[WIP] You can overclock (FSB) the Sager NP5760 (Clevo M570U)

EDIT:

I was able to successfully try out cunningd46's method of overclocking the Clevo M570U based notebook. It's very simple. Just download ClockGen at http://www.cpuid.com/clockgen.php (currently v1.0.5.3) and:
1. Choose the PLL from the PLL SETUP menu and select ICS 950405
2. Checkmark the IGNORE PCI/AGP.
3. Click READ CLOCKS.
4. The 9th byte of the PLL OUTPUT is most likely set to 7E. Change it to 7F. Click UPDATE then APPLY.
5. Now you are able to overclock via PLL CONTROL by simply sliding the bar (fine tuned).

THANKS SO MUCH CUNNINGD46 of TECHPOWERUP for showing this!

Also, for those who like to overclock, keep in mind you can set a high overclock and keep cool by only using it when needed by CPU load based throttling enabled with RMClock at www.rightmark.com. Be sure to turn off C/G states power maangement in the BIOS first.

Original post:
Hi everyone,

I've been studying PLL's on the Clevo M570U. I determined the PLL is by ICS/IDT and follows the CK410M standard and seems to work with ICS 954204 bitsets.

So assuming its a ICS 954204 I've been able to change the frontside bus via Clockgen/SetFSB by editing the PLL registers directly.

Here's what you need to do to change the registers on the ics954204 via ClockGen:
1. Run clockgen and select ICS954119 within PLL Setup
2. Click Read Clocks
3. In IC Dump you should see the following bytes (or very similar):
3E FF F9 00 04 44 8B 11 3C 7E 15
CA 3C E6 3B 00 9D 61 08 D5 34

FSB Table:
0 0 0 266.67 100.00 33.33 14.318 48.00 96.00
0 0 1 133.33 100.00 33.33 14.318 48.00 96.00
0 1 0 200.00 100.00 33.33 14.318 48.00 96.00
0 1 1 166.67 100.00 33.33 14.318 48.00 96.00
1 0 0 333.33 100.00 33.33 14.318 48.00 96.00
1 0 1 100.00 100.00 33.33 14.318 48.00 96.00
1 1 0 400.00 100.00 33.33 14.318 48.00 96.00
1 1 1 200.00 100.00 33.33 14.318 48.00 96.00

To change the FSB according to ICS954204.pdf:
1. In ClockGen select the byte06 (8B) in the IC Dump.
2. Change the binary value to 10001xxx where xxx is the first three digits in the above FSB table.

Currently I can only change the FSB to:
133.33 (001)
166.67 (011)
100.00 (101)

This may be due to my RAM or other components. I'd like to know if someone can reach higher than the stock 166.67 FSB, especially at 11x multiplier!

Tips to help those who try this:
The byte06 (8B) bitset has test features built in to lower the FSB a bit which might help. To do this enable the following bits by setting them to 1: 111xxxxx
The byte01 (FF) can be change to FE to disable spread spectrum.
The spread spectrum is controlled by the byte09 (7E).

So in short I've been able to change the frontside bus but not higher than the normal 166.67 speed. For those who might be able to reach about 190MHz FSB, you're in luck for sure. I have a feeling the PCI/PCI-E/SATA isn't being locked and that's why I can't reach a higher FSB.

For those who are worried about trying this, there is a risk of turning your computer into a brick. My computer works fine and all I need to do when I set the PLL to a wrong state was reboot. I did my tests with C states turned off in the BIOS.

Hope this helps someone, and can help me reach a higher FSB for the love of overclocking.

 

I've confirmed this to work. I am currently running stable at:
CPU: 2.2GHz
FSB: 200MHz
RAM: 400MHz

I'm using Mushkin RAM direct from their own storefront. It's DDR 566 and is only $155 for 2GB (2x1024). Working great!

 

How are you planning to deal with the increased heat? I think cooling pads can only handle so much.

 

That's kind of cool these mobos can overclock

what's are the temps for idle/load and overclock/stock? (also it would be nice of you to also record the GPU and hdd temps)

 

What is your CPU? And the original settings?

 

Sorry, about the lack of information about my setup:
It's a M570U with a T5600 Core2Duo (Merom) Stepping 6 Rev. B2 with a stock speed of 1.83GHz / 166MHz FSB.

I overclocked it safely to just slightly under 200MHz FSB (seems to be a sort of lock after that point but I'm not sure what causes it and what is needed to bypass it). At that point with a CPU load of constantly over 50% for 10 minutes my CPU cores were running at 47C. I'm barely feeling any heat and the fans aren't needing to be revved up. All is well and the 7950 GTX creates much more heat if used (especially with some overclocking). I suggest using RMClock from www.rightmark.org to throttle down the CPU by CPU load just in case heat is for some reason an issue (it doesnt seem to be for me). These Core2Duo's seem to overclock very well and output little heat. I'm very impressed.

 

What happens if you get it too high (the FSB)? I mean have you ever locked you laptop this way? I remember in my old desktop days I sometimes had to open up the case to reset the CMOS on the motherboard because the board completely refused to boot up. I don't want to do that with my lappy.

 

Oh no, it doesn't lock up in that sense. There was a sort of barrier of overclocking past a 200MHz FSB. If put to 200 or more ClockGen will not set the overclock. If you do overclock past what your laptop can handle, it will just freeze and all that's needed is to power off and power back on.

 

Mmmm, the geek in me is tempted. I always overclocked my desktops ).

I'm just affraid it could lock up before the 200 hhz barrier.

Time to do some testing then...

Well, for some reason I lock up at just over 185Mhz FSB. This allows me to run @ just a tad over the 2Ghz barrier. I believe my micron RAM is probably on the cheap side.

On another note, i am quite impressed that automatically when a lock up occurs you reboot and voila, back to 1.8Ghz . I've yet to see a desktop doing this lol... All desktop boards claim they do it, but I've yet to see one do lol...

 

Just an update to my original findings...
The PLL is most likely (from the looks of the M570A Service Manual) an ICS 954266. IDT/ICS have not released the datasheet on this one yet. You can use ICS 954148 in ClockGen 1.0.5.3 just fine but I believe it's still overclocking the PCI/AGP bus even when you ignore them.

Also, if you hibernate/sleep the notebook your overclocks will most likely reset. Strangely sometimes the overclock also sticks after you power off, other times it doesn't.

 

When you do a reset, most motherboards just flush the system RAM, flush the CPU cache, HD Cache, and continue on their marry way... That would leave the hardware in essentially whatever state you left it in. This is why sometime's you have to "cold boot" a system when there is a hardware error.

 

Hmm, makes sense, similar to how I handle savestates when programming emulators.

I can understand the hibernate/sleep resetting the overclock since when it flushes the CPU/motherboard registers it probably restores the proper 0x7E for byte 9 instead of 0x7F which resets the overclock.

What I don't understand is having an overclocked system. Power off completely (the AC cord is plugged in still, this may be why this occurs). Hours later you can sometimes boot up and the overclock will be in place. I'm not sure how the PLL is storing power for so long, could be many things I suppose.