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

Just to add to the data pool, I ran Crystal Disk Mark on my system to see where my setup lands.

Running an Intel 320 series 160GB SSD (sata 2 I think?). Did a clone of the stock HDD to the SSD, not a fresh install.

 

The AMD driver gives me about 10% more than the Intel. I've run the test many times and the results are consistent.

There are only really three possible causes of my sata ii speeds on a sata iii chipset. 1) BIOS, 2) Controller Drivers, or 3) Connector...

Since the intel driver produces the approximate same results as the amd, then it's likely the driver isn't the cause, which leaves the connector and BIOS.

Since it's highly unlikely the connector would be wrong (according to more than one professional review which identifies it as a Sata III connector...but the could be wrong), then that leaves BIOS.

Further support in favor of the problem being BIOS is that it can't be set to pure AHCI mode...so I'm thinking BIOS.

 

A little more investigation on the SSD front @ OCZ revealed more information...

They benchmark using ATTO, so I downloaded and ran it, and, lo and behold, I AM getting SATA III speeds with larger files.

 

How do you get intel driver? just download intel rapid storage driver from intel site? Cause what i read from crucial forum, they tend to get better 4K bench with intel driver.

 

I'm having wifi problems now. Big time... Everytime I unplugged the laptop, it would disconnect from wifi, and when I would reconnect, it would say it couldn't. So when I disabled the adapter and try and re-enable it, the computer freezes and I have to power off by holding the power button.

Tried system restore, full recovery, and uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, no change. I really like this laptop, but these problems are irritating! I think I'm gonna call monday and demand a replacement, no exceptions.

 

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:NmRgm2RG0w4J:download.microsoft.com/download/3/0/2/3027D574-C433-412A-A8B6-5E0A75D5B237/ProcPowerMgmtWin7.docx+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiW-aq2UkcRqBW88WbsStfccVUILWCGbrUjcy12JJlyPYPC3yMb87EeKJ6f8LsANDi_bdjntgkwCBSaNresO7IGGoQo1S8qBazqMg4mJq6uM5MnzW3mJ62YRKlZiSrqa_-smIEb&sig=AHIEtbQk8EpQgGWkVwCdXbOLbItexuaaXw

Read this if you have time(or last few pages with options) lol, Window clock control is even better than fusiontweaker

CPU Throttling when GPU hit 90s is killing me ~~

 

Results? can hold 2.9 GHz at 89°, 2.8 Ghz is around 83 degrees now.

Improvements against Mod I: Better cooling, better thermal contact (the part that holds the pipes just fits perfectly in the gap between plastic and the stock pipes. Is by far lighter than the other mod. Can be disassembled without opening the whole laptop and fits perfectly below the base.

Cons: I had a hard time bending the pipes appropriately.

Happy new year everyone

 

That seems like more bulk for what it's worth.

I have acheived 2.8Ghz at 81°C with my mod and AS5 thermal paste.






Just waiting for my fan grille to come in to finish it. The heatpipes are more than adequate in this laptop. How it vents heat is great, but only on stock clocks with new thermal paste (because the thermal pads originally in there break down in a short amount of time)

When you OC beyond the stock cooling ability, heat will begin to move further away from its generating source and build up at a faster rate around the exhausting area. So to maximize the heat dissipation amount, you need to allow the fan to move more air without restriction. Since I don't want the fan to run at max speed all the time, I had to think of a work around. The stock plastic grille vents were not acceptable at this level of OC. You will notice if you look yourself, small little slots and there is 60/40 blockage to free flowing ratio. This is why after hours of playing, if you watch the temperatures slowly climb and climb, that is the reason. The fan will spin faster, moving hotter air at a rate the ventilated area can't expel the heat out of. This allows the hot air to rise increasingly fast until the amount of heat generated is lowered at the source. My method eliminated this problem and still keeps the laptop functional, cool with an overclock and doesn't require additonal mods to benefit from the primary.

 

Any 1 who did a clean install with no minimal recovery have problem that when running P95 + kombustor , the CPU just throttle right off?

It actually throttle both GPU+ CPU somehow, it doesnt affect gaming but ahhh.

 

@ dreamonic

That looks really clean. I like it Did you just cut that hole around the fan area and that's it?

 

Actually my laptop has a A6-3410MX, I've tested some A8-3500 and they definitely heat themselves much less than my processor. My mod also replaced another one which was actually more bulky but I'm quite happy with the result since I can use prime 95 constantly for a lot of time and the processor doesn't go above 83 degrees, the heat generated by the processor then flows to the heat sink and the fan pushes air in the whole laptop base.

There is a reason because the fan has no direct hole below itself, and that is because it cools down the other components in the laptop by having the intake in specially designed areas, if you see the vents, they are exactly below the processor, the gpu, ram and HDD. My mod is not exactly aesthetic and I know it but I really wanted to cool down everything there, and besides, I like the aggressive form that it gets with that huge heat sink doing his job.

BTW, you really did a jod job cutting a precise circle in there, how did you made that? (also with what blockade you replaced the stock one?

 

Apologies there, I forgot what processor you were working with. I can see what you mean though. As it is, I do really like the color of the heatsink you used, even how it just fits into there. Nothing a little touch up with a dremel or hot knife can't fix if you desire to make the cut a little cleaner. You may even get away without the fan and use dowel foot pegs replacing the bumper legs it has already. Cut to size and angle and you could use a cooler yourself.

I used a 44mm hole saw and tried my best to find center of the fan. But after the parts were in, I forgot to account for the movement of the motherboard to the left side peripherals plate. I may still make it a touch bigger to even it out and still use the 120mm fan grille to cut to size and bend to shape for fitment.

Since we do occasionally game on these, or for some quite frequently. It's always recommended to use a cooler of some kind anyway.

ArticSilver 5 thermal paste
44mm hole saw (cut below fan)
Overclock CPU @ 2.8Ghz at v1.238 (lots of room for undervolt still)
Overclock GPU (whatever clock is stable)
Notebook cooler (preferably one that draws air down) - Macally Bamboo


Since I run dual 25" monitors on this and have aida64/rainmeter/bblean and many other background running apps. My temps still don't reach anywhere near 90°C ever.

 

dreamonic, that looks very clean, have you thought about putting heatsinks on the video ram? That should help with cooling of those I would think. I do understand everyone saying how cutting a hole affects the other things, since that fan also kinda vents out all the case air as well. What is your gpu oc at?

I want to do that, but then again id hate to have any issues with the laptop and have to RMA it. but i usually suspect problems are typically OC and software issues as opposed to actual hardware problems.

 

The GPU is @ 770/880 and still remains under 83°C during any amount of gaming. I did that flash in the dark, because I knew it would run. I will test before I go to 850/950 respectably, because it will generate another 3degrees more, it will still be under 85. Heatsinks on the vram is something I may look into. But I may try something else there.

Yeah, the fan draws the heat within the chassis area. So with the adjusment of air flow, the laptop internally is quite cooler because of it. Originally, I was going to get some copper rods and TIG one side (for each vram) to a small heatsink. You'd need 4 small rods and one bigger one to act as the channel, where the other 4 are connected to. Then you would have to drill into the fan shroud (at the end near the fins) a small slot where part of the bigger rod would fit into, from there, find out how much you need to press into a flat strip, and get it pressed. Then it will rest on the outside of the fins behind the casing.

BUTTTT....

I don't feel any other mod is necessary until you plan on breaking over 3Ghz CPU and 900/1200 on the GPU with overvolt. In that case, you would have to buy small copper rods and bend them yourself, probably have to order small quantity of various size heatsinks and once everything is to the liking, TIG it. (pretty much construct new heatpipes and possible use an adjustable fan in replace of what is in there. This with all keeping it stock form looking factor.

I'm not sure if within TDP, it can go any higher (shrugs)

 

can anyone (re)link the breakdown manual... i lost what page it was on. I think i failed to reconnect my front speakers lol.

 

Not that I use it for reference. WEI Scores

@ 3Ghz - 1.3v (still room to undervolt)

Processor: 7.3
Memory (RAM): 7.5


BurnTest: 87°C


GPU is now 770/950 @ 85°C

 

Turning off either cool n quiet or hardware thermal control seem to fix the throttle for me but:

Cool n quite off = no easy clock control
HTC off = I scare i burn my lappy ~~

edit: and I think it behave like that after I did repaste, maybe I apply too much and get heat to place where it shouldn't be ?
nvm , turn off HTC dont even help, I guess cool n quiet have to die for a few days

Using cool N quiet with fusion tweaker now . problem is it doesnt go below p4(p3 in k10)

 

Cinebench, pulled 3.50 pts @ 3Ghz
Stock @ 1.9Ghz was 2.37 pts.

Yeeaw!

 

If it's running over 50% it will use P0 state. Change the threshold. If not using C&Q, change your P3-P7 states to the same. And make B0-P2 your max OC you can do, while leaving the P3-P7 states relatively high (make it the same and it won't ever throttle) but for "away" purposes, could make the last P-State low.

I used FusionTweaker for the clocking and K10Stat for the throttling (which is relative to none)

 

this is with ms ahci driver.im happy as it is for the moment.

 

Where did you get these drivers? Do you mind posting a link? Also which bios are you using?

Im going to try the AMD ahci drivers in a few minutes

UPDATE: The numbers are almost identical Still NO SATA 3 speeds Whats wrong with my laptop lol
In Device Manager, all my drivers look like they are for IDE devices. Do you guys think my hard drive is stuck running in IDE mode?

 

Try removing the plastic above the CPU and GPU and you'll really see an improvement.

 

Google ATTO, download it and run it, then look at the maximum speeds.

 

Oh I see what you mean! I am quite happy with these speed reportings!

 

I think thats the workaround CnQ on + k10stat when need. I really love the cpu have plenty of p state cause I bring it to school alot w.o AC,
It would be nice if it doesnt throttle with cnq on.

 

I installed bad company 2 yesterday and I've only been getting 20-30fps on low settings in single player. According to notebook check it should be closer to 60fps. I made sure bc2 was set to high performance and that crossfire was disabled and no luck. I updated my graphics drivers by uninstalling the old ones through the amd installer and auto updating through amd's website. Windows is fully updated and I installed all of hp's updates through hp assistant. Any ideas?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/solid-state-drives-ssds-flash-storage/517916-how-improve-ssd-performance-intel-series-4-5-965-chipsets-stamatisx-tweak.html

This seem to help throttling when GPU on, I just did 5 min 2.5Ghz + kombustor and only get 1 spike throttle.(CnQ on)

Still get some throttle though , but @ least it dont lock down my CPU to 600mhz forever when both on.

 

Oh I see what you mean! I am quite happy with these speed reportings!



great numbers mate!

did a run with mine too.microsoft's driver standard achi sata driver i use.with amd's i get pretty much lower ratings in bench and got 2 freezes as well.

 

Sound like amd hate SF ssd .

 

Hi,
Ok sorry if this has been answered but I used the "search this thread" function and nothing would come up (even when I searched terms such as "dv6" which I know are in these posts, so I am probably searching incorrectly).
I have an HP DV6-6135dx refurb with onboard Radeon HD 6620G as well as a 6750M, running the latest AMD Vision Engine drivers (11.12). I also upgraded the display to an 1080p screen.
My display has some sort of auto-dimming function (most notably when using a web browser and having my display not on full brightness). For instance, if I am at the Google homepage and I search, as the search results page comes up, my screen will dim a bit to compensate for all the text now on the screen (as opposed to Google's mostly-white background). It seems the more "white" the overall image on the screen, the brighter the display gets, and when I go to a darker overall image, the screen dims. My Sharp LCD TV does something very similar.
Does anyone know any way to disable this? I searched through all the options in AMD Vision control center, there is only one option that mentions "dynamic contrast" but it is grayed out seemingly on the off-position and I cannot manipulate it.
Any help or suggestions are very appreciated!
Thanks.

 

I believe it is called vari-bright feature. Go to CCC-Power-Powerplay.

 

FOR ALL THAT IS HOLY AND IN THE NAME OF KING ZEUS I BEQUEATH ON YOU A MILLION LIFETIMES OF HEALTH AND FORTUNE WITH INNUMERABLE HAREMS OF WHATEVER IT IS YOU ARE INTO AND TESTICLES SO POTENT* YOU MAY PASS YOUR GENETIC SUPREMACY TO ADORING FEMALES* UNTIL THIS PLANET IF OVERRUN BY TINY YOUS.

*assuming you are male.

Man I swear I looked at all the options on CCC and I never saw that! I'm so glad you helped me thanks!

 

A sure sign of a job well done baiii, lol

 

Yeah vari-bright is a PitA. I always disable it, once I found out about it too!

 

hey guys my Sensors tab of gpu-z has max memory clock only going to 237.1 Mhz. The initial GPU-z tab shows 780-880 overclock'ed bios I am using. This is while running kombustor or a game. Is this the correct reading(just not mulitplied?) or is it downclocked for any number of reasons?

Or short mode: What is everyone's gpu-z max mem clock when gaming?

 

i totally agree with you mate.dont know why though.

 

This discussion forum rocks and its clear that there are some pretty knowledgable people here. I know this is off topic but I just bought a dv6 6188ca for $799 from Best Buy. My first question is: Did I pay too much? My second question is: What is the consensus on the light bleed from the hp logo when the screen turns off on the LED LCD display? Nuisance or defect?

Would appreciate any advice from the gurus in this forum. Thanks!

 

is the a8-3500m and 6750m any good for gaming?

 

yes, alot of people consider it the best $500 gaming laptop that can play decently if you are into tweaking your system. I am waiting for mine to come in on tuesday

 

I have experience with 2 of these dv6z laptop(replacement from newegg). Both have them, people even have a thread about it on HP forum. My returned 1 is really bad, have a whole squre or light bleed , the replacement is better but can be seen when boot up. It doesnt affect anything when your LCD is on.

iirc, I read unplugging the HP logo led light helps. The hp log light itself is .... design ne ways. I think it is make there so I cant leave my laptop lid close and download at night...........? Now everynight i have to cover it with mouse..

HT have experience with several dv6 qe ,does the light bleed happen on every one of yours?

 

so its good if tweaked? what about at stock?

 

your not going to find an intel cpu powered laptop under $700 that can compete with it in graphics

 

Exactly.

Something to think about..

I've gone through both Artist Editions and they had overheating problems, dv6000/9000 series too. It kinda made me skeptical about buying another HP product, but the price was just too good to pass up on this one. It's hard to find a decent build laptop that CAN play games when you want it to and not break the bank doing so, AMD and HP had it right this time.

The cooling efficiency in these laptops have improved a lot since the previous models. It was the first thing I noticed.

Stock it does pretty good (on gaming grounds) if you don't know Llano's potential, but once you do it's somewhat of bragging rights when you achieve it.

 

Yep. I think I lucked out because there doesn't seem to be any bleed when the panel shuts off.

As to clock speeds, anyone can safely open Afterburner and pull the graphics slider to 725MHz Core, hit "Apply" and play their games with the speed of a 6770M. That is a bulletproof graphics overclock. Anything above that is less certain, max Core usually stops at or below 800MHz. And the Mem clock may stop anywhere from 850 up to 1000 MHz, an incredibly wide variation. You can use a custom BIOS file to lock the new speed (if one is available), but I like being able to freely over/under clock the GPU on demand.

Setting decreased voltage and increased speed for the CPU doesn't take very long, but it may be a few weeks before you gain confidence in the new settings. I am still playing when there's time.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/ca/en/ho/WF06b/321957-321957-3329744-64354-64354-5082216-5141521.html
Is this the laptop you were talking about? HP seems to think it is worth $1200, so $800 is okay. Has the 3530, a 17" screen, 1.5TB HDD, bluray, 8GB of RAM and the 9-cell battery. Does not include a 1080p screen. Claims you can allocate up to 4GB of RAM to the iGPU...? (6755G2 with up to 4.98GB total memory) So....HP is in fact making dv7z Quad Edition AMD laptops. It should have similar of better cooling compared to dv6z series, and I think there's an empty HDD bay. So adding an SSD later would be possible WITHOUT taking out the BDROM.

Materially there is not much difference between 3530M and 3500M when overclocking the CPU, but bigger screen and bigger battery may be important. I think the price you paid was OK. Especially for $800CN ? You'll be running fast and cool, but the battery life can be pushed over 12 hours for light duty! For gaming it will be from 3-8 hours depending HOW NEW the game is and WHAT POWER SETTINGS you use with it. I have the basic 6-cell and it delivers just over two hours in Crysis 2 or more than FIVE hours in Oblivion. Intel gaming laptops generally can't touch those numbers.

 

Curious: Has anyone else had an issue where the optical drive doesn't want to read discs until you've put them in multiple times?

 

sorry if this is a dumb question but im not understanding how the graphic card works on this thing. so can you set it to use only the integrated chip? or the discrete only? and what about crossfire? when does it kick in?

 

That is pretty good gaming battery. I can play about 2.5 hours of Skyrim on my laptop, with the brightness lower.

 

Right click desktop, choose "configure switchable graphics" and then either browse for the game exe or after you run the game once (and exit) then it should show up in the list. Just select it and choose power saving (IGP) or high performance (dedicated). To get crossfire just right click desktop go to graphics properties (right click desktop), make sure to choose advanced graphics options (under preferences upper right), and then expand gaming lower left, and you can turn crossfire on or off there. Newer drivers call it "dual radeon graphics" or something like that.

 

kevmanw, I think my dv6z will deliver about 3.5+ hrs in Crysis or Skyrim if I buy the 9-cell. It has roughly double capacity and with more cells there will be less heating stress. With an economical SSD, Skyrim should last more than 4 hrs for sure. It's not an HD 68xxM or 69xxM, but it also doesn't need a 300W adapter and it can play serious games for significant periods on battery power. I think I got my money's worth. And $150 for a battery is fine when it will last so long. I may buy one. (4-12 hr primary with 2-6 hr backup......sexy!)

 

Yeah, you guys with z series get about an hour more gaming battery, as I have the 9-cell as well.