*HP dv6z AMD Llano (6XXX series) Owners Lounge*

I wrote an article about choosing power supplies a few years ago, and I occassionaly get an email about it. However, it really doesn't apply to laptops, since it's difficult-to-impossible to calculate your consumption based upon totalling up power consumption of a laptop's individual devices. Besides, it's much better to use "real world" figures than theoretical ones.

For a laptop OR a desktop these days, it's best to get one of these:

P3 Kill A Watt Electricity Load Meter and Monitor

(eBay, $20 or Newegg, $26...or you can get the slightly higher 4400 model)

(I use it a lot for all kinds of things, and it's a great tool for people "going green.")

As a prerequisite for laptops, let your laptop use up it's onboard battery until the laptop shuts down.

Simply plug the Kill-A-Watt in, set it to watts, plug your computer into it, and use your computer at it's best performance.

(Gaming is just about the only thing you do with a computer that stresses most of the components at the same time. I used to use gaming on clients' mainframes and PCs as a reliability analysis tool. At first my employer was pretty upset with this, and then it became the company standard when it proved better than running diagnostics!)

While you're gaming, look up at the Kill-A-Watt and note the consumption (or have a friend watch it so you don't frag yourself.) You now know the PEAK draw of the laptop while charging and gaming. (If you're running a small power supply, it'll be close to maximum rating of the supply.)

You want to use a power supply that has a peak rating as close to double this figure as you can get, in order for your power supply to be as efficient as possible, and last as long as it can. (Power supplies are most efficient when performing @ 50% of peak load. Efficiency correlates to durability.)

So, for example, your peak gaming/charging figure is 45 watts, then a 90 watt supply is best, not 120 watts. (This probably won't be the case, however, especially for all you OC freaks and you'll end up getting a 120w or above supply.)

If your computer is using 60 watts peak, then a 120w supply is best. If it's 70w or above, then 150w supply, and so forth. Just double your peak consumption, and get the supply closest to double that, either rounding down or up. (If, say, your peak consumption was 65w, then you'd want to go with a 120w, because 65x2=130 which is closer to 120 than 150. The whole idea is to get as close to that 200% figure, either up or down, for efficiency's sake. Bigger isn't always better.)

There are a LOT of universal supplies out there which will work just fine, so don't think you have to go OEM all the way. As a matter of fact, a cheaper aftermarket supply is more likely to be of a higher quality than the OEM, since the OEM is looking to make some money and doesn't usually go for the best power supplies.

Hope this helps.

 

Laptop PSU's are a bit different than desktop PSU's as in they typically are much more efficient and are less sensitive near peak loads because it's delivering power along a single cable at single voltage. Otherwise even this DV6z would require a 200W external brick which isn't realistic. And these are Efficiency Level: V ( http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partne...International_Efficiency_Marking_Protocol.pdf) which means > 87% efficiency.

But yes to get absolute max draw you should drain your battery to get draw from the system + battery charge. No need to go completely drained, even down to 60% is adequate because your system will charge with whatever additional power it can provide, and it won't vary much from full drain to partial drain.

 

Of course there's no "unlimited solution" to power supplies, but I've researched extensively, and 150w and up are out there. The higher you go in watts, the more disproportionately expensive they are. (I have another "green" non-computer-related project going on that requires these supplies.)

200+ watts are pretty hard to find...but yeah, they make them and you're going to pay a premium.

However, the bricks really aren't more efficient than a modern switching desktop PSU, because both are built to adjust supply for demand, and good desktop PSUs have separate circuitry for separate rails. As a matter of fact, due to the brick's sealed nature, if it gets too warm, it can be far less efficient.

The higher the Energy Star rating, the more you'll pay. You can get by for less $$$ if you just properly match your supply and still get the same or better efficiency from a budget supply.

Bear in mind that this is just the "ultimate performance" solution to people who are living from outlet-to-outlet, and gamers with laptops ten to be those people. Everyone else can do just fine with the PSU that came with the laptop.

 

Well, the Sager NP8170 comes with a 220W power supply and it could eat 200W+ at full load and users have pushed them hard without much issue. I wouldn't worry too much about it. Desktop PSU's have to worry about 3.3V, 5V, 12V distributed among multiple lines. Here's my comparison of the NP8170 PSU with the earlier NP8662 180W (?) PSU: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...nut-resident-goldfish-blub-5.html#post7154663

Laptop PSU's with the efficiency certification have to exceed the recommended power rating (87%) at designed operating temperatures. You need to go with a desktop 80 plus titanium supply to reach that performance which can be very expensive. In any case I would recommend the OEM power supply because there's too many crappy off brands, and with HP you can get them for reasonable prices on Amazon so reliable retailer with original equipment.

 

Woah...on HP's configuration page the DV6z lets you order a 65 watt PSU, so I assumed that was the most it needed...

Obviously I'd be getting one with the fastest A8, and a separate GPU, sooooooo maybe 65 watts isn't good enough.

EDIT: Yeah, sounds like I should get the "Smart 120 watt PSU" from the link to HP's site that you kindly provided

 

Be sure to get the one from Amazon, same thing but cheaper: $35 vs $90

 

Very much in agreement. My one netbook had a 20w lego and the other had a 40w duplo. My ancient dell nx20 had an absolutely huge and weak AC adapter which was much bigger than the new 120w HP.

In particular my 40w netbook duplo is very impressive. It gets quite hot under load but has been perfect for three years already. It's a revision model though, first gen would go thermal-safe because the Cheetos generation was playing WoW while charging after the school day. Revision adapter never tripped even playing Far Cry or San Andreas while charging.

Back to subject, the HWinfo64 reports a max charge rate of nearly 38w sustained. The 120w adapter's energy budget is sufficive to charge at full rate under all but the most extreme duress. I would not make a larger cinderblock available for fear of damaging the traces in the motherboard by ALLOWING them to overdraw. After all a good desktop PSU has amperage clamps, and the ATX2.01 hardware spec required an extra half amp for 5vSB. That difference could have screwed my old homebuild because the 600w Seasonic of that time would treat it as a short circuit and cut power within a few thousandths of a second of pushing the soft power button to start it up.

Laptop motherboards may sometimes be completely defenseless against extra availability of amperage. Burning a trace will ruin the motherboard and run a terribly high replacement fee.

 

OK...we're talking about two different things here. I'm a "bang for buck" guy that uses the perfect model as a guide and not the goal.

Also not talking desktop supplies.

The point I am making is, that with power supplies in general, you're going to get max efficiency using a supply that's double the rating, regardless of Energy Star certification. I know because I was an engineering technician who often prototyped power supplies. If you stay close to that 50%, regardless of rating, you're going to get about 95%+ efficiency. (This was true even with the old transformer-type supplies.)

Operating from 30%-70% capacity, even a cheapo power supply will last almost forever.

In electronics, the rule is to build using components that are rated at double their intended use. Consequently, when possible/practical, it makes sense to use devices made from these components the same way.

When I worked on the space shuttle program, however, "almost" didn't cut it. Consequently, your Sager solution, at $109, would have been perfect for a computer that consumed around 100w at max load. (We spent far more, unfortunately.)

At $109, it's not my perfect solution as a consumer, though. Too pricey.

The problem is that most users tend to overlook the power supply when maximizing performance. The result is the BSOD at best, and frying your system at worst.

If it was me, I'd be checking eBay/Amazon/Google for the best compromise, using the "double-peak" only as the rule of thumb, telling me that I need something more capable as a suitable replacement for the 120w supply that came stock with this machine if I am looking to "push the envelope". Given the consumption (90-95w) for charging and gaming, I'd pick a $20 150W for practicality and economy's sake. I wouldn't be pushing it at full load at any time, so energy efficiency isn't going to drop considerably with 55-60w minimum headroom, and it should still last longer than my ownership of the laptop, since I turn these things over every 4-5 years at the longest on average.

Since you related "designed operating temperatures" in relation to Energy Star rating...well, yeah. As long as you use the power supply for it's designed use at the continuous rating at the proper temps. But...that's not what OC'ers do. And designed use is never close to the maximum rating anyway.

Even OC'ing, I'd probably feel more comfortable sticking with the stock 120w (30-35w headroom minimum) if it wasn't for the fact that I researched power supplies for solid-state lighting for about three months, a project I've been working on for about for the last four years. In that time, I contacted many manufacturers and requested/ bought many samples. I found that the majority of the power supplies were made in China and most of these came from two or three manufacturers. The guts in all of them were mostly the same as the OEMs, and most of them were even similarly (if not identically) packaged.

The real difference was that the OEM price was always considerably higher, and OEM quality was not always up to snuff as the aftermarkets. The military-grade supplies I found were actually the ideal solution, but nobody would buy my product at the price I'd have to sell it for in order to cover the cost of the supply.

There's NO WAY I'd buy a cheap aftermarket supply and run it continuously close to it's max rating and expect it to last. But that wasn't my point...I was talking about the best "bang for buck" compromise solution. The more you want, considering what you have to spend, the more you compromise. However, nobody should have to spend more than the minimum necessary.

 

Exactly the point.

 

As long as your voltages don't dip due to an underpowered supply, your amps are fine. Devices only draw the power they demand, and if they can't get it from volts, they'll draw more amps. Amps are the killer.

Traces should be fine with the right power supply, in that the motherboard does a good job of wicking the heat from the traces and dissipating it. The only time I've seen a trace burn was when the power supply went out and took them and components with it.

 

By the way, just so y'all know, HP's OEM manufacturer is COMPAL, who also manufactures Compaq and Dell.

I'm digging for part number equivalence tables, as well as the OEM part suppliers/manufacturers to COMPAL as well.

 

Are we looking at backlit keyboard or IPS screen at any chance?

 

I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you...if HP doesn't offer it as an upgrade, the chances are it doesn't exist for that model.

 

Thank you for the information. I think I will wait till the woman needs a laptop, pass this one on to her and move over to the 11" mac air! Now to start saving....

 

clarkkent: I have seen burned laptop motherboards first hand. Usually the PSU tests out fine but the onboard VRM has failed or a trace has burned. It happened often enough with Acer Aspire One netbooks. (most often involving more than one USB 2.5" external HDD connected at the same time)

www.google.com/m?q=tom's+hardware+power+supply+roundup

Tom's Hardware checks out desktop PSUs. Way back, this caused a stir when they first began by testing about twenty units across the price range. No big surprises here, but a lot of consumer grade models blew up at as little as 50% load, or had a single weak rail. And naturally the ugly monsters could often run full load indefinitely (insofar as the scope of testing could ascertain). They also examing power factor, sine wave corruption and volts/amps grid resistance billing for large companies.

The best units achieved maximum efficiency at MORE THAN 70-80% load. You may speak of thermal influence on power efficiency, but there are many factors in PSU performance and operating temperature is key. Some actually perform better when they've warmed up.

A good laptop PSU design should be able to survive high load and internal temperature in its single rail for more than a year of nonstop draw. I have a few that are more than ten years old and still work fine. Some of the best are clunkier because they have an over capacity design that is limited downward to intentionally reduce output and increase lifespan.

I have certain issues with overly cheap third party PSUs, for the same reason as any clever person will distrust cheap third party batteries. A few companies have gotten into trouble by assembling such devices from hardware that was rejected by its original buyer. Batteries that lose thirty percent capacity in two months/40 charge cycles, or have a bad cell that ruins the whole pack within weeks. Power supplies that melt inside or can't hold voltages within spec. Universal adapters with loose connectors that have to be glued in place (friend had that problem with replacement laptop adapter).

TL;DR and of course YMMV but that is what I have dealt with when fixing computers "on the ground" as it were.

 

Bottom line, when it comes to power supplies and batteries, you more or less get what you pay for. They are the critical component to allowing your system to run properly. Best to do your investigation on a case by case basis.

And with laptops, in most cases, it is best to buy the OEM power supplies.

 

I think i have finally diagnosed my swtor issue. I think I am thermal throttle'in at all 4 cores 2.5 locked. Anyone have this issue with non synthetic benches?

 

AMD Interlagos on Supermicro workstation review - The Inquirer

The chap what penned this highlight was not especially enthusiastic, but I consider the facts brought forth to be quite enlightening.

Firstly dual-socket Opteron is competitive with dual-socket Xeon for Cinema4D type workloads. Sixteen floating point units at 2.2/2.5 vs twelve at 3.33, AMD has delivered good FP logic performance. Core scaling was about 23x which about splits the difference of 32 true integer cores and 16 multi mode FP cores.

Second the memory bandwidth numbers appeared suspect but they didn't go into enough detail to make it clearer. If 8-channel memory loses to 6-channel bandwidth by 20-30%, something needs to be explained.

There were a few Sandra numbers but I would have liked to see Apache throughput or similar threaded integer tasking.

Looking at past Opteron figures, I think the Interlagos 16/8-core packaging has succeeded well enough through brute force. But going forward Piledriver will need to deliver. I think the Trinity packages will perform just fine against Llano/PhenomII. But they'll need a new Interlagos that benefits from lower voltages and higher clocks, raises the controller to DDR3-1600 across four channels per core. Actually they should examine integrating a small logic part that resembles UVD also. With more bandwidth and a few task accelerators the Piledriver could actually. stand against upcoming 8-core Xeons! (barring another Intel rabbit-from-hat gain in IPC)

....but on our side of the rabbit hole, clock speeds are much more important. Very few people are on track to buy a dual-Interlagos workstation, few enough are compelled by the 8-way Bulldozer Athlons. And so my question here would be: will the twin-Piledriver Trinity and similar chips become competitive against the i5 without tweaking? If we can actually expect Trinity to run faster than Llano and with less energy, will there be a 2.6/3.0 laptop in the 35w or 45w power range? I do not expect unmodded Trinity to run rings around Ivy Bridge i5, but close-enough CPU performance and even faster GPU could go a long way to keep the faith of the market.

 

I figured out my issue.

AMD Power Play was preventing the iGPU from clocking up on load. With Default settings when the notebook is plugged the clock speed will bump up to the proper 444mhz in HWinfo and afterburner. While on battery AMD Power Play keeps the iGPU to 200mhz even while under load, setting Power Play settings to maximum performance cleared the issue.

Note that while running kombustor at 200 and 444 the difference was about 8-10FPS lower @ 200mhz. Games like Star Wars:TOR and Skyrim showed a 30-50% drop in performance while at 200mhz. Im sure many of you already were aware of this but just in case

Now i just need to figure out while 12.1 drives raised the idle clock speed of the 6620 to 275mhz. did this happen for anyone else?

 

I expect your Coolsense throttle is on Performance of course.

1) Locking the Llano at constant speed above 2.2-2.4GHz is nearly guaranteed to require a cooling mod. With 2.5GHz in your post and 2.8 in your sig I assume this has already been done...are you running totally locked and with all pstates the same? Because allowing cores to move unganged within a speed range will reduce sensitivity during extended play.

2) Are you working with Crossfire/Dual Graphics? iGPU can reduce the CPU effectiveness in games that use multiple cores heavily. If you have overclocked the dGPU I expect you have already disabled Dual Graphics for High Performance mode.

3) The MX chips are all 45w parts and should in theory have the same thermal interrupts. So what temps are you getting during play? Assuming you did a cooling mod how would you rate your repasting job? Several folks who repasted said their sensor temp went up slightly but problem core stopped throttling because it had better dissipation.

4) Have you looked in SWTOR forums to see if there are any ongoing issues or players with similar hardware? Have you checked whether similar heavy games are throttling your CPU?

 

Not exactly sure what your issues with SWTOR is but I am currently running the game at 2.2GHZ + the 6620G with 2xAA 2xAF Shadows off and all other settings on high and the game is running very smooth between 30-55 FPS with 45 being average.

One thing i noticed with this game is when using the beefier 6750m i got crazy fluctuations on GPU usage and an erratic FPS and a lot of stuttering. game would go from 75FPS to 15 and back and i would watch gpu usage go to 10%. When using the 6620G GPU usage is always at 100% providing a lower but much much smoother FPS and game experience.

 

Actually....huh. My memory was off. Looking back my idle speed was 275 both under 11.6 and current 11.11c drivers. When I unplug it runs at 200, but I thought it clocked up a bit when gaming...need to check again. Because if it's this smooth at 200MHz I have plenty of margin if I switch it to 444MHz. Should profile how my Oblivion battery times are affected...

 

That sounds like either a severe Crossfire compatibility issue or something crazy with your 6750M. Does it behave properly in other games?

 

I have PowerPlay disabled and one of the first things I do when I install new drivers. Mine is still showing 200MHz no matter what, plugged in, on battery, PowerPlay disabled. Not sure what's going on.

 

Try enabling power play and set both battery and AC to high performance, wont hurt to see what happens.

 

It runs perfectly in other games, this is a known issue to the SWTOR community but the Devs refuse to talk on the issue. seems to affect more Nvidia guys than AMD though. also DX9 games will never run crossfire properly if at all as its not supported by Llanos version of crossfire only DX10 and 11. If you can prove me wrong on this I will be grateful.

 

I find SWTOR runs fine on my 6750m alone. I run No shadows, AA on LOW, everything else on high.

Also it seems I was late to the party on power supplies.

I have been using an I-CAN 90 watt universal adapter that I bought for $30 and it works great. The other big pro from the adapter is that is is much smaller and lighter, making it ideal for transportation.

Big 120W hp adapter : Stays plugged in at home
Smaller 90W adapter : Goes in the backpack

The charging time for the 90W is perfectly fine, and I find that it does allow me to game, but some throttling takes place.

 

Well damn! It runs at 444MHz! +1

Kombustor is now showing ~ 65fps vs 52FPS, so that's ~ 20% FPS improvement!

Dammit though, now I gotta go back and re-run all my benchmarks again. Oh well, getting my DDR3 1600 CAS9 RAM in a couple days, just do it all over again. Why would it stick GPU at 200MHz with PowerPlay disabled? Damn you AMD!

 

Looking forward to the results. Would like to know what kind of improvements I would see going from 667 to 800. Looking over your GPU-Z SS i see your bandwidth jumped 4.3 GB/s. Too bad you cant bump the core clock a bit

 

Oh my. Guess we'll see how those numbers roll out then. Maybe it will actually be better than older benches? The world awaits.

 

Frys has 8G Kingston DDR3 (KVR1333D3SOK2/8GR) for $20 after rebate. Can't find it on Kingston's web site though.

 

Hey guys, I tried using a custom bios in order to get by the whitelist as I have a Killer 1102 wifi card that I tried to get to work in my notebook. The bios gives me a blackscreen now and I have tried to recover the bios using a usb drive but apparently i didn't rename the bios files properly, does anyone know what the correct name for the bios files would be?

 

first try to remove the battery and the ram for 1 minute, then test again, if the bios flashed properly and was one of the ones found here there is a high probability that you just need to do that

 

In regards to swtor: The game is very iffy. It isnt the computer. When i can run BF3 with no issues at a solid from rate but not this game it isn't the pc. Going from all low to high settings I gain frames??! I understand if the game not crossfire'ing. But to be so inconsistent with settings and removing draw distance options... makes me cringe.

I went to 12.2 preview and now I cant make the "Configure switchable graphics" stay on high performance. I had that issue before but it was intermittent. Now it reverts back to Unassigned regardless of what i do.

 

That did not seem to work, what should I try next? I should have made clear, the one I used also removed the whitelist, it isn't just a gpu mod.

 

Some MMO tend to perform worse when switch to lower graphic setting, It is just their cappy engine.

@Cleansweep Is your "brick" have cap lock blinking when power on? Download this http://www.mediafire.com/?zzk18y8njvcy77c

It is the original HP_TOOLS

a.format to FAT32/Default
b. name the flash drive HP_TOOLS
c. put the folder in the flash drive
d, Plug it in , turn it on and pray (It always works , just wait....)

You dont need to change file name or w.e. Try this if remove cmos battery doesnt work.

 

If the caps lock is blinking, turn off the computer, remove the battery, then hold down the power button for 30 seconds. Make sure it's held down the whole time. Battery back in, power up and see what happens.

 

I tried what you said and it didn't work for still. The caps lock is still blinking on startup, black screen.

 

how much times before a long pause?

 

LOL. Rerunning benchmarks on 6620G at PROPER speed (444MHz) and performance is remarkably better. When I played BF3 with the iGPU I had to put settings at 800x480. I swear before (before I disabled PowerPlay) I was able to play 1280x720 all low settings 20-30 fps. Will try again. In any case if Trinity is truly 50% performance improvement, I may not NEED a dedicated card.

 

I know this seems kind of obvious, but when they say "battery" they mean the CMOS battery. When my computer did that all I had to do was pop out the little CMOS battery above the hard drive for about a minute and put it back in. It's a big silver button battery, can't miss it.

 

Speaking of CMOS battery, I don't know if mine works at all. If I remove the laptop battery for 10-30 seconds, my CMOS resets and I have to setup everything again, including date and time. I replaced the CMOS battery too, but still no go. I noticed the container that holds the CMOS battery wiggles, not sure if it's supposed to be soldered to a pad located towards the front of the laptop, because mine is loose there (at arrow).

Spoiler

 

There is 3 way to restore failed bios
1. You do literally remove the AC + "battery" + hold down power , it works some times.
2. Remove cmos battery (in addition to "battery"), usually works ,but 1 require less time like (20sec to remove the cmos battery ?) And your battery wont be scratched up like HT (Just use something plastic/pencil with no lead and lever it on the side~~)
3. USB flash drive (HP_TOOLS recovery) should work regardless.

What did you try , 1 or 2?

I had brick a few time with whitelist bios and only USB drive flash worked.

 

Bump. Anyone? Updating to 12.1 didn't fix it. Instead, it lowered my IGP's performance lol.

 

Did you actually try any of the obvious things like disabling those ports? Any other basic troubleshoot steps taken? Checking the last items in Event Viewer from just before the freeze? Details are good and CCC is probably 100% unrelated to this issue.

 

I TOOOOOTALLY agree with every part of this!

Geez, and I know a guy who's gone through TWO off brand adapters so far...

 

There's quality off brand power supplies, but they usually cost as much as or more than the OEM. You usually won't find quality buying a $10 power supply when the OEM can be found for $40 at fair market value (i.e. amazon, ebay, newegg, etc - not the OEM usually it's 2x the normal fair market value).

 

Just look for the ones that look almost exactly like the OEMs.

 

This would be a huge step forward in laptops imho.

 

trying to install a new ssd on my dv6z using the recovery dvds i created when i first got the laptop but im getting this error message

"The system recovery media does not support this computer. You are not able to restore this system with the media."

help?

and yes these are the correct dvds for the laptop