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

Did you enable Custom C&Q? If so, check the Pstate boundaries you are setting there for each power profile.
Another possiblity is, that Windows is limiting you through the advanced power options.

-witteks

 

Custom C&Q yes and pstate bounds are 0-7 in each profile. How would windows limit me i cant find anything relating to pstate or cpu in advanced power options.

 

This is not looking good.

I am getting lots of BSODs, Kombuster showing just black screen in High performance setting, 3d Mark06/11 not runnung at all and even GPUz hangs on the splash screen.

This all when everything is on stock setting even the drivers.

Everything was looking good:

I had got K10 overclock for the CPU using old drivers and afterburner. Identified my GPU overclock to 770/870. Tested with 3dmark 06 score of 11000, with 3dmark11 score of 2100. Kombuster stable with prime95for 2 hours temperature near 85c. I even made it permanent with musho's bios.

But then I decided to update my drivers to 12.1 and all hell broke loose.

I installed everything from the 12.1 package (can it cause problems.)

After that I have tried everything driver sweeper, uninstall from add remove programs and also uninstalling device driver form device manager.
Installing 11.6 package again but no luck. Still all the problems persist. Idont want to start all over again.

Can anyone help me here!!

Also, people have mentioned that we should only extract the display package which comes from HP and run the installer in it separately. Why is that?

Whats the right procedure after the minimal recovery install??

Please guys help!!

 

First switch off Custom C&Q for now. That is not that important.

Under Advanced Power Options you will find "Processor power management". This can be used to limit the CPU in certain pstates. It is determined by percentages, where the highest frequency is 100% (non-turbo pstate).

You can always limit for battery and plugged-in separately. You can set the upper and the lower boundary there. For instance, you can set both values to 50% and your CPU will always stay just in one pstate, which is quite useful for pstate stressing.

-witteks

 

I have a few questions about the dual graphics in the dv6z since I got one incoming which should be easy for any owners to answer.

1. Do you only get switching capability with HP's drivers or can you install AMD's drivers and still switch?
2. Is the switching dynamic like optimus or manual?
3. If you have to install HP's drivers to have the switching, how do you stay up to date with the latest drivers from AMD since I assume HP doesn't update their drivers often, can you install them on top of each other?

Thanks for any/all help!

 

1.- AMD drivers actually are the same than the ones of HP but updated.
2.- You select which program uses what in the Configure Switchable graphics option of the catalyst icon.
3.- I think nobody here, besides of installing the base HP drivers for the USB 3.0 remains with them...

 

Thank you very much. So theres no need for the HP video drivers at ALL correct?

+repped

 

i do not have those options under processor power management. Can it be driver related?
Under computer management i have an unknown device with hardware ids of:

ACPI\AFD0001
*AFD0001

Funny that i have an unknown device when i did a hp minimal restore which should include all drivers unless i f**ked up!

 

Anyone please????

 

Ankurkh: You mentioned flashing with a BIOS from Musho. Have you gone back to a stock BIOS? It's been reported before that newer Catalyst tends to require slightly lower GPU clock to remain stable.

It's a pity the GDDR5 doesn't have heatsinks or a heatpipe, there could have been a little more OC potential. We can't monitor the temperature of those chips...

 

Thanks for the reply..

Yes I have gone back to regular f.21 bios from hp site.

I sort of fixed the issue by restoring it to a very early point.
but I am still not sure what should be driver installation procedure after minimal install and why should we only extract the stock HP display driver and not install them.

What's the difference?

 

HTWingnut,

What BIOS are you currently using? Is it working for you?

 

I been playing around advanced bios option and fan/cpu control
Here is my conclusion about some option.

Cool N Quiet = Windows CPU control,If you disable it , window cant control cpu anymore, you lose the option to change processor % in power plan. the clock will remain p0 i believe.
Sometimes ,Cool N quite will throttle your CPU when it sense dGPU running.( Absolutely no idea how they design this)

Cool N quiet off - Fusion tweaker doesnt work perfectly, it wont drop to p7 for IDK wat reason, but k10stat clock control should work. However k10 is annoying since you cant set min/max value.

Fans Always on: Keep this on, I find throttling quite alot when it is off.
Fan on temp : This 1 is kinda blurry, I feel like sometimes it does affect throttling and the when the fan kick in. But sometimes It feel like it does nothing at all.

My current set up is cool n quiet on and set min//max processor value. I value less heat(less fan noise)/ more battery. Window do a good job dropping your pstate when idle, however It is kind of crappy at doing steps.

IF you want absolutely no throttling, definitely turn cool n quiet off and use either fusiontweaker/k10 for clock control.

I dun have HP support assistant anymore, so I havent test that.

Edit : dv6z wish list
1. Fan control
2. Fan control
3. Fan control

Pretty sure this is almost identical for every one.

 

Seriously guys, I once used driver sweeper and only caused trouble, since then I only have installed the drivers one after another without problem and no hassle, simply install a new one when it gets released.

 

Anyone please!!

 

Completely agree. I said in an earlier post that driver sweeper has been discontinued.

It's not worth it. To be honest, ATI/AMD needs to create a custom uninstaller for their software. That would help a ton.

As for the question about why to install HP HD Graphics Drivers, it's because they contain your USB 3.0 Bus driver and your Hitachi Hard Disk driver recognition.

If you don't plan to OC, then install 12.1 first, then restart. Go back and run the newest HP Drivers and do a custom install. You should see a list of things that it will want to install, but there will be checks by certain items. These checks mean that you already have the drivers, SDK, etc installed and they are more recent than HP's.

What you will also notice is that there are 2-4 boxes that will have an "X" to install that you don't currently have installed. Simply leave it as is and do the install. You will now have the current 12.1 drivers with your HP USB 3.0 / Hitachi drivers (and I think a HDMI Audio driver of some sort).

No one has answered my question about monitoring whether or not my DGPU is running during League of Legends. What's the best way to go about this?

Can I prime with the game running, then try GPUZ + HWInfo64 monitoring mode? What do you guys do when you run a game to determine which GPU is being utilized?

 

Thanks for the reply with drivers....

MSI afterburner has a GPU usage and temperature sensor thing. I start that and then run my game.

 

Any 1 know if HP coolsense help on throttling?

When you want to clean the drivers, uninstall via AMD install manager.

 

Tried that before I formatted. It wasn't effective and caused issues with subsequent installations.

 

If you're at a clean install without drivers, my suggestion would be to create a Restore Point before testing anything, and then rolling back everytime something doesn't work until you get it working.

 

Has anyone been having and problems with mice lately? I has a BSOD called USB_DEBUG and since then every mouse I plug in has been called "unknown device" and does not work. Tested with multiple generic mice as well as my death adder (and the drivers are installed). No mice in ANY USB port currently work.

Time to reinstall USB drivers?

 

What have you changed recently? I haven't added a mouse to my system yet, but I plan to add Logitech G35 Headphones I use for my desktop and an M505 Wireless mouse. I'll let you know how that goes when I get them up and going.

Until then, it would help to understand if you've made any recent updates / changes to the system. Without knowing more, it could be a hardware breakdown or software issues.

If you have a spare HDD laying around, throw a copy of windows on it and try plugging in a mouse. If it works, then you know it's software related.

 

Haven't had any problems with my mouse, I use a Logitech LS1 and highly recommend if you have smaller hands.

Although, still having trouble with the Intel SSD Toolbox. They came out with 3.0 version and have had two updated versions come out in the last two weeks, but I still can't get it to run on my SSD. I'm pretty sure it's AMD's AHCI driver? Can I install Intel's driver on top of it? What do you guys thinks?

For those not familiar with the problem...when you run the Intel SSD Toolbox it says this..

ERROR: Raid array detected. If RAID array not present. Reboot and try again.

I've hunted down and ran every version of the toolbox...same story.

Any thoughts?

Best,

Liquid Cool

 

Did you try update using the 11.12 AHCI for windows 7 from AMD?
Does it affect RL usage?

 

I installed Star Wars: The old republic.

I think either the game, or my 800/1000 gpu overclock was unstable, because the game BSODd with atikmdag.sys . When I rebooted, the system bluescreened at login with BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER. Then my deathadder stopped working in the left USB ports. I moved it to the right.... same BSOD, now it wont work in any usb port.

I used nirsoft bluescreen view to locate which .sys file was the culprit, and it points to usbhub.sys

I think I located the bad driver in device manager, it is listed as an Unknown Device, however it refuses to install any kind of driver. Online solutions mostly point to just doing a full system restore /wipe and I dont have any restore points before the first crash..... /sigh

 

it double-posted. Fail.

UPDATE: I managed to force windows to troubleshoot and reinstall the USB controller drivers. Problem fixed

 

I tried raising the voltage on p6 a little - it ran for a few minutes then BSoD. Tried raising all the voltages up slightly, same thing.

 

What the BSOD say?

 

Correct. The AMD catalyst drivers are all the video drivers you need. Also, the switching is now seemless. I.e. when you run a game and it starts using both iGPU and dGPU in crossfire, no stutter, when you run another game on just the dGPU, again, seemless switching. AMD's switching seems more mature and less buggy than Nvidia's Optimus.

Still have a problem that OpenGL only with with the iGPU.

 

I don't know how everyone in this topic with a DV6Z laptop is installing AMD catalyst drivers without a hitch. I've downloaded the catalyst packages month after month since September and I've never ONCE been able to install the drivers from them, only the useless catalyst control center and APP SDK runtime. I pretty much gave up trying to get this laptop (DV6-6128CA) to run any game in DirectX 10, as vsync is pretty much broken. Games in DX9 work fine with vsync and all, but that's about half my library, and games with DX9/10 usually have much better performance in DX10 mode. Crossfire is also a mess and since it works only in DX10+, it's even worse than running a game in DX10 with no crossfire as the stuttering is ridiculous. I've tried using D3DOverrider to get vsync to work and I hear the beep when a game starts, but it seems the crap drivers override the overrider.... Running a game in DX10 seems to cause even intro videos to stutter and makes the laptop seem like it's 15 years old, barely able to play 640x480 FMV's.

 

Wait. Just note that you will need the original HP "Display Drivers" because it contains several other drivers, including switchable graphics feature. You can install the package without video drivers then install 12.1 or whatever, but 12.1 doesn't include everything else.

 

Go Here and install the catalyst mobility modded from asdeser (or something like that...) BTW, the only drivers that had worked for me straight from AMD where the 12.1 preview.

This has been discussed quite a while here in this very same threath.

 

when i get the 6135dx, was thinking about getting a 4gb memory stick with it. What should i look for in a memory stick to replace the 2gb one that comes in it? just so i can match it up to the 4gb stick already in there for 8 total.

 

Hi all!

My first post here. I just got my hp dv6z (6b47dx). I have read through all the forums and would very much like to try and overclock CPU and GPU (more importantly GPU) as I do a fair bit of gaming. I have a stock 6620g with no second graphics. I would appreciate any directions on what applications I need to do the overclocking and some guidance on how to do it as I am a total noob in regards to this. Thanks!

 

So, I used HWinfo64 and MSI Afterburner and it doesn't look like League of Legends is even using my dedicated card to play the game. I think it's listed as GPU 1 with the 600 core / 800 mem, but shows no activity even when the application is set to High Performance.

Can anyone confirm this with their model? It's a free-to-play game, quickly downloaded. Any tips on how to force this damn thing to kick into gear?

OR

Is my card borked?!

 

@mkondr There is no way to overclock the iGPU as of now

@Orani I read some post about LOL is 2 weak in graphic to even use the dGPU, probably the iGPU can handle all max

HP driver is kind of a mystery now, My switching graphic work fine w/o installing them after a clean install.

 

Thanks baii,

I tried something. I downloaded the CAP Files for 11.12 then I set LOL launcher to the BF3 application profile with wonderful results. Though you're right, the DGPU didn't even do crap, but the IGP was working amazingly! 60FPS increase!

 

hypertek,

This is an exact match to the 4gb Samsung memory stick that is what in my dv6-6135dx and what I replaced the 2gb memory stick with.

Click Here

As mentioned, I originally purchased an 8gb kit of memory from G. Skill, but felt my lappy was overall running more sluggish than it was with the original 6gb's. I'd recommend going the path you're thinking about going, it's a) cheaper, and b) I think it's worth the $20.

There is a 15% off coupon and free shipping until the 26th. I tried the e-bay auction route first, if you want to keep your sanity intact...don't bother.

baiii...

I figured out the problem with the Intel SSD Toolbox 3.0.2, but it took me all night. Although, I was rewarded with my drives WEI going up from 7.5 to 7.7. The laptop overall, feels as fast as lightning...

What did I do? I went into device manager and uninstalled the AMD S-ATA driver, which from as far as I can tell is some type of raid driver that doesn't recognize there isn't a raid setup in my computer. From the research I've done, this is quite a common problem with AMD pc's. I then searched locally(my own pc) for Microsoft's driver...installed it and joila. Worked.

I had to also uninstall the new 12.xx drivers I downloaded from AMD and go back to the 9-17 update drivers(sp54362) from HP. The new video driver wasn't stable on my system. I'll point out the small problems I was experiencing so if others are having these problems...they might take a look at the current driver from AMD.

1) I setup several new programs with the "configure switchable graphics from the desktop", I would click on high performance and hit save only to watch it go back to the yellow box(unallocated).

2) After playing several games, and then flipping the lid down and letting my pc go to sleep...when I came back to the pc and lifted the lid. The top horizontal row of pixels was flashing and I was having graphical glitches on some web pages. Like when I open Firefox and I use FireFox Google as a home page for example, it would show several horizontal lines of pixels flashing on the Firefox logo.

3) My pc was intermittently switching between a washed out or too high of a contrast appearance in graphical images...and then going back to looking normal. An example would be, taking contrast from 50% to 100% and back to 50%...

These problems weren't there before I installed the driver...and aren't apparent after the driver was uninstalled. The laptop is back to performing perfectly...and I've been gaming on it all night. Speaking of gaming...I've tested a dozen games on the notebook, not a single problem with any of them. The only 'special' setting I did to get them to perform properly was use the HP AMD video driver mentioned above and turn off crossfire. Once the game starts...I alt+tab and make sure I configure it in the switchable graphics to high performance.

Overall, extremely pleased.

Best Regards,

Liquid Cool

 

Guys i have found a compatible backlit keyboard, or i think i have! Il get back to you when i receive it!

 

My laptop uses easily hardware decoding, but this video prove to be quite wild, indeed one can reach up to 2.2 Ghz 100% Consumption in certain areas O_O the quality is superb though... (And I have CoreAVC... still shows that there is no hardware acceleration with this kind of video profile)

 

OK...all of you who bought an HP refurb (like me)...I did the research so you won't have to...but DON'T make your decision on the price of the warranty alone! (If all you care about is the cash, then ST is the way to go, especially with a 35% discount coupon code which is usually easy to find.)

1. First step: Do you want accidental coverage?

If the answer is "yes", than HP is the only choice. ST doesn't offer accidental damage on a refurb. From their website:

"Accidental Damage from Handling (ADH) coverage
ADH coverage is an option for new, store-purchased items and protects against drops and spills. It does not cover loss, willful damage or gross misuse."

And to make certain, I tried the difference between "new" and "refurbushed" in the cart. It's true.

2. Secondly, if you DON'T want accidental coverage, the next question is "Do I want my computer back and working no matter what goes wrong, or do I want my money back?"

If you want the laptop back and working, then the answer is HP. They'll fix it during the warranty period, to the level of what it was originally purchased. (What this means is that nothing you modded or added is covered, hardware or software, so you better keep your parts and be prepared to roll it back before you send it in.) I actually read all the fine print of their contract, and it doesn't appear that there's a limit to how many times they'll fix it during the warranty period, and if they elect not to fix it, they'll replace it with an item that meets or exceeds your product's original specs.

If you want your purchase price back (minus the cost of the warranty) then ST is the way to go. It's good to note, however, that ST will refund your purchase price ONLY if the cost to fix is greater than the purchase price. You don't get to choose.

If ST fixes your computer, they subtract the cost of the repair from the purchase price of the laptop, and this amount is the coverage you've got left for subsequent repairs, regardless of the remaining warranty period.

3. Lastly, it is good to note that the return rate of electronic and computer equipment during the first year is practically nil, provided there are no inherent hardware problems with the equipment to begin with. (I used to sell and work extended warranty and government contracts for years. The ONLY NEW item [among hundreds or thousands] that ever failed, in my 30 year experience, was the LaserJet III printer. The customer eventually replaced it, after I had serviced it a countless number of times, and gave it to me. I took it out in the desert and shot it with my .44 magnum Smith & Wesson until it was unrecognizeable.)

Essentially, if your laptop is going to fail during the next year, due to defect, it's MOST likely to fail in the first two months. If it does...then you're covered (if you registered when you got it.) And about 95% of these failures are usually power supply/on-board power regulation problems, provided the laptop didn't fail because you tweaked or dropped it.

The reason there were so many HP dv6-6135dx refurbs available, less than a year after production, was not due to hardware issues, but firmware, drivers, and software, almost all of which have been fixed. Consequently, Best Buy's loss was our gain.

So, given all this information, I'd like to ask, what would YOU choose to do? HP, ST, or nothing at all?

And, for those of you who have already made your decision, what DID you do?

 

Good summary clarkkent57. +1

My experience has been if your computer has something wrong with it, it will fail in the first couple weeks as long as your drive it hard, i.e. push its limits with benchmarking and stress tests (Prime95, Kombustor, MemTest86+, etc) for extended periods. Don't be afraid to check for bad assembly, gaps, sharp edges, etc too, that could be a sign of something else wrong. Also use the laptop quite a bit the way you intend to as well. Stress tests can only catch so much, but sometimes the programs/games you use can act differently. So you usually have a return period to get your money back or exchanged for a new one. Just be smart about it, and test the hell out of it.

And once past that initial period, yes, usually the machine is good for a solid year or more, and things that typically crop up are bad manufacturing or solder (i.e. nVidia 8400/8600 chips) defects eventually fail. Keep in mind too that the value of most laptops are less than half what you bought it new after a year. So having a warranty more than two years usually doesn't make sense. It'll be worth a few hundred bucks at best after two years, and not to mention technology changes so fast that in two years if ST says they'll replace your laptop with something comparable, it will be something with older tech.

I usually choose nothing at all because there's usually a one year manufacturer warranty which is good enough for me. When I bought my Sager NP8170, I spent a good $1800 on it, so bought a two year warranty, but it was top spec, and Sager offered two years for like $89, hard to pass up. Even the accidental warranty from ST is expensive. You usually have to buy the standard warranty then add on accidental, you can't just buy accidental. By the time you pay for accidental, it's usually about 25-30% cost of the laptop. For example the dV6z at $800 ST warranty with accidental protection is $210. I can replace the motherboard myself for that price. I would have to say in the long run, the amount of money I would have spent on accidental warranties is far more expensive than any repairs I've ever had to make to my laptop due to regular failure or accident. But that's if you're ok with fixing your own stuff.

 

I like you!

So what did YOU do, HT? My decision was to do nothing, upgrade to my satisfaction, and use the heck out of it during the next couple of months. If it passes, great, if it fails, still great, and my refurb remains a bargain. Seems to me if you buy a similar warranty that comes with a new item, you might as well bought it new.

 

Honestly speaking, with prime 95 pushing up the four cores plus musho's bioses one can fully test the laptop to the extreme, I quite like it

 

I recently got my refurb from tigerdirect and it looks/functions like new. Only thing that worries me is that my charging port has about 1mm of play in every direction. Maybe I'm just being paranoid but I was wondering if this was normal for this model?

 

Right. To me unless the warranty is reasonably priced (like < 10% cost of laptop for two years), it's not worth it, period. Buy a $500 refurb, well, it's almost disposable. If you can get a year out of it, great. And for popular components you can usually find replacement parts pretty easily and inexpensive, and worse case the HP Parts Store usually has any part you need, at a bit of a premium, but haven't found them to be too bad. I almost never buy warranties on laptops.

Technology changes too fast, and unless you're an absolute klutz and/or don't care to turn a screwdriver, then maybe a warranty works for you. Do you really want to spend $200-$250 on a warranty that you most likely will not use that in two years you can put towards a newer laptop in 18-24 months? I see people buying a laptop, gaming laptops especially, with mid-grade components and buy a four year warranty. Really? After 12-18 months your laptop will struggle to play newer games. After two years you'll be lucky to play any newer games reasonably. Not to mention even if they do replace it, it will be with either an old refurb or a bottom end new one.

I had a Sager NP8662 that I spilled wine on the keyboard when it was about 15 months old. I ended up cleaning it out thoroughly and spent about $120 to replace the keyboard and touchpad. One of the USB ports was quirky, but no huge deal. Used it for another six months, sold it for $500. Accidental warranty was about $350. I think I made the right choice.

 

get off coreavc use the tutorial i posted dxva works fine and runs awesome, can even decode with crossfire if necesarryXP which is not

 

Agreed. Additionally, it's nice to note that if you go to eBay and do the research, last year's used laptops run about 1/2 price or less. Consequently, if yours dies next year, you can buy another one there and transfer your upgrades, OS, and software into it.

This weekend, I intend to do just that with my 3 year old HP HDX18T, transferring eveything to the dv6, and rolling back the HDX to it's original config....then...off to eBay after the New Year! (Unless someone here is interested in it. It's a great laptop, blu-ray player, bluetooth, 18" 1080p LED screen, HDMI, eSATA, Core 2 processor, dual hard drives, and even has a built-in WMC remote and more, but it's just too heavy to lug through airport after airport for the next three years.)

 

O_O... well I had CoreAVC because of my old laptop, it was the only way to play 1080p videos, but now you got me interested, where is your tutorial????

 

This? http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...xxx-series-owners-lounge-403.html#post8173505

geant90, if you can DXVA your way around THIS: Iblard Jikan (Blu-Ray) Doki Fansubs I will have infinite respect for you. But to my knowledge Hi10 videos cannot be accelerated at this time.

Normally videos can use DXVA, and CPU is practically nil. There's even enough bandwidth to run TWO 1080p videos on the iGPU alone. But the Hi10 videos (which look a little better and have better compression) CAN'T use hardware acceleration, and can max all four cores on the CPU.

Incidentally, it would appear CoreAVC should support DXVA where available these days...?