PSU Modification cable

Hello everyone,

please forgive me for any typing and grammatical errors, english is not my native language.(this is also my first build blog)
I,ve encountered some throttling on my M15X lately due to upgrades.
ive had a lot of disscussion on the http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m15x/700476-m15x-7970m-throttle-fix.html
what we could do to fix upgrade psu related problems.

***Please read***
the things im currently up to and doing requires experience with smaller electronics and should severely be over thought before attempting.
everything you do is at youre own risk


so im started with a mod cable
here's my progress so far.

so last week i ordered an 240w adapter for my old lappie.(this fixed most problems)
i purchased an official dell adapter so the bios reckognises my new brick and popped up with a notification on booting up.(disabled this in the bios)
and i wrecked open my old 150w adapter

in the lower left there is the psu id chip junk.

the highlighted red area shows the circuity
and its basicly this schematic

what im attempting to build is something like this



this is my shopping list:
- my old 150w psu (got it)
- an dell charging port (found one on an old dell laptop dockingstation someone threw in the trash)
- a small solder chip board(got it)
- a small box (got it)
- time (not enough)

Build progress so far:

*01-08-2013*
harvested all the necessary components together.
desoldererd and laptop dock to get the charging port
aquired a box (for the board)
wrecked open my old adapter
written my first thread(sorry everyone)
-desoldering the psu id chip placing it on the board
-soldering the resistor onto the board
-soldering the charging port onto the board
-soldering the old cable onto the board
-placing everything in the box.

*to do*
-testing

anything i forgot, did wrong or simply like to comment please let me know!

 

Fantastic stuff! Can't wait to see the conclusions. I was just about to pull the trigger on a 210W adapter to replace my 150W that has exposed wires coming out of it but I'll wait to see your results before proceeding.

 

Why don't you just disable "power adapter check" on bios if you wnt to get rid of the boot warning? Does this psu ID has any advantages over it?

 

i did disable the power check.
im trying to build a cable that will support non dell adapters.
and trying to resolve some throttle issues related to the psu

 

*UPDATE*
05-08-2013
today i finished up my build, here are my pictures

i tried desoldering the id and resistor. but that was difficult.
so i thought why not use this part of the original print and just solder the required components onto it



here is just the 240w adapter as shown on the bios


and this is with my mod-box
as you can see it shows up as my original 150w adapter but its actually the 240w adapter

now i just have to test to see that it doesnt short out or anything weird.
this might just be an solution for the people with the 330w adapter over at the m18x and m17x forums

 

Quite literally amazing! Can't wait to hear the results. Try to overclock everything to the MAX!
If you have success in reducing throttling I will definitely be doing this mod myself.
Just to be clear, did you remove the 150W ID chip and surrounding PCB from the psu? If so how did you remove the pcb?

 

i just simply wrecked open my old psu and only used the necessary bit of pcb surrounding the psu-id.
then i soldered some wiring onto it. and it works.
gonna try benching later this week

 

okay so i did a couple of benchmarks with 3dmark vantage with my 240w adapter only.

im currently using the 13.6 catalyst beta
and using the unlocked M15X bios(throttle states disabled)

1st run
on the 1.1v 900/1400 and throttle stop settings 27,27,26,25
i got: 11307
(wich is a low score due to the throttlestop settings)

2nd run
same gpu settings and throttlestop settings 27,25,22,22
i got: 11344

then i decided to go into the bios and change the cpu settings.
raised it to 3.7 GHz

3rd run
throttlestop settings 28,25,22,22
using the same gpu settings but upped the clocks to 900/1450
and combined with the cpu maxing out
i got: 20007(at the edge of thermal shutdown)

4th run(using adapter mod)
and the same settings as the 3rd run.
i got: 19447(at the edge of thermal shutdown again)

so it seems that my psu mod isnt really doing much of a diffrence.
not only that its pushing my scores down.
maybe the new catalyst beta driver will do some magic(doubtfull)

sidenote:
i sometimes had to stop a run because of sudden throttling, and then the other time it would just complete the run without throttling.
i cant figure out why this happens

 

Do you have a power usage meter to determine power draw from the socket/wall? Might be interesting to compare usage with and without the adapter.

Also unrelated, do you have a link for the unlocked A09 BIOS? Thanks

 

I unfortunately don't have a meter to measure the wattage
I got the unlocked bios over at bios-mods.com forum

Link to file:
http://www.bios-mods.com/forum/attachment.php?aid=2261

 

Excellent clean mod! :thumbsup: Thanks for pointing me here. Hopefully my adapter turns out as neat as yours.

 

Simply get yourself a 210W dell adaptor. Problem solved.

I will push for 1000/1500mhz this weekend with 23x across all 4 cores!