K53TA.. The best deal ever... could be!

Hmm downloaded the 11.8 drivers, Deus Ex runs fine on it, however BF:BC2 loses framerates on high, and I can't even overclock the GPU. Any drivers I should get? Thinking about trying the 11.6 but wondering which profiles I need for that.

 

No problem . Just so you know, I've been using my laptop on battery a little more and looks like the calibration is a little better and showing over 5 hours on battery! Yay.

Uninstall video drivers from device manager, telling it to delete driver files. Reboot. Run the installer of the stock Catalyst suite (download from Asus) and install drivers only (choose custom install). The latest Catalyst profiles should work great.

 

Thanks, i'll try this out. by the way, will this resolve the freezing issue with this driver too?

 

Yes, there's a huge benefit. P0 means it can be @ 2.8 Ghz ALL the time, whereas B0 is boost which is only activated in certain circumstances (i.e. it can be temporary).

There's tons of games that utilize quad-core and have a huge FPS boost over dual core. Bad Company 2 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution are just two examples. If you use dual-core in Deus Ex, for example, you're getting roughly 35-50% less FPS than if you use quad-core.

 

Alright so unless I'm missing something, I went to the K53TA page and looked through all 44 drivers and could not find the catalyst suite...am I missing something here?

 

Download Chipset drivers. Includes the display driver. Install that only. I'm doing the same thing as you, hopefully it doesn't change the performance in Deus Ex but will allow me to overclock.

 

Are you running Deus Ex on everything maxed right now? Btw, when you clocked the cores to 2.8 ghz, what was your B0 voltage and clock speed? And did you change the up/down% as well?

 

Oh yeah, sorry, chipset includes everything. If you already have 11.8 installed, install the Asus stock drivers, make sure it installs the other chipset drivers (like AHCI, USB 3.0, etc) when you install the GPU drivers if they aren't already.

 

this is a pretty active topic in a thread on arstechnica; same as here, the duo of the K53TA and little stepbrother G4-1117dx.. Some of the guys have gone on ebay, bought a gently used A6 and popped it in the G4. works. but I dunno about other mods or the frame rates they are getting.
Its probably misleading, but the WEI scores are actually very close between the two - i checked these in the store, but of course that is with no tweaking and uncertain driver revs, problemware, you name it....
results vary
But its of interest to me due to the form factor, weight, batt life, and I'm slightly partial to hp on a good day... they have their moments in the sun.
or did.
b4 they punted

 

Alright, so I dl'ed the asus chipset drivers. Should I install the 11.8 CAP2 profiles still?

Edit: Not sure if I should re-install the actual 11.8 drivers still too

 

ignore the WEI. it doesn't bench the 6650m.

 

you have to live with it.

the ATK is required for proper function of the hotkeys. atk is also required for other asus software to work.

 

Does this laptop have bluetooth? There's a driver on the site and some retailers say it does, but I can't find a way to turn it on. Doesn't show it in wireless tray either.

Also I rolled back my drivers (only) to 11.6 and they read correctly, but I still can't overclock even when ULPS is disabled, just like when I had the 11.8s installed. I am certain I have the correct 11.6 drivers and the 11.8 CCC and CAP2s. I've seen several others report the same after having upgraded to 11.8 and then rolling back. ?

While I research these two issues I'm installing the RIFT client, haven't tested at all on this lappy yet. RIFT is really good at testing different setups under DX11 because it has a lot of different options that clearly state whether they are CPU, GPU or RAM dependent.

 

This looks like a great deal. Wish 2 things though, better screen res and slightly smaller (14")

I wanted something semi portable with decent gaming capability.

 

Then wait for the K43TA

 

I'm a big guy and I like a decently sized screen to set a laptop apart from a phone or tablet . The size and weight of this notebook seem perfect to me, being a student and also using this as a desktop replacement. It fits perfectly into a string backpack/sack, better than some of my textbooks. Looks sorta large if I compare it to some of the other little laptops and notebooks in the class, but I'm a big guy, so I wouldn't look right carrying around a puny little macbook anyway .

 

As far as build quality and size go, I'm happy with this laptop. I almost bought a 17" notebook with a Phenom II and an hd6470 and saw this one at the last minute. Now I'm glad I got a 15.6" instead of the 17."

The screen really isn't as bad as a lot of people have said. The bios update that fixed the banding (206) created a black contrast issue that makes it a bit ugly compared to other screens, but that can supposedly be fixed by further bios updates. Personally I don't find it to be too bad as I've used worse.

Some people have said the laptop feels cheap and flimsy. Maybe that's based on their idea of what is a "classy" design. I'm basing my opinion on how much physical "wobble" or "shimmy" the hinges have, which is not much, the durability of the surface and the heat and power use. When considered on those terms, it's a great design.

The only issue I can really raise with the construction is that it's really difficult to remove the back panel, because the plastic could easily be cracked. Since many owners of this laptop could be interested in re-pasting, access to the cpu heatsink without high chance of warranty loss would be nice.

 

The build quality on this laptop rivals and exceeds many $800+ laptops. It does not feel cheap in any single way, other than the 'OK' screen quality (which is still pretty decent). The design is excellent and extremely classy as well. It's a very solid machine. Most people would think it has a pricetag approaching $1000+ if they didn't know any better.

I base this on my experiences with many laptops, and the last 2 laptops I owned were very expensive and high end. While the K53TA doesn't have the build quality of my M17x R3, it's not very far off either. It compares favorably with the G73, which is an extremely well built laptop.

 

Performance update: 1600 Mhz RAM does not work in this laptop. Disappointing. I will be selling this set to my friend and getting 7-7-7 1333 Mhz 2x 4GB sticks.

Second, I went back to 11.6 drivers... bad idea. Even with the GPU @ 700/1020, the 11.8's wih stock clocks were 5-10 FPS faster in Deus Ex HR. Also, after testing, now that I have dual channel RAM, Crossfire is 10-15 FPS faster in Deus Ex vs using just the 6650m, whereas before it used to be 2-3 FPS slower. That's a pretty big increase just for switching to dual channel!

So I highly advise anyone using this for gaming, Crossfire or not, to switch to Dual channel. It makes a big difference.

 

Haha yeah. I just came to those same conclusions 5 minutes after you posted after a couple of hours of tweaking and frustration. I should just wait a day every time I have a problem and read your post about it. Rep to you.

Back to the 11.8s. Can I just upgrade them through the installer or do I need to uninstall and sweep again?

I love DX:HR. My AR bullets track people around corners now. It's like the 5th Element gun.

 

Did the ram not work at all, or was it just being used at 1333 instead of the full 1600mhz? What cl7 ram are you planning to get?

 

What are your temps at 2.8ghz digustipated?!

 

Just install them over the 11.6's. The installer will allow you to do it.

 

I can't find any 2x 4 GB 1333 7-7-7 RAM, so I might just buy another stick of 4 GB 1333 and run it in dual channel with the stock 4 GB stick that comes with the laptop. :\ That'll be $40 cheaper than keeping this (useless?) 1600 mhz RAM.

Depends on the game, but usually anywhere from 78-85c.

 

have you tried unlocking unofficial overclocking in msi afterburner threw the cfg file?

do a google for unofficial overclock msi afterburner and something should show you how to do it.

 

the 1600 should still work but will lower the cas timings down to 8-8-8 as was noted by someone else a few pages back. the stock timing on the 1333 ram is 9-9-9 so it will be a little faster with the 1600 but by how much who knows.

 

Yea, I only see 240 pin ram with cl7 timings at 1333mhz. It'd be really great if the bus speed(?) could be overclocked to allow for higher speed ram.

 

I actually did by going back in this thread a bit and was able to overclock. I'm going back to 11.8s now though, because Deus Ex is the main game I'm playing and it likes those drivers.

 

The 11.8's are being a huge pain in the right now, as for me they have caused nothing but computer freezings and/or BSOD's

 

anyone notice any slight artifacting ?

BTW 11.8 Drivers have worked great for me.

Also redid my windows experience at 2.3 GHz and it went from 6.0 to 6.2 for Gaming Graphics

 

I've been following this thread since about page 3, but I'm now done lurking. I finally installed K10Stat to bump up my processor speeds and tweak the voltage. I'm not looking to squeeze every drop out of the processor, just a nice jump. I've set the steps to (for right now):
P0 2.4
P1 2.1
P2 1.9
P3 1.2
P4 1.0
P5 900
P6 800

I haven't messed with BO yet; I wanted to run Prime95 first just to test it. The problem is that my processor isn't stepping past P3. I haven't altered the default profile, and even in that profile the processor doesn't appear to jump into a faster state. Any ideas?

 

I checked my Asus power profile too. I'm in Performance mode and my processor limits are 10-100% while plugged in (10-90% while on battery, but I'm attached to the wall currently).

Nevermind. I uninstalled Power4Gear and that fixed the issue. Should have installed that program the first day. It was confusing and unnecessary.

 

Sorry, it was probably my mistake to mention it, as it's a different laptop. But I don't see why the SPDs would not work. All DDR3-1600 memory should have SPDs for 1333 and 1066. The G.Skill I got has SPDs for 1800 as well (still at 1.5v).

Maybe it's a BIOS issue?

 

you know what i was just thinking about ... if you wanted to go all crazy you could slap in a 3530mx in the thing for another $100 that might boost gaming a bit due to the HD6620G inside.... you would end up with a 6740G2 and you could run 1600 ram lol

 

Lol, at that rate you might as well just start looking at getting a custom DV6 from HP. Easier than replacing a cpu I imagine.

 

1600Mhz RAM should only work in the MX models. I would be interested to see if the K53TA BIOS supports anything other than the A6-3400. Maybe HTWingNut might be bold enough to try a swap.

Also faster RAM paired with these AMD APUs is really only a benefit for the iGPU and since the K53TA has a dGPU there isn't really much point to it, something like the HP G4 would benefit from it a lot more.

 

The benefit here would be in giving the iGPU a good deal more bandwidth. That alone would help crossfire performance a lot, preventing the cpu from competing with the igpu for performance, and allowing the iGPU to keep up with the dedicated graphics. It's also important considering you can't perfectly isolate the dedicated GPU for use right now (and can't really use it at all for some games/applications), so the iGPU can become a real limitation upon the system.

 

I would like to, but just no time. Just wanted to see if I could get my DV6z temperatures under control, and I managed to do that with a repaste. I really wouldn't want to disassemble and reassemble BOTH machines a couple times before I have to return the K53TA on Tuesday.

 

No worries mate, I should be getting my K53TA in a month or so when my gf brings it back from the US. I'll do a teardown and also see if I can get my hands on a MX APU in the meantime(if no one has done this by then).

 

Just in case people don't want to manually change ULPS in the registry or use Sapphire Trixx, then here's the registry files I made: http://www.mediafire.com/?p3317ahjjcghpts

This zip contains two files:

ULPS_Disable.reg
ULPS_Enable.reg

Basically it will just change the value of "EnableUlps" in the registry from "0" (disable) or "1" (enable) at locations:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\ 0000]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\ 0001]

Double click the one you want and reboot your computer.

ULPS stands for "Ultra Low Power State". When enabled it should save on power a bit, but I haven't noticed much difference when disabled. When disabled it should let you overclock your GPU, but so far 11.6 drivers are still required.

edit: looks like someone made an enable/disable ULPS app: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...xxx-series-owners-lounge-227.html#post7861603

 

Wow, thanks a lot for the guide! Does disabling ULPS effect the dedicated graphics usage of some games/apps at all, letting them actually use the 6650 instead of the 6520 alone?

 

The 11.8 drivers and dual-channel ram are definitely better for crossfire. I was playing Deus Ex last night on a 1920x1200 monitor and getting excellent framerates.

Anyone know of more games developed for crossfire? Dragon Age 2 and Shogun 2 are advertised on AMD's site. I'm really curious about Skyrim. I'd be really stoked to see an AMD optimized logo when I boot it up the first time.

 

No, it just lets you overclock with MSI Afterburner. So far only 11.6 will allow you to do this. You can switch between the 6650 and 6520 by activating switchable graphics as power saving or performance and turning crossfire off.

Are you using completely 11.8 or 11.6 drivers with 11.8 fusion/catalyst package?

 

Complete 11.8, as Disgustipated mentioned (beat me to the post by 5mins again lol), the 11.8s in Crossfire with dual-channel memory upgrade give the best Desu Ex: HR performance and that's what I'm playing right new. Even compared to the 11.6s overclocked, the 11.8s get better framerate.

Also I just put up an owner's lounge for this notebook, since this thread has already turned into one. Not saying exodus or anything, just FYI it's there.

 

I've been doing that, but have found some games/applications just don't give a damn, and will refuse to utilize the 6650 for whatever reason. PSP emulator being one example.

 

A lot of DX9 applications at the moment will only select the first GPU sequentially and the 6520 is primary. They just won't look for the 6650 at all. At the moment it's unavoidable. If the program starts through a loader, you might try manually setting 'high performance' for the actual .exe through the Catalyst menu. I had this problem for RIFT and some of my steam games because Catalyst was setting the loader for high performance, not the actual game.

 

What temps are you guys running while gaming?

Just picked up Deux Ex last night and it was breaking mid 80's

 

Do you have a laptop cooler gumba213? You've mentioned high temperatures before and if nothing else will help, a quality laptop cooling fan will usually drop you 5 degrees at least.

 

I get 78 max playing Deus Ex. 2.4Ghz nominal, 2.6 turbo.

 

Has anyone encountered the issue where you install the new chipset drivers from ASUS and uh, when you start up a game from steam it's just black with the cursor showing?