dm3(z) HD 3200 CPU/GPU Over/Underclocking

Hey all, long-time lurker with a first real post here. There was a thread like this, but quickly got diverted into an Intel-only discussion, which was further diverted into a discussion about drivers...way to stay on task guys I want to talk about the AMD version, because I'm excited about my experiences, and want to share and gain from the rest of you guys.

I recently picked up an open item + refurbished dm3-1039 from my local MicroCenter for $362 after tax It's the model that comes with the Athlon Neo L335 (dual core, 1.6) and the HD 3200 with something like 256 or 384 of sideport memory. It's a nice little machine, definitely performing beyond my expectations, but because I have 7 days to figure out if I want it or not, and upon return, anything broken wouldn't seem too strange (since it was already returned once), I decided to take her out for some fun before making my final verdict.

Underclocking
So, I've seen a bunch of various significant and insignificant results from underclocking this genre of AMD chip. The biggest gains were on the dm2's MV-40 chip, which is a single core. People were seeing gains in the neighborhood of 30 minutes if they ran it "speedstep'd" down to 800mhz and undervolted. I'm not that guy...I can't be happy unless I'm going fast, but I figured I'd give undervolting a shot to see if I couldn't hit an official 6 hours. Unfortunately, I couldn't undervolt for squat. Undervolted for .075 gain, and it wasn't really even noticeable to pay off for the potential stability issues.
Q1: This chip doesn't recognize in ANY software very well, so when I went to undervolt, it said all steppings were running at 1v, is this normal?
Q2: Any reason why, when others were seeing an almost universal easy .1v underclock, I couldn't get past .075? Every time I volted down to .9v and ran a CPU stressor I crashed after just a few minutes.
Q3: If you've had any experience undervolting on this chipset, please take a second to post your experiences.
Q4: Not entirely familiar with voltage and OC'ing, but if I drop the voltage on my CPU, will it affect the ceiling for possible GPU overclocks?

Overclocking
Though I've seen plenty of other people overclocking this family on MSI, Acer, and Toshiba machines, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that HP, in using a combination of obscure bargain-basement components and then locking down the platform, has made overclocking the CPU impossible. If anyone can speak to a dm3 overclock, I'M LISTENING! I tried Overdrive, ATITools (lol, atit), Crystal, RMClock, and a few other really obscure software methods, and couldn't get it. Of course SetFSB is out because the PLL is a mystery/would be locked anyway. And a cracked HP BIOS is *so* far out of my realm of hardware expertise (I'm a security guy). So, fail.

However, that doesn't mean I can't tweak the HD 3200 I downloaded a number of tools to varying degrees of useful/uselessness, but the best was the AMD GPU Clock Tool. It has some quirks, like reporting the clock speed in a multiplier division, but it worked. I can post screens for anyone that's really interested in proof, but I got mine up to 700mhz stable, no noticeable artifacts (I would say none, but I'm not a professional artifact detector). I say stable in that I played WoW for about 20 minutes at 675mhz, then completed a full 3dMark06 bench at 700mhz. Because I don't think we have a real good way of knowing how hot the HD 3200 is running, aside from what *I think* is a mobo temp monitor (ACPI-TZ01 is the label for the sensor), I got a little scared to go further, as at this point he was cranking out a minimum of 25 fps in a 1280x700 Dalaran and was growing on me I maxed out at a 3dMark06 of ~1420.

Q1: Anyone have any experiences along these lines?
Q2: Anyone have any experiences finding official GPU temps, or can tell me exactly what TZ01 is monitoring?
Q3: Let's say for arguments' sake that TZ01 is a semi-reliable measure of GPU heat...how hot is too hot? I got that sensor up to ~75C, but my old notebook (a Conroe-based core duo) ran at like 100C for three years like it was no big deal. My CPU temps seem to stay stable despite the GPU getting flogged at 700mhz.
Q4: Anyone know anything about gains from resetting CPU/GPU heatsinks with good thermal paste? I've heard mixed reviews.
Q5: Anyone think I'm nuts to try for more of an OC? The desktop has been reported to go 900mhz without much effort...very tempting.
Q6: I had assumed touching the memory clock was a no-go...right?

Hope this thread helps someone, and hope it can let someone help me!

Edit: In case I forgot them, search terms - dm3, dm3z, Athlon Neo X2 L335, Radeon Mobile HD 3200, HD3200, 770 780 chipset

 

I'd actually be interested in finding a way to underclock/disable a core of my HP DM3 Neo L335 processor and be able to switch to normal mode when I want. I love this laptop, but sometimes 4.5 hours isn't enough.

 

I have a 512MB ATI Radeon HD 3410 in my DV2 and since it's only a small step up from the 3200 I thought I might share my experiences:

-These 3xxx mobile chips can overclock SIGNIFICANTLY, I went from 450mhz core/500mhz vram(video memory) to a game stable 708mhz core/602mhz vram.
-Overclocking the VRAM will yield more performance than overclocking core speed.
-Swaaye and I have tried to research Athlon neo MV-40 overclocking, but all our efforts have been for nothing. However, the guys at HWbot have been able to get the Athlon neo mv-40 1.6GHz to 2.24GHz with stock cooling, which seems strange because we couldn't even figure out how to start. We eventually found the mobo model, but the PLL didn't work in any of the programs we tried.

 

So what underclock voltages and temp reductions have people got on their AMDs?

 

i want to be able to overclock my mv-40 so bad.. but cant find anything on how to do it, also i cant get the hd 3200 in my toshiba overclocked either..

 

I underclocked my AMD Neo X2 L335 cpu which is originally at 1.6ghz to 1 core at 800mhz to save energy costs. I did this by installing and running RMClock CPU utility and running the CPU only on the lowest multiplier at 4.0x.

If I run my DM3z at 1 core, 800mhz, with my screen brightness at 30%, bluetooth off, Wifi on, and not running any flash content on the web, I get about 4.5-5.5 hours which is a lot better than the 3-3.5 hours I would usually get. But I also have my computer running absolutely no unnecessary processes to take load off my CPU.

 

@ajnauron
did you ever figure out how to overclock the neo mv-40? im having no luck what so ever finding anything,

thanks

 

hi could you tell me how did you overclocked the radeon hd3200 because i used several software with no luck and with amd gpu overclock it gives weird engine readings (26.4, 48.8mhz) so it's obviously not those numbers and the memory reads 400 mhz but if i increase the engine it resets to the first reading and overclocking the memory makes windows lag and eventually give a bsd

by the way i am using a acer Aspire 5532 with the hd 3200 and a amd turion tl-66 (2.3 ghz)

and for the record i was able to overclock the cpu with setfsb

 

@Tompzone

how were you able to overclock the cpu?? i cant figure out which pll.
and im having the same problem with overclocking the hd 3200.. no luck there either.

 

well i overclocked the cpu using setfsb it was the only thing that worked got my tl-66 (2.3) to 2.6 stable, i tried the speed of 2.8 just to check and windows crashed

 

forgot to say which clock slg8lp625t