Asus UL80AG Overclock Help Thread

Some of you may be wondering what the need for this thread is, and after doing some extensive reading, I've come to the conclusion that I need some help . You see, I can't help but overclock/mod most of the computers/electronics I own, and while I posted in the UL80VT/UL50VT Owners Lounge asking about how to overclock this particular model, I was asked, "Shouldn't you have found this out BEFORE buying this laptop?" Well you see the answer to that question is quite simple, I purchased two of these UL80AG's, 1 for my dad and 1 for myself, and I got them for $625 dollars each. The cheapest I could find a UL80VT was roughly $790 after Bing discount and the price difference was not worth it to me. But that won't stop me from trying to overclock the AG hehe .

Now moving along, I have tried most of the PLL's in setFSB and tried clockgen, neither of which worked. In fact, Sandra does not even list a PLL for the system under "mainboard" and all the PLL's I tried in setFSB either gave an "Smbus Error" or a "PLL ID" error. None detected the correct 200mhz FSB.

The PLL information I gathered was under the assumption that the UL20/UL30a/UL80a/UL50a all would utilize similar internal hardware. From this UL20 Thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=445925

I got this information: PLL = ICS9LR3362CGLF. Now, the interesting part is I cannot find this PLL listed anywhere, not even on IDT's (the manufacturer) website. So I am not sure where to go from here. I tried installing the Power2Go version from the VT line on the AG, but the turbo33 option does not show. I installed all ATK drivers/utilities so this should not be an issue.

Just one observation I wish to make, the datasheet for the GS45 Express chipset lists two supported FSB modes separate for DDR2 and DDR3. DDR2 maxes at 800mhz FSB support (official not oc) and DDR3 maxes at 1066mhz FSB support. This leads me to believe that Turbo33 on the VT models which utilize DDR3 are just utilizing a software switch which tells the chipset to run 1066 FSB since it is technically supported, thus overclocking the cpu. Both models support the "easy" overclock of up to 5% in the bios, however, which leads me to believe that despite other differences, the PLL chips in either are able to be overclocked meaning I should be able to either mod the bios to increase the %oc options, or access and change the FSB from within windows. Another option to consider is the possiblitiy of pin-modding the cpu to get 266mhz FSB, but would the chipset support this since only DDR2 is installed (holding ram stability constant at 266mhz, thats an issue I will address separately).

Sorry about the rambling and I appreciate all the help I can get. I'm sure most of the guys around here can understand the sentiment.

 

Use thaiphoon burner to flash a slower frequency onto your ram and higher timings to make it stable. Then do the PLL pin mod.

Are you sure you have the correct PLL? Did you open up the notebook?

 

I Have not opened up the laptop to actually validate the PLL ID. I was trying to avoid that situation previously, but I am inching closer to cracking open mine (wont touch my dad's haha) and finding out what I can. Is there any information we can gain about the status of the PLL? I appreciate the reply, I was curious if you had any thoughts on how Asus can get a 5% oc (however tiny) without a writable PLL?

 

You're right the PLL must be programmable (i.e. TME mode disabled).
I don't see any other way to get the 5% OC.

Can you please do this:
1. Open setfsb.
2. Click on the "diagnosis" tab.
3. Select "PLL diagnosis" as the clock generator.
4. Click getfsb.
5. take a screenshot and upload it here.

 

Ok, I got the screen-shot you were asking about. Hopefully it is not too big of an image, I tried to be reasonable hehe.




I am not a hex man myself (learned it once but forgot it), so I appreciate the help .

 

I'm also trying to overclock the ASUS UL20A.
Here's the PLL diagnosis screenshot for the ASUS UL20A

 

You do have an ICS PLL according to your device ID register.
Also it looks like you have TME mode enabled, which means you need to pin mod the PLL to overclock.

Link to guide:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=393027

Looks like you didn't press "getfsb".
Can you try it again please?

 

Here's the screenshot again.

 

According to the device ID register, that is probably not an ICS PLL (unless the byte is different for your PLL).

Maybe this thread will help:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=429383

 

@Moral Hazard
Before I saw your reply today, I decided to mess around some more with setFSB as in another thread someone had mentioned using an RTM PLL allowed them to oc. I selected RTM885T-926B and am pleased to report that although it does not detect the correct FSB/DDR frequencies, it is able to change the clockspeed of the PLL. I was able to test up to 450mhz DDR which was only about 1405mhz (100mhz oc) on the processor. I ended up with an issue however, the pc did not lock up and played 1080p District 9 just fine along with super-pi, but it appeared the onboard graphics had some problems with the clockspeed adjustments and the screen started to flicker slightly and animations slowed down. I am not sure what to make of this but a reboot fixes this problem. Clockspeed increase was confirmed by both cpu-z and sandra.

I will take a look at the pin-mod but was curious what your thoughts were on this new development.

 

It might be because of ur RAM... u need to Overclock it when u overclock ur CPU...

 

I believe the issue is with the pci or pci-express frequency settings. Because the PLL is not exactly right, it might be setting the frequencies to high along with oc'ing the FSB. The ram is stable at 450mhz, but I believe the flickering is due to the m4500HD not liking how high the bus is clocked.

Just FYI, while I am a noob at oc'ing OEM hardware (ASUS/DELL/Etc), I have been in the OC scene for awhile. H20 and LN2 have been a good part of my life so its frustrating to be so limited.

 

Yes that works for quite a few people. I'm guessing that your ram is not fully stable and since it's shared by your GPU you have that strange problem.

You might want to increase your memory timings or lower the frequency with thaiphoon burner.

 

Thanks for the help, think the only way is to disassemble the NB to check the PLL chip

 

I just got my ASUS UL80Ag from Amazon.ca and have just used the bios controls to increase the overclock to (a meager) 5%....

I'm also trying to see if i can overclock this thing more.... any suggestions?

 

I just bought this laptop as well and am dying to overclock it. I am completely inexperienced when it comes to overclocking so I'm eagerly awaiting a solution from you guys. Web searching led me to this thread and I hope something is figured out, or I just might have to return the laptop for something with a bit more oomph.

 

Try applying a FSLx+BSEL PLL pinmod as explained here to go from 800Mhz->1066Mhz FSB. Appears the CULV cpus don't lock you into lowest multiplier since that is the way the Alienware M11x achieves it's 1.3->1.73Ghz overclock.

 

also doesn't Asus Laptops have built in power4gear software which allows OC? Does this laptop not have it?

 

The ULx0VT series with switchable graphics and DDR3 RAM has turbo33 (1.3->1.73 bios controlled FSLx+BSEL overclock).

The ULx0A series with Intel IGP and PC2-6400 (DDR2-800) RAM ram only has turbo5, a 5% overclock.

It would appear then that Asus' ULx0T series has added extra bios controller logic to the FSLx/BSEL lines on the PLL/CPU to do a 200/800->266/1066Mhz FSB overclock.

Since the SU4100/SU7400 CPU is tolerant to a 1.3->1.73Ghz overclock and doesn't go into lowest-multiplier lockout, could do the same FSLx+BSEL overclock as a pinmod on a UL80AG.