G73SW 2920XM (ES) model upgrade (failure)

Installed a new 2920xm in my G73sw. Seems to work fine in normal mode but the cpu never goes into turbo mode. Even when I run prime95 which takes all cores to 100%.

I've tried throttlestop but that did not resolve the probem.

Temps are ok. There are no settings in the bios for any kind of steppings or turbo mode,

Can this be a software issue of some kind? I am thinking of re-installing OS on a spare drive to see it that helps.

 

Are you sure that you do not have an option in the BIOS? You should have an option appear when you install an XM model or at least mine did with my 920XM. For some reason when this option was turned on my turbo did not work and I had to turn it off before it did, I think this is because you can set the multipliers in the BIOS and if you dont it will not activate the turbo.

By turning it off you can just unlock the multipliers using Throttlestop, again this might be different to the 920XM however.

What are you using to measure the turbo?

 

I looked very carefully in the bios and it doesn't look any different than before I installed the new processor.

I am using intel's turbo boost monitor and cpu-z to monitor the frequency while running prime95.

 

Im stuck at work at the moment so cant check my laptop will take a look when I get home in about an hour but hopefully Mr Throttlestop aka Unclewebb (can try sending him a PM) or someone else can advise on this for you, but I dont know many brave enough to cough up for the mighty 2920XM in their G73 Very nice.

 

Can you post a screeny of your Throttlestop...

 

Deleted, off topic...

 

They are far from being cheap lol

But then you look at the difference in benchmark scores between XM generations when they are not unlocked.

3DMark06

940XM: 4080 2920XM: 6362

Vantage

940XM: 15022 2920XM: 21537

But then if you consider that once unlocked we have full customisation upto 4.0ghz with the older 920/940XM the comparison is not so much and the price difference is huge. $300 for a QS 920XM vs $1000+ for a 2920XM. It is worth waiting for the Ivy bridge for us JH owners.

Waiting for the Throttlestop screenshot from the OP...

 

Actually not the expensive for engineering sample:

NEW Intel i7-2920XM ES 2.4GHz not 2.5GHz not 2820 2720 | eBay

INTEL i7 2920XM extreme 3.5GHZ 8Mb -- best mobile CPU-- | eBay

 

I will post screenshot tonight. Is there anything I should do in throttlestop first?

 

Ah but the problem with the ES version of the 2920XM is that it is not the same as the OEM/Retail and the clocks are lower.

Well I have had a look and as long as you have selected an option in Throttlestop and changed the Set Multiplier to Turbo it should be working, but maybe you have another option with a Sandy that needs turning on. Here is a picture of my TS:

 

Oops! I deleted my post, you answered..

Ok, maybe not too much off-topic then, it´s amazing how fast Intel develops new blazing fast CPU´s.

 

2nd gen was very impressive but still if the Ivy is to be as powerful as Intel claim it will it will be worth the wait for it their claim is that:

Ivy Bridge

Intel is targeting a 30 percent graphics performance and 20 percent CPU performance boost compared to Sandy Bridge

 

20% CPU performance boost, hmmm... Not more?

Who will use the onboard GPU and for what?

Not gamers!

 

Not more?! 20% is a huge amount. The Sandy Bridge was 17% more powerful than the first gen I-series so 20% more powerful than a Sandy is pretty serious power.

The inevitability is that the CPU will do all of the graphics work. There have been claims and theories for a long time that the CPU is more than capable of doing all of the work and that soon we wont need a dedicated GPU and the CPU doing a much better job than a Graphics board.

The rate that they are firing out CPU's it might not be that far off happening, especially as the current Integrated GPU's arent that weak when they are working correctly and if they get a 30% increase in the Ivy that will be more than enough for notebooks and netbooks.

 

Yeah, I guess. But it's like going from 2 fps to 4fps in a game. 200% increase... no noticeable difference.

 

Totally ungaming related CPU power. Until the CPU becomes GCPU that is. But for editing, video and CAD work that will make a huge difference.

 

DCx: "Yeah, I guess. But it's like going from 2 fps to 4fps in a game. 200% increase..."

How do you calculate that?

If I have a 1.6 Ghz CPU, and the next gen. of that CPU will be increased with 20% performance, that equals to something like 1.94 Ghz..

Plaese xplain your point about the 200% increase in game, FPS, whatever, I´m lost, maybe because it´s 2am in Bangcock and I´m on the GinTonic rollercoaster, he-he!

 

OK I am aware that this is ES. But it is still better than what I had and I would be perfectly happy as along as turbo boost works. Base clock is 20% higher and it has better cache too.

I am looking at the throttlestop docs now. I wasn't able to get any better clocks with it last night but I am probably not using it correctly.

 

It doesn't work like that, the 20% is not just the clock speed. The 1st Gen XM can run at 4.0ghz and the sandy can run at 4.0ghz but the sandy would eat the 1st gen alive because of the way it handles processes. The Ivy will not just gain 20% clock speed it will gain an overall performance increase.

DCX was right about gaming performance a game only requires a certain amount of processing power, higher clocks help to process faster but more power does not necessarily means better performance in games when you are comparing a CPU to how a game performs because the majority of the graphical processing is done by the GPU and not the CPU. This is shown by games that require more CPU processing when there is a lot happening on screen for instance Starcraft 2, CIV 5 etc and if the CPU is not powerful enough to handle all of the processes it can bottleneck the system and then you will see the frames drop.

The 720QM is more than capable to handle all games at the moment, unless you are planning an obscene Zerg attack or plan to launch widespread attacks on the old country. An upgrade is only really worthy if you plan to utilise it, I personally love gadgets and visual effects so it helps me along with my occasional video editing, not to mention it feeds my addiction for power.

Most definetely it is an upgrade just that is the reason why the price was so pucker because it is a lower clocked processor and an engineering sample.

Still a very good upgrade.

 

Here is url for an image of my throttlestop screenshot

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/856/captureto.png/

 

Thanks Dallers, I learned something new again, but I speak from my only viewpoint and that´s the terrible Microsoft Flight Simulator X, which is CPU bound, and I repeat, only CPU bound!

You can run it with an old ATI 4670/80 or whatever the numbers are, and you will have decent performance if the CPU can get the GHz going...

THAT was my angle of argument, I don´t know anything about DX 10/11/12 GPU games, nada, nothing, nil...

PS: And most def. a 720QM can not run FSX acceptable, no way...

But the awesome 920XM can do it...

I have one, and you have one too!

 

There are CPU intensive games but the majority require a GPU to perform the majority of the processing. It certainly helps stabilise the lower frames though although the increase in frames between the 720QM and 920XM for instance is minimal.

Flight Sim is similiar to GTA in that it has a huge amount of on screen processing required especially if you plan to have the viewing range up high the range on GTA is totally awesome but too much for laptop owners it should have been better optimised for the PC.

 

Here is an update.

According to what I have read and what throttlestop is telling me my cpu is not recognized as unlocked. Even when I set Extreme=1 in the config file.

I am working with the seller to try and get turbo boost working.

I do have the latest bios in my laptop. At this point I'm not very hopeful that I will be able to get turbo boost working or get a better clock speed than 2.4ghz.

 

Can you run a single threaded application like 1 thread of Prime95 or Super Pi mod and post a screen shot of ThrottleStop while that is running. Also post a screen shot of the TPL window.

These ES CPUs are not 2920XM CPUs but Turbo Boost should still work if the bios supports these.

 

Mr Throttlestop is here ^^ he will get it working for you but dont listen to the seller listen to the owner of the program and get a screenshot posted like I said earlier.

 

Can I ask what web site you guys use to post images? When I try to imbed a link to imageshack the image comes up blank.

 

Tiny Pic or Imageshack are the easiest they are free.

 

Here are the results

 

Does clicking on the Set Multiplier box in the above example make any difference?

Can you try setting the Package Power Limit #2 to 69? It's presently set to 0 which might be blocking turbo boost.

Also try cycling the Disable Turbo button on and off and post what the TRL window shows.

The Alienware M18x works great with this batch of ES CPUs that have been selling on EBay recently. As I mentioned before, these are not exactly the same as a 2920XM so what features are available will depend on the motherboard and bios being used. If your bios does not fully support this CPU then you may not ever get Turbo Boost working correctly.

 

Seeing how Asus loves their customers so much that they never want you to open the case, I'll assume that the BIOS won't like the ES model.

< /sarcasm>

 

Clicking multiplier doesn't help. Neither does setting limit to 69.

Here is trl window

 

So far I haven't seen any obvious reason why Turbo Boost is not working for you. Are there any bios options that give you any control over this CPU? Alienware users don't seem to be having this problem with this CPU so I'm thinking that maybe the Asus bios does not recognize these CPUs and is not setting them up correctly.

Can you try one more test? With my MSR Tool, can you enter 0x610 in the MSR Number box and then click on the Read MSR button after that and post a screen shot of that register.

It's the register that controls turbo boost. The only thing I can think of is the time limit might have been accidentally set to zero which is blocking turbo boost from working.

MSR Tool
http://www.mediafire.com/?myjkxzkzzmd

Edit: One more thing. Can you click on the C States button to the right of the BCLK button in ThrottleStop 3.20 b2 and show me that window when your CPU is idle. It shows what C States your CPU is using. Maximum turbo boost depends on idle cores being able to enter the deeper sleep states. I don't think this is your problem but I just want to make sure that everything looks OK.

ThrottleStop 3.20 beta 2
http://www.mediafire.com/?4ug155h06073w5v

 

Was it me or was there a note of sarcasm in the tone of Chastity's comment about Asus and the ES models

But seeing as there is not yet a sarcasm smiley or if no fix is found do we actually know this isn't the case? The ES models are lower clocked and pre QS meaning that they are certainly different the 920/940XM ES/QS models and as always with the ES models although very unlikely they could either be carrying bugs or not be not ready for some models for instance if there was going to be a model that the ES would kick up a fuss it would be made by the fussiest of all the fussy companies. Asus.

Lets hope this is not the case for the OP and that it is something simple but I am sure there is a BIOS option for the OEM/Retail 2920XM models is there not?

 

The 920XM ES and 940XM ES that many NBR users have had great success with, had the same CPUID as the retail versions of these CPUs so there shouldn't have been any major bugs. When bugs are fixed, they update the stepping number and it will have a new CPUID as well.

The mobile Sandy Bridge CPUs that are being sold on EBay recently are very early production models and are not the same as any retail models that Intel has produced. Bugs are going to be more common in these early ES CPUs. I'm hoping this is just a minor bios support issue and that Turbo Boost can be enabled by changing a register or two.

 

or maybe in power 4 gear setting the max cpu perfoarmance is set to like 50% or running on entertainment mode or something like that, did you check power 4 gear software ?

 

Good point indeed we have been focusing mainly on the major things and it could be something simple that is causing the CPU to not access the turbo.

Still racking my brain about when I first installed my XM I am sure I had the same issue and I didnt do anything in the BIOS but I just cant remember for the life of me what I did and im sure it is something simple within TS. My 920 just would not access the turbo either would hit 2.0ghz I think I even posted about it in my XM thread let me take a look.

 

The c states button is greyed out. I completely uninstalled power 4 gear early on in my investigation.

I have considered a fresh install of windows 7 on a spare drive just to see if that helped.

 

I am trying the msr tool now

 

Here is the cpu-z

 

I don't see anything that looks unusual in the Power Limit register so I don't think I will be able to solve this problem for you.

The last thing to try is to run the MSR Tool again and enter 0x610 and click on Read MSR. After this, go into the Copy To section at the top right and click on the top Write button to copy the contents of that register into the box at the bottom where you can edit it. In the EAX column it presently shows

0x00 1E81B8

Try changing the first 1 to the letter D so it shows

0x00DE81B8

Leave 0x00008000 in the EDX box as is and then click on the Write MSR button when you are done. This changes the time limit for turbo boost but I really don't think this is blocking Turbo boost. Run another single thread of Prime95 to test.

If you haven't tried clearing the Enable Limit boxes in the TDP window then clear both boxes now and see if that makes any difference.

I can't think of any other way to test what the problem is. If you had an Alienware board or an Alienware owner lent you his ES CPU then you could do some parts swapping and try to find out if this is an Asus bios issue or else it's a bad ES CPU with the Turbo Boost feature disabled. I think it is probably something in the bios that is blocking this.

TS 3.20 b2 should let you click on the C State button to the right of BCLK on the main screen and then it will open up the new C State window. This feature was completely locked for you in version 3.00 but I think it should open up now. I just wanted to make sure your CPU was using at least the C3 sleep state when idle.

 

Tried all of that and also a fresh install of win 7. Nothing seems to help.

Thanks so much to all of you for help and input.

I have worked out a refund with the seller. And I will start look looking for a good price on a real 2820QM.

 

As mentioned it could just be the 2920XM (ES) model and the OEM/Retail will be ok but its good to know these things. Prevents others facing the same issue.

If you can report your post and request it to say something like:

G73SW 2920XM (ES) model upgrade (failure)

 

Sorry I don't see any way to report the thread. Do you know who the moderator is?

 

Just click on this symbol beneath your avatar on the post you want to report.