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

I would love to test this out but I have no idea how to recover from a bad BIOS flash. Do I have to make a special USB drive or something?

 

Me too. Hurry up HP! Release those dv6z's with the A8 mx models in The Netherlands already! I'm eager to tinker with the laptop myself

 

Here's a simple guide about bios recovery: http://forum.notebookreview.com/3977899-post3.html

It's often unclear which file names you should use, but after examining the platform.ini file, one of these filenames/locations should work. (Note, all 4 files in that archive are exactly the same, just named or located differently, to make sure the recovery mechanism is able to find the bios)

Just copy the contents of this archive to the _root_ of an USB stick and follow the steps in the guide I linked: bios recovery.zip

Edit: For anyone trying this: This is a guide if you've bricked your bios. Flashing my modified bioses is as simple as executing the InsydeFlash.exe executable included in the download.

 

I ran insydeflash.exe after reboot I got the message update failed.

 

You're not using an USB stick with those recovery files, are you? Those are only needed when you want to recover from a bad flash. Download the modded bios from another post by me.

If you are doing it the proper way, when is it telling you the update failed? After you rebooted? What is telling you that it failed? Can you see with GPU-z if your 6750 is running at a higher voltage than 1.00v when running a 3d program?

Thanks!

Edit: Here's the link again to the modded bios with 1.05v on the 6750m: http://www.mediafire.com/?obvcfatshdju1at

 

Hello. Been reading along since page 3 but this is my 1st post. I saw on Maximum PC today that there is a new version of GPUz v0.5.5, that is supposed to fully support these A Series CPUs. I downloaded it and while it does show both cards, it's still reporting DDR3 for the memory for the 6750M. GPU Memory Clock is reporting 81.0 MHz. From all I've read in this thread the 6750M doesn't come in DDR3 so it it safe to assume the new version of GPUZ is still not fully functional with yet?

 

Nope, not using the USB. Downloaded and extracted the file you posed on the privious page. Ran Insydeflash.exe The page came up saying "Initializing" then the current and new bios info flashes into the boxes (too fast to read) then it closes and reboots my computer. When it starts back up it is asking for me to apply the change, I hit apply then the next screen says "System BIOS update failed" and then contines to start bringing me back into windoes.
I have no overclocking on and disabled many of my startup programs first.
Tried to do it twice with same results.

Edit: I'll try to download and run again.

 

It was confirmed some pages back by HTWingNut, who physically opened up the computer and took pictures of the VRAM modules, that they are indeed GDDR5.

So I guess GPUZ still isn't reporting the right thing.

 

Tried to flash a third time after downloading again, same result. No joy.

And I did check with GPUz and ran 3DMark11 and the voltage maxes out at 1.000v

 

Hmmm, okay, thanks for trying! I just send kR105 a pm to have a look for us. He managed to flash my 610mhz/810mhz mod earlier, so he should be able to figure out how to get that bios flashable. I'll upload a fixed ZIP archive as soon as we've figured this out

 

The flash fails because you need to delete the HP_TOOLS partition, if you need it in the future for any reason you can download a file from HP that will install it for you again. (I'll search the file and post it later).
Good luck!

Edit: The sp52509.exe file will install the HP_TOOLS partition again

 

Great! Thanks for the help kR105! Undeadrat or kR105, anyone willing to try it out? =]

 

Ok, that worked. It flashed and is reading 1.050v whne I run 3dmark11. I'm now going to try some over clocking.

 

Wooohooo! This is great news! Now with GPU overvolting possibilities, the dv6z is looking even better than it already was =)

 

Doh! So I apply the previous OC settings that were stable for me, then I try and open GPUz and I get BSOD. Tried it several times.

EDIT: It bluescreans on me if I open CPUID as well. If I run at stock clocks then those programs open but the moment I increase anything they blue screen on me

 

What driver version are you using?

 

I have had an ongoing issue with Afterburner where I OC and the GPU usage shoots up to max until I open GPUz or the like and then close it, then the GPU usage drops back down. I noticed if I had GPUz open first then increase the GPU clocks that GPU usage shoots up but no blue screen, if I then close GPUz and try to reopen it or any other trying to drop that usage back down again, I get an immediate BSOD. Maybe there's an issue with afterburner.

 

Video Driver is 8.832.0.0 / Win 7 64

 

Well... I would say, OC to where it was stable and run 3DMark 11, and if it BSOD's then, then your card is not stable at those voltages.

 

Ran 3DMark11 with stock clocks, runs all the way through, adjust any clock settings in afterburner and it will not even start the benchmark...

 

Huh.... Try EVGA Precision to OC?

 

I already did overclocking but required 11.6. 810/910 was max, ran at 800/900 for a while and stable, but then wanted to use 11.8 drivers so couldn't overclock any more. I'd rather start safe (and cool) at 750/850.

 

Yep, see here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...z-cooling-mod-thread-warning-lots-photos.html

And to get it to detect the GPU info properly (at least clock speeds) see here (done on an Asus K53TA, but same thing applies):

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ttb5qbT0kYQ?version=3&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ttb5qbT0kYQ?version=3&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width='560' height="345" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>

 

Do you have a link to the 11.6 drivers?

EDIT: Nevermind...

 

Guys, has anyone tried running just on 'crossfire' settings in the CCC without assigning specific games or proggies to a specific gpu? Maybe I'm too tired, but you know all the gpu monitoring graphs showing gpu use when usually results in the 6750 running at like 85-95 percent, while the igpu shows that its jumping all over the place? a series of spikes on the graph?

Well, maybe I'm just tired, but I decided to change a few things on my setup and 'reset to default' the ccc, just enabling xfire and doing nothing else. put the software popup notification on non assigned programs on ignore (i.e. don't popup).. then I ran a few graphic programs. Well when I looked at my usage graphs guess what...
If they were dx11 /dx10 I no longer have one solid 90 percent plateau usage graph on the 6750 and a series of spikes on the igp...nooooo, I have two identical plateau graphs, both showing 100 percent on each gpu...!!!!...Surely they didn't design this software so that setting something on dedicated screws with the xfire/dual graphics logic.....or did they....
I may be nutz, but if don't choose to dedicate anything, and just let the crossfire logic 'work'...I'm getting full dual graphics usage on those programs that can take advantage of it... and fps is up substantially.

This may be a peculiarity of the 11.6a drivers I'm running, but ...so far, I'm feeling a face palm coming on fast..

See if you get the same reaction from your systems.

Seer

 

Seer, run a pass of 3DMark11 to see if the score shoots up. 2300 anyone?

 

The flash works with deleting the HP_TOOLS partition! How did you knew that kR105?

GPU-Z now correctly reads 1.05v under load AND I can still overclock with afterburner using 11.6 drivers.
BUT: The downside is, the core can't even run at 600mhz anymore. [email protected] works, but 600 and above freezes any workload in 1 sec :-(. You can see the driver trying to reset itself, but with 600mhz beeing stock, the reset won't do anything helpful, so it will bluescreen eventually.

Could it be that we're running into an voltage ragulator bottleneck (i.e. the board will bring up just a certain amount of power, like 50W, no matter how much current we use)? And while the otherwise identically 6770m can run at 1.10v at ease, we're almost maxed out at 1.0v?


Mushu, could you make me another bios file with an 0.98v under load? I'd try that and report back if this rather helps overclocking.

 

I think, due to a bug, it's actually running at 0.90v, even with GPU-z reporting 1.05v. I'm going to be at the university the next 8 hours, so I can't fix it yet, but could someone confirm/deny my theory by having a look at the temperature of the 6750m? Is it running considerably colder than it would normally run at? Thanks!

 

Hmm, you my be right!

One of the first things I did, was to roughly check temperatures and power, drawn from the wall. But in comparison they had been roughly the same. But now after your thoughts about that, I did an exact measuring, and guess what, the 1.05v seems to run a little bit cooler:

5 mins of ATI-Tool:
450/800@ 1.05v 59°C,57W, 515fps
450/[email protected] 59°C,57W, 512fps, ULPS disabled
450/800@ 1.00v 62°C,62W, 514fps

It's not much, but could really account for an 0.1v decrease instead of 0.05v increase...

You may want to search for different similary voltages in bios. If I remember correctly, the desktop AMD cards have up to 6 different voltages (2D, 3D, low power, UVD, overdrive...). And although I doubt the mobile AMDs have overdrive etc., you still may want to set all the states (except 2D) to the same numbers. The old desktop 3800 series had almost the same problem with the RadeonBiosEditor and voltage-changes at first...

 

I have a similar problem. I have to run Afterburner after starting a game, otherwise the game will just freeze or crash.

The OC is stable in furmark and while playing, but it causes Bad Company 2 to start up really slow if I have it running before I start the game.

I think this might be due to the dynamic GPU switching or something... Hopefully a BIOS mod will fix it.

 

Doesn´t work for me. Perhaps you looked at GPU2 and GPU3, these 2 are at 100% load in my config!?

 

I've had the jumping with all tested drivers until now, so I thought I'd give the restore button a try. And guess what? You were right! It increased my score:

AMD Radeon HD 6520G video card benchmark result - AMD A6-3410MX APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics,Hewlett-Packard 358D score: P5411 3DMarks

But not the way I thought of... The benchmarks went black, which caused the high score =). And the jumping is still there...

So back to hoping for better drivers, that reduce the microstutters, enable xfire in dx9 and help both gpus deliver 100% performance... (Altough I once managed to completely get rid of the stutters and had really good performance: I fiddled that much with drivers, that only two thirds of the screen got rendered - the rest remained black. That did over P2100 at stock speeds ^^)

 

This only happened after flashing to the 1.05v BIOS. Normally I can launch afterburner at startup. I reflashed to the standard BIOS now.

I did what Seer sugested and reset CCC to defaults, turned on crossfire and was able to play BC2 for 45 min before locking up. I couldn't play more then 5 min before doing that.

 

ROFL, nice score!!! Better than a Radeon HD 6970M Crossfire-Combo!!!

 

I set "restore factory defaults" but it kept the preferences for my programs "high performance" or "power saving" even after a reboot.

 

LOL now THAT is funny 8800 Graphics score? rflmao.
Dunno why you blacked out, helluva driver hickup..
funny tho made my day, I nearly spitup when i saw the score before you explained the black out.

I think the message here is that we REALLY need 11.9 drivers...c'mon amd...spit em out.

seer

 

No sign of 11.9 pre-release either. Let's hope they clean all this up though. Who knows. If they don't I think we ALL need to compile a list of repeatable issues and forward them to AMD.

And good to know I'm not the only one locking up with Bad Company 2. Kinda. Bad news for all of us though. I have a suspicion it's entirely driver related, maybe not video though.

 

Well, I finally found out what happened with the 11-8 drivers to break overclocking. AMD did it on purpose. In fact, the 11-18 CCC now includes pieces of amd's own 'Overdrive" overclocking software, so that users are supposed to be able to not only overclock the memory, but also the cpu, all with the same utility. HOWEVER, they locked it down so that only a "Black series" chip is whitesheeted to unlock the overclocking ability...talk about a bone headed decision...They ought to fire some of the bean counters and put some good old computer enthusiasts back in charge of that company. That kind of business philosophy really turns my stomach.

Seer

 

Well, the good news is that it seems that we can do a BIOS flash with the faster clocks so once you tune them in with 11.6 drivers, flash it and be done with it.

 

Wing, in leafing through all these documents I found a reference to random lockups and variable performance on BC2 that has not been sorted out yet in drivers, if you're running under dx11. Can that thing run in dx10?

Seer

 

Maybe we can mod the 11.8 drivers to allow OC'ing of non Black Edition chips... Definitely possible.

 

I've been running in DirectX 10. Must carry over to DX10 too.

Also about locking out overclocking for specific GPU's that's a bunch of crap IMHO. For desktops ok, I guess, you can swap out your video card. But for laptops, you don't have much of a choice.

 

I know they have a llano "black edition" chip coming out for desktop pretty soon...I think that was the target. sigh...

m

 

Wow, gone 1 week and I missed so much! Time to tweak and bench! 2330 graphics.... damn man.

Bought a 12 cell battery a few hours ago, I shall report on the life of it! I am getting around 4.5 hours from the 6 cell.

Link Removed as the battery does not fit!

 

12 cell? Whaaaat?

 

"This battery is not compatible with the following HP Pavilion models:
Pavilion dv6-3000 Series and up"

Yeah, g'luck with it.

 

EDIT : It didnt fit, whoops. Return time.

 

I wish I had bought the high capacity 6-cell instead of the 9-cell now though. The slant is ok, but it makes it a pain in the butt for a laptop cooler. However, the notch in the Notepal makes it sit nice, just sits a little higher up the cooler than I'd prefer. That's ok I guess because I won't use the cooler much, except when gaming.

 

New 3d11 high scores for me !

2228 overall score :

AMD Radeon HD 6620G video card benchmark result - AMD A8-3530MX APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics,Hewlett-Packard 3590 score: P2228 3DMarks

Incase link dies :
Graphics - 2295
Physics - 3250
Combined - 1320

GPU @ 820/1020
CPU : P0 @ 2.6GHZ, 1.1625V
B0 @ 2.8GHZ, 1.2 V

Unganged, locked to P0 minimum.

 

Damn u guys are tearing it up now LOL.

oh, before I forget..here's a pic of dual graphics doing what its supposed to do. and check out those temps

running 2966 BO and 2600 PO unganged and you can see the measly graphics overclock on the left, BUT, again look at those temps it will run all day like that. but man i wish I had your 6750 .

Seer