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

I must admit this thread help HP sell all their refurbished DV6z LOL.
Their stock on this is just amazing for a refurbished product.

 

Yeah, no kidding. I just returned my dad's new HP *unopened* because we got a good deal on a Silver DV6t with i5, 1080p, 8GB, 750GB, 9-cell for $750, when we previously ordered i3, 1080p, 640GB, 9-cell for $800. So someone will get a refurb that is brand new!

 

Try changing the power settings, change "put the computer to sleep" to never and same for turn off display/dim display. Then rerun the bench and see if that works.
The msi kombuster temps are a wee high for my taste, i think you were the one who said you repasted it already? if so , you may want to double check that you got the correct amount of paste (tiny tiny amount), and put the heat sinks back on properly (theres a specific order for screw tightening, and they stop screwing in at a certain point.)

You can also try looking through the event viewing and seeing if theres an event associate with it.

 

I believe some heatsinks are somewhat defective. I returned my first DV6z because it ran quite hot. Then my replacement ran rather hot, not as much as the original, but still hotter that I'd like. I did a cooling mod here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...z-cooling-mod-thread-warning-lots-photos.html

It helped immensely. Well, since I cut out some of the fan shroud, it was a bad idea, so I ended up replacing the entire cooling unit, and without the mod, it runs nearly as cool as it did with the stick-on heatsinks. I plan on putting heat sinks on this one too when I get a chance, but I just don't want to go through all the sanding off the black paint again...

 

Use acetone, that black not-good-for-anything paint get's off with acetone quite easily.

 

Thanks HT! Any chance you could include some information on overclocking the GPU?

 

yes please a guide would be much appreciated, thanks wing!

 

Yep! This thread is what got me to "pull-the-trigger" and get mine. I was looking for a decent gaming laptop to replace my crappy Inspiron 1720 (3/4ths of the bottom row of the keyboard doesn't work and the battery doesn't even work anymore) and a refurbished DV6 had the most powerful graphics card of anything in my price range.

I got mine today, unboxed and booted it and updated the BIOS after seeing it was somewhat old in CPU-Z. Since it's a Christmas present I shut it down after that and packed it into storage. These next few weeks are going to be killer.

On a side note, CPU-Z 1.59 in the Graphics section I believe it showed the 6620G first and and the second GPU had hardly any information on it. Is that normal?
Device Manager showed the graphics card as the correct model.

 

I tried changing those power supply settings. It didn't do anything. I'm fairly sure that I repasted it pretty well so that shouldn't have been a problem.

I'm beginning to think that it has to be the video chip overheating though; I found that if I run MSI Kombuster in full screen mode it exhibits that hibernate behavior (as well as in 3DMark) if the chip gets to around 68 C or so. Interestingly though the tests run fine on only battery power as it doesn't get as hot. I've tried two different power supplies though now and both of them cause it to hibernate when doing something full screen 3D, either as it's coming out of full screen or going into full screen 3D. The computer will then stay asleep for enough time for the chip to get cooler and then wake itself up. Windowed 3D doesn't seem to have a problem.

I guess I'll just have to send it back for replacement.

 

ya if its behaving that way and you know the temps are accurate, time to exchange man! hope you get a better one =-D

 

Yep, thats normal.
Grab a copy of GPU-z and msi kombustor (or similiar, such as furmark)

Run kombustor in window mode, then run gpu-z and it will populate with the correct info.

What causes this:
the dgpu is turned off unless its needed for gaming. When its off, the correct info cannot be gathered. This also causes many reporting issues with lots of different software. Rest assured, hp did not set out in a massive conspiracy to screw you out of gddr5 memory bandwidth.

WHy does this solve it:
Running kombustor/furmark turns the card on, so when gpu-z or simliar requests info, it gets the 'correct' info.

 

Good to know.

 

hello musho! can you make me a custom bios with speeds of 730/930?
thanks so much!

 

...so it turns out the Cat 11.11c rollup included Hydra, video codecs etc. Also tested that program which gets so much exposure on the AMD site, VReveal. And yes, while vReveal can pick between iGPU and dGPU, it is clearly only using the iGPU for OpenCL acceleration. Fascinatingly, the iGPU is somewhat slower than the actual quad-core CPU when using vReveal to work with a video file.

EDIT: I also have now had plenty of time with Shogun 2. I think the slow HDD is still holding back my load times, but the CPU overclock helped more than expected. If you can live with MLAA, you can crank the hell out of everything else and it will still run fine.

 

Hey all. New owner here. So much good information in this forum!!! Thank you all.

QUESTION: my msi afterburner is locked to 600max core clock and 800 max mem lock. What is everyone else running to and... why cant i move these sliders higher?

 

I have an EVO 3D and have rooted and I install new bios files to my phone all the time with mine.

You can try the USB 2.0 ports instead of the 3.0 ports, just to see if that helps(on my HP DV6-6135DX the 2.0 ones are on the right and the 3.0 ones are on the left). However, I have flashed via the 3.0 ports without issue either.

 

Wow, I didn't even saw that! You've got good eyes Wing ^^.
The newer 3DMark's all got an update to run at their native resolutions, no matter what display-res. the system has (although scaled).
That explains the relativly good score in '06, but moderate scores in vatage and '11...

Der "Laptop geöffnet" Kommentar ist der beste^^.

 

hello refer to post

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...xxx-series-owners-lounge-298.html#post7944729

 

Sorry if this is a noob question, but where should I update the 6620g drivers from? HP or AMD? Mine's a dv6-6117dx, only 6620g.

Also, how much performance increase should I expect once I add another 4gb?

 

I would recommend updating from the amd site with the 11.11 drivers and also getting the crossfire profiles there also.

I have 6gb and ordered a 1x4gb replacement (17.99 for cruicial shipped at newegg).
From my experiences with ram upgrades, unless you do a lot of multitasking (game, music, web browser ect) you wont see major increase in performance especially in fps. But at that price its hard not to upgrade.
Another option is to go with the 8gb that are currently hovering around 85 each. so $170 for 16bg is not bad, but not budget.

 

WAIT!!

UsnRoberts, NO. jokerface888 has just gotten a laptop with the 6620G graphics and 1x4GB system RAM.

jokerface888: If you do anything fancy, redownload or update your drivers from HP at first. Grab the newest Catalyst 11.11c Performance driver and 11.11 CAP 2 package. The 2nd 4GB RAM module will double your bandwidth, which prevents the iGPU from bottlenecking and helps everything run better. A cheap boost across the board...

EDIT: Look at it this way. You have 1xDDR3-1333. A second stick means dual channel, 2xDDR3-1333

2667 is much better than 1333. But the 1600MHz RAM....from 2667 to 3333 does nothing on the laptop with 2.6GHz max CPU and 444MHz locked iGPU. That extra bandwidth only matters on desktop, where the CPU reaches 3.4GHz and iGPU does 600MHz. I bet if/when desktop OC and/or iGPU OC are workable, the 4000+ dual-channel speed will be necessary.

 

OOPS! my fault I assumed. And we all know what that means. lol

Anywho, so ive got msi afterburner unlocked but when i bump my core speed up to say... 650 from 600, I freeze up when I try to run windows experience rating. (i know its a far cry from a good benchmark but for a 1 minute verification of positive or negative effects on graphics i find it ok.) Ive killed k10stat to make sure it wasnt a cpu voltage issue. Anyone have any quick tips?

Edit: im using 11.11 drivers from amd site. i dont mind using a different driver, i just dont want to lose the bf3 tweaks!

 

My refurbished Dv6z-6135DX came in the mail today~ 8D

I want to start playing around with overclocking and such, but I've never overclocked before (my current laptop's three years old and my only computer so I didn't want to risk it). Any suggestions on good overclocking beginners guides? Or even what programs to use? Thanks.

 

does anyone have overclockable 11.11 drivers or the overclocked gpu bios?

EDIT: Nevermind I found them through google. I think i might get a guide together for all the new people making their way here. That they will have an answer to their questions and everyone who has helped me so far can rest at ease as some of us will carry the torch onward.

 

Ok, so I don't know if anyone else is having this problem but it's starting to frustrate me a bit.

Firstly, here are my current settings:
F21 Bios (from hp)
11.11c
K10Stat Stable OC @2.4ghz(1.2v)
stock dGPU


Before I updated the Bios and Drivers(to 11.11c), Skyrim was running fine with minimal mouse lag. After all of these installations, Skyrim is running at a higher FPS with noticeable mouse lag or draw when I hover over certain items (flames, a giant mass of items, etc).

Xfire is off, Skyrim is running at High performance.
Settings : 1920x1080, high settings, 0 anti, 4 af running at avg 41fps

It also almost never drops below 20fps, I am quite puzzled. I have also changed all the ini's (ipresentinterval=0, mouse accel etc.)


On the flip side, MW3 is running like a champ, 1920x1080 @ ultra settings, avg 47 fps, 0 lag ever.


I'm quite puzzled :/

 

strange my battery indicator went from plugged in charging to plugged in not charging even when the battery is at 53% charged. has anyone had that happened to them?

 

Hello everyone,
I just got my refurbed dv6z and I'm having some performance issues.

First thing I did was swap the 6gb of ram for two matching 4gb sticks (the 4 and 2 combo bothered me...) then redid the thermal paste with mx4, oc'ed my cpu to 2.6ghz p0 and 2.9ghz boost and then flashed the 780/880 f21 bios and updated to 11.11c graphics drivers.

The problem is that I'm not getting the performance I expect.
Skyrim on high at 1366x768 is getting around 25-30fps in the opening horse ride scene while I'm reading about people getting 40fps+ at 1080p on high.

Also my WEI scores seem low, only 6.3 on the two graphics scores while I was expecting 7+.

I was thinking it was only running on the integrated but when I open the system monitor while WEI is running, it shows my 6750 is clocking up to 780/880 and going to about 70% usage and there are spikes of about 20% usage on my 6620. This happens with or without crossfire on.

Also, everything is set to high performance on the switchable graphics settings.

Any ideas? Thanks.

EDIT:
Btw, Panda6517, I'm an RIT student

 

LuckyX2...

New to the DV6, I have the 6135dx...I was getting a 6.3 WEI score when I had the video drivers from AMD installed. I was also having some lower fps scores. When I loaded the drivers from HP's site instead, my WEI went up to 6.6 and performance increased as well.

Did you get your drivers straight from the HP site?

I also upgraded the memory to 8gb's and added an SSD. This little laptop is running well.

Best,

Liquid Cool

 

Nope, I got 11.11c from AMD. Somehow my wei is now 6.5 btw...

I'll run skyrim a few times and see how it does with AMD's 11.11c then compare to the HP drivers

And yes, I couldn't have asked for more from a $500 laptop. I was only planning on getting a budget setup ($300 or so) but when I saw this I couldn't turn it down. I'll be upgrading my desktop with a Vertex 3 ssd and putting it's current Vertex 2 in this laptop then it will fly

 

Skyrim vertical mouse movement is tied to vsync and fps for some reason. You can disable this by following the tip here:
Tweaks to make Skyrim that much better : skyrim

How do I fix the vsync ("laggy mouse") problem?

Go to your Steam Directory -> steamapps -> common -> skyrim -> Skyrim
Create a backup of the SkyrimPrefs.ini file
Open the file, then scroll down to where it says [Display]
Add to the bottom of the section iPresentInterval=0
Save, exit, and play

 

What's a good undervolt? I've been playing around with clock speeds/voltages when I've had time today (which, admittedly, has been quite a bit, but it's my first time to overclock/undervolt so I had to figure out the basics first), and I've gotten to .75V at 1100MHz and quite frankly I'm wondering if it's even safe to go any lower? I haven't come across anyone else that even comes close to that low of a voltage (not that I've looked), so that's intimidating enough. It's just that .75V seems stable at 1100MHz, and I would expect 1100 to be at the least the second step from the bottom (P5), rather than the very bottom (P6).

 

Did they get crossfire working with Skyrim yet? If you are running in crossfire mode that maybe the issue. Haven't been keeping up since I haven't bought the game yet.

 

Are you talking to me? I've tried it both with crossfire and without and there is a negligible difference. Crossfire shouldn't do anything in Skyrim since it's dx9

Here's some more info on my performance issue in the form of 3dmark 11 scores. These are with stock cpu and 780/880 gpu

high perf, xfire off: p1533
high perf, xfire on: p1480
power save, xfire off: p1184

So it appears it's using the 6750 correctly (1533 vs 1184) but that I'm getting negative scaling with crossfire on (1480 vs 1533) seeing as how 3dmark 11 is dx11, crossfire should work. This is with AMD's 11.11c CAP2 since the latest HP driver actually gave me a little lower performance in Skyrim.

 

Did your replacement arrive allready? And is the gpu any better now?

Exactly! My gpu can run benchmarks at 785/980. An extreme Furmark Burn-in + 4 core Prime, will still run at 765/965, but games still need lower clocks not to crash (Tropico4: 760/945, Anno2070: 750/940).
Usually that means there are voltage spikes, but I can't test that, until someone (like musho ) finds a way to incorporate a voltage tweak into the bios.
My 6770m (Dv6t) with a vcore bump to 1.1v did run at 933mhz. That would be a nice 25% increase over my 6750m (Dv6z) speeds right now... Wouldn't that be a perfect christmas gift?

 

As long as you test that speed thoroughly with no issues you will be fine.

 

I live in NY , stuff take forever to even get to NEWegg .
Good thing is, i can study more while my Dv6z is away.

 

The frequencys and voltages of my dv6z that are smaller or equal 1100mhz are:

400 @ 0.6000v ca 6W
500 @ 0.6250v +250/ ca 7W
600 @ 0.6375v +125/ ca 8W
700 @ 0.6500v +125/ ca 9W
800 @ 0.6750v +250/ ca10W
900 @ 0.7000v +250/ ca11W
1000 @ 0.7250v +250/ ca12W
1100 @ 0.7500v +250/ ca15W

So you basically could go well below that. The problem is: I tested the idle-battery life at everything below 800mhz, and it turned out that it got worse ^^ (although only marginally at 700mhz, so that's what I'm using atm). Seems the reduction in speed isn't worth the savings of only a few milliwatts...

 

Okay, good to know. Those are pretty close to what I got. ^ ^ I'm just going to use 800MHz as my lowest clock in my Undervolt profile. How much battery life do you find that gives you? I was just about to test. Thanks.

 

Hi all, I've been checking out these threads for quite a while, very informative!

I posted this in the main HP Pavilion forum, but maybe someone here would know.

I just checked out the new dv6-6b47dx from Best Buy. HP and Best Buy sites are useless as they show the exact same specs for this one and the dv6-6145dx. Both sites show that the two have the same processor, the AMD A8-3500M.

By checking out both computers at the store, I did find that the dv6-6b47dx has the AMD A8-3510MX processor, while the dv6-6145dx has the A8-3500M processor. The 6b47dx is $30 cheaper than the 6145dx, while having the better processor.

I've been checking the web, but can't find any accurate specs as to what the 6b47dx has. Every site has this computer having the 3500M processor, which is wrong. Just want to know what else is different between the two computers. Anyone with any info.

Thanks.

 

I was getting around 3.5 +- .5 hour while locking down 600mhz

constant wireless activity (downloading images)
brightness shifts around low - med
wallpaper slideshow on
SSD( Crucial C300)
50-100% cpu load

6135dx that it.

 

Just stamp on this while browsing mindlessly.

[Test, dupe, sp54724] HP Dv6-6135dx [amd]

OG advanced menu !!!!

Last time i read older thread only mention whitelist but nvr know it unlock the advanced menu

 

WOW this is awesome! Would it be possible to have musho change the clock values on this BIOS so we can have advanced menu, no whitelist, and overclock?

+ rep

 

I was thinking this exact thing. Not quite ready to give up my GPU OC from BIOS. But if we can have it with this BIOS, it would be awesome.
-Advanced Menu (Fan especially)
-no WLAN whitelist
-GPU Overclock

I may flash it just for fun and take a peek.

If it looks worthwhile I may bug Musho and see what he can do for us.

 

It is 740/880 by original request. So, it is actually not that bad.

 

I think it would be cool if musho put up a guide (for the more adventurous of us) so we didn't have to bug him every time we needed to change the clock values in a bios.

If they figured out gpu voltage, my life would be complete.

 

I did some research and download the unpack tools once, the amount of step and complexity is enormous, i just gave up doing it.(Maybe I was lazy and i was planning to replace it afterall . so I didnt dig it)

yeah, if we happen to get a guide and able to do it ourself would be nice.

But, such guide will create so many brick computer that we cant imagine .

 

Indeed, it is not the place for an owner's lounge. Too many people would screw up their laptops.

 

I agree. Musho needs to train one of us regulars here that own the machine. I'd be happy to do it. Maybe I can talk to him and see if he can help.

I primarily want fan speed and GPU overclock. Voltage and no wifi whitelist would be nice but not necessary.

 

I would be willing as well (once my exams are over in a week)

 

For the low-end frequencies, I just tested idle-load battery lifetimes. With an C4 SSD in sleep, and lowest brightness, they were around 7h45m with the 6cell(55Wh) and 14h30m with 9cell(95Wh/100Wh). Just for comparison: At 400mhz/0.6000v, the lifetime dropped to just a bit above 12h for the 9cell.