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

I understand that Wing, got two conversations going, one on the bios effect on temps and performance, and the other on where the hell HP has it hidden on the puter. I'm looking for the physical file now. Search isn't bringing it up. Like I said, it was HP's own preboot bios management utility that popped it in here and I don't know where it draws its bin files from. I would think on the HP partition, but , .....I'll let you know if I can find it.

the other thing I was saying, was that if its on mine, it more than likely is on yours too.

Seer

Hiyas Vect, when you reboot try hitting the esc key and see if that brings up the hp bios utility.

Seer

 

I have only a very nice bank screen... the computer indeed starts searching for something in a USB thumb drive that I have, but It reads a bit then doesn't do anything...

 

So where is the bios utility located so I could try rolling back? I cannot find it anywhere.

 

Do you have a link to download that version?

 

Software & Driver Downloads HP Pavilion dv6z-6100 CTO Quad Edition Entertainment Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

 

The problem is that I have a blank screen... the computer tries to search for a file in the usb thumb drive, indeed it's working but.... i cannot manage to find out the file name

I know that my motherboard number is 358D because that's the number that I remember from flashing the modded bios for higher clocks in the 6750m.

It was working fine but when I was doing this type of mod it suddenly went blank after a reboot.

 

Okay so I answered my own questions hehe...
The link for the older drivers is AMD Catalyst 11.6 8.861 Download - BenchmarK3D

and the bios can be flashed by pressing the windows key and b at the same time the press the power button when the computer is off.

 

you should be able to recover by doing what I said in the last post turn your computer off and then hold the windows key and b key down at the same time then press the power button.

 

Awesome link. Thanks.

 

Here is my current status:

By removing the CMOS battery (near the HDD) the laptop came back to life.

It was restarting a lot by itself but I didn't know why... then I removed one of the memory slots and it seems to be working properly.

Once it was stable I decided to went back to the original bios, having a bit of fear that it may freeze it again I decided to do it anyway.

At the end the flash was successful and everything seems to be nomral, but it seems that the memory has gonne, to be exact, the 4 gb module. Gotta check that with more detail now...

 

I am glad it worked out for you! minus the memory problem

 

@seer

So I reverted to the f1.8 bios from the f20 and have done a little testing myself.
in cinbench r10 64bit I was getting 2398 for single and 7938 multi at 2.2 p0 and 2.6 b0 and got 2632 single and 9293 multi a 10% increase on single and 17% increase in multi

As for temperatures I am Idling at 31.5 degrees which is 2 degress cooler than before
I also notice that under load I am about 2 degrees cooler

 

At the end was a fault ymemory module. It decided to die on me causing all sort of errors on my computer, bye bye 4gb ram module.

 

Atleast it is under warranty. Hopefully hps customer service gets you back to normal soon.

 

@seer

Can you describe how you got the stuttering to go away when using xfire exactly. I have read over your posts and am still confused on exactly what you did. I unistalled rebooted and installed 11.6 drivers and have had no luck no matter what I have tried. thanks

 

So I felt that someone should represent the A8-3500 in the CPU intesive tests so I went ahead and downloaded cinebench... so here we go

3.25 at 81 or 82 degrees (everything with Belkin laptop cooler, 78-80 room)
3.31 at 83

and then I hit a big wall and couldn't get the test to run until I finally hit
3.37 but a pretty warm 88 degrees. I couldn't find a medium step.

Then I ran 3dmark with the graphics setting I used to get the 2240 overall and got a new highscore of 2274 with a physics score of 3435!!

and here are the pics

 

I think it's not one thing to do, but many. For example i'd guess having the exact double shaderperformance of your iGPU would help, since the driver does an 1:2 AFR ratio. And since seer has a 6620 (with 400shaders x 444mhz), it would need the 6750 to run at 740mhz (480shaders x 740mhz).
But with your integrated 6520(320shaders x 400mhz) you'd have to run just 533mhz on you 6750m.
Although thats all just a guess. (But if someone knew a way to increase the AFR ratio to 1:3 in the driver, the 6520 owners could gain a huge xfire performance bump when running their dGPU core at 800mhz... )

 

Can anybody confirm me that with only the slot of 2GB of RAM I cannot do crossfire? I´ve tried all the options, but the tab in the catalyst doesn't pop out. Even swiping the driver with drive sweeper or going to F1.D with no luck...

 

What are you clock speeds and voltages?

 

How did you get F18 BIOS? I see no option for BIOS recovery in the BIOS or pressing ESC on boot up.

 

My 3.37 run was done at a P0 of 2.933ghz at 1.2875 but it might just run a little bit lower (very little). My B0 was stock and P1 at 1650 at 1.0375 (which I didn't change the volt from stock)

Although I just realized when I signed off last night that I'm only running with 6gb of ram so I figure that another 2gb might help on CPU intensive tests but not sure how much. I have a 4gb module on my laptop (this one is actually my sisters, although I love this thing) so if I really feel like doing another test I could run it with 8gbs

 

How can you change P0 to 2.933 and leave B0 at stock? It won't let you set a lower p-state to a speed and voltage higher than the one above it.

Also, it won't let me set my K10stat voltage higher than stock 1.2625.

 

I can confirm that. I posted it a long time ago in this thread. Basically for an a6 or a8 to run xfire with a 6750 or 6770 you have to have dual channel memory running.

 

the bios can be flashed by pressing the windows key and b at the same time the press the power button when the computer is off. THis will reset the bios to f1.8

 

Doesn't on mine, it just boots up as normal.

Edit: Nevermind. I pressed Win+B and held it down while pressing power, then kept holding Win+B. This time I hit power with it held down and released all and it worked.

Caps Lock key blinks for about 30 seconds then it goes into the BIOS update, reboots, takes a good 30-60 seconds to configure, gives a "BIOS UPDATE RECOVERED" or something like that.

 

I left it stock because I figured that when the 4 processors are under load that it wouldn't even boost although I guess if it did then it would be running slower that my P0 lol. I guess I'll make B0 higher or the same if I run the test again. I'm not sure why it doesn't let you do that. I think it did allow me because I couldn't run that speed at 1.2625

 

Hmm, seems B0 can run at any speed. Still can't set anything higher than 1.2625 though.

 

And do you want to know somethign funny? It didn't activated on mine... even with the module of 4 gb (that now, it turns out after some extreme tests... IT WAS OK???? ) I had to literally flash again my exact modded bios, the one with 770 and 950 mem to get running the xfire again, other modded bios like 750 and 850 didn't worked, not even the original ones from HP.

This computer is crazy. Gonna do some more extensive tests on ram.

 

Wow, it worked! Got 3.38 Cinebench 11.5 Temps were <74C

Now need to see if Musho can modify the F18 BIOS with faster GPU clocks, only have to find a way to actually GET the BIOS now.

edit: Meh, playing games it is actually running HOTTER. Performance seems a tad bit better, but not worth a hotter CPU @ full load. And not worth losing GPU overclocks. Good info though if I ever brick the BIOS.

 

hahaha sick! How do you make it run that cool?

 

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

 

Here is the link from anandtech in regards to dual channel memory http://images.anandtech.com/doci/4444/amd-llano-dualgpu-branding.jpg

That is pretty sweet that you got it working again.

 

hahaha I forgot you did all those mods. Thats a pretty insane machine then. Running cool and fast as hell. How does a 3.38 cinebench test compare to an Intel powered CPU?

 

Hehehe, Wing, I can't imagine your setup but on F18 I ran two hours of crysis, the original puter busting version, everything was sweet, no stuttering, no lag, no screen tearing no nothing, just great gaming, 2 hours..my logs highest temp reached was 72C and only for a few seconds, rest of the time it ran in the low 60's, and I mean LOW sixties. In fact for 3 or 4 minutes at a time, in intervals, it ran at like 57-58C.....

I'm guessing you've either got your cores 'ganged' or you have them locked down to the top 2 or 3 p states...either that or you must be in multiplayer with lots of peeps on your Azz...

seer

Vect, if you read the small print on the amd site about the llano chips, you'll see that they HAVE to run in dual channel, i.e. something in both slots, or all sorts of capabilities get shut down, most notably, cross fire.

Seer

 

I have them unganged. Pretty even distributed profile.

Yeah 32 player online tons of action in BC2, always. Pushes my desktop even. I'd like for you to try BFBC2 and see how your machine fares. It just pushes the machine to its absolute peak. Almost as high as Prime95 + Kombustor together. Other games like Deus Ex run at mid 60's or lower.

 

That's interesting, I can set voltage all the way up to 1.55 (if i wanted to), and my stock voltage is 1.3.

seer

AAHAHHHHH, 32 peeps, yeah THAT will crank it up for sure LOL. Jeez when you said multiplayer i figured you were out there messing around with a party of 4 or something LOL. Ok, on your wavelength now.

seer

Oh, and on the bios side of things, now I'm not a bios 'guy' but seems to me that insyde has a utility that will let you save the current bios to file as a back up, so if you're running on 1.8 you should be able to save it to a bin somewhere where we can get at it. I'm out and about today, so don't have access.
So far tho, I havn't found a negative to this bios, EXCEPT for the life of me it is impossible for me to install 8861 on the 6620. Goes right onto the 6750, but this thing will NOT let me load it on the igp, and I have no clue as to why.

 

Yeah, if I set it higher than 1.2625 it just bumps it back down to 1.2625.

Here's my profile:

 

So I held windows+B on powerup and it just has a blinking caps lock..... waited 5 minuites... nothing is happening... im going to pull out the battery and all power for 5 min. if they doesnt work i guess just reset cmos?

 

I think you have to hold the power button a sec too.

seer
I just hit esc, brings up the menu of utilities and test, go into that, half way down is bios management


seer

 

Well my system will not even boot. How did you guys remove the CMOS battery its pretty tight in there. Screwdriver?

 

I held down Win+B then pressed the power button until I saw the light come on, then let go of everything. The caps lock blinked for about 30 seconds with blank screen. Then went into BIOS recovery.

Are you using stock hard drive, did you delete HP_TOOLS partition? I think it needs that.

----------------------

On the previous note about K10stat, here's me trying to change voltage over 1.2625 (choose 720p):

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Xh-VYsZC8wc?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/Xh-VYsZC8wc?version=3&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width='560' height="345" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>


Curiously enough when I look at my CPU with K10stat in the Voltage part it shows 1.2625-0.4500V. Wondering if others with 3510MX show this limit? I can reach 2.933 at 1.5000 though, but 3.0GHz gives me some trouble at 1.2625, but that's just not realistic.

 

Oooh yes I deleted that partition...... damn... no wonder it didn't work. Anyone know a way I can get it back? Or maybe someone can rip the bios from it.

I removed the cmos and the computer is fine lol

 

Try the SP listed here by Musho: http://forum.notebookreview.com/7886958-post2564.html

Otherwise use your recovery discs (I hope you made them?) and do a "minimal recovery". It will only install required drivers and apps, no crapware.

 

I noticed that the hp tools partition was created after i upgraded to the f20 bios. You may have to reinstall that one and then "downgrade"

 

Yeah, that exe restored the partition.... but I still only have a blinking caps lock.... /sigh

Wait..... that exe restores the partition.... but the new HP_TOOLS partition is empty.

UPDATE : Thanks to Swat1820 for providing me his F.18 bios. It works beautifully.

 

Grrr, been spending some time trying to figure out the BFBC2 crashes. I've tried the following with no improvement:

(1) Disable wi-fi use ethernet
(2) Disable ethernet use wi-fi
(3) 11.6 Fusion stock drivers
(4) 11.8 Fusion preview drivers
(5) 11.8 Fusion WHQL drivers
(6) Disable K10stat (stock CPU state)
(7) F18, F1D, F20 BIOS
(8) HP recommended, High Performance power profile
(9) Disable audio and use USB headphones
(10) fix all P-states same

So it's either the game itself or the AMD video drivers.

 

Id put my money on #2. Hopefully AMD realizes this and gets us better drivers asap. BTW how is the intel 6230 did you get it yet?

 

No 6230. No removal of whitelist

And I've tried 1-10 I listed above and all result in lockups.

 

Seer I have tried the 11.6 drivers with the hot fix and reset setting to default. Is there anything else that you have done to achieve the plateaus?

 

I seem to have stumbled into a happy combination of drivers and timing's. Unfortunately, when I used the customized bios, it jumbled my settings and seems to have fundamentally altered my drivers. I have spent most of the day trying to recreate the combination that created the plateaus. Make sure you have all of the XFIRE settings patches, there are quite a few culminating in I think , 8-3. Next, I would stick with stock dedicated clock timings, until you get good plateau results in the first graphics test of 3dmark11. then gradually increasing the timings keeping the ratio between core and mem.

The last thing that I tried which resulted in the best results, was the using of Both k10stat, AND Fusion Tweaker. I set up K10 with a solid cpu overclock, but keeping BO, PO, and P1 fairly close, in my case they drop down 200 mghz from one to the other. I set them unganged (tho you should experiment here) and left "Boost" checked..then closing that utility to the icon, start up FusionTweaker, go into the service tab, set for agressive up, do NOT click enable hardware turbo, but change say P3's entry 50 mghz or so, then hit apply. This should cause the cores to spent a lot of time between BO, PO, and P!. With any luck you will see a smoothing of whatever spikes you had left. I can't vouch that you will get the same results, as yours is a different setup, but if the theory is sound, you should be able to find simillar settings. As always, if it looks like its going nowhere, reset the Vision Engine control Center back to stock. There's also an element of fooling with the drivers as each driver has it own timings in its own version of the ccc and they are DEFINITELY not the same.

You know I once told Wing, that there looked to be so much 'Voodoo" in trying to get these drivers to perform in sync, that I wondered if I hadn't better go find me a chicken to sacrifice I'll tell you that after fooling with these damned drivers all day, I'm not too far from following my own advice and making that 'ultimate' sacrifice..(the chicken's , not mine LOL.

Good luck.

And try to think true the conditions that would let the drivers operate in sync, then see if you can find away to achieve that optimum. I had so it IS possible LOL. Good luck.

Seer