*HP dv5z (1XXX series) Owners Lounge* **PUMA Goodness**

Anyone managed to undervolt their Turion? My RM-70 is running hot.

 

What options in CCC were enabled? Because I've tried to get to overdrive before but the option isn't there with my current CCC.

 

u can undervolt with fusion and overdrive...and i got some more avivo options in CCC

 

Manti..

My cam works with AIM.

But when I try to go to the AIM chats.
It doesnt turn on or anything.
My mic works for the chats but not the cam.

Not sure if it thinks its still being used for something else.
Idk.

 

I'll have my dv7 with the 512 3450 at the end of the month (maybe sooner, there is a backlog in china) so i'll let you know if there are any major differences then...

Ohh, and when i made my comment about not being able to update CCC, that was based on 8.8 which did not have the mobility provisions that 8.9 has.

 

Oh, well this has always been my understanding with laptops. I just noticed that a few posts back, someone reported that the dv5z graphics card WAS upgradable -- so I figured that maybe HP actually did something cool and didn't solder it. I mean, it's not technically INTEGRATED, is it? Just soldered? Which means that they don't HAVE to do it that way. I know that ASUS makes the MA3850M, for example, which is an upgradable notebook card (HD 3850).

Oh, how I would love the 3850, even in a small, underclocked "M" version. I grossly overestimated the abilities of both the HD 3450 *and* the ZM-80. Similarly-priced dv5t's trounce both with the Intel and Nvidia solutions. Being an Nvidia fan, I would have gone with the t, but PUMA platform sounded so cool, I wanted to try it out. Of course, the benefits aren't even there, but I've got my fingers crossed for Mantikos to get through to R&D.


Back to my other question from before: is it possible to upgrade my HDD to an SSD? If I can't upgrade my video, I could at least fix the crappy 5400 load times

 

My ZM-80 runs *obscenely* hot -- like 87C! I assumed that I could change this by just changing the power options to underclock (or limit, whatever it does) the CPU to 50%. I know that my 3450 runs cooler when I use the power options to calm it down...

 

SSD drives are just in the same packaging as HDD, they work on a sata port and are plug and play. It probably won't make your load times much better. It's really limited by the CPU and Ram. You can try things like readyboost. I picked up a 4GB Class 6 SDHC card and keep it in the slot to use ready boost. SSD just cuts down on power usage and seek time for fragmented files. But the prices on them are so high right now, maybe when they are down to atleast $1/GB they will be worth it. As for the video card. I posted pictures of how it is setup, you can't desolder it and put in a 3850, the card is half built into the mother board (the video memory and stuff).

 

Well put...I agree with all of it, and I use ready boost via 4GB Sandisk Cruzer flash drive...I think the SD card might work a lil faster since a PCI-E lane is dedicated from the chipset to the reader vs the PCI-E to hub to USB port for the USB port

 

If you've got a good one, the SSD may cut down some on power usage. It looks like the OCZs (I have one of these) use close to the same amount of power as an HDD. Still, it depends on your workload patterns.

 

Do u mean I can undervolt my Turion X2 RM-70? I tried installing Overdrive but my mobo is not supported.

 

Yes, when I installed Fusion and Overdrive...I was able to undervolt
and yes, I have the same Turion

 

I think you would see more improvement upgrading to a 7200 RPM drive, and you would spend less money. Wikipedia has a good article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#Comparison_with_hard_disk_drives

 

That's strange... the benchmarks I've been watching everywhere from Anandtech to Tom's hardware show EXTREME improvements in everything for SSDs -- I'm talking one-tenth the loadup time for windows or games vs. a raptor 10k! Plus an 0.1ms seek time, no fragmentation, and about 40x better multitasking performance (e.g., unzipping while loading programs).

Obviously, these are being shown for desktops. I also assume, though I didn't look at test configurations, that they're using top-end hardware elsewhere so as to prevent bottlenecks. But still, with load times improved *drastically* and seek times reduced to nearly nil, I would expect a big performance boost from these SSDs.

If my reports sound exaggerated, I would be happy to link them.

EX:

And in later tests, the new Intel SSD trounced the OCZ and Samsung SSDs, drawing an even further gap.

 

Similarly, my readings about ReadyBoost don't paint a very positive picture: http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2160&page=3 has a good rundown.

 

The yes-or-no question has been made more complicated.... I take it from these answers, that, yes, I can upgrade my HDD, correct? Will I need a Vista disk or is there a way to use HP's recovery partition from my current drive?

 

There is a problem with their flaw. Those numbers were limited by the speeds of a USB port. Our card readers are plugged right into sata, so the max speed is much higher. Newegg has class 6 SDHC 4GB cards for $10, so it couldn't hurt and it doens't seem to make things any slower.

 

Thanks for the tips. Will try that out.

 

Can you help me undervolt? I have the ZM-80 processor, and I downloaded AMD Fusion and Overdrive. Fusion won't install on 64-bit Vista, and I haven't a clue how to make Overdrive work.

 

I managed to Get Fusion and Overdrive running but there are no options for Voltage Control. Anyone using both these utilities for Voltage Control?

 

I see 8GB cards, too -- does readyboost go that high?

It just acts like extra RAM, right? I'm not topping out my RAM resources; I have 3GB... But like you said, for 10 buck, psh, I can't say no!

 

Should I get a 4GB SDHC Class 6 for Ready Boost? Would it speed up my system? Btw, I have tested Class 6 SDHC before and the reader is capable of reading up to 20MB/s.

My system's config
Turion RM-70 2.0Ghz
2GB DDR2 667 dual channel
Seagate 5400.4 250GB
ATI HD 3450 256MB.

 

Readyboost will only support a 4GB file max. So if you have an 8GB card, it's only gonna use half of it. As for how it works, it doesn't give you more ram, it more or less acts as a swap file / cache. Over time, it watches what files you use the most, and stores a copy of them on the card. Next time the system referes to that file, it reads it from the card instead of the harddrive. this cuts down on seek time and is good if your doing multiple reads at a time. as for the Classes of SDHC, they are based on the 'minimum' transfer speed. so a class 2 has a lower minimum than a class 6.

this was the card i ordered ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211067) and they key behind this is you gotta let the system spool up. after you login, let the system sit for about 15 minutes. This will fill up your ram via the hyperfetch cache and will make sure your card is ready via readyboost. After that things take only a second or 2 to launch.

Also, you should upgrade to more ram too, I purchased ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231156) to get myself up to 4GB and the price has dropped $5 since i ordered it last. if your running a 32bit OS, you'll only use 3GB, but it's better than running 2GB.

 

If I'm not mistaken, AMD chipsets need same capacity RAM sticks for dual channel mode. That is the reason I got another 1 GB stick instead of 2GB. Thanks for the explanation on Ready Boost. I will get a 4GB Class 6 card for that.

 

Um, as far as i know, you can have mismatched size ramsticks and it will run dual channel, it's if you mistmatch speed, it will default to the slower speed. The nice thing about using an sdhc card is that it has allmost no external profile. so you can just put it in the slot and forget about it...

 

Not true...to run dual channel, the RAM sticks must match and AMD processors are very sensitive to this since they have a onboard memory controller and therefore any increase in ram latency KILLS the performance!

Moreover, I will send out some pics and steps for undervolting in the next couple of days

 

ReadyBoost sounds good on paper but in practice there is no noticeable difference in my experience. I have a 4 GB Class 6 SDHC too and only 2 GB of system RAM.

 

Also, you should upgrade to more ram too, I purchased ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231156) to get myself up to 4GB and the price has dropped $5 since i ordered it last. if your running a 32bit OS, you'll only use 3GB, but it's better than running 2GB.[/QUOTE]

I am also planning to upgrade to 4GB. I see that you bought DDR2 800 PC2-6400 RAM. However, when I use the memory chooser on HP website it tells me to get DDR2 667 PC2-5300 memory. Will the laptop be able to make use of the faster RAM?

P.S. CPU-Z shows that the stock RAM is DDR2-6400 (400Mhz)

 

yeah, it says it's running at full speed. The laptop came originaly with 2gb of the same speed ram, so going down to ddr2 667 would have been slower.

 

They're there in Overdrive. You have to enable "advanced" mode. I uninstalled it, so I can't give you full directions.

 

Though you may be able to find 667 at a lower latency. I've always been a huge latency whore when it comes to RAM (at least up until I went DDR3 on my new 790i), and there's often a speed/latency tradeoff...

 

My latency before and after was still reported as 5:5:5:15

 

Yup. I have read somewhere and AMD needs two sticks of RAM with same capacity and latency for dual channel. That is the reason I got another 1GB of DDR2 677 because the laptop comes with 1GB DDR2 667.

I'm looking forward to the guide. I have enabled Advanced Mode but I still can't change voltage.

 

For those using 3GB RAM, is your notebook running on dual channel mode? You can check with Everest or CPU-Z.

 

1. I have few days off from work so I will make a guide to undervolting within the next day or so with screenshots

2. Yes, you do need 2 identical sticks of RAM to run dual channel mode irrespective of what processor you have, its just AMD sue to its onboard memory controller is more sensitive to latency and RAM speed, therefore its recomended to get most speed out of you AMD processor to run it with matched RAM sticks (in our case DDR2-800)

 

but since 32-bit system recognizes only up to 3GB of RAM, is there any point to get 4GB? Or should I just go with 3GB. I realize that it won't run in dual mode, but then I read on wikipedia that performance difference in gaming for example is only around 5% with discreet graphics and up to 25% with integrated. And I have 3450

 

1. It recognized 3.5GB total (including the 256MB for 3450) so no there is no point, you can although switch to 64bit.
2. AMD processors are very sensitive to non-dual vs dual mode, I would suggest getting 2GB and 4GB SD card as readyboost. (thats my system right here and I love the performance)

 

in 32bit mode, the system only recognizes 3068MB (3GB). the 3450 has it's own dedicated memory that is seperate.

 

Hey guys just registered to the site, been following it for weeks now. I have tried to post on hp, amd, all sorts of forums, with little luck on the hybrid crossfire issue. Mantikos, hats off, you seem to be the only one with something actually going in a positive direction on the issue. I hope we eventually see a bios update for it.

 

Additionally, thanks to [SMAN] for the photos proving the chipset. You know I find it funny how hp kept saying that there was only one graphics card. It leads me to two thoughts. 1. The support reps are incompetent, or 2. HP is trying hard not to allow this feature. It's probably both, but it makes clear since, if this feature was enabled it would out perform a lot of their more expensive models, thus taking away from those sales, but should we the consumer be punished for such a thing? Should AMD, for actually caring about the consumer and allowing decent performance for a budget, be penalized? Sadly, it happens all the time, no one cares about the consumer, just about profits. It also would not surprise me if Intel "donated" some funds to HP to disable this feature, seeing how the direct competition is on them, and maybe Nvidia did the same. Sorry for the conspiracies, but I am a sociologist by trade, and this kind of stuff is observed a lot in capitalist business. To go even further it is quite possible that HP realized this and intentionally contacted Nvidia and Intel and said, "Either pay us, or we will release the features." Thus, making HP more profit. Meanwhile, they will come up with some cheap excuse to us, blaming the lack of crossfire on heat issues, or something of the like. Ok, ok Ill stop with the rambling.

 

There is a something else to consider, and that is them covering up for a bad design. HP has been dealing with losses due to overheating issues and that extended service plan that they had to do instead of a recall. They may have had a design that when using both graphics processers, it produced more heat than they were comfortable in dealing with. And rather than taking the time to redesign it, they rushed the first model to market to be the first. When the release their new retooled boards, they will have had time to discover if the heating issue is a problem. I'm going to be taking delivery of one of the first 512MB 3450 boards in the country, so we'll see what the layout changes are made between the two.

 

Not to mention the fact that this sort of thing has happened before in the past, *cough ford pinto cough*. I mean seriously, I have seen laptops with heat issues blow up on a people, obviously making it a hazard. Instead of recalling everything, most companies would rather pay the lawsuits for the discrete cases that happen. That is great company policy isn't it? Once again it's sad but happens a lot. In any case, I would like to see what comes from yours and Mantikos's efforts.

On another note, does anyone have a quick link to where all of us with dv5z laptops with the discrete graphics option could go to hp and massively complain on like a forum or something? I have tried to find a good place on their site, but honestly have failed in finding a good one. If enough people go to the same spot and complain, there is a more likely chance change will occur. Perfect example is with Creative Labs and Vista drivers, the forums were loaded with people complaining about bringing about drivers for some audio cards that creative was saying were not going to be compatible. Eventually the drivers came out.

 

I think [SMAN] is on the right track, but I'll add that lighting up both the integrated and dedicated GPUs would probably blow the 65W power budget as well as make cooling more difficult. HP would have to beef up the cooling system, adding weight, and possibly switch to a larger and heavier 90W power brick. From an engineering perspective they ought to build a better cooling system regardless but marketing wants the lightest and thinnest notebook possible at the least cost.

So, no conspiracy, it's just marketing weasels at work. But I bet that the ATI engineers who figured out how to make Hybrid Crossfire work are more annoyed than any of us.

 

Not sure where your getting your numbers from, but my dv5z came with a 90watt brick. (19V 4.74A) I think it's more of a cooling issue that anything else. AMD would have adressed proper wattage in their reference design.

 

Ah. My bad. Thermal budget then, or just clueless management skittishness after the NVIDIA northbridge disaster.

 

Mine also comes with 90W. I think all AMD series with discrete graphics come with 90 power adapter.

 

I just came here to assure you, a undervolting walkthrough comming around 12:00 (noon) CT (Central Time) by Sat.

 

Make sure you include links to where you downloaded your files from...

 

sure thing!

 

@Mantikos
awaiting dude. though you didn't reply to my PM :-(