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

Since the CPU and GPU share a common heatsink, it is reasonable to see a significant temperature increase in the GPU over time.

 

Ypu may be right indeed, but at least the cooling system in this laptop is far better that the one on nvidias back then, at least, the heat doesn't go and goes over the same pipe, and the processor has two pipes for itself and the GPU another one, I however expect to improve that soon with a few tools ^^

By the way, anyone knows if it's possible to remove the pipes of the processor from the heat sink? (or knows the part number for the heatsink of this llano processors?)

Thanks in advance.

 

Looks like the 3550mx will not be a big step up from the 3530mx
Source AMD A8-Series A8-3550MX

 

Yeah just very modest frequency bump, I'm very happy with my 3500 stable at 2.4Ghz w/ k10stat, while staying with a 35W APU.

 

Of course it's not a big improvement. We already seem to have concluded that AMD actually "nerfed" the initial run of processors to give itself somewhat of an upgrade tail. I'm fairly pleased with this 3500M, the lower TDP seems to have an influence on expected voltages. Not done picking at it yet.

Afterburner claims that even with six hours in NWN2 with everything maxed (including those accursed lights and overly big shadow maps), GPU never broke 60C? Or is there a better temp tool? I already got similar numbers with long sessions in Crysis, Fallout etc. Need to do some better profiling of CPU temps though.

 

Hey , i want to ask you how low can the igpu get becouse as of the ne 11.10 my igpu doesnt get lower than 245Mhz and i think that the battery can do much better i it can go lower that this.Im using 3500m with a 21.5 inch 1080p monitor can the monitor make the card do that?

 

There's a tool that can actually track IGPU clock? Everything I've tried gives temp and percent usage only, unless I forgot to push the "obvious button" or something...

dGPU should be able to clock down to nearly nothing, especially when on battery and not running apps with a "High Performance" Catalyst profile...

Hm. What are you doing when on battery? Because if you say "Browsing teh Internets" that would probably be your answer right there. To my knowledge, most web browsers will be profiled to "Power Saver" and routed through the IGPUs hardware acceleration. Same thing with Flash 11 plugin. So when browsing, the IGPU would take some of the load off your processor.

 

HWinfo tells you the clock.

 

You're right! HwInfo seems to properly report the iGPU, while Afterburner reports the dGPU in correct fashion...or does it? Happy to see both sticks of RAM are at least the same manufacturer and product family, identical voltages and timings.

Oh wow, no wonder the HDD seemed a bit laggy. It's not just 5400RPM, it only has an 8MB cache instead of 16 or 32 MB. Hoo....maybe I'll do something about it later, but it almost makes more sense to just plug an SSD into the USB 3 if I need more speed later. (Tho mods for a Bethesda game could suck up the entire capacity of a reasonably priced SSD.) Perhaps I should get a hybrid SSD/HDD when overcompensation drives the price down next summer.

HwInfo64-3.88 also claims that my battery is currently performing above its design capacity, should remember to check those numbers at least once per month.


EDIT- Seems HwInfo grabbed the details for 6750 when I fired up a game. That's right...need to "prime" Afterburner so the 6750 is properly attached, I wasn't getting good numbers from it. Good news for battery life then, if the 6750 will shut down to such an extent that it can't be accessed.

....loaded up a few CPU-intensive programs, then gamed for three hours at stock settings while they ran in the background; CPU maxed out at 66C, GPU at 67C. Pretty good for no undervolt. Used an ordinary folding laptop stand, no fans. http://www.targus.com/us/productdetail.aspx?sku=PA243U I will do the same test again with my (tentative) clock adjustments, but 20C headroom is a good margin.

 

Im not doing any thing that on desktop thats why im worried.
The hard drive is realy slow im thinking of an 7200 rpm 32 mb it will speed start ups of every thing

 

The drives are not to bad, it is a notebook after all. If you go for 7200, be prepared to have more noise, heat, and less battery life as a trade off for higher performance.

 

While I would agree that normally that would most likely be the case, in the instance of my own lappie, the 640gig 7200 Toshiba drive that came in mine is very quiet, very cool, and judging from my batt endurance runs, shows no signs of any over the top energy suckage. I have seen several instances where individual desktop 7200 drives have actually pulled slightly less wattage than some of the less carefully designed 5400's.

It's not a bad idea before buying a drive to check the net for reviews. There is a specific sight that pretty much lists them all tho at the moment its name escapes me.

seer

 

...and you can't easily rule out some of the new drives with hybrid spin state. They can run pretty slow MOST of the time, but if activity picks up supposedly the speed is as good as "classic all-or-nothing" 7200rpm disks.

 

SSD + current HDD in USB3.0 enclosure is your friend....

 

I dont know , becouse Im in Bulgaria , the 2.5'' HDD are kinda expensive maybe i'll buy a hybrid drive next year.The drive i realy slow i expected better performance prom it .
I finaly was able to instal the new drivers and they work pretty good finaly crossfire works but with the OC its better of becouse it gets realy hot at 2.2 im going 88C in battlefield 3 on 1080 med 28 fps its pretty good but if i turn of crossfire im getting 81C with 26 fps sooo....

 

Hi all,

I am very interested in the 6177LA model;
HP Pavilion dv6-6177la Entertainment Notebook PC (LY935LA)especificaciones - HP Hogar productos

There is not one thing i don´t like about it, but i´ve read an awefull lot of negative feedback on the web about HP laptops, especially the DV series.
The mayority saying that it overheats really fast en that the first thing that dies is the mobo, wich is very expensive to replace. ( in latin america at least )
I´ve read things about laptops dying in the first 3 months, that they last about 2 years top etc etc in short; i´m a bit scared it wont last.

At first i was looking for the Asus k53ta but that one has mayor screen issues it seems, besides, the 6177LA has both memory slots filled, GDDR5, the cpu is a bit better, better webcam and better audio in comparison with the Asus and has a dvd-RW.

After all that negative stuff i was hoping to find some positive feedback here.
Another thing that i´d like to know; is there any noticable ghosting on the DV6 screens? How is the black depth?

 

For me the screen is just fine .
About the DV series my last notebook was a DV6 and it lasted 4 years, now i bought a dv6-6135m and i gave my old lappy to my sister becouse her MSI had died.I hav couple of friend with hp and there are no problems with them.Ive had mine from August and its good for now.
The only thing with this laptop i that the CPU could be a little better but you can OC it pretty easy with only benefits,but for the money is a pretty good deal.Hope i've been helpfull.

 

Thanks for the fast reply!
That´s exactly the kind of reply i was looking for; ¨i had an x model and it lasted me x number of years¨
The 6177LA is the latin american version of the 6135 i believe, yours has 6Gb iirc but i´ve read about some users who got blue screens due to bad memory; the 2 memory modules weren´t of the same brand either.
It´s for sale here as well, cheaper than the 6177LA but it only has a 6 months warranty and i´ve read it´s a refurbished from dell? (not too sure about that)
Thanks again and for me, i think the cpu is more than enough, as it´s easy overclockable to 2,4Ghz.

Anyone else?

Ps: You guys in America are sooo lucky..the price you pay for laptops is incredible, we pay about 30-40% more for the same products.

Edit

It appears it has GDDR3 memory wich is a bit odd as other sites tell me it is GDDR5 on the 6750...

 

Has anyone installed the full 11.10 drivers released on the 31st? I can't seem to get them to install right. My catalyst control still says I'm running the older drivers, if someone could tell me how to properly install them it would be awesome.

EDIT: Problem fixed, installed the drivers for the 3rd time and it finally took. Not sure what happened the first two times.

 

My father has a DV5 for four years and it's still going strong, and my DV3t is pushing towards its third year. The current and previous generation single digit DV series (i.e. DV3, 5, 6, 7) don't have the overheating Nvidia chipset problem older models had (DV6000, DV9000) so you don't have to worry about it.

Regarding the GDDR5 vs GDDR3 it's simply misread, HD6750M only comes with GDDR5 memory, its GDDR3 version is called HD6650M. This has also been confirmed by members here who have opened their DV6 and examined the memory chip on the motherboard.

 

I was tired of my dv6-6135DX running at nearly 80C with the fan going as fast as possible when playing a semi-CPU intensive game, so I decided to take it apart and see what the problem was. I discovered that a yellowish plastic film and way too much thermal paste was on the CPU. Looking at the heatsink, neither the CPU or GPU heatsinks were making good contact. So I removed the films from both the CPU and GPU, cleaned off the thermal paste, applied arctic silver 5, and put it all back together (plus some masking tape beneath the keyboard). My temps no longer climb above 72C with the fan on medium at 2.4GHz 1.1V.

I've also finalized my Pstate speeds. Voltages need some work though, trying to see if I can undervolt further at anything below 2400MHz.

P0 - 2400MHz DID=1 1.1000V
P1 - 1900MHz DID=2 1.0375V
P2 - 1500MHz DID=3 0.9875V
P3 - 1200MHz DID=3 0.9500V
P4 - 1000MHz DID=4 0.9250V
P5 - 900MHz DID=4 0.9125V
P6 - 800MHz DID=5 0.9000V

 

Correct. The primary difference between 5400RPM and 7200RPM is the spindle speed which results in a little more heat, noise, and vibration in the 7200RPM. Otherwise power consumption is usually the same. Depending on the laptop the vibration may or may not be noticeable. In the M11x I owned 7200RPM would make my hand fall asleep, then I put in an SSD and all was good!

Yes, DV6z with 6750m is GDDR5. Check out my "DV6z Cooling Mod" link in my sig. I took apart and checked the GDDR modules physically.

Nice voltages. And yes, the factory thermal paste is horrendous. Anyone who isn't afraid to disassemble their machines I highly recommend cleaning off the existing paste and replacing it.

 

SPAM:
OKO, got any IM or phone? I too live in Bulgaria and you are the second person (besides me) that have such lappy in this poor country of ours. Or at least to my konwledge. So, it'd be nice if we can share some info, w/o spamming the forum.
END OF SPAM

BTW, did you try 11.10? And do we need the original HP bloated drivers in order to get any other device working, e.g. USB, SB, etc.?

 

Will gladly do. Alas, despite the courage, I posess no knowledge of dissasembling my dv6z. So, some detailed pictures and tips would be highly appreciated, in effort to fight the global warming (imagine so many laptops running with 8 degrees less ).

P.S. It would actually accelerate it, since these 8 degrees are just dissipated faster...

 

Dude, what is ABR? I was wondering when I wipe the Win and install it again from retail DVD, will it accept the 'old' serial printed on the bottom of the lappy?

 

The service manual is actually very detailed, just follow it closely because it constantly bounces you back and forth between different sections.

Manuals for HP Pavilion dv6z-6100 CTO Quad Edition Entertainment Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

 

ABR stands for Activation Backup Recovery, it's a small program that preserve the laptop's original Windows activation. When you buy a laptop it's actually not activated to the serial number printed on the bottom of your machine because OEM simply can't input each number and activate each unit individually. Instead they use a master activation code that's unique to each manufacturer and mass clone hard drives before putting them into each laptops. So if you reinstall Windows and use the code printed on the bottom of your laptop to activate, it's probably gonna fail, and you have to use the automated phone system to activate it. Using ABR will eliminate the trouble because it will save the OEM master key and then reactivate your machine under that key after a fresh Windows installation.

 

I believe the yellow film is actually a electrical insulation material that prevents shorts from the heatsink. It's interesting that your machine ran that hot because when mine is set at 2.4Ghz/1.125V it barely gets to 73C playing Starcraft 2 for three hours. On the other hand you are lucky to be able to run at 1.1v because mine will fail Prime95 if it's below 1.125v.

 

Hey guys,

May be I am going off topic and sorry about that but I just want to get an idea where I stand now..

Ordered dv6z quad on Nov 1. Estimated Shipping Date is Nov 11. Current state is in Production since morning of Nov 4.

Here is the config

How long do you think this will take to reach its final destination which is Chicago?

 

@hmmwv, the yellow film is there to protect the resistors and whatever else is scattered around the substrate from the thermal paste and tools when they're slapping your laptop together. The die is much taller than everything else, so nothing could short against the heatsink's flat base.

The film on my CPU was over a corner of the die, preventing it from making good contact with the heatsink.

 

So would you recommend taking off that yellow film when applying new thermal paste? Thinking about opening up mine this weekend.

 

I would just because it makes it easier to clean the old thermal paste off the dies.

 

I got my laptop from best buy
A8-3510MX, with 8GB RAM, and 6755G2 (6620G+6750M) but the ram only runs at 667MHz bandwidth, any possible way to upgrade this by myself?

Also on GPU-Z it lists CrossFire as enabled under the Radeon 6620G while disabled under the 6600M and 6700M series, is this normal? Haven't had a chance to test them practically on taxing games.

Any input would be greatly appreciated thanks!

 

So this might be a little long winded, since I haven't posted anything for awhile. But I am including some updates/rumors for Trinity and other future AMD plans.

Trinity as we know is running on Piledriver Modules. It is now stated that Trinity's graphics will be VLIW4 and not GCN (Graphics Core Next, higher end HD7000 cards will be GCN architecture), currently Llano is running VLIW5 (VLIW4 is better than VLIW5 by the way). The desktop card running GCN known as the 7970 (single gpu card) is rumored to have the same performance as the 6990 (dual gpu card) which is roughly a 50% to 75% boost over the current 6970 which it is replacing (also supposed to run cooler and use less power). So the figure of 30-50% better graphics for Trinity is not outside the realm of possible.

The lowest desktop card using GCN architecture will be the 7790, so hopefully that means the 7790m part will be too and be a possibility in the Trinity update to this laptop. I expect Crossfire Hybrid (or whatever they call it in the Laptop with Fusion APU and Graphics Card) will improve in specs as VLIW4 brought tremedous gains in Crossfire on the desktop (30-40% gains with Crossfire with VLIW5 to 65-95% gains with Crossfire VLIW4), plus driver support shall hopefully improve, which is what most of the issues now are due to usability.

There are also talks about AMD integrating (possible as a sideport memory) 512 MB GDDR5 shared ram to help speed up the graphics and cpu, but I wouldn't hold my breath on this one, it has been rumored over the years a number of times and we haven't seen it yet.

Leaked slides (can't gurantee authencity at this time) that appear to be from an official slideshow project Trinity to be 10-15% faster for CPU, but this slide does not make clear if it is in reference to Bulldozer or Llano. If it is Bulldozer, is it what is currently available, or what Bulldozer would have been without its cache issues and other bugs. So this is a little ambiguous at this time, but can prove to be very interesting.

Side Note: Bulldozer was a big disappointment to me at first, but I am more impressed as I got over benchmark shock with it, lots of users who actually own the product say in real world usage they find it as fast as their 2600k sandy bridges or even faster in some cases (benchmarks tend to run with just one at a time, not multiple programs like most users run, this could be the cause of disparity in the benchmarks and real world usage) (I wish I was as lucky as these guys to have both a Bulldozer FX chip and a Sandy Bridge 2600k, I am still on my Opteron 165, will probably upgrade next year when Piledriver comes out). Especially with the cache issues and scheduler issues on top of some bugs, it is a miracle it performs at what it does. That just means the architecture has a lot of room for growth.

AMD is stated as saying that they want APUs to be able to have 10 teraflops (10,000 GFLOPS/GigaFlops) of computation power by 2020. That is quite a lofty goal as the 6870 is rated at 2880 GFLOPS (this is theoritical measure/ideal situations). To give you a reference the A8-3850 Llano desktop APU has a maximum theoritical limit if 480 GFLOPs at this time.

AMD has changed there focus to power consumption more as devices go mobile and users demand better performance but even more so, good battery life. This article from the New York Times interview with Chuck Moore of AMD explains more of the change in vision (specifically for servers, but this will most likely extend to their consumer lineup):
AMD Betting on Power Consumption - NYTimes.com

I agree with this article and Chuck Moore in that ARM and X86 are converging on the same point. ARM being incredible efficient to begin with and adding power/performance, whereas X86 is incredible powerful and is becoming more efficient. Look at battery life on PC over the last 5 years, it has skyrocketed from 2 hours on a machine to 6-8 hours (taking average midline machine). It says that "A.M.D.’s new focus on power consumption holds the promise of laptops that run 50 percent longer than current models and a 30 percent performance improvement in power consumption on computer servers" which is impressive (no time period was given for this statement, so who knows when it will happen). X86 is not very efficient thus a lot of room to increase that efficiency as we have seen while still raising performance.

ARM 1GHz does not equal X86 1GHz when it comes to performance. This is sometimes a misnomer that people think. I saw a linux benchmark somewhere with last gen ARM chips that were single core 1 GHz versus a Atom (don't remember which one) single core downclocked to 1 GHz and a Athlon XP 2400+ single core downclocked to 1 GHz and a Via chip also. The Athlon usually came out ahead but butted heads with the Via chip at times. It usually was between 3-5 times faster at the same 1 GHz speed. This AMD chip is around 8-9 years old and many improvements since then to X86. The ARM chips naturally spanked the X86 in power consumption as to be expected. This is just to highlight the difference in architecture versus ARM and X86. I was suprised at how badly the Athlon beat the Atom processor at times which was one from the last 3 years of Atom processors.

Also multiple rumors say that Bulldozer architecture with modular design will allow AMD to drop in ARM cores with very little issue of compatiblity especially in the shared memory space. This holds a lot of potential and could bring the High Performance world together with the High Efficiency world. This could be very interesting, we might at some point see AMD license some of its tech like ARM does. (Edit: This is future use of the modular design first implemented in Bulldozer, not something they can currently do)

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

What I want to see in the update with Trinity to the DV6z. I would like the option of a dual module Trinity with HD7000 graphics (Higher Performance, more efficient), more ram for cheaper (16GB, I actually will use it), 7790m with GCN (better Crossfire support, more efficient than 6750m), running cooler would never be a bad thing, backlit keyboard as an option (don't know if I would get), trayless Blu-Ray/DVD player (if they can work out the kinks on these, will make a thinner laptop), 2 hard drive bays (wishful thinking, but I would put an SSD in one of them and make it the boot drive), better battery life overall 6-8 hours in regular usage with 8-10 hours of idle, and a better 1080p or higher res screen; I am a photographer and designer, can always use a better screen.

As a designer I don't need a gaming machine with 2-3 hours of battery life, that is why I like the DV6z, good combination of performance and efficiency.

I said 1080p or higher, because they are already showing 6 inch tablet (I think this was toshiba)screens and 10 inch tablet (Samsung) screens with 2560 by 1600 resolution. Can't my 15.6 inch laptop have some more resolution please and I will always use the extra workspace. 2400x1350 would be ideal with the matte display (please no glossy, got that now, it sucks) and better gamut and brightness/nits would be great. If the higher rez screen is $150 extra (1080p or 1350p resolution stated above), I would pay another $100-$150 for it as a dreamcolor ips screen (Note this HP, doesn't have to be as good as the elitebook dreamcolor ips panel, I would like it to be a reasonable price upgrade/option).

That was long winded, but I hope I provided a good overview of the current speculation on Trinity and HD7000 etc for those who don't follow it as closely as I have been, if you find more or know of more, please add, I am eager to learn.

 

Hmm, mine came to Bulgaria for 2 weeks. And it was with pretty much everything top I could add to it.

 

Nice post andme127. Long winded but worth the read. Thanks! +1

 

Thank you for answering my question. Two weeks is not that bad.

Status: in production.

 

Hey guys, I was wondering if anyone can pull up some numbers for me on and answer some (long) questions for me before I pull the trigger on this bad boy!

1- Is the A8-3530/6750m enough to play upcoming games on ultra/high setting on 720p? I'm thinking Deus Ex/ Arkham City/ Skyrim and Revelations specifically. Does anyone have any numbers for Arkham City in particular, because I haven't seen anything on google/youtube.

2- How big of a jump is crossfire? Are you able to play Dx11 games better than on just the dedicated card with Dx9? Has driver support improved it to the point that you should generally go for the higher settings because it would actually provide you with BETTER frames?

3- Has anyone tried playing Dolphin/PCSX2 on the A8-3530? What is the performance like playing say, Skyward Sword/Xenoblade on Dolphin, and something like God of War/Metal Gear Solid 3 on PCSX2? Would you say I could play these games running on native res at max frames (granted with frameskip)? Or could you actually run these with AA on, higher than native res? I'd honestly buy this computer on the spot if it could run Skyward Sword with AA on and on native res+.

4- How much CAN you tweak the Llano? Is it possible to say, have different power configurations, like when on battery it would underclock/volt and disable the dedicated card? Can you also "disable" quad core, to not only save battery life but to also overclock the two remaining cores for better performance in applications like Dolphin emulator?

5- Does the laptop generate enough heat to melt the sun, or have a fan that sounds like a lawnmower pleasuring a blender? I understand that I'll be taxing the system, but can you keep the heat and noise under control with a proper repaste, undervolting (and if necessary) a cooling mod similar to HTWingNut?

6- Should I wait for Trinity? My current system is an i5-520m/ATI 5650. Or is the wait too long and I should jump on this when Black Friday comes around? While we're on the subject, when IS mobile trinity slated for release?

Phew, that was a mouthful. Many, many thanks to anyone who has actually read this far, I know I'm asking for a lot of answers. Many, many more thanks to anyone who would bother answering, I've been dying to know what this laptop can really do!

 

I doubt it, most of the games run fine but normally quality settings, a.k.a. AA and antialiasing must be lowered. Deus Ex works fine in this laptop.

You need to use Catalyst Profiles, they indeed accelerate a lot certain games, like Deus Ex.

I've tried both emulators with interesting results, for example for PCSX2 gradius V and star ocean seem to work wonders at 2.9 Ghz and 3.1 Ghz (boost) but Zone of enders 2 for example runs at 30 fps, gamecube seems to be a bit more efficient with games like smash bros melee running ok, also 2.9 Ghz/3.1 Ghz boost but f-Zero GX goes at 40.

Not to mention... temps with 2.9 GHz tend to reach 95 degress.

First of all as far as I know it's not possible to disable cores, and besides you don't want that since PCSX2 and Gamecube emulators now use 4 cores with a very nice speed increase, second the problem is not the processor itself, it's the frequency, these emulators require more RAW power rather than efficiency.

It's a laptop man, and no precisely a gaming one, the fan runs at max speed once it reaches above 80 degrees.

For PC games you may see an improvement, for emulators you will not, since you require frequency rather than efficiency.

It's a powerful laptop, but don't be unrealistic unless you're ready to experiment/mod with it.

GPU works better with Musho firmwares, more faster and doesn't produces too much heat.

 

The clock will only show as 667, which is DDR1333 (correct speed). Further, current suggestion is to check your GPU speeds and play with them before upgrading drivers. If you want to overclock the graphics, grab a BIOS with same speed that works in Afterburner (test with long session in VERY heavy game). Then update to the NEWEST Catalyst drivers and Catalyst Application Profiles. Many programs still don't know how to report correct numbers for the GPUs, trust HWInfo64 and your real-life frame rates. Make sure intensive games are set to AMD High Performance.

1) Even desktops would struggle with Ultra in the newest games, even at 720. The 6755G2 will play almost anything at Med/1366x768, or High if you turn down antialiasing. A few very recent games even work in Ultra, but definitely not ALL. This still isn't a $3000 dual-SLI "electric skillet", but it can fight against $1000-1500 laptops.
2) "Depends on the Game" In theory, DX10 and 11 should improve performance of "open world" games by a LOT, through better background loading and precaching etc. The effects are also important because this 5400rpm HDD is a bottleneck on higher quality settings. Strangely, Crossfire seems to be working in some DX9 games now... I'd say that games with working Crossfire should look better and perform about the same if you bump quality to enable DX10-11.
3) Yes. There's been a few reports in this thread and elsewhere. Using k10stat or fusiontweaker to overclock is IMPORTANT. You can generally overclock higher than normal for this purpose (2.2/2.4 normal use, 2.6/3.0 emulating use). No guarantees on any particular game, there's not enough good data yet.
4a) It is verified that at idle, the 6750m dGPU COMPLETELY shuts down, and the 6620g iGPU slows to 2/3 normal speed. Voltages aren't really flexible at the moment. Side note, the Beats control system can disable the speakers when they aren't receiving audible noise. It may improve battery a little.
4b) Messing with the cores doesn't seem very effective. However you could either start Windows with a MaxCPU=2 and see what happens to overclocking, or just leave the individual cores unganged so the idle cores will use less power. Undervolting is your friend, the CPUs love it.
5) Temps and fan noise are SEXY. Under normal use it never gets warm at all and it doesn't make any noise unless you are totally alone and being very quiet. When gaming it will become much louder; still fairly quiet/no jet-engine scream. Using some form of laptop stand will improve both noise and temps though, plus you won't hear ANYTHING if you put on some gaming headphones. (I am using an Lifechat LX-3000 and can't hear the fan at all unless I play with audio muted)
6) There are several caveats here. For emulating, performance is very similar or perhaps SLIGHTLY better IF you overclock, so there's no benefit there. For battery concerns, I just played Crysis Warhead on "Gamer" quality for two hours without plugging in. If a game is older and can use just the iGPU, it would probably run closer to 3hrs. If you wait long enough for Trinity, well...it is a complete gamble as to how different the final product will be. If you get an A8 laptop with the 6755G2 or 6775G2 pairing, it will perform well NOW and you can sell it a year from now IF Trinity delivers something good.

I love mine, plenty of others love theirs. That's about it.

 

As far as thermals and noise, it's inconsistent from machine to machine. Heck even after my thermal mod, I replaced my entire cooling assembly (heatsinks/fan) and it ran a lot cooler than the one I replaced. In any case, the fan is not that loud and I've only heard it go full bore once the GPU exceeds 80C, although never when the CPU exceeds 80C, only when it reaches 90C.

With my mod though, neither CPU nor GPU rarely ever exceed 78C without cooler and 72C with cooler. My mod was a bit extreme, but I now realize it was to circumvent a bad cooling module (second bad one, I returned first laptop because of high heat). At minimum though I would recommend replacing the thermal paste. After getting my replacement cooling module, I saw that it's just a hard paste stuck to the bottom of the heatsink and probably cheapest thermal material ever. Just repasting will improve temps significantly.

I can play Battlefield 3 at low/medium detail at 1080p with my GPU overclocked to 780 GPU / 880 GDDR5 and that is probably the most harsh system requirements of any game available at the moment. CrossfireX is a mixed bag. It works great for some games, others it's a micro-stutter-fest. Deus Ex and Battlefield 3 both run very well with Xfire enabled. Other games are hit or miss. I can't imagine Arkham City or Skyrim would be any more taxing.

Speaking of which, has anyone heard back from Musho? He was quick to update the BIOS with GPU overclocks. I PM'd him but never heard back. I'd like to get the latest BIOS update with my overclocks. Anyone else know how to do this?

 

Musho reporting! Been very busy with college and still am, but I'll be able to start modding the newest bios with desired clocks this weekend. Please don't post any requests yet, as I'll lose track of who wants what. I'll let you know once I'm open for requests. Might even continue looking at GPU overvolting possibilities if time allows!

Ps Sorry for not responding to PMs!

 

Welcome back Musho!

 

Great news! WB Musho!

 

Hi, can anyone help me out? i am a new owner of the Dv6-6135dx with A-3500m processor. Figuring out how to OC/Undervolt my processor using k10stat , im just having trouble with having it on during startup? everytime i startup my computer, my CPU-ID says my cpu is running at 800mhz. I have to manually turn on k10stat and change the profile everytime to make it the clocks i set it at. Can anyone help me out to have it starting and working when i turn on my computer?

Also, if anyone would be kind of enough if they have the same laptop, post what settings they have their P-states at? thanks, any help would be appreciated

 

Use windows 7's task scheduler. There should be a couple k10stat guides around that tell you how to do it.

 

Put a K10stat shortcut in startup folder and write this "path to K10stat\K10STAT.exe" -lp:1 -StayOnTray -nw

in shortcut>RMB properties> target.

 

Actually there's another step around 87 to 90C where it starts to sounds like a freaking hair dryer... Note that I have to be overclocking the CPU to 2533 or above to ever hit those kinds of temps. At 2400 or 2300 oc it stays in the low 80s.

If you have an overclockable 5650 you can get to 80 to 90% the performance of this laptop easy. I'd wait for Trinity right now.

OTOH, you can get it darned cheap, so it's not a bad way to go for something new to play with.

 

@R3D, thanks i've already tried to follow that guide but it does not seem to startup. The profile is saved and set in the task scheduler but i all i get is "ready" everytime and not "running".

@Bullit, any idea if you can tell me where the startup folder is located cuz i cannot seem to find it through search or in any folder as a matter of fact. Btw thanks for the help

 

Welcome back Musho! Hope I didn't drive you nuts. I can compile a list of users and clock speeds if that helps? And then I can just forward the list to you?