A helpful post for M11X noobs.

Just stumbled upon this forum, and for the VAST amounts of information that seems to exist here, I am very surprised that there is no "Noob" friendly posts that lists out all of the questions a m11x noob (such as myself) might ask, for example:

- How do I know what revision m11x I have? How can I tell?

- What are my options for overclocking with my revision? Do I HAVE to pinmod to overclock with whatever revision I have?

- What's the best way to go about overclocking the GPU on an m11x, hardware, software, etc?

I plan to post the link to every post that answers the above questions to help other future m11x noobs.

 

Sorry to disappoint you, however, I know for a fact that these threads actually do indeed exist. Most information should be found in stickies as well.

Trust me, when I say, these questions were brought here since probably day 1, if not near, of its release.

 

Very brief guide:

1) - Telling the difference

Generally speaking all of the M11x models look similar. A quick way to tell them apart is:

R1 - Came in shiny black and silver finishes and has a VGA port on the left hand side

R2 - Came in soft touch black, silver and red finishes (I think) and does not have a VGA port on the left hand side.

R3 - As R2 but has a USB 3.0 port on the left hand side instead of the powered USB2.0 port.

There might be other differences but these are just off the top of my head. Of course you can find out which is which based on the CPU / GPU as well:

R1 - Core 2 based CPU's coupled with switchable (manual) GT335m
R2 - Core iX (arrandale) based CPU's coupled with optimus GT335m (auto switching)
R3 - 2nd Gen SB based Core iX CPU's coupled with optimus GT540m

2) Overclocking

R1 - There is a overclock option in the bios. This switches between 1.3GHz (200x6.5) and 1.6GHz (266x6). There are futher overclocking options in the shape of a pinmod + software OC (ICS PLL), or a "hard" pinmod (SLG PLL). Both can offer up to around 2GHz on a decent CPU / memory but obviously your mileage will vary and you have to break open the laptop to do it.

Further volt mods are also available.

R2 - Overclocking is done in the usual (desktop) manner in the bios. I believe you have a scale between 133 and 166MHz in 1MHz steps. This is just like overclocking a desktop although far more limited (no voltage adjustments, memory timings can be altered).

Arrandale i5 & i7 CPU's can "turbo" or increase their multipliers automatically as long as they stay within their TDP/TDC limit (preset). Overclocking via the bios will cause the CPU to breach these limits and throttle itself back hence:

Overclocking in the bios *must* be coupled with throttlestop. This excellent little program prevents the cpu throttling and thus reducing it's multiplier automatically under load. Throttlestop allows this TDP/TDC limit to be adjusted thus giving more breathing room before throttling becomes an issue (if at all).

Further overclocking is available via SetPLL (software) but this will only work if you are 100% stable at the bios max (166MHz).

I don't have an R2 so can't comment on the details but I understand that without TS overclocking the R2 is pointless as it ends up throttling constantly.

R3 - I am not aware of a way to overclock the SB based processors in the R3. It would be best to read up on the SB architecture to find out why overclocking the R3 will be very difficult without control of the turbo multipliers.

3) GPU overclocking

In all cases overclocking the GPU is easy. Either use MSI afterburner or EVGA precision to increase the GPU core, Shader and memory clocks. How far you can take these clocks will depend on your GPU.

There is a bios flash available to give you an extra 0.05v on the GPU core but whether this will give you any extra GPU headroom will be down to the GPU itself.

In all cases your overclocking mileage may vary.

 

You've blown me away, I had to call dell support to see what version I had, I asked them for an easier way to tell (so others can do it easily), a place to type it in online or something but they couldn't help me other than just tell me my own revision.. but you confirmed it.

I was going to post a link to each thread that responds to the above questions but you answered them all so no need to, you are awesome.

I do have soldering skills, I've bought and put together home-made radio kits... but those pins are REALLY small and I'm not confident enough in my soldering skills to attempt to try it myself, so I'm going to try going to a repair shop and having someone do it for me, hopefully for 20 bucks.

I'm having a problem with the video going green when I view video using the on-board card when I overclock the system, so prior to sending it in to get modded, I'll try and figure out if this problem is a software issue or not, if it isn't I'll be sending it in since its under warrenty, and mod it after it gets back.

edit: I just found a post describing the exact same problem I have, seems like an issue that other people have, an issue that has not been fixed. I wonder if this issue is covered under the warrenty since it only happens when the laptop is overclocked using the stock bios setting of "Enable".

Thanks again, I wish the answers were more apparent but I did browse the stickies and read through each post and didn't see links to the answers.

 

No problem. There is a massive amount of information on these forums but I do agree that it can be a bit daunting if you are reading for the first time.

The Pinmod thread created by DavyGT is a must if you are thinking about pushing further than the stock overclock. You want to check what PLL check you have first (the guide is in the opening post of Davy's thread) before going further.