Sager NP9280 / D900F - Found the PLL!

For those interested,

I got the itch to take apart my D900F to find the PLL. After removing almost everything, I removed the keyboard and there it was! Lower left hand corner, close to the WIFI and Bluetooth modules.

The top of the IC reads as follows:

IDT
CV193DPAG
Z0912J

As I was messing around with SetFSB last night, found that the current PLL CV193CPAG was partially working.

I have already emailed the owner of SetFSB with this same information. So hopefully there will be an update which supports our IC and we will be able to push our chips like most of us would like to be able to.

 

This is great news finally, thanks for your work! Have you tried overclocking you 900F and what type of results you got so far?

 

I don't own a D900F but +rep anyway. It's about time someone found the PLL for this model.

 

Well using whats currently in SetFSB, I am using CV193CPAG.

I can only take the BCLK from 133 to 138. As soon as you try 139, boom it locks up.

I have even tried disabled Turbo Boost to see how far I can push the CPU.

The problem is not the CPU, its the memory.

The memory I have is rated at 1066. The only reason I am able to even hit 138 BCLK is because of the divider already in place.

I am not sure if having 1333mghz ram with an i920 is worth it. I believe it will be downclocked to 1066mghz if using a i920. Though the overhead for overclocking in memory might be there because of this.

Attached image of 138BCLK and effects on memory.

 

Just a quick update.

I already got a response back from the Owner of SetFSB and he is working with the Data and there will be a possible release soon which has our own PLL for the Sager NP9280 / D900F.

 

i have ram rated for 1333MHz but it doesnt help either. i tried exactly what you did some time ago and stopped at the exact same point (138MHz FSB)
problem is the memory timing. as one can see in your image there are different timing-sets stored in the ram's config. you can see that the timings for 533 (1066) are tighter then those for higher speeds. now as you oc the fsb the memory speed increases but its still using the tight timing-set from 533. soon (at 138MHz FSB) this becomes too tight. i couldnt find a way to make it use the more loose timingsets

 

have you taken a look at this:

SPDTool: Read, Edit and Flash your Memory's SPD

I will give that a try now. You should do the same. Because I know, just as you, the issue is related to the memory.

Well after spending the last 4 hours with the creator of setfsb, he has determined because of something related to the CV193DPAG that it will not work.

The chase was fun while it lasted.

 

some minor results:

i've been able to push the FSB to 139 Mhz (2780 Mhz CPU)
but trying 140 locked it up again

the Pll "CV183APAG" works as well

i tried SPDTool, but couldnt see much sense in what it read from my memory modules. so i didnt try to change anything. maybe it works better with your memory type.
i still think its the memory timing that holds it back.
my ram has timimings of 7-7-7-20 for 533Mhz and 9-9-9-24 for 666Mhz. so its pretty plausible to lock up at FSB 139 (RAM 556) with the timings ment for 533.
question is now how can i make it use the timingset for 666MHz?

 

Post a screenie of your ram in the spdtool. there are tons of writeups using google that will show you what settings change what in the spdtool program.

All the nano-timings are based on the "SDRAM Cycle time".

The ns-based timings are the "sdram cycle time" multiplied by the cycle-based timmings.

e.g. my spd of the ex 333 module was saying at 166 tras 7 , and at 133 tras 6 , the tras in both cases is 166->(7x6ns)42ns , 133->(7.5x6)45ns , so the minimun tras it reports the spdtool is 42ns

 

thanks for the explanation, but i still cant make sense of what SPDTool reads from my RAMs.
maybe you can?
screenshot:

spd-dump:
View attachment module0.zip

 

i will look at the file, have these files been modified at all by you? or are they straight from the stock ram stick?

try writing this to the ram module you pulled the settings from. and booting it up with this stick in alone. and see if setfsb is able to go up higher than 138-139

when you download the zip dont actually unzip it. its uncompressed, just rename the file extension to ".spd"

 

thanks alot for doing the modification!
the initial file was from stock
i compared the files and found the spot you changed
will try flashing it as soon as i find the time to open my laptop ... and remove the cpu-heatsink ... *douh!*

 

no problem, i kept all the timings the same, the slower clocked ram will give you more headroom to up your qpi (fsb), the timings wont matter until you get back up to stock frequency of the ram which will then be significantly higher @ northbridge. by this time

 

any update bro?

 

no, sorry man ... this is my primary work equipment - so its hard to find some time to tear it apart. but i'll take some days off soon... i'll keep you updated

 

Thanks for that update. I'll be standing by comm 1 for any news on this subject.

 

just so you know. you need only flash 1 ram stick. this will downclock all the other modules, or you could simply flash 1 ram stick and run the single stick at first to test it out. just make sure you make a backup of the original ram so you can revert back to it if it doesnt post

 

Thaiphoon burner is better than spdtool, less likely to brick your ram.
And it doesn't have problems in vista/win7.

 

OK, I looked up Pll and learned it stands for "phased-locked loop" which is what controls the clock generator (speed) of the cpu. So I guess this helps overclock the Ram or the CPU?

What issue?

 

The memory speed dependson the fsb. If the fsb is increased the speed of the memory will increase too much. Th solution is to use higher speed modules.

 

I thought it makes them slower?

Anyway the solution is not to buy 1333mhz RAM because it will downclock to the same cas 7 of most 1066mhz RAM.
You guys look like you figured it out but what you need is cas 9 at 1066mhz.

 

With the modified BIOS that Kizwan made, you can set what speed your RAM runs. I'm gonna try and see if I can overclock my CPU by using that option that was enabled in the modified BIOS.

 

Any updates on this?