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

really? crossfire really work on this? haha , amazing, so what's your FPS ? lowest setting?
may i know what's your surrounding temperature? If i OC 2200 / 2600, , GPU stock clock, i guess can reach 80C easily.

 

Well i was hiting 82c max with GPU and CPU overclocked so its fine.

1366x768 low dGPU only was hiting around 25-30fps depending on the situation but with iGPU+dGPU getting around 40-45fps so its amazing that works really well. Try it for yourself...

 

where u get the game? you bought it ? or beta?
this thread is getting dead soon
nobody using this laptop anymore?
any idea is that possible to upgrade the screen to higher resolution?
mine is K43TA . 14inch screen.


I get up to 94C with 2300 2600 @ 1.15 / 1.225 , GPU didn't OC.
getting very high temperature after send for RMA.
Wondering whether they did paste the thermal paste nicely or not

 

I bought mine 2011 started posting in this thread page 52

I still have and play games, work, etc. on what I still say is the best 449.00 ever spent:thumbsup:

 

Agreed with arrowslinger . I'm still enjoying some of the latest games AC, Aliens, Crysis3, and most of the best 2011-2012 titles...Most budget laptops don't even have support threads kept as long as this one. But it's understandable for this thread to begin slowing down since we've all pretty much become experts of our own hardware!:GEEK: (and most gaming laptops only have 3year cycles..which will make 2014 our final good year of gaming.)
Also we've missed some of our best earlier contributers (eg. Link626 & baii). But everyone has made this thread legendary & memorable in 2011-2012. This thread's been great for hearing experiences on latest graphic drivers(eg.13.2betas), SSD upgrades, etc.

 

anyone of you able to overclock graphic card on windows 8 ?
I disabled ULPS and I tried to slide the memory clock, I get blue screen.

 

Agree. Amazing little laptop, bought it for 400€ last year and still using it for gaming on the move (my main R3 is for home use).

Great for overclocking CPU and GPU, i was able to play anything to throw at it and to know that dual gpu on this laptop work with every DX10 and DX11 game boost my fps up to 25-30%. Wanted to sell until worth something but i think i hold it for now...

 

I don't care what anyone says - this is STILL the best lap top EVER for the money spent. I love this thing!!! I learned so much from this thread, and still check in to find out what everyone is thinking. Bravo to everyone who ever posted on it.

 

Hello ladies and gents,

I have posted on this thread but have been reading the posts throughout. My lappy this week has decided that it wanted to not go above 2% CPU usage. Has anyone else had this problem? It basically will open up one or two programs and then just idle forever. I started it in safe mode and it works fine. I checked the disk for errors and ran the windows virus scan from their site while in safe mode (it wont allow me to run mine in regular mode). Is there something I can due to get it to rev up? I OCed it back over a year ago to 2 ghz in p0 state. It has ran fine ever since. Im scratching my head on what I should do next? Try to run the 214 bios? Uninstall k10 stat? Idk. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks from a proud owner of the best deal ever k53ta-bbr6.

 

I just installed a SSD (Samsung 840 pro) in the DVD sata slot. The DVD sata is not SATA3 but sata2, so the read and write performance are limited to ~300 mb/s. I don't really care, but don't expect the same performance.

By the way. The reason why i haven't installed it in the HDD bay, is because the SATA connector broke :S

 

hey guys i was hoping to possibly get some insight from you guys. Ive had the K53TA for a while now and was thinking its time to do a fresh install. Now ive done plenty of installs on desktops but never a laptop so i was wondering can i use just a standard Windows 7 Pro disk? And if i should use the activation code on the laptop or on the disk.
Also regarding drivers what should i actually install? I found the website for all of them just not sure what is necessary
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- Drivers and Download K53TA

Thanks in advance!

 

Pro may not work as it come with home edition iirc. The driver
Lan
Wireless
Card reader
touchpad
ATKACPI driver and hotkey-related utilities (the OSD is kind of huge, so this depends as well, the brightness control work w/o this iirc)

Get chipset and graphic from AMD directly, USB charger port software depending if you need it

 

Then would just running the laptops recovery boot, then using something like pc decrapifier to get rid of the bloat ware be easier?
Because i only have access to Win 7 Pro and not sure if i have enough valid keys haha

 

You can download win 7 ISO and make a USB boot drive pretty easily.

 

hi i have a Asus k53t amd a4 3300m hd6650m 1gb, i really want to run RE6, but it go 20FPS, i already using k10stat, what else can i do to run this game better

 

ah ok, although regarding the version of windows 7 it honestly doesnt matter correct?

 

Hi Guys,
I'm having a weird problem on my ASUS X53TA laptop. As u may know, the A6-3400m processor is supposed to run at 1.4 GHz normally, 2.3 GHz under load and 800 MHz in idle. Instead it runs at 800 MHz ALL THE TIME.
The funny thing is it runs fine under Linux system and in windows safe mode and used to run perfectly on Windows 7 x64 (I re-installed it a few times).
I re-installed Win 7 x64 and all the drivers in the provided DVD (like I did the first time) and everything works perfectly except the processor. I tried using K10STAT to control the CPU manually but it is STILL stuck at 800 like hell !
I tried running Prime 95 for an hour still it is at 800.
I updated all the drivers, my windows OS and the BIOS. STILL NOTHING.
So I tried taking it to local ASUS care and they said the hardware is fine. I tried contacting AMD support and they never heard of such a problem.
Things I've tried
1) Re-installing the OS
2) re-installing the drivers
3) changing the voltage/lowering the clock below 800 (out of desperation )
4)Changing power modes(High performance,Balanced etc)
5) Installing Windows 8
6) Running prime 95 and CPU-z on a bare system (freshly re-installed OS with NOTHING else installed)
NONE CAN ALTER ANYTHING IN THE CPU (neither voltage nor clock)
However when I set k10stat to abnormal values (ex-too low voltage for a high clock speed) it does freeze my laptop.....so the software works.
ANY HELP????thanks

 

Uninstall asus crapware and you'll be fine
1)Go to installed programs and uninstall everything that isn't driver relied and has asus as publisher.
2)Set power plan to high performance or balanced
3)Use HWINFO64 and Intelburn test to test if CPU is changing its clock speed under load;
4)Use K10STAT to OC your CPU;
5)test again;
6)do test on 2 or 3 threads to test if turbo boost is active;
7)Try some games and leave HWINFO64 in background to see if CPU was changing its frequencies.
8)Report results here.

 

1) The only ASUS thing I had installed was the ATKpackage. I unistalled it.
2) Set power plan settings to default and applied High Performance mode.
3) Ran Prime 95 for 30 mins. No change recorded in clock speed....max 800 MHz...min 265 MHz.
4) tried with K10stat loaded in background.....no change either.
5) Didn't try games though....but they freeze like hell normally.
Any suggestions?

 

Did you tried ticking "Enable clock control" in k10stat?
If no,then try it, tick in "Lock p-state" "Unlock"and then change "Up" values in k10stat to less than 10% and see what happens with cpu clock speeds when running Prime 95.
You could also try "unganged" and other control modes.

 

Nope still nothing at all.Temperature remains at 78-80 C at 100% CPU usage....clock still 800

 

Did all that...........no damn change.
Temp increases....not the clock speed

 

I'm sure you have already tried most simple fixes, but I just had a couple more to suggest that I hadn't seen.
1. Update your chipset drivers to the newest from AMD. It's unlikely this is the problem, but AMD has changed the way Turbo works with the new chipset drivers and it's possible that you either have current GPU drivers or something else that is interfering.
2. Depending on which BIOS ver. you have, cool-n-quiet could be defaulted to on or off and somehow in the process of your reformat, it got stuck in it's lowest power state. Once again, this would be pretty odd, but this is an odd problem.
3. The stepping function of your CPU is either physically malfunctioning or has somehow been 'frozen.' This can either be the fault of your chipset or the CPU itself. I would be surprised that the Asus care professionals would miss this, but honestly, I have extremely low opinions of the aptitude of any "PC professionals" these days. If you absolutely cannot get it to step to any other state under any circumstance, this is something you might actually have to worry about.

Finally, I would say that if you can eliminate your motherboard or your chipset drivers as culprits, the cheapest and easiest solution is a new APU. You can upgrade to the 5310MX like myself and many other owners have done. It sells for between $60-80 on eBay, so in the end it will probably be cheaper than your time if you can discern the CPU is the problem. It will boost your performance unilaterally by about 10-15% and even more if you upgrade your RAM to the faster 1600MHz it supports as that will speed up the overall system and the integrated graphics.

 

Thanks for your reply.
Yes, the "professionals" are really dumb these days. The one I talked to didn't even know what CPU stepping meant
I'm curious if there is a way to fix this....don't want to upgrade right now. I've the latest BIOS 214. What should I try doing with it?
P.S. Is the processor 5310MX or 3510MX?
Thanks again

 

3510mx.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

Yeah, 3510MX, sorry typo. Also, they don't call low P-states Cool-n-Quiet anymore, sorry I'm old school.

I didn't actually mean you should change your BIOS settings, just that the defaults change slightly from revision to revision. So somehow in your flashing, reformatting etc. it maybe got stuck in the lowest core state. Once again, just guessing because all of the rational explanations have been exhausted.

I really hate to say it, but your CPU is almost certainly bad. Like I mentioned in my previous post, the only other things that affect the P-states are the motherboard's physical chipset and the drivers for the chipset. Other than that, it's a physical thing inside the CPU that switches between a number of possible circuits. If it's not doing it and you can't find any other cause outside of the CPU, so sorry to say, but it's probably bad. A number of other users have had bad 3400m CPUs, especially after running high clocks.

There is honestly nothing else someone can really suggest to you at this point that does not involve pulling the CPU. You either pull it and test it in another system or you get another one to test in yours. Unless you know another owner of an A-series powered laptop, we're back to an upgrade being the best solution if the CPU is bad.

 

Hello,

When i first got this laptop there was a utility that was made by Asus to enhance the audio coming from the speaks or headphones and it would allow you to adjust bass and other settings, I'm hoping someone on this forum knows what I'm talking about as i just re-installed Windows and now i cannot seem to locate that utility anywhere.

 

Sonic focus? It's in the wiki.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

That's the one.

Would you mind posting a link to where i can get it as its not in my machine anywhere, as i wiped the entire drive prior to re installing windows.

 

Pretty sure it was just in the Asus audio driver file.

 

I always get in trouble for too many posts in a row, but also for split posts, so I'm going to try and make this one reasonable.

Uttaran: I understand not wanting to order a new CPU just to check, but if you do decide to go that route, I still have my 3400m and would sell it pretty cheap. Friend was going to buy to upgrade his HP w/A4, but keeps stalling. Lemme know if you do decide a teardown is in order.

emiljan: Sonic Focus is included in the Asus sound driver distro. Also on your system partition if you haven't deleted that. If you install the sound driver package, it will be in the same place on your HDD as described in the wiki with a system restore.

Bioshock Infinite report:
Native Res, clocks as in sig, still using 12.1 drivers.
Game settings:
Everything at normal except textures on high, object detail high. AA on and texture filtering high.
Low average: 40-45fps
High average: 60fps (capped)
Overall average 45-50fps
This game runs at 60fps or near all the time if vsync is off, but the pixel complexity of the scenes makes the tearing awful. So with vsync on it will keep kicking it down to 40-55 depending on refresh rate since it grabs the closest multiplier of that.

 

Ok, so finally decided to OC the CPU on this laptop (A6-3420m, btw) - pushed it to 2.6GHz, which is nearly double stock (1.5 GHz). Stress testing it and temperature stabilized at 81 Celsius - the laptop is on a wooden table, with decent space to both sides and behind it, but has no cooling table and isn't propped up (I've heard lifting the back end, such that the underside of the laptop isn't against the table's surface, helps). What I would like to know is if it's ok to stay at this temperature (81 C), or if it'll really deteriorate the hardware. Also, any cooling pad suggestions?

 

Sorry for the double post - forgot to add the detail that might have you scratching your head: this is the N53TA, same series as the K53TA, with a few differences. 500 GB HDD, 6 GB Ram, AMD A6-3420M (1.50Ghz) and Radeon HD 6720G2 (6520g + 6650m, IIRC).

 

The problem with high oc is that the power adapter and the board is not design to run with such high amount of power, it can throttle once gpu come into picture.

 

LOL I'm at India...how can u sell to me??....btw I'm taking my lappy to RMA since it is still under warranty....hope they'll replace my CPU. But thanks for ur help

 

I was wondering is it even possible to go directly to the BIOS and overclock the K53TA or is it a must that you have to use something like K10Stat? Id really like to OC this guy to about 2.0 Ghz since the stock 1.4Ghz is rather low haha

 

Uttaran: Yeah, guess that would be a problem. Shipping would be more than the part. You're welcome, I tried my best.

iHarlequin: It's a combination of what baiii said and the way AMD CPUs are designed. They have a max Hypertransport that can be filled, like the rated FSB on Intel. Once that is full, which happens quicker with an APU as it only gets allotted part of it, your CPU throttles and even if it doesn't, you will see no benefit in performance as the effective throughput is maxed.

DropTheBomb: Nope. Almost no laptop BIOS will allow overclocking. It voids the warranty, so they generally don't want you to. Best solution we've found is to make k10stat a startup process with a pre-loaded profile.

 

Ah ok, in that case do you know where i can find a good tutorial on k10stat and possible good voltages/frequencies for this laptop?
Also I plan on doing a fresh install of windows, although Im aware that it originally came with Win7 Home is it fine to install Pro rather then Home on it?
thanks

 

The best tutorial I know is either on the first page of this thread or on the tenth page of the k53ta owner's lounge. Everything you need.

On my 3400m before I upgraded, I had a really good profile for general gaming that I used for over a year. Not quite as aggressive in volting or speed as some others, but I ran it for 100s of hours of gaming and never fried mine unlike many other users. Can't remember what multiplier I used without doing some math, but it should be pretty easy to figure out. I can post a screen I have saved once I get home.

All core pstates at 2.25GHz, all volted at 1.15, all other settings normal. You can mess with other settings if you want, but since all the p-states are the same, doesn't matter. It's true that you can go a tiny bit faster at 2.3GHz, but I haven't noticed one single point of benchmark results higher above 2.25.

 

Awesome thanks! Ill probably give it a shot soon, also regarding the windows install pro would be fine on the laptop?

 

By that do you mean what version of windows? If you're talking Windows 8, I would say stay with 7, even if you like the metro interface. Drivers are immature and you will get universally 2-3 fps lower with every game. If you mean Windows 7 Home Professional, that will be fine as that's what comes on it. I run a custom Windows 7 install that has all of the unnecessary features removed to save space (not starter, custom made). I just do that because I use a small SSD only on my k53ta. If you're using the stock 500gb that little bit of difference won't matter.

 

Bumped and Knocked on the corner albeit in the carry bag Still 3 Screw-hole around the left hinge gave up had to Do a Tear down clean up.
Still Runs like a Champ but Word of Caution : Don't move around with this machine..

 

Yes, i ment Windows 7 haha As i said i only have access to a copy of Win 7 Pro rather then home and just wanted to double check if its fine to use that instead since i really wanna get rid of all the bloatware and what not

Really? that sucks, ive used my k53ta for university for already 2 years and ive been moving this guy everywhere and its still strong

 

me too, every day at work, nothing broken yet

 

hello everyone. I've got a problem with my x53ta everytime when i use k10stat and overclock my amd a6 my laptop wont shutdown- it's stuck on the shutting down screen. When i used Ubuntu i didn't overclock my processor but this problem was still there- no shutdown. My laptop was 4 times in service- they changed hdd, led screen, they tested it rof two weeks and they said that my laptop works fine but it isn't. Every use of k10stat or fusion tweaker = no shutdown. Maybe someone know the solution for my problem? please help me

 

Are you saying that it shut down fine before you overclocked for the first time? And ever since you overclocked it won't shut down, regardless of OS? When you tried Ubuntu, was it on the same hard drive, or did you have it on a separate hard drive?

 

..........

 

I own this laptop for over a year and this problem happend for the first time i february this year. I overclocked apu to 2ghz only for games specially for diablo 3. Temps were around 66-69. Now after playing diablo at 2ghz laptop wont shutdown. I tried ubuntu after cleaning the whole hdd and the problem was still there.

 

Finally got around to overclocking/undervolting this laptop on Linux. I was using Linux Mint 14 Cinnamon. I changed P-state values using a program called k10ctl, then used a Cinnamon applet to select my P-state. Unfortunately, this method can only change P-states 0 and 2-4, and not 1,5,6 (1 will look like it's changed, but has no effect). This is probably fixable, but I haven't looked into it yet.

Disclaimer: As always, if you don't know what you're doing, performing this operation may result in damaging your hardware, and I am not responsible for your actions or mistakes. By attempting this operation, you take full responsibility for any damage incurred to your hardware and resulting void of warranty (if you still have one...).

Overclocking/Undervolting the K53TA-bbr6 in Linux

First, if you have K10stat on Windows and you've previously undervolted, you can save yourself a lot of time by making a spreadsheet recording FID, DID, frequency, and voltage values.

To save you some time:


There are other things like northbridge values... just ignore those as we have no control over any of that. For our purposes, we only need to change the FID, DID (core frequency multipliers), and the VID (sets voltage). It should be noted that the a6-3400m uses serial VID mode, as well.

Download k10ctl here: k10ctl
You can either follow my instructions or follow instructions here: k10ctl
(I recommend using a browser that translates this German page into English)

Instructions:
1. Download and unzip the .tar.bz2

2. Install k10ctl:
a. Open up a console and change to the directory where you downloaded the file to

Code:

//my download directory was the following:
cd ~/Downloads/k10ctl

b. Install k10ctl

Code:

sudo make install

That command installed k10ctl to the path / usr / local / sbin

3. Configure k10ctl
a. load the kernal module msr

Code:

sudo modprobe msr

Then append the file " / etc / modules " to load msr at boot, permanently, by opening it with an editor as root and entering msr. If you don't edit it as root, it won't save the file.
My /etc/modules file looks like this

Code:

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.

lp
rtc
msr

4. Now we set up our P-states. Sadly, we can not change P-states 5 or 6, and changing 1 has no effect, at this time. If you are feeling confident you have the right setup, skip ahead to section b where we get our new p-state settings to load at boot.

a.
to print a readout of current values type:

Code:

sudo k10ctl 0

(make sure to stretch your terminal wide enough to receive the output formatted correctly)
and you should see something like this:


The relevant columns are CpuVid (sets voltage), CpuDid, CpuFid (core multipliers), and UCpu (tells the current voltage)

To change your P-states, use these commands
k10ctl commands:
-cv (CPUVID) 0-127 changes voltage , lower cv means higher voltage by .0125 V
-cf (CPUFID) 0-63 changes FID
-cd (CPUDID) 0-7 changes DID

Code:

usage: sudo k10ctl (one or multiple cores) (pstate#) -cv (#) -cd (#) -cf (#)
examples-  sudo k10ctl 0-3 4 -cv 74 -cf 14 -cd 5	
sudo k10ctl 0 4 -cf 14 -cd 5

If you know your FID, DID values for the frequencies you want to set, this shouldn't be too hard to setup. All you will have to do is incrementally move the -cv value until you reach your optimal voltage. If you need to test your voltage stability, look into using ftp://mersenne.org/gimps/mprime2414.tar.gz or ftp://mersenne.org/gimps/sprime2414-freebsd.tar.gz

b.
method 1: load at linux boot, we have to append the file / etc / rc.local . Edit it as root and enter your P-states in a form like this:

Code:

#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.

/usr/local/sbin/k10ctl 0-3 4 -cf 22 -cd 4 -cv 62
/usr/local/sbin/k10ctl 0-3 3 -cf 22 -cd 4 -cv 62
/usr/local/sbin/k10ctl 0-3 2 -cf 22 -cd 4 -cv 62
# this one has no effect...
/usr/local/sbin/k10ctl 0-3 1 -cf 22 -cd 4 -cv 62
/usr/local/sbin/k10ctl 0-3 0 -cf 22 -cd 4 -cv 62

exit 0

Now you should be good to go.

method 2: load at UI startup
-do this by searching for the application "startup applications"
1. create a new startup application. name it whatever you want
2. enter the commands in the same form as you would in a console

Code:

//for example:
k10ctl 0-3 4 -cf 22 -cd 4 -cv 62 && k10ctl 0-3 3 -cf 22 -cd 4 -cv 62 && k10ctl 0-3 2 -cf 22 -cd 4 -cv 62 && k10ctl 0-3 0 -cf 22 -cd 4 -cv 62
//using the "&&" is just like an "and", allowing us to string together multiple commands

If anyone has any questions, I'll try my best to help you out. I'm pretty new to Linux, though, so I may or may not be able to help you. When you get finished, I recommend downloading something that allows you to control your P-states. Since you can't change P-states 5 and 6, it'll sit at 800-950 mhz at voltages around ~.950V, so a bit high for such low frequencies. I set all my P-states to 1.4ghz and lock it to the highest.

I wish I had taken the time to figure this out back when this laptop was popular and this thread was hoppin'. Oh well.

Good luck! :thumbsup:

 

can upgrade memory to 16G ?
8GBx2 BUS1333

now i use 4G*2 bus1333 = 8g

i want to use window 2012 and start another clinet on my vmware