's good to know that users don't regret doing it.

 

What is your TPD / TDA`?
Also what "score" would you get in T-stop 1024 test and what temps do you end at?

 

My R2 came with an OEM 920XM. It's still a pretty competent processor these days, though does need to be overclocked to unleash its full potential.

 

Here is my 920xm overclock from back in my m15x days (Oct 2010). I was able to max out at 28, 28, 28, 26. I was able to run a single core up to 30x to validate @ 3.972 GHz I miss my old weak 26x 4th core. Man I use to cuss up a storm on the last core during benching nights since it could never hit 27 on the benchmarks I wanted. The little engine that just couldn't quite get the job done .


http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1426582

 

I have done as much as 30X on my old 940 this done with 4050 across the cores with elevated BIOS voltage.
But it is something i cant run for long.
Also i feel that the increased voltage in BIOS also causes the TDP to easily pass 100W, needing that to be in the 110W area at least to not loose out on power.
But now with the heatspring I am able to run quite hard with 26X and 27X and TDP now at 110 without hitting 90 degC in the T-stop 1024 test that lasts for almost 7 minutes. Not using BIOS extra voltage for the time beeing.
The smaller shorter benchmark tests do not last long enough to raise the temperatures to the areas where my heatspring makes a difference since they hardly hit 90-100 deg.

 

My tdp is set at 100.

 

have you tried doing a T-stop 1024 test with 25/26 and 100W TDP?