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

I regularly use these for gaming:

3067 : 1.300 (B0)
2800 : 1.225
2533 : 1.1375
2300 : 1.0625
2100 : 1.0125
1900 : .9625
1700 : .9125
1500 : .8625

 

I regularly top mine out at 3ghz, and have not experienced throttling issues. I've heard this many times, but I just don't think it's true - at least for me. Now i will say I do experience high temps in the nineties sometimes, but the way chips are designed today are not the same way they were designed even a few years ago. Our chip is rated at 100c, and should be safe at running at high temps. I don't advocate running it for hours on end at high temps, and I will occasionally get the BSOD, but this workhorse of a computer can take the beating.

 

The chip dun die, the board does.
I have yet to see no throttle for my APU + GPU machines w.o setting same pstate across or bios change when both cpu+gpu underload. I can prime95 all day long with 2.8ghz, load kombustor/furmark and it just drop dead.

 

That's good to hear about the endurance of this machine. But like baii said the motherboard could get fried or something else could fail. I plan to keep this laptop for the long haul as a workhorse to keep the wear and tear off any better future laptops I own. Like ryanlecocq compared it to an old 1970s Ford, I'll probably also continue using it for an extensive number of years maybe up to 8 or 9 more years when it's all said & done. But there's nothing wrong in enjoying this laptop every once in a while while it can play the latest games today.

 

Okay, so our chips are rated at ridiculous temperatures. That's good and all, but there's one other concern (and this is pretty serious)...
...are the plastics rated to take that? I've heard plenty of stories of people buying K53ta's from eBay with the plastic casing warped and melted.

All this talk about heat; I kinda want to hurry up and get to the desert; play some games while it's 120 deg F outside and see how much this thing can take.

Also, BBR6 = Best Buy Retail 6?

 

First my disclaimer: I am not an expert. I can only report what i see with my computer.

If my computer is throttling I do not see it. I'm watching the speed and the temps when ever I play around, so i would assume i'd see the speed slow down. Unless it's doing it and not reporting it.

Second: I'm not Over Clocking the graphics card - just the processor. I've actually found my computer runs faster OC'ing the possessor, rather than OC'ing the graphics card. I do remember pages and pages ago, some people claiming their computers weren't throttling - I could be one of those lucky individuals, or...

the throttling is actually occurring in the Graphics card, and I have had just too many problems with over clocking the card and not enough performance to justify the frustration of doing so.

 

i noticed the other day at Best Buy they have the K55 with the A8 at $400. It seems like its a great deal, can you OC the A8?

 

no, none of the AMD Trinity cpus can be oced . It only has solid integrated graphics, better than last years integrated gpus, but worse than our dedicated gpu.

 

what are you using to watch it?

you will only see throttling in Hwinfo64, where the bars in the "summary" window are bouncing around

Even when I set all p-states to 2.6ghz, it still slams down, though less frequently, and my temps are not even in the 90's.

If you don't believe there's throttling, I challenge you to run cinebench 11.5 at 3ghz vs 2.5ghz vs 2.0ghz
If there were no throttling, the score should increase linearly.
So off the top of my head, I think 2ghz is about 2.28

so 3ghz should be over 3.30, just like the desktop athlon2 x4 at 3ghz.

if you don't get around 3.3 in cinebench 11.5 at 3ghz , then the chip is throttling.

 

Hey guys,

As far as the chip goes I believe that if you do the cooling mod you should be fine with the 3ghz speed you just have to make sure that it says clean on the inside.

 

Where did you get them? I saw them for 90$us on ebay lower price

 

So how can we test this out? I mean which clocks are the highest without throttling. As I can remember this problem occurs even on stock clocks at least for me.

 

Hey guys i wonder how could i put a SSD into the laptop.Is there any tutorial on how to do it?If i remove the dvd drive,can i use it as external drive afterwards?Thx in advance for any help

 

using cpu alone should not throttle at stock clocks.

hwinfo64 will show that.

 

if you buy an external usb enclosure big enough, you can use the dvd drive as external.

 

Yeah what link said, but I replaced my ODD bay with an HDD bay about a year ago, and haven't regretted it at all. How often do you actual find the use for a DVD player anyways? If you desperately need one externals are pretty cheap

 

Okay, so a couple of things:

I did down load cinebench - and I'm testing it

stock test is = 1.65 pts @27.14 fps - no oc, just start up.

W/oc through k10stat = unganged (top out) B0/3.067 P0/2.8 = 2.63pts @33.23fps

But I do have some questions. I'm using the modified BIOS/catalyst 12.8, and watching my stats through Core Temp 1.0. I once heard somewhere on the board that either the modified BIOS or a version of catalyst disabled the boost. I never thought much about it until now because my core temp had always registered it bouncing (boosting) up to 3.0 just like it should for short periods, and never throttled much (if ever.) Yes I do get high temps and I only use this setting when gaming and usually they're older games anyway, and I'm not on it for 12 hrs a day gaming at a constant 95 degrees.

However talking about the throttling issues and being challanged it's making me re-think everything.

has the modified BIOS disabled the Boost, and Core Temp giving me false readings? Therefore its never ACTUALLY reaching 3ghz?

I'm going test everything out again, but before I go through each setting and wasting my time on BSODs all day, I thought I'd ask about the boosting.

*Update*

I have just gotten done testing with the HWiFO64:

When testing with 2.8 I am NOT seeing throttling - according to the sensors - unless the throttling is manipulating other sensors causing poor performance in other ways not measured. The clock speeds are measuring a constant 2.8 - with no apparent throttling.

However...

When measuring the 3ghz I DO see occasional throttling - and eventually a BSOD. I have yet to complete the test on 3ghz. But with that being said, my argument is this: 3ghz is set for "boost" (B0) - not for constant (P0), and therefore its doing exactly as expected, periodically and momentarily boosting the performance of the machine; its riding the edge, and pulling back before tipping over. The cinebench test is designed to stress test stability, not periodic boosting capabilities.

I bow before your knowledge Sinsei, you know a lot more than I do...

This time though I'll walk the limb and humbly argue with you. haha

 

Okay the casing is a good point. My plastic casing - top left and right - is now held together by tape.

What I assume has happened is a combination of two things - first and foremost: the casing is cheap plastic. Second, the high temps caused the weakening of the screw joints in the casing, thereby when opening or closing the screw joints broke.

or

Its just a cheap casing and they broke on their own.

 

AnandTech - Bench - CPU

The above link is for the llano at 2.6ghz without turboboost. It is the desktop version of our cpu, but identical cpu design, and serves as a reference of how a 2.6ghz llano should perform.

It shows that cinebench should be around 3.14.
Your 2.63 score shows that the cpu is throttling big time.

You can set all p-states to the same clock speed, however according to my tests, that is not a guarantee it won't throttle still. It seems the cpu is designed to throttle above a certain temperature.
I have never been able to score anywhere close to 3.0 on cb11.5.

our cpu just can't run that high, plain and simple. not without liquid nitrogen or some other exotic cooling.

However, for short tasks like a quick mp3 encoding, it can run 2.8-3ghz without throttling.
You can test this easily with the lame mp3 encoder and a stopwatch.


One person did make a bios once with boost disabled. But the other bios mods released after that had boost enabled.
The way you can tell if boost is enabled is to run everything at stock, and see if hwinfo64 shows the clock jumping to 2.3ghz.



regarding the plastics..... they can withstand heat just fine.

the problem with the k53 case is that the hinge area is not designed well. The top of the base is not clamped securely to the bottom, so it can't withstand the stress of opening the lid. Also, the screw mounts inside the case crack easily, so that further weakens it.

the only way around this is to minimize open/closing the lid when sitting on your desk. I leave the lid open almost all the time.
Or open it slowly while pushing down on the upper left corner of the top base near the hinge. Plastic laptops these days are all like this. They can't withstand the power of the hinge. Of course, you should also check to see if the corner screws are loose.

 

I've never heard of a K53ta like ours melt from overheating...must have been seriously abused.
This is the best advice given regarding minimizing open/closing the laptops. I've always practiced this habit ever since the first 2 laptops I've ever seen back in the day completely broke prematurely at the hinges (eg. COMPAQs 1999,early 2000s). Cheap plastic corner bracing with tight metal hinges are always the culprit. So I always leave my laptops opened up when at home to minimize open/closing; never trust any plastic laptop hinges if you plan to keep the laptop for 4+ years.

 

What those two people up there said.

Ya know, for the $450 we spent a year or so ago this little thing sure has surpassed all of my expectations though. I never expected this community to grow for this laptop so much either. The fact that you can OC this laptop really made me extremely happy when I found this out after I bought it. Currently I am running linux on this thing as the main OS and dual booting Windows - I only really load up Windows to play games. I wonder when the next k53ta will come along or AMD Llano for that matter.

Anyways, regarding the whole laptop case being held down by tape and what not, when I feel that I am done modding this laptop I am going to just gorilla glue the 4 points of the laptop case to strengthen the case. I am having the same issue with opening the laptop and having to pop the top right of the case back into place.

 

Well i dont use the ODD very often but i have a huge movie/game collection,so the ODD is necessary sometimes.My main concern is that i dont know if its possible to copy the OS from the HDD to the SDD,and thats why i still havent bought a SDD,because i dont want to reinstall my OS and all my programs,that would take much time and stress.Is it possible to copy somehow the OS and some of my programs to the SSD?

 

Well i dont use the ODD very often but i have a huge movie/game collection,so the ODD is necessary sometimes.My main concern is that i dont know if its possible to copy the OS from the HDD to the SDD,and thats why i still havent bought a SDD,because i dont want to reinstall my OS and all my programs,that would take much time and stress.Is it possible to copy somehow the OS and some of my programs to the SSD?


Edit:sry for double post,how can i delete the 1st one?

 

It is possible to clone your OS and duplicate it onto the SSD, but I don't think that's recommended. I think it would be best, and provide best performance to do a clean install of your OS onto the new SSD, and then tweak it as necessary to provide optimal speeds. Then you can reinstall your necessary programs

 

I cloned my OS and duped it onto the SSD. It works fine. To easily reconfigure the OS for an SSD, I used SSD Tweaker (link).

 

For the guy asking about ssd in our beast.. I already did a how-to in this thread.. using the thread tool it's easy to find.. btw there you go:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/601808-k53ta-best-deal-ever-could-313.html#post8515244

 

Woo I can post at work here!

SSDs so far:
120 gig Sandisk Extreme: Ultra fast, but hangs a lot. Bad enough for me to take it out and get another.
240 gig Corsair Force3: Not as fast, but still having hanging issues. Refurb, so who knows.

Anyone having any issues with the wireless card? It's based on one of Atheros' more recent 'value oriented' chips and mine randomly disconnects. Our connection isn't the greatest, but I highly doubt the issue is with the brand new Cisco routers. The new Atheros drivers help a lot, but it is still flakey. Upping it to an Intel Ultimate-N 6300 (since I can not get the Killer 1202 here). The ONE thing I was not planning on upgrading, besides the display.
Is it that hard to kind of push a third antenna to loop around in the base or am I going to need to pull it apart again? I really don't want to do that here.
I put a Gigabyte N-card (also Atheros, nothing special) in my old first gen Lenovo S-10, no third antenna, and it did pretty well, but I don't really want to half- this one as much.
Anyone do an external WiFi antenna mod on our laptop yet?

 

Hi All.

I wondering if anyone of You Guys know which value in bios is responsible for memory timing/speed?
I have A8-3510MX APU, 2x4GB of Micron 1600Mhz DDR3 and unfortunately in my case memory works at 1333 speed.

So I assuming that maybe only need to modify bios settings and memory start working properly.
Any ideas?

Thanks,

 

Yes, I had the same issue until I switched to one of the Bigfoot Killer-N Wireless 1102's. It is definitely an issue with the default Atheros card.

I tried following the steps from the Asus K53TA FAQs, but it was to no avail.
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- Troubleshooting K53TA
Perhaps you will have better luck.

 

wireless card is probably picky about the router it connects to.

i have a broadcom chip in my router, and never have disconnects. I also run it on lower channels.

 

I followed this thread since page 150 or something and made account here specially for it.Guys,it`s making me crazy,I cant use CCC as should,AMD Overdrive at all,can play Max Payne 3 at high but Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon not even at minimum .
Only problems here...Allmost all games I run with max. 15 fps.Tried all possible versions of CCC,no luck.Will post some pics,please help me identify my problems so I can use it for games.Big thank you ,guys!!!

View attachment 85535
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Invalid attachments!

Can you install AMD system monitor ( AMD System Monitor ) and check the activity of video cards while you are gaming.

 

WOW! looks like i missed a few things since i created this thread.. anyone want to give me the cliff notes lol

 

LOL...Hey OP Didn't you sell your laptop soon after buying it?
Here's some cliff notes for you :>> http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...607232-k53ta-owners-lounge-9.html#post8489750
All types of things were discussed: Graphic drivers improving performance every 2-3 months, overclocking cpu & gpu with various software, cooling mods to cpu, improvements in openGL gaming with newest AMD drivers and high performance gaming with single gpu (6650m) was preferred over dual switchable graphics, SSD drives installed in place of the Dvddrive, and Bios mods to allow SSD drives to function at faster speeds, changing out A6 cpu for A8, upgrading to 1080pLCD, installing chicklet kb ...It's really amazing how far we've come along in maxing out this laptop..It served it's purpose as a great intro to experimenting/modding a gaming laptop, so we can use our new found knowledge to move on to greater gaming rigs later down the road. :thumbsup:

 

Will record NFS The run and post here result.


LE :

 

Have you tried disabling AMD Radeon Dual Graphics to see if it made a difference? Do you have 8gb or 4gb ram--maybe that may make a difference. Also do you overclock the CPU at all? K10stat is what I still use, overclocking at 2.0 to 2.2 ghz for games usually helps about 5+ fps. But see if AMD system monitor shows activity for 6600m & 6700m series GPU during gaming (run in dual monitor mode to see it during gameplay or play game window mode by Pressing Alt + Enter to toggle full screen & window mode).

Your linked adaptor graphic hardware properties look fine. But you are running AMD 12.9 driver, so not sure if that driver is causing problems. (I am still on 12.7beta) Have you tried clean install of drivers by first uninstalling old drivers with drive sweeper.
ATIman uninstaller, or any other software like that? I don't own NFS the run, but it should run as smooth as this sample video>> Amd Line A6 3400m apu playing Need For Speed The Run - YouTube

 

awesome thanks for the update. and i still have the laptop and use it everyday for photo editing ( im a photographer)

two questions i have if any one can let me know about the 1080p screen upgrade and also im on 12.7 beta what program should i be using to overclock the gpu?

oh one more has anyone figured out how to fix micro stuttering? i usually just play with cross fire off because its so bad.

thanks.

and if anybody wants me to add something to the OP let me know

 

-A member here(OdU_Geek) successfully tested a 1080p screen from a G53 probably purchased online >> http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/601808-k53ta-best-deal-ever-could-373.html#post8712108
But he ended up keeping his 1366x768 screen to keep the function of the webcam. Also wires inside were noted to be tightly taught since the cable wasn't long enough. I would avoid this mod & just connect the laptop to a bigger higher quality 1080p external monitor if you really need this.

-I also continue to leave crossfire off most times due to microstutter.

-Oc gpu is easy but only provides +2 to +6 fps with +10C extra heat, so I haven't been doing it much lately since later AMD graphic drivers have been playing games reasonably well already. (I've heard that gpu oc doesn't make as much difference on recent 12.6 & later drivers as it used to on older drivers.)
But if you want the option to oc gpu:
Follow word for word the steps I wrote to OC Gpu in the Owners lounge link I posted earlier. Just scroll down to "V. Overclocking GPU." I use MSI Afterburner to OC gpu but Trixx is another option. In the instructions I noted to install Trixx & MSI , but it may not be necessary to install Trixx--I did it since it didn't hurt. Make sure you use the specific ATI.dll files in the instructions and it should work.

 

Yeah, finally my A8 3510MX arrived. Man o man what a work it was to open the laptop an get the motherboard out of it.
Also the cooling was very sticky to the processor! But it all went fine and nothing broke, and after all i used all the screws again, haha

Very happy now with the new processor in it, also booting goes much faster now. It already was fast because of my Samsung 830 SSD
but with this processor it goes even faster! Now maybe next update will be 1600Mhz Ram.

But for now i am happy with this!

Oow and BTW, i used Chill Factor 3 as thermal paste and on Max Load the CPU only gets 72 degrees, so its also cooler now!

 

It is smooth on medium.

I always have disabled crossfire and runs fine.

 

No one knows about modify bios about ram speed?
Hmm... So maybe will be better if I replace my Micron sticks?

I'm thinking about:
Corsair:
Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Model CMSX8GX3M2A1600C9

or Kingston:
Newegg.com - Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 HyperX Plug n Play Laptop Memory Model KHX1600C9S3P1K2/8G

or Adata (low voltage):
Newegg.com - ADATA XPG Gaming Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Model AXDS1600GC4G9-2

I'm thinking about Adata because its low voltage (1.35). But I see that it have some XMP future and I have concerns that speed may be wrong detected (just like my current Micron sticks).



Can someone advise which RAM should be better for our K53Ta with AMD A8-3510MX to run on full 1600Mhz? Any suggestions?

Thanks,

 

Ok,this are some details:
Notebook : stock,nothing added or removed;
OS: Windows 8 Pro x64 fresh install,after fist post on page 414;
Bios : 2.14 without any modifications;
Ram : 4GB;
Overclock APU/Grafic card: NO;
Clean install from Asus site of AMD Chipset Driver 8.903.0.0000 ASUS - Notebooks- ASUS K53TA

Tried allready:
Amd Catalyst 11.10, 12.4, 12.6, 12.8, 12.9;
Amd South Bridge Driver 12.4, 12.6, 12.8;
no improvement in FPS,most games run at max 12-13 FPS, most times at 7-8 FPS.

Every time I uninstalled AMD Catalyst,run safe mode,run driver sweeper,cc cleaner,restart normally,install new Amd Catalyst.

PS :
I am now on AMD Chipset Driver 8.903.0.0000 and, after disabling Crossfire, I see some improvement in FPS in NFS-The run, gaining 5-6 FPS on medium, but still not enought.

Will install Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Future Soldier and do some more testing,will post screens later .

Any advice ???

 

@ Popeye-k53ta, As mentioned by atoneapone Most important thing is to overclock your cpu atleast 1800 or 2000 mhz keeping voltage on or around 1.00 v. search for k10stat overclocking guide in this forum. stress test with anything cpu intensive program like intel burntest or i use 7zip compression to check your overclock is stable enough. This will give you atleast 10 fps
another thing, consider to add another ram stick. this thing is highly dependent on memory bandwidth and with single channel stock its bottlenecking. It may give another 5% performance boost.

 

Will try K10 Stat, never done OC-ing thou.Brb :hi2:

 

Just build in an A8, no need to OC

 

Managed to oc at 2 mhz , and kept Chipset Driver 8.903.0.0000 . Will run some NFS The Run and Ghost Recon Future Soldier to see fps

 

is it only me or I can't find newer catalyst driver? I'm at 12.6 and I don't find anywhere 12.9 or 12.10... I'm dual booting with ubuntu and I'm running under 12.9 -_-
NVM.. just find it in the gamer section

how's windows 8 ?

 

You can compare our k53 to a honda civic.. base model.. highly customize

 

I'm not sure if you already mentioned if you set the games to run in high performance in CCC's Configure Switchable Graphics. It might be that Max Payne 3 already has CCC set up to use high performance while any game that CCC doesn't auto recognize will be set to "Not set" sort of setting (equivalent to power saving). Though I guess you won't get that option if you turned off crossfire / dual graphics.
Anyways, if you do still have crossfire up, try checking the Configure Switchable graphics panel of the CCC after you open and close the game (the game's executable doesn't populate the list until it is opened and closed.) I always forget about this and was all sorts of grumbling when trying to play XCOM: Enemy Unknown on this laptop earlier. Was having low FPS but then remembered to change it from 'not set' to 'high performance' in the configure switchable graphics and the game became very playable from then on.

Hope you do find a way to fix this problem!

 

ULPS_control.exe (ULPS_control from Atiman) is the only thing that helped me.Disabling ULPS made my life better
I have high performance set allready for everything.
I run NFS-The run and Ghost Recon Future Soldier at ~20 FPS now,and this is something super(I had 7-8 FPS before).
Crossfire disabled now.
Overclocking doesnt work good,I get 2 mhz but not stable,I do something wrong,will play a little more...

le: read here What is a ULPS ? - Guru3D.com Forums but make sure you dont download ULPS Configuration Utility from this post,its a virus Guru3D.com Forums - View Single Post - What is a ULPS ?