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

I will try those settings tutorials.

goresnet: Ultra?! I gotta try that. FRAPS can measure framerates, video recording is restricted. Should install on this machine anyway....

 

Yep, ultra. Initially, it chose medium, based on the 6620g, but I selected ultra. It still only shows the iGPU, but plays ultra fine. How much does fraps cost? Just want to see some fps.

I'll add that I chose high performance for skyrim in the switchable graphics ccc, so I'm using th 6750. Not sure if it's crossfired. AMD system monitor shows only the dGPU being used.

 

Ok, in reverse order...
1. Re: TESV layer...nope, this is first I've heard of that. Will have to take a look.
2. Re: E-450 vs 350...there appears to be more of a difference than originally supposed, especially when you play around a bit with Brazos Tweaker, which I use instead of k10stat on the 450. Two things that seem to help a lot. 1. lower the voltage, and 2. un-gang the cores - oh, and one more thing, Tweaker lets you choose a very aggressive UP profile on the turbo boost, i.e. it leaps right to full turbo from whatever other state its in , when it gets a minimal call for more resources. You guys have to remember that AMD does NOT employ the same turbo threshold criteria that Intel does. Intel relies a great deal on physical temp sensors. Amd does not. Instead they test individual core speeds and loads, graphics loads, and available memory bandwidth (just to mention a few). As far as I can tell, the only physical 'temp' throttling occurs at the max permissible "any higher and we're going to fry" type setting. The rest is all based on calculations, so you need to 'play' within the box of possibles they have set.
3. The lowered voltage settings seem to have very good effect on how much time you can keep the processor AND the gpu at full turbo.
4. I'm also running two 4gig mem modules which don't seem to hurt any either

lastly, Wing? I'm running at 1366x768; anti aliasing and anisop both "off". Texture, Radial, and Decal are all "Medium" and shadows are 'low". FXAA is "checked". View distance settings are all over the place, mostly 3 to 5 with one ten. and Distant Object Detail is set to "Medium".

I'm really having no problems running the game. The lenovo is very quiet (i don't really hear the fan at all unless i turn the sound off and listen carefully) and the temps remain ridiculously low, I've yet to see 60c. How and why? I have no idea. Oh, and the screen quality on the lenovo trashes my dv6z with the same res I don't know what they did when running this 'batch' up for Best Buy.. (the B575 model was a proprietary spcl for BB) but they sure used some decent components. Oh, the mem I'm using is the 40 dollar Kingston 1333 that someone mentioned with the 20 dollar rebate... so twenty bucks in the end for 8 gigs , not too shabby.
gotta tell you, for the limited gaming I do, (wow, skyrim, and some others) if I had owned this box, I would have seriously hesitated in buying the HP Dv6 3530mx. The case stays cool, the bat life is fine (right around 5 hours) its much lighter, the screen is better, the sound is remarkably good, the keyboard is superlative, has the finger reader AND facial recognition, the colors on the camera are perfect (tho the rez is lower than the hp) and the onboard mic makes chat during WOW just sweet as can be. I had no idea it would game as well as it does and i'm still not sure exactly how it can do that. If the right deal pops up, I *may* just pop a 90 or 128 SSD in this thing, load up xubuntu in a dual boot , and call it a day pending the arrival of the trinity laptops.

Dunno what a 450 costs on ebay, but you *might* consider trading one in for your 350. Gotta be at LEAST 20-25 percent better cross the board.

Last thing,
since I loaded wow and found out how well it runs on this lenovo, I haven't had my dv6z out of its case....

seer

 

Hmmm... that's strange. I only have the 6520g, and Skyrim auto-selects high. However, it feels a bit sluggish, so I play on medium, which is silky smooth. 1366x768 resolution.

 

On another subject, I finally got around to trying to load PowerDVD after a minimal install. The package gets unpacked, InstallShield get through the Preparing to install phase and then just dies. I've downloaded the package several times with the same result. Suggestions?

 

It says with the newest Skyrim patch this patch isn't needed anymore for slow CPUs. But still, how impressive there are people smart enough to do this! I mean just look at this!

I'm WAY more technical than most people, and I don't know what they're talking about with the five bytes thing, nor how the heck they could figure out how to even DO this patch!

Also mind blowing that the...well is it overclocked or something? That the e series could possibly run this decently at all. I mean benchmarks you usually see better hardware than that running simpler games than that on low, and doing worse LOL Just amazing.

 

Thanks seer, as always informative!

I'll toy with it some more. But running 800x480 (yes I know, low res), all low detail, I get about 15-18 FPS. I just can't see the E-450 running that much faster since it's not much faster and I actually have mine overclocked to 1.73GHz thanks to a BIOS mod I found. My GPU runs at 500MHz, and I believe the E-450 "turbos" to 600MHz in the same way that the CPU does, so it's "on demand" performance, but we all know that doesn't always work as well as expected.

I am using BrazosTweaker, optimized for voltage, but will try using the aggressive up feature.

Oh, and the E-350 and E-450 have single channel memory controllers, but I believe the E-450 supports up to 1333MHz RAM where the E-350 supports 1066MHz, so that might be part of the performance gap there too. Oh, and the E-350 is soldered on the board so no way to swap it out. Not a huge deal since I really didn't intend on using this for gaming. If they had included dual channel RAM support it would have made performance that much better, can't imagine doing that would have added much cost or complexity to the chipset.

Just for the record I tried the TESV performance layer, just benched the opening intro, and performance was identical with and without it (I verified as suggested at the site that it was running). Didn't try actual gameplay though.

 

...then you'll have to leave. Traitor.

 

Have you right-clicked on it and "Run As Administrator"?

 

Looks like an AMD Day at [H]ardOCP today...

HARDOCP - HardOCP Computer Hardware Reviews and News

I think I'll wait for Kaveri...

 

I have now, same result. Not too surprised as my account is an admin account.

 

I've seen that happen when people download the update and try to install it, and not the initial installation package.

 

Hmmm. No indication on the website that's it's an update. Is the main installation package available somewhere? Weird since the YouCam download installed OK.

 

Multimedia Software, video editing software, Blu-ray playback software Free Trial - Cyberlink

You get it from here? If so...odd...

You can always try the trial from TotalMedia...

Or are you doing the PowerDVD OEM from HP?

 

I downloaded the only PowerDVD ( sp54746.exe) on HP's site for the dv6z. It's listed as a PowerDVD 10.

The only thing I see on Cyberlink's site is a free trial of PowerDVD 12.

Edit:
I found 2 older PowerDVD 10 downloads on HP's site but they fail in the same way. I think you're right these are upgrades. Even though not specifically listed as such each one details one or more bugs that are fixed in those specific downloads.

 

Since I don't use it, I don't know. I bought TMT a long time ago. Didn't know you were having problems with the OEM. I assume you've run all the updates and installed all the drivers?

 

CyberLink PowerDVD 10 (2D/3D) HP Pavilion dv6-6135dx Entertainment Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

CyberLink PowerDVD 10 (2D/3D) HP Pavilion dv6-6135dx Entertainment Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

Yep. Pretty much all I can find.

Should work though. IIRC, I did it once after a clean install.

 

Yes I have following HTWingNut's Definitive Guide.

 

I purchased a 750GB Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid drive with 8GB SLC NAND cache yesterday to put as the main boot drive, 640GB drive will be moved to optical caddy I think. Blu-ray drive will go in slim external enclosure.

Also picked up a 9-cell 93wh battery. Going on a trip soon where I will want the battery and storage.

I know that Windows doesn't have to do with the corruption. Its just typical of MLC SSD drives and indilynx drives in general to have some sectors go bad over time. Windows just doesn't do a great job at catching all the bad sectors and correcting them as some third party apps seem to do in my experience with spinning disk and SSD drives.

I use ALFA usb high powered adapters and a 7dbi directional panel antenna on the go for hotels and such. My desktop's ALFA uses a 14dbi directional panel I picked up off of Amazon mounted in my window and an adapter for the antenna with a 9 ft USB cord. I sometimes forward my connection through that using Connectify software and a cheap ASUS dual antenna PCI wireless card for internet and local media shares.

 

since im using the stock wireless card, i went to musho's 770/950 bios and got this score with my k10stat overclock
AMD Radeon HD 6750M video card benchmark result - AMD A8-3500M,Hewlett-Packard 358D score: P1912 3DMarks

I really wanted to break p20k but I am out of ideas..

 

Hey guys need some help here. I've been trying to solve a gpu issue I just noticed a couple of days ago. Whenever I try to run a game or Kombustor, The Memory clock only goes upto 243 MHz. The 6220 has more memory clock than that @_@.

So I tried to reinstall 12.1a preview driver. I uninstalled CCC, uninstalled display drivers and used Driver sweeper to get a clean install. The thing is, after I finished reinstalling 12.1a Preview drivers, the finished install log says "Installation Finished (warning occurred during installation)." And after I hit the finish button, it doesn't prompt me to restart. And if I restart manually, my computer freezes up after the shutting down screen blacks out.

Can anybody tell me what I'm doing wrong?

EDIT:

Okay I think I installed 12.1a correctly, however, I still got the "warnings occurred during installation" message after the installation. I think I was prompted to install something during the installation of the AMD installer manager. Maybe that was the warning during the installation process.

 

I'm playing with the idea of selling my dv6z. I just completed my naval training in San Diego and I really bought it for that.
It has:
Steel gray upgrade color
Win 7 Premium
A8-3510mx
6755g2
8gb Ram
256gb solid state
1920x1080 screen
Bluray player
802.11b/g/n +bluetooth.

Scores in Windows Experience Index:
proc 7.4
ram 7.4
graphics 6.7
gaming graphics 6.7
Hd 7.9
I will run any benchmarks requested from serious buyers.
Warranty through December 2012.
I'm planning to put it on ebay if none of the good people here are interested.
Asking $875
Also willing to sell with a 7200rpm 640gb for $700obo
Accept paypal.

I know this info doesn't belong here but I figured I would post up for information purposes for anyone thinking about pulling the trigger.

 

I tried running kombustor again without the MSIAfterburner installed. Still I am getting a maximum of 216 MHz out of my dGPU! It won't budge from that value!

 

Did you disable all unused service/process + window classic theme + no wallpaper?
Can add 10pt on top of tat .

@kicker4106

It is normal, hw64info / GPUz both show 2xx GPU Mem clock because it have a multiplier to it.

 

REALLY? care to explain more so that I can understand? I'm seriously feeling stupid right now for stressing over nothing

 

Best place to check speed is AMD System Monitor. Run it in the background (need to run as admin), click the tiny Rec button in upper corner. Play a game or run benchmark. Stop recording.

c:\Program Files (x86)\AMD\System Monitor\Recordings

The files are .csv format, should open with any office program that does spreadsheets? LibreOffice opens with setting "Separated by -> Comma" (filetype .csv means comma-separated-values)

Basically your 6620G temp is your CPU temp also, and 6750 clock/mem/temp are reliable. I still need to work out a better method for graphing these files...

 

wow! thanks for the tip! Now I feel relieved lol

 

Hello again. I've got yet another problem (someday I might be able to actually contribute, lol) I've been using my 6750m at stock clocks for a while, but I recently bought Skyrim, and I want a little extra power. I downloaded MSI afterburner, but it wouldn't allow me to adjust the clocks at all. I searched around, and found that enabling the unofficial overclocking would unlock this. I thought this was great, and increased the clocks to 6770m, but now skyrim, and other games, load up with just a black screen, with only the audio playing. Is this a common problem? Is there something special I have to do? (BTW, Crossfire is turned on, if that effects this)

 

Turn off crossfire, first and foremost. Also, make sure you take your time changing the clocks and test with each increment of say 10MHz. If you just bump them up you aren't guaranteed that it will work at those speeds. Test at small increments of both GPU and then vRAM. Then both together. See my guide... Just throwing in some numbers is the best way to cause issues.

 

HT - when you say disable crossfire, does that mean disable AMD Radeon dual graphics in the control center? I thought that disabled the dGPU altogether. If that is disabled, you can still use the 6750 by selecting "high performance?"

 

I really don't have to turn off xfire to play skyrim... having the processor up to 2.4 ghz is the most that I need.

 

If what I think is right, then I don't turn off xfire either, and my 6135 plays skyrim flawlessly with ultra settings. 2.4ghz

 

I in fact haven't turned off xfire for any game, as long as I am in 1366x768 resolution all the games that I have tried work wonders.

 

No, "dual graphics" is just the new term for CrossfireX. Same thing. You will just have to tell the system using the switchable graphics interface which GPU to use.

I have had little to no luck using Crossfire. But I mainly play BF3. So your mileage may vary.

@ Vect - do you have a 1366x768 resolution screen? Maybe I'm just sensitive to it, but there's clearly some micro-stuttering going on no matter what I do, no matter what game, no matter the drivers. Skyrim plays great without Crossfire, so I just leave it. I get maybe a 10-15% FPS boost anyhow with Crossfire, and not worth the headache getting it to work.

 

You might want to go back to stock speeds on your dGPU first and test skyrim with crossfire enabled and disabled. Also try to set Skyrim or any game to high performance first when on Xfire enabled (I don't know if this would work on Xfire disabled tho). You can do that by right clicking at you desktop and select "Configure Switchable graphics". Whenever I don't assign my games to high performance (on xfire enabled), the dGPU wont kick in (I confirmed this using MSI on screen display).

Regarding OCing your dGPU, you can follow HTs guide for a safer experience. I can say that you can go to 700 on clock and 880-900 on Memory clock immediately (dunno about the others but this might be the lowest OC that is stable and safe to jump to) to save time but then again it's upto you how to OC your dGPU. You can test it by using Kombustor and let it run for an hour to be sure. Although sometimes your PC can still crash even though you have tested your OC speeds for an hour. The best way to find out if your OC is stable is to use your PC for a whole day (play games, surf then net using firefox for heavier loads, watch youtube, watch movies on VLC or WMP ect... if you don't experience freezes, BSODs, errors, and other unusual instances during your everyday use then it's safe to say your OC is stable. Again, follow HTs guide. It's very helpful. You can find it on his sig.

 

Yeah I got that exact screen, but the micro stuttering I have been able only to notice it in demanding direct x11 games, and it was not even battlefield 3 or deus ex, it's Dirt 3 where I see it, but it's minimal and not annoying (at the default lcd resolution).

When I helped a friend with its computer (a dv7 with a8 3500), I noted more serious stuttering after a clean install even in DX9 games which left me confused... then with 12.1a I got bsods and really bad stuttering, so I had to uninstall everything that I had installed about catalyst, then installed the good old 12.1 preview drivers and vuala, stuttering was there even in dx9 games, then I installed all the Catalyst CAPS from 11.9, tried again and the stuttering finally vanished.

This happened to both me and he.

 

edi: nvm I had a short term memory-lost .....

 

Since I have heard the harping about Catalyst 12, I am still on 11.11c after all this time. Eagerly looking ahead tho.

 

CAT 12.1 preview (not 12.1a?) and 11.9 CAP 4? Did you have to manually set it to use that CAP in the control center? Or will Catalyst default to the CAP that's installed?

 

Exactly, catalyst 12.1 preview as your link states (not 12.1a) and also all the caps ranging from 11.9 cap 1 up to 11.12 cap 3, 9 in total, each one after another.

First I uninstalled everything (not driver sweeper) then installed 12.1 preview, then ahci (USB 3.0) then HDMI audio from realtek... (I tested here and the stuttering was still present) then all the 9 caps and the stuttering was gone.

 

Whoa all 9 CAPS? I thought each CAP superceded the previous one and are rolled up in the latest drivers? Unless you go into the Control Center and then select a specific game profile.

 

Yeah well, that's what I thought too, but I had the stuttering problem and that seems to have solved it O_O

 

What is everyone's battery drain rate if you use BatteryBar or BatteryCare?

I know I got better battery life before, but now my drain rate is reported as about 17500mW. I am running "Balanced" profile with screen 1/3 brightness, CPU is idling at 800MHz @ 0.7125V. Driving me nuts trying to figure out what's going on.

 

I gotta hand it to ya Vect, that worked for me. Before installing the rest of the CAPS, NFS: The Run would stutter all over the place with X enabled. After installing them all, NFS: The Run is butter smooth with X enabled now. This is using resolution @ 1440x900 settings: Ultra with v-sync off.

And Dirt3 for me with the all the CAPS installed at 1080p with all settings high/ultra except shadows, game runs like butter smooth with X enabled, before it would slow down and then speed up with the iGPU loads, it was better to disable X, but not anymore.

That's what I thought too, maybe they are additional fixes to an already existing profile from a previous CAP instead, if not new ones are added.

 

Tweaked balance
[email protected] half brightness, wifi on
Hwinfo so charge rate -11.xxxW to 14.xxxW

6cell
88% 4hr 12min

 

I'm planing to buy this laptop myself, heard that GPU is very good for its price and CPU can be overclocked to avoid bottleneck

 

^ CPU can be overclocked quite a bit. Many of us here run @ 2.4Ghz, up from the stock 1.5 (A8-3500). GPU is great, and also overclockable.

Referring to the DV6-6153dx, of course.

 

Glad to be of help... I really was wondering why xfire was working so weird in some laptops

 

Thanks for info +1!

I believe my culprit is disabling ULPS consumes ~ 3-4W extra. I swear I tested this before and it didn't matter. But enabling ULPS the drain rate is less.

 

first time taking my 6135dx out of the house, to a family gathering at a club house.. The laptop looked good.. sadly everyone has a password on their wifi in the apartment complex so I could not access the net.. So i really wanted to show my cousin some BF3 but without the internet connection, this game is a no go since it is somewhat Origin/Browser based requiring a connection to sign in. Just played some BFBC2 instead, and showed a little bit of skyrim but not much (since that is mostly a sit-down and get into type of game, not much to show off at a party imo)