Just need a little more...

Hi all, just joined this forum because I have recently been tinkering with my laptop.

It's a pretty old laptop that I originally bought for my mom, but my desktop got stolen (!) so I am currently using this eMachines E627.

I could not stand the sluggishness but I cannot afford to make big purchases so I went ahead and did these upgrades for cheap:

AMD Turion x2 TL-60 2.0GHz @ 2.3GHz ($10) - Overclocked, and max temp is around 72C so I am pretty happy.

Toshiba 320gb 7200 rpm 16mb cache (free) - Got off a friend, WHEW much faster than that 5400rpm junk.

Broadcom Wireless N pcie card (free) - Also got off a friend.

And the laptop came with 3gb of ddr2-667 ram and the HD3200 IGP 500mhz @ 800mhz. max temp was I think 83C.
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So here's my situation.

I am a Dota 2 player and with the resolution of 1280x720 and all settings low, I can play the game averaging maybe 25-30 fps.

This isn't good enough for me and I AM NOT going to reduce myself of playing at a lower resolution. When that 5v5 team fight starts, the fps hovers at 20 and below and that's when I get frustrated. And the more games I play, the worse it gets as heat rises.

I'm wondering what kind of tweaks I can do to squeeze like 5 more fps out of this system so I can be playing at a better fps.

Here are the solutions I've considered:
1. Upgrade to a 4gb dual channel (my theory is that dual channel will be faster, so it will help my GPU which shares memory) ($20)
2. Put an external cooling fan on the laptop (this will only help for prolonged gaming sessions I am assuming...) ($10, already bought and on the way)
3. The main heat problem is the GPU. And when I took the laptop apart to uipgrade the CPU, I noticed that the thermal pad on the IGP was kinda crumbling apart, so I put some Arctic Silver 5 to fill the gaps. I know it is a pain to take apart my laptop again, but what if I completely remove this old thermal pad and replace it with one of those kits from eBay where they provide you with many thickness of copper shims and try them out on my IGP along with some AS5? ( how do I keep it from moving around tho?) ($10)

I am a super poor college student Really wish I still had my desktop!! Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

I would think playing at a lower quality or resolution is your best bet.

There i s a point where any hardware change s that you make will result in little or no change in performance. That point, you have reached.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

Two upgrades you can make are to buy 4GB of DDR2-800 memory, and to fix the cooling of the IGP. Remove the thermal pad and thermal paste you added. Put in a pure copper shim with thermal paste on both sides. This will cool it a lot better. So your graphics memory performance will be a lot higher and you can overclock the GPU higher. Good luck!

 

I have heard that the copper shim is far superior to the stock thermal pads, especially in such budget laptop. I think this was $299 when I got it haha...so surprised that Dota 2 even runs at all! I think I will give it a go! Between this and the 4gb upgrade tho, which would you do first? Because if I just do one and it runs fine, then there is no need to do both.

In fact, the game runs pretty well (the first game anyways) other than having 10 heroes in one screen. So I think that copper shim might do the trick?? I heard HD3200 can reach OC of 900-1000 mhz so I am looking forward to that if I do this mod.

 

Well the copper shim costs almost nothing, just your time, so do that one first. But I really think that DDR2-667 is probably bottlenecking the GPU.

 

I'm not quite familiar with AMD cpus, but is HT like Intel's FSB? If so, the Turion can support up to 800mhz. Right now, the system has one 2gb ddr2-800 module and a 1gb ddr2-667 module, so I listed it as 3gb ddr2-667 because the 800mhz ram will step down in speed am I correct?

If the above is true...adding that 2gb ddr2-800 module in dual channel will definitely be more worthy of an upgrade than I thought! Sweet. I'll do both of these upgrades and report back with the results. I think the copper shims I ordered comes with 6 different thickness, so I'll have some left over...might put em in a friend's overheating HP laptop for a 6 pack of beer

 

Yes, this is all correct.

It sounds good, let us know the results!

 

Yes definitely let us know how it goes. DDR2-800MHz is probably your best bet. Also see if you can OC your iGPU a little bit using AMD Overdrive. Any little bit will help. The faster RAM might give you a few FPS alone. I give you all the credit in the world staying steadfast with the hardware you have. It is quite amazing that even "ancient" hardware can still manage many newer games if you're willing to give concessions to resolution and detail.

However let me just make a point that ANY new netbook or notebook with IGP will be at least twice as powerful as what you have, likely a lot more. So consider saving up a few hundred bucks and buy one of those AMD Trinity laptops, preferably with at least the quad core A8.

 

Haha thanks and yea even an "ancient" laptop can be put to good use with the right tweaks!

But it's only possible because the parts are so cheap to upgrade. Otherwise, it's really a lost cause haha.

Oh I know, those new AMD APUs are amazing! I built a desktop with an A8-3870K for my friend, and it came to $500 for the tower, and a 23 inch monitor! What a bang for the buck! It can run Diablo 3 mostly on high at 1680x1050.

This laptop will hopefully not fail on me for another half a year, and by that time I will probably get a Sager laptop or a custom desktop depending on the situation. Until then, it will serve me just fine.

Edit: About the IGP OC, yea it is already at 800mhz. I don't understand though, I am not changing any voltages around, but the higher clock brought more heat with it.

Say, if I set it to 1 GHz, the laptop won't automatically up the voltage to meet the demand will it? So it will crash and be unstable but not overvolt the thing(?)

 

The heat goes up linearly with frequency, and by the squared difference in voltage.

If you didn't manually change the voltage, the voltage will remain the same. It doesn't go up by itself if it needs more, it crashes.

 

yeah man shim it and over clock it, that will help out for sure as well.

 

Right, since the ram FSB is determined by the CPU FSB and a division the best upgrade's may be DDR-2 800 at 2.0 or 2.4 GHz to prevent step down. This assumes the CPU is not limiting the game performance. You also want the lowest CAS possible, be carefull here.

Kingston HyperX Model KHX6400S2ULK2/4G Laptop Memory - Newegg.com are cas 4 but want to run at 2T. Some main boards will then refuse to use this RAM. You may be better off with a CAS 5 memory such as G.SKILL Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBSQ Laptop Memory - Newegg.com .

You want more than just a little. Where you are down to 20 FPS and want 25 FPS that is a 25% increase. getting 5 FPS over original where you are down below 20 is more than 25%. As an example from 10 FPS to 15 FPS becomes a 50% increase.................

 

you might check out a program called rivatuner for your gpu.

 

Honestly I'd try selling off the laptop and try getting something newer used/refurbished than trying to spend money on anymore upgrades, that CPU and GPU weren't exactly meant for gaming. And I think DotA 2 is more CPU intensive than GPU, but I don't play enough to really check.

Edit: If it is more GPU intensive, you're even worse off here with what you have.

 

Couldn't agree more playing DOTA 2 regardless of CPU/GPU that emachine can't handle nor will it sustain the gaming levels you want. You will need a dedicate 512-1G GPU laptop to get good gaming from DOTA 2. So leave that emachine alone for basic usage and get a good gaming Rig if you want to play DOTA2 otherwise you can guarantee as what you describe horrible gaming scores.

 

A little update for you guys who are interested in doing the copper shim mod.

I am now running Dota 2 on 1280x720 with fps averaging 30.

I did not increase the ram to 4gb 800mhz, but only did the copper shim mod.

Before, with the IGP at 700MHz, the max temp was at 86C.

A couple days ago with the copper shim installed and IGP overclocked to 850MHz, the temps went down to 81C.

Now, after the Arctic Silver 5 has settled in a bit more, the temps did not go above 79C. I am guessing this will lower 1-2C more as it's only been a week and the break-in period for AS5 is long.

I am shocked at how much better the laptop is performing just by lowering the temps and Ocing by 150MHz. I recommend anyone to do this simple mod. Shaving off 7C off your max temps is a pretty big deal imo!

 

Awesome, glad to hear it worked out!