m17x R2 and 920xm, pasting and temps

Hi, originally had a 740, and have had a 920xm from ebay sitting in my letterbox for last couple of weeks. Finally decided to whack it in tonight.

First time I've ever put thermal paste onto a chip, so not sure if I've done it right, but think I have.

Right after I put it in, I downloaded HWinfo32, and started monitoring temps. Also downloaded prime95 and wprime, and runnign tests with bios A09, no overclock or throttlestop.

In idle, I get about temps ranging from 46-52 degrees, mostly ranging around 50ish.

In Prime95, I ran the blend test for about 10 minutes, that seemed to put all my cores at 100%, and temps were around 77, with a max of 80.

In wPrime, I ran 1024M, and had similar results, temps around 77 with max of 80. However, this one didn't seem to put all my cores at 100%, seemed a lot less looking at the windows gadget I've got running.

Do those temps look right? This is first time I've repasted a CPU, or run CPU stress testing software so I'm not even sure if I'm running the right software. Would appreciate any feedback. Thanks guys.

 

For a first time repaste i'd say you did good.

 

those temps look good for a 920 before i re-pasted mine i was getting to 90+ range.The paste they use at the factory sucks,not to mention they usually do a crap
job in the first place.

 

Any tips or tricks for installing and repasting acpu would be nice. I plan to upgrade to a 920xm within the next 6 months.

 

whell these temps looks mutch like mine with stock paste

 

Thanks for the comments guys, looks like I did at least semi-ok, which is fine for me. I wasn't sure if I had applied the thermal paste on ok at all.

time to try throttlestop!

kenichols, I just downloaded the system manual for the m17x, and followed the instructions and diagrams in that. Was quite straightforward. I think there are some picture guides in this forum as well that may help.

Like most people, the hardest part was the prying of the central control cover, where I wasn't really sure how much force I could apply to pry it up. I had a plastic spudger sorta thing, and I also used some plastic ballpoint pen caps to help pry it up.

everything else seemed ok. 2 things though that i noticed:

1) in the manual, there wasn't any mention of the crossfire cable between the two graphics cards, and removal of this was essential to taking off the magnesium cover inside
2) In the manual, it said something about 6 screws for the cpu heat sink, I could only find 4.

 

Ok, been playing around with Throttlestop to try and unlock full power of this fancy schmancy processor.

Downloaded latest version, and had a quick look around the forums to see what I should set it it to. Saw a reference to TDP/TDC of 90/75 and set multiplier to 25 as an easy and quick overclock, so decided to try that first.

Think I managed to set the TDP/TDC successfully, but not sure about the multiplier setting. In the other posts, there were references to an UNLK button, which for the life of me, I can't find in the prog. I'm assuming its been renamed possibly. Anyway I thought if I set it in the TRL window, thats equivalent, so I set 4 cores active to 25, and ran some benching

Result is as the attached pic. Is that correct?



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Those temps look right to you guys? That was after at least 5-7 mins of loading the cores. If thats the case and I've set it correctly, I think thats quite a viable ongoing setup, where I can just leave it like, that. I'm comfortable with the CPU hitting around 88 degrees under full load and with all 4 cores fully loaded.

If all 8 threads have a FID of 25.00, does that mean that all 4 cores are running at the turbo max speed ie. the major bonus of having an XM processor?

 

A little warm but other than that, your screen shot looks good. As long as you keep the maximum core temperature under 90C, you are still well within the Intel specification for this. ThrottleStop calculates the average multiplier for each thread individually and all 8 threads are reporting the same thing so all 4 cores must be using the full 25.0 turbo multiplier.

If you want to learn more about the ThrottleStop TDP/TDC settings, decrease them by about 20 or 30 points and fully load your CPU again. The average multiplier in the FID column won't be nearly as high as the CPU rapidly throttles the amount of turbo boost you are getting to remain under the TDP/TDC limits you've set. You can also try changing the Turbo Ratio Limits to the Intel default values of 24, 23, 17, 17. Intel designed these CPUs so the maximum turbo multiplier is only 17 when fully loaded. Being able to run these fully loaded at the 25 multiplier gives a nice 47% boost in CPU performance compared to the original Intel 920XM spec. You are also running more than 100% faster than a fully loaded i7-720QM can run at. (25 vs 12) The turbo power limits are not adjustable in the 720QM so at full load you get zero turbo boost and are left running at the default multiplier which is only 12 and that's it.

 

Quick update on temps. Not sure if the thermal paste has settled or completed burn-in, but now seems to be idling around 42-43 degrees, with a min of 40...which seems to be much better than before.

 

this means that you actually did a good repaste job