How to pinmod and further overclock the M11x R1 (SLG= Hardmod only)

Alright, I plan to start learning about how to overclock and stuff..I plan to start with ram timings and hopefully get to fsb/processor overclocking 1 day when I have the guts..What software can I use to check if there is an improvement in speed with my memory once I set timings as well as the stability?

 

Not really, unless you count benchmarks.

1333mhz RAM won't make a difference as it will still run at 800mhz due to the changing RAM ratio from 1:2 to 3:2. Yes, changing the timings is possible with Memset, but CAS can't be changed with it.

You got SiSoftware Sandra and maybe SuperPi but nothing real world.

 

Last question..If i can adjust the timings regardless of what ram I use and regardless of if it's 1066/1333, what's the difference between say a hyperx and my stock samsung ram? Thanks a lot btw..=)

 

hyperx sometimes comes with a heatspreader, so it might be a little bit cooler.

 

if your only OCing thru the bios getting anything other than generic 1066 would be a waste. yea you can lower some of the timings with software... but its really not going to be worth the price imo.

btw. the kingston hyperX sucks, i went tru 2 kits. both had one bad stick, as in it wouldnt work @ 800mhz (cas 6). which is a speed the most basic DDR3 can hit. all the reviews trend towards the fact the RAM used to be good but now its not. maybe they are using different chips or somthing.... idk, id stay away.

i just went with 2 basic GSkill 4gb modules and they worke fine even with my 2.0ghz pin mod that runs the RAM @ 1000mhz (cas 6). considering it was the same price as the 4gb hyperX kit and it goes above the spec its rated for.

 

Ahh,so I guess I'm just gonna save myself the trouble of getting a hyperx then, props on the pin mod u did man..Wish I had the guts and skill to OC my SLG..So if I don't do any hard mods and just rely on the BIOS overclock, getting new ram or changing timings won't be of much use? Did u change the ram timings on ur g.skill or leave the factory timings?

 

thanks man. i had awesome help from the guys on this thread in getting to 2.0ghz

imo messing with the timings is more of a benchmarking thing. i havent really messed with it at all. i didnt change my GSkill timings at all. they work fine just the way they are.

fyi the FLSx mod i did isnt much different from the TME mod. your basically just soldering 2 pins instead of just one. but where it might get tricky is if you need a volt mod to get stable. then you gotta solder somthing else in order for it to really work. where as the TME mod you just would be at a lower OC but stable (unless you want to volt mod to go higher) but ether way odds are you will still maybe get somthing out of it. where the FLSx pinmods are ether work on dont work.

 

I thought unlocking the TME in the ICS (not sure about the SLG, haven't read the recent posts yet) could be done by cutting/separating a single pin with the easy mod?

If I may ask, u didn't make use of a volt mod to get to 2ghz right? Just a 10k resistor am I correct? the And no software was needed(i.e. setFSB, setPLL)? I gotta tell you soldering pins that small..Ur hands must be really, really steady and precise dude..

 

oh yea. i forgot you can just cut for the ICS TME mod. not sure about the SLG tho.

yea for 2.0ghz i didnt need the extra vcore. i did try the volt mod in my trials for higher clocks and basically confirmed it works but i dont need it for the highest OC any RAM will allow with the FLSx pin mods. (2.0ghz)

and yea, no software or anything. thats why i love the FLSx pinmod. just set it and forget it! it really is awesome if you get the itch to do it. 20% higher clocks across the board and gave me just over 8k 3dmark06... thats R2 teritory

 

You deserve every bit of it..It's quite a risk..did u post any pictures? Maybe if I get real bored 1 day and muster up the guts,i'll try it..I didn't even know they had soldering irons that small..and u hav to use additional led to solder it in place right?

 

here is some links to pics i took through out the process of figuring out stuff.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-m11x-r1-slg-hardmod-only-24.html#post7106853

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-m11x-r1-slg-hardmod-only-32.html#post7119236

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-m11x-r1-slg-hardmod-only-32.html#post7119282

should help a bit.

i never did take a pic of things after i was all done. so some stuff looks pretty bad and burnt up, but it was just left over flux (brown in color) that i later cleaned up.

it was hard... im not going to pretend that it wasn't. there is even a few posts you can read where i start whining about throwing in the towel... but after it bought a new soldering iron it was MUCH easier!

got mine at Radioshack for $20 i think

 

Nice documentation some guy. Those pics help a lot to know what I'd be getting myself into. That chip is tiny! I've done tiny stuff, but not with other pins so close. The smallest wire I've got is 32 AWG, but now I'm worried that's not small enough.

I've found myself into Radio Shack to pick up solder, 10k resistors, etc. Still I lack the nerve to break into my SLG. One day I'll be bored and careless enough to try. That's probably the worst time to do it though.

I'd really like to do the possible SLG TME unlock mod. I don't like the idea of lifting a pin. I feel like the TME mod could be removed easy enough. Although from the pics, the iron heat seems to leave evidence behind doesn't it?

 

Looking at these pics a bit closer, it looks like pin 14 traces to a solder pad right off the chip.

Has anyone who did the TME unlock soldered to that pad rather than the pin?

 

i dont think you need to lift the pins. the only one i did that with was pin7. all the other mods i tried worked with out lifting the pin and they were still sucsessful.

 

So only a 2GHz mod requires a lifted pin? Because pin7 to 3.3V is 2GHz if I understand correctly...

If I open this up, I think I'll put pin 14 to ground just in case the TME unlock works. Might think about some sort of removable FSLx mod with the TME unlock. I don't wanna keep taking it apart if I can help it. That's usually how I break plastic tabs and such

 

personaly if i had to do it all over again knowing what i know now. i would try to do the 2.0ghz FLSx mod first. if i wasnt stable or didnt want to do the volt mod for stability. i would then do the TME mod.

reason being i have always prefered the "set it and forget it" of hard mods over messing with soft mods, not to mention i dont think anyone is going to get much past 2.1ghz anyway due to the locked Cas6 setting in the bios. we just havent found RAM that can handel the OC so imo not woth the head ache.

but some would argue otherwise.

i dont think you have to lift pin7 in order for this to work. in fact im 99% sure you dont.

 

Ok, bored and careless came sooner than I'd thought. I just tried the pin 14 to ground SLG mod. But I'm not sure I have TME unlock. Perhaps moral hazard can chime in since he did a SLG before...

When checking the TME status as shown in the OP, will the bit change as it shows there? How would I know the TME is unlocked or not?

The Byte 9, Bit 6 did NOT change looking at the SLG8SP513V in SetFSB. But that may only work for ICS

Any thoughts?

Edit:
Not to shun your advice some guy, but I decided to try the TME cause I was SOOO shaky with the iron. Bad day to try this. I just wanted to try one pin rather than 2. Downside is now I don't know if it did anything. Even if TME is disabled, there is no proof that the frequency change is possible. So long as I can't brick it by trying, I guess I'm willing.

 

The TME bit should be the same (B9b6). If it didn't change I would go back and use a multimeter to check your soldering. Though I have to say I did not do this mod with an SLG pll. I only have RTM and ICS PLLs.

 

Thanks,

Its completely possible that the connection is poor, but it seemed solid. The pins are so small it could have popped off during reassembly.

Or the TME is not on pin 14 at all.....

EDIT:

Is there any harm in trying to change the frequency at this point even if the TME is locked? If something screws up, reboot will fix it right?

 

Yes I think so, but I messed up my windows installation 2x while messing with this stuff (had to use system restore to get everything back to normal).

 

good luck hdad2. i think you are the first SLG owner to try this.

if you have the itch to go back in to solder some more, i highly suggest getting that super small iron they have at Radioshack. it made things 1,000% more easy.

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5020311/Screenshot/desktop_20110321224953.png

I wonder if its possible to make operation cleaner.

Any one else with SLG who successfully overclocked cpu?

 

im not sure what you mean cleaner...

the one pic is before i cleaned the flux off the board. thats why i made the one with the red lines for clarity.

 

well i tried my pinmod, disconnect pin 2 for bios test mode, and with the oc option in the bios off that should have gave me actual 1.73ghz but cpu-z says 1197mhz???

EDIT: pin mod successful!!!!!!!!!!!. im running at 1.73 and cpuz comfimed it! i went back and redid the pin mod and it works =p

just cut pin 2 for 1.73.

 

and we have a winner!

nice job man! now go get that 3Dmark score!

 

thanks dude, just tried 3dmark and it crashed. i think it could be a ram issue.

EDIT: ran memtest86 and i got some errors... so i went back to my stock ram and ran memtest86 again and got no errors at all. but when i tried 3dmark again it wouldnt finish and still reboots itself. any help please??

EDIT2: had to revert back to 1.6 by enabling overclock in the bios... after that, nothing wrong, runs fine.. im pretty sure there some issue with ram. even going back to stock ram websites wont open, apps crash. etc.. i need to fix this..

 

Thanks. I'll open her back up after a while to check the solder job. Might even throw a FSLx mod while I'm in there.

Very cool!

What pll is this? Or would they be the same? And could this be used with other mods to increase the multiplier?

 

this is the SLG. and im not sure. im having ram issues tho...

 

I guess I'm not sure what this most does. Is it just stock bus speed with a higher cpu multiplier? Perhaps the voltage is higher too since the bios undervolts in overclock mode?

 

basicly, all this does is make the cpu run at its full 1.73ghz. and ram at 1066mhz. but im having trouble finding ram that doesnt get errors. i think i might have to change the ram timings a bit?? davygt could be of some help?

 

1066 cas 6 should be easy for just about any RAM... and this is the mod I would probably do.

 

yeah it should be, but i cant get it stable. im using the stock hynex 2x1gb ram sticks. cas 6. its 6-6-6-15. and at 1066mhz. but my programs crash and i get random errors. any help? i heard a program called typhoon burner or something like that can help change the timings and get it stable?

 

It can be used to reflash the spds but I think the BIOS will not allow higher than cas 6 regardless of spd.

 

hmm that may be true, therefor i might just need a better ram chip. any idea which might be stable? i just need a single 2gb stick. thanks =)

 

im using these

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Laptop Memory Model F3-8500CL7S-4GBSQ

they have been runing stable @ 1000mhz 6-6-6-15

 

thanks man, il order those as soon as i can.

 

im not sure what you mean cleaner...

I mean leaving as little marks as it possible

 

totally. just be neater? lol

most of the reason mine looks like crap in that pic is from the left over flux(all the brown color stuff). after i cleaned it off everything looked normal again. my pin7 is a little jacked up after the crazy number of times i soldered and unsoldered it with the number of configs i was trying out. not to mention i lifted mine up off the mobo.

remeber i was the first person to do this so my laptop was the labrat for the benifit of all SLG owners.

but aside from all else, if i wanted to return the chip to its original "look" it would not be hard at all. i would loose my OC tho with out the resistor in place.

 

why is the RAM always be the issue??? im unable to boot at 2.79GHz on my core 2 duo T6500 because of the ram.....

 

RAM is almost always the bottle neck when overclocking... (sometimes it the FSB but rarely)

thats why "extreme eddition" CPUs have unlocked multipliers... so you bypass the RAM clocks and only OC the CPU.

 

Alright guys, I have gathered the needed supplies, and am ready to start the Pin Mod. I have 10k resisters. So if I'm right I just need to solder the 10k resister to pin 14, and then gound it correct? I'll probably follow the pic in the original post. Is there anything I really need to know about? Any way to mod voltage? Thanks! Also are there any tips so that I don't get solder all over the chip?

 

SWEET!

i haven't totally read up on the TME unlock for the ICS cuz i have the SLG. so im as new to it as you are but as i understand thats pretty much it. then you need to mess with some software to start OCing.

i have done a volt mod (from 0.90v to 1.1v) it seemed to work as my temps went up by 4-5c @ idle (if i remember correctly) don't have my notes in front of me right now. if you do decide you need the volt mod let me know and i can dig up my notes for you. the trial and error is somewhere in this thread but hell if i know what page... lol

i dropped a blob of solder on to 3-4 pins and had to just go for it. i just soldered up the iron placed it on some solder wick and drug it across the pins like a paint brush. worked flawlessly... to be honest i thought i bricked my laptop then. but after that pretty easy fix i was much less scared with the iron and "mistakes"

 

Easiest way to solder small things is tin the 2 things you plan to connect. Then you just touch them together, add heat, and the solder will flow between them making the joint. Hold it steady for a few seconds once heat is removed to allow to cool/harden and you should be good to go. It is worth it to check with a multimeter to make sure that you did not short to any pins around the one you were working on.

I recommend using the iron as little as possible as many IC's are sensitive to heat and can be damaged by heating a pin too much with the iron.

(I will be doing this closer to the end of my warranty most likely haha)

 

Awesome guys, thanks. I am headed to drop lunch of for somone, then should be back here to give it a go. I grabbed the smallest soldering tip I could find, hope it's small enough, and the smalles roll of solder I could find as well. I'll let you know how it works out.

 

For pins that size you should need next to no solder. Do you have previous soldering experience? You want to have a tinned and cleaned tip or it will take forever to get the pin hot and solder wont stick. It will drive you crazy haha

Do you have the SLG or ICS PLL DR? I forgot

 

I'm lucky enough to have the ICS PLL. I have very little soldering experience, but some welding, though thats a totally differant animal.

 

Ya welding is much less finesse than soldering haha

 

So true. Where is the best place to apply the heat?

 

@some guy

ok so i went ahead and bought a 2gb stick of the g.skill ram you suggested, you said yours is stable at 1000mhz, what about the full 1066mhz which mine will be running at?

 

2gb? i linked a 4gb stick i thought...

well i cant tell you about the stability at 1066mhz cuz i cant run it that high. im using the 333mhz pin mod with OC mode on. that gives me a 2:3 ratio (OC mode off gives you a 1:2 ratio). so im only at 1000mhz on the RAM.

but as others have said, most any DDR3 should run 1066mhz Cas6 with no issues.