G73jh CPU/GPU upgrade half success

Hi everyone,

I manage to upgrade my G73jh by adding the following:
- WIFI AC
- USB3 (+ soldering new socket for it)

- 7970m (clevo 1.2 + DELL vBios)
- intel 920XM (From i5-430m)
- 8GB samsung DDR3-1600

I put everything except the USB3 card because I am waiting to solve another huge problem before.

My laptop boot, everything seems to work but, the 7970m is throttling (locked at 450/300), the 920XM can not go more than 65W TDP in throttlestop ... If I did I get instent shut down !
I then search for solution and I read about PSU issue.

So I buy this 240W PSU from ebay: http://www.ebay.fr/itm/201638674476

The problem is that the new psu didnt solve my issue !

I thought it was a wrong/bad/fake PSU so I measured the voltage at the G73 power jack level:
19,5V IDLE, 19,1V LOADED.
So I solder directly the PSU wire on the jack rear (just for test):
19,5V IDLE 19,3V LOADED
Its better ! But still no effect on throttle. (I think 19,3V is enough ? I may have to watch the signal on oscilloscope..)

I tryed on batterie, AC removed (My batterie is almost dead, only 20% capacity but it work), same thing !

So Now, I need your help to know If I have to buy another power brick (a better one ?) or if my MB is faulty or something else..

Thanks !

More details:
My G73jh is the smallest config (i5-430m)
My MB is a "brown" one, with only 2 RAM slot
I openned the PSU to watch internal "quality" and it looks like strong, very 240W capable...
My "test configuration" is with the MB alone on th table, do you think the "metal" part rear the keyboard have something to do with power delivery on the MB ? I put a little heatsink on the chipset die in case of but again.. no effect !
Temp are all OK, since everything is downclocked...

EDIT: I reassemble the laptop and it is still not working so no, the metal plane have nothing to do with power delivery

 

You CPU is a 55W TDP model, so 65W is already a bit high in my view, here the specs:
http://ark.intel.com/products/43126/Intel-Core-i7-920XM-Processor-Extreme-Edition-8M-Cache-2_00-GHz

 

Hi,
thank you for your reply !

For the theorical TDP, you are right its 55W
But man.. its an XM! It was built for OC and everybody can OC it to at least 3.2ghz (on a G73 ) !

One more thing, the problem is that my MB is shuting down.
If it was the CPU tdp limit, I think that:
- the CPU temp would reach max temp (100+ deg)
- I would get a BSOD
My computer simply shut down, that is why i think its more a bad ac adapter or a bad motherboard..

 

Still no need to raise the TDP for overclock, as far as I remember. But it's also well possible that the mainboard simply can't deliver more power (anymore).

 

Sorry, but I am almost sur you are wrong. I really need to raise tdp in throttlestop because that is the way it work ! If i stay at 55W, it will not be able to raise frequency because 55W is the tdp for 2ghz.
I read almost everywhere that people set it to 80W or even 90W ...
Maybe you are right for my MB not able to feed power but... why ? maybe it is my ac adapter... how to know !

 

On the mainboard are voltage changer (don't remember the correct name atm), those are limited to a certain amount. It might be that they simply can't transform more voltage.

 

You are right, like VRMS on GPU card.
But if this is the bottleneck, it is not a normal behavior because all peoples over the web can do that.
Prove:
this guy push tdp to 93W: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-with-benchmarks-from-a-user-like-you.619390/
this guy 78W: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/asus-g73jh-920-940xm-multiplier-tdp-tdc-values.514239/
this guy 90W: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/overclocking-g73jh-using-920xm.774583/#post-9983209

All of them are limited because of the temperature, not by the TDP (AMP).
My CPU isnt throttl-ing.. => My motherboard shutdown.

That is why I am confused... Maybe my PSU is too weak, maybe my motherboard is damaged or it is a version that do not support that power.
How to know :-/

 

Anyway, I just ordered another PSU, a geniune DELL 330W. A real one this time (I guess ).
I will let you know to tell you if it is working !

Thank you for your concern !

 

Some News !



I received the DELL 330W power adapter and I manage to "convert" it to G73jh jack.

It work well but didnt solve anything...



BUT ! I flash another vBIOS, a Clevo one (enduro disabled) and now the GPU run at max frequency !

So for the GPU part, its all working well..



Still have problem with CPU, my PC still instant shut down if I go after 70W tdp (while executing prime95)



So I did a lot of test with ThrottleStop, HW64 and Prim95.

What I see is that, when I raise TDP, CPU Frequency raise (wich is the desired behavior) BUT the BCLK become crazy and dont stay at 133MHZ !

It Jump to 150, even 170 wich mean my DDR3 SIMMs are way beyond the stock 666Mhz .

I tryed to disable Turbo Boost in bios but by doing this I cant use throttlestop anymore :-/.

I also tryed differents bios (211,213, modded 213 V5), nothing chage.



If anyone have a G73jh with a 920XM/940XM can do the test... just run P95 and watch frequencies in HW64 and see if mem clock become crazy.

In my setup the computer fail at 750Mhz (wich is high compared to stock 666...)

 

Should I buy 1600 SIMMs ??

 

Update:

I think HW64 was wrong, it was not able to read the CPU multiplier in real time, against it compute a fake BCLK value...

I guess because CPU-z's frequencies are all OK (mem stay at 667).

So... It apear that my 920XM do not want to eat that much power ! Or maybe my MB do not want to feed it.. That would be strange since the 7970m work just fine. I am even able to overclock it (975/1400 from 850/1200, stable 1H FurMark (95° top temp)).

I'll measure the Vcore to see if there is "glitch" or something like that.

 

GPU normally has it's own VRMs on the gpu-board. That's why you can exchange it with a much more power hungry model, although the 5870m is already a very power hungry one.

 

You are right,
the fact is the 7970m have no problem draining power, even OCed its rock solid stable !

So the problem can be only one of those three theory:
- Faulty VRMS on the MB => I'll check the 3.3V stability
- Different VRMS on my MB version (i5-430m version ? Brown version ?) => 3.3V check plus comparing my MB with "green" MB picture, on my MB not all VRMS are soldered (neither on the green MB on some ggle pics but I didnt check it in details..)
- Faulty 920XM => I'll measure Vcore but .. It will be hard to troubleshoot !