M15x FSB Overclocking (not only 920XM!)

he also linked this thread as well. I had never mentioned it to him so i guess he must check it out periodically.

 

He got so mad at me last time when I asked that I had to use my wife's email and account to order setfsb to make sure he would offer it again. All I did was ask about possibility of future support and if we can do anything to gather info and I got the bright red size 40 font I CAN NOT SUPPORT AT THIS TIME!!!!

Oh well.. I hope he keeps at it. Best Wishes, StevenX

 

lol oh I asked him if there was anything i could do to help him find a solution and asked if the "ASUS N61JQ" clock generator would work after he told me my comp wasn't supported. I didn't get any red txt back though : p

 

Does this info apply to the 40 series of these CPUs, like the 740QM?

Kojaku

 

It should do, we ignored it up till now because they came with new motherboards. I have no way of testing whether the new 40 chips would work, please let us know if you find out and I'll update the first post

 

A couple of quick questions for you, Pras. Does this OC overclock all states or just the single core state? And also, I see you OCed past 150. What temps do you get and what frequency are you specifically clocked up to? Oh and also, would you guess that the 40 series chips can OC further than the 20s? And one last thing. Is there a more permanent solution that doesn't affect sleep mode and turning off the comp? Assuming I find a stable OC that is...

Kojaku

 

Hey there..

The overclock is for the FSB (old skool!) and since the CPU works off a multiplier then it ends up going faster but still uses the same multipliers - On the 720QM it's 7-21x133MHz.

When I'm running at 133MHz and pushing the CPU using OCCTPT I tend to get around 80ish and with the overclock at 150-160 I can get anything from 90-95 if I remember right. Of course, OCCTPT is not a realistic usage but a benchmark that pushes are hard as possible.

In real-word rendering or gaming (using all 8 threads maxed out) such as Lightwave or Powerdirector, I tend to get around 60-65 at 133MHz and a maximum of 75 or 80 at 150-160Mhz. Nothing to worry about really.

When overclocked to 160MHz, the fans still never reach max speed, which I would take as a - it's hot but not too hot - sign. So personally I'm not worried about it. On a 940XM, the story might be quite different, I have no idea.

General rule - 90 is on the edge. It's still safe enough in terms of hardware tolerance but your machine will not like being that hot for days weeks and months on end if you use it a lot overclocked.

Basic rule of thumb - overclock when you specifically need it and not all the time. Remember it does push things harder than normal so you are potentially asking for trouble. I've been overclocking mine for 6 months now without issue.

Good luck and please let us know more info about your overclock such as CPU model etc.. Thanks!!!

 

Yes, it's definitely possible to overclock an i7 740QM with SetFSB, a friend of mine has this CPU and is capable of getting the the frequency up to about 155 Mhz.

Technically, the i7 architecture doesn't have a FSB anymore, what you can change with SetFSB is called BCLK, base clock and this gets adjusted by the PLL as far as I know... but the important thing is that it works.

 

So can I just close setfsb before I sleep my laptop and it'd be no problem?

Kojaku

 

@Kojaku - it's software controlled so once you reboot it resets itself back to default 133.

StevenX

 

Yes, but keep in mind that closing SetFSB won't change the clock back to standard values.

 

Since I can't oc my CPU do u know any where I can get a cheap 920xm?

 

Oh. That's perfect then so it won't mess with sleep mode, but the clocks will remain when I wake from sleep mode? And when I boot up it'll be back to stock clocks (assuming I shut down?

 

PM widezu69, I think he has one for sale... otherwise on ebay you'll always find some good deals, I got mine from there.

Let me check this to make sure... I don't wan't to tell you bs...

Edit: No... sleep mode will reset the clock to 133MHz.

 

So what if I set setFSB as a startup process. Will that make it OC automatically? And also, what specifically does SetFSB do to mess up sleep mode (what happens?)?

 

When you warm reboot the machine the overclock remains on. Turning off and on resets it. DOn't use SLEEP while overclocked - always crashes, at least for me. (this is covered in the notes in the first post)

There are also instructions on the first post to overclock automatically (via command line utility). Although I wouldn't use it as a startup shortcut for two reasons: Having the machine overclocked always is not a great idea, do it when you will benefit rather than leaving it overclocked. Also Boot-time is not the most stable time to change clocks. Rebooting at 150MHz is fine but I personally don't like the idea of a hard crash at bootup. Better to have a settle-period of a minute or two (just my preference).

 

Hmm... I had no issues with sleep mode... but I wouldn't set a fix overclock neither. It's easy enough to set it whenever you really need it, but it's really not necessary for browsing or similar.


I just played around a bit more with SetFSB but I wasn't able to push it over 143 MHz, the system always crashes after 10-15 seconds.

wPrime on 143 MHz with Throttlestop on (25x across all cores) worked fine, 100% load and no issues during this short test.
CPU running at 3.6 GHz on 8 threads is cool

I don't really need SetFSB, throttlestop powerful enough, but I'm wondering whether anyone else here has tested SetFSB on an extreme processor... I'm curious whether some are able to push it further. Please let me know!

 

WHOA. So Throttlestop just changes the multiplier? Doesn't that cause some ridiculous heat? and is that serious? from x13 to x25?

 

I remember Inap tried it but like you didn't get so much out of it since the processor is already overclockable. It's all in the thread somewhere, have a read through sometime if you haven't already Lots of interesting stuff in here.

 

Yes, that's serious This CPU is a real best, 24-25 multi acros all cores is easily possible while gaming and similar.

However, when running such a high mulit across all cores and having continously 100% load like in a wPrime test the heat will send up the temps... hehe, yes I tried it.


@Mr Pras

Cool, I'll browse the thread a bit.

 

@All - concerning setFSB.. is their a way to keep the ramming from going up in speed as we increase the FSB? I know we have some options in the bios but I really dont think they adjust the ram. I have tried different settings and it makes zero difference in terms of performance with bios settings.

I would love to give the cpu a little more voltage if that is possible to see if I could clock it up a bit more.

Any thoughts or ideas? Could we use a conductive pen or something to add voltage ?

BW, StevenX

 

In order to edit the frequencies, I have to donate an use the Asus profile?

Kojaku

 

I had to donate...

 

Yes, and he will send you the key.

 

Is there a required donation amount? And can someone confirm the Asus thing?

 

I'm fairly confident that the limits aren't in the CPU for us 720QM users. I think the CPU could probably go further than 3.35GHz and keep going. I think it's the FSB/RAM that can't deal with 160MHz..

Before messing with the mobo directly I would definitely go for a 940XM.. It outperforms our overclocked 720s by a wide margin anyway.. AFAIK

 

Abo said that ICS9LRS3197AKLF still has a problem. But I still asked him for an activation key. I could go till 138.5MHz without any problem.Beyond that my system freezes.Btw,I'm using an i7 740qm.So ,its running 1796.0MHz on all threads.Overall ,its a slight but stable overclock.

 

Just regarding the RAM going up with the CPU I believe this is because of how the i7 works. When I overclock my desktop the CPU and RAM are linked by the Bclk frequency, increasing the Bclk increases both the CPU and RAM.

 

Yes, that's exactly how it works. It's determined by the QuickPath Interconect (QPI) clock speed which is something like Bclk x QPI multi as far as I know.

It doesn't make sense to overclock the CPU but not the RAM imo... think about it, the results of the CPU calculations must end up somewhere, and if the you speed up the processor but not the memory something is "out of sync", well that's simplified, but you get the idea.

 

I think you misunderstand the idea a bit. The cpu could be overclocked and the ram not. It would be fine. The only thing that would be affected is the speed at which data is transferred to and from the level 3 cache. The results of calculations end up in the L1, then L2 and then L3 before being shifted out to memory when necessary. I'd suggest you read up on what those caches do..

This affects performance only in a very small number of situations and only when the Ram bandwidth is saturated. It makes a slight difference only to have faster Ram unless you are doing something that specifically pushes the bandwidth available (such as large data sets or compression). If you replaced say 1333MHz Ram with 1600MHz, you would only see mild benefits in some situations.

There is no sync or out of sync going on. The clocks are already out of sync. If you could overclock your CPU and not overclock the RAM you will still have higher performance - hence turbo and the 9X0 series both working like this.

The whole overclocking thing for us non 9x0 series people still works on a base frequency and a multiplier, and the 720QM is locked by multiplier so you have to change the Base Clock just like FSB overclocking used to be. It's the same mechanism basically but QPI replaces FSB.

 

Ok, well, i smiplified things, but you're right, I think I did misunderstand some things. Isn't the RAM speed determinde by the QPI? The QPI communicates with the northbridge as far as I remember, but the RAM controller of the i7 is in the CPU itself, right? So the QPI isn't involved with the RAM speed at all?

 

I think the RAM and the QPI speeds are linked, yes. The same as FSB. I thought you were saying that an increase in CPU speed wouldn't make sense without an increase in RAM speed. I think the CPU and RAM both work off the base clock (that's what BCLK stands for) and then the CPU multiplies 7-21 (on 720QM) and the RAM is 10x (in our case)..

For example right now I'm clocking up to 160MHz base clocks which makes my cpu run at 1120-3360MHz.. My RAM clock is 800MHz (@DDR=1600) and the QPI is 2560 (x16).

 

@Pras - what kind of ram do you have? Did you buy the ddr3 1600? If so I may go grab a 4gb stick myself if you think it will alow me to increase fsb over 150.

Thanks

StevenX

 

It's the standard ram I got with the machine (surprisingly enough)

2x2GB Elpida EBJ21UE8BDS0-DJ-F

 

Hi all,
After stumbling here a few days ago i decided to give setfsb a whirl. I've never really been into overclocking untill i read around here for a while .
So i went ahead and read this entire thread to get a bit of info before i started, and oh boy did i. I tell ya the knowledge floating around this place is awesome for a noob starting out like myself .
I followed the given steps to get my activation key from ABO. (Who was rapid in responding to my emails! Nice chap aswell)
After activated i went for the safe 150/492 option...BSOD straight away. Gutted . After a 20min restart (finding a restore point took ages)
i decided to take it slow and go up in little increments until that damn BSOD happened again. Right now im upto 143.4/458 and seems stable. Wish it went higher like the Boudica!
My max temps went upto and held at 79, which i thought was alright.
Just wanted to share my experience with everyone and to say a thanks to ALL for a very informative thread .
Shall post again if anything changes, would ideally like to push it to over 150 though.....

 

Wel,, every chip behaves differently.... I can't get it stable beyond 143 as far as I know. Which CPU do you have?

You could try changing the RAM setting in the BIOS to unlinked, this may help. I stumbled across this lately but didn't find time to try it out myself so far, I have to give it a go too.

 

I have OEM 720QM.
Was tinkering around last night and managed to get 148.9 running prime95 for around 6 hours before i called it a night. Tried again this morning but BSOD straight away . If i go gradually from 133.2 -- 143.4 -- 145.0 -- 148.2 -- 148.5 -- 148.9 it seems to work fine . Bit of shame a can't just ramp it upto 148.9 straight away. Will try changing the ram in bios later on and post results.

You could try changing the RAM setting in the BIOS to unlinked, this may help. - Unfortunately not, caused BSOD even going to 143.4.
I can only get to 148.9 if i go in small steps. Guess my 720QM doesn't like 1 big jump to get there. Oh well. Thanks for the idea though

 

Ok... I'm gonna give it a try too. Haven't been in the BSOD heaven for a while

 

lol! Yeah been here a while now .
Well my 720QM doesn't want to go past 143.8 today was running fine @ 148.9 for a while, no BSOD just playing The Witcher and it went into a restart . Even at 143.8 it's still a nice little upgrade (1.8 - 3.0) compared to stock clocks! Just want that little bit more
Good luck with yours!

 

Welcome Grads I never realised how lucky I was, I set it to 150 on my first go, not expecting it to work. (!)

Another thing you could try is changing the Ram voltage. I don't know what ram you have, it might be dangerous to do this, and I wouldn't recommend it. It's in the performance options of the BIOS. This didn't help me push past 160MHz but seemed to make it a little more stable (not enough to use though).

Remember though - 133-143 is still a great bonus!! the extra from 143-150 isn't such a big deal if it means popping your ram or pushing your machine to breaking point.

What ram do you have btw? Mine is 2x2GB
Elpida EBJ21UE8BDS0-DJ-F

Also - I'm really glad you enjoyed this thread - I love this forum Lot's of great knowledge and attitude

 

Hey Mr Pras
(Love the thread +1) Yeh i contemplated the voltage idea, might give it a go today
I've got 2x2GB of Hyundai Electronics HMT125S6BFR8C-H9.

Im happy i can push it to 143 as it doesn't even work for some which is a shame.

Ive currently got my set up running @ 458/143.4 (1.8 - 3.0) and my 260M @ 650/1050/1550 and all's well .

Thanks again to all +1, keep up the good work

 

Thanks Grads, I'm happy that you enjoyed the thread!

I think (guess) that the RAM is the issue. I contemplated putting 166MHz Ram in there (1600MHz) to see if that would make my 160Mhz clocking work better. I think the RAM is the problem for stability and surely running 1333MHz ram at 1500MHz+ is going to cause an issue.

If you have the money (and the ability to return the ram if it doesn't work - which you probably do have with most web shops) then it's worth a go.

Regarding the question of 920vs460M - I own neither so can't really guess. I do think that the 920 (or 940) is a great step up from the 720 even when overclocked since it can be clocked higher across all cores without affecting ram speed (which is already phenomenal on the M15x frankly).

The 460M I couldn't guess, but definitely would boost your GFX performance and enable DX11 - depends what you use your computer for. A faster CPU will help with GFX too in many cases so if you use your computer for more than just games then a CPU upgrade is probably the best idea.

 

I looked around last night for some 16ooMHz ram and was wondering if it will actually run at that speed or get downclocked to 1333?
On the 920XM/460M question. I got in touch with Eurocom on e**y and they'll be getting the 460M back in stock this thursday, so think i'll hold out for that. I mean with the ridiculously awesome list of games coming out this year, i could do with the extra Graphics Power under the hood (and keep the 720QM running at higher clock speeds while i save for the 920XM)
Thanks again for the advice Mr Pras +!

 

Damn to bad, SetFSB dident work for me, i have the i7-820QM. abo told be that it wouldent work :S is there any other way to overclock the 820QM(i have and m15x Btw). and just a last note, abo was replying instantly and had great service!

 

There's no other way... sorry to hear it doesn't work for you. If you desperately need more CPU power (or just for fun and have some bucks around) there are a lot of 920xm chips on ebay atm for decent prices, about 380-400$ afaik.

 

Thats a little to much for my budget right now... already spent 3000 dollar on the comp itself, and then add alot of razer stuff, but either way i dont feel like upgrading my chip.: (

 

@The happy Swede - How much turbo are you getting out of your 820? Default multiplier is 13 I believe. It will turbo all 4 cores/8 threads up to 15 I think or 16? When you play a game like battlefield or something else what type of turbo are you getting?

Sorry to hear about setFSB not working. I dont understand why they can't get it to work for an Alienware product thats MADE to overclock...

BW, StevenX

 

Hey Steven,
well sometimes when i play BFBC2 i actually get a multiplier of 22, but its very swinging, it sometimes goes way down low to 6 multipliers. but regular its about 16 as you said, but as im posting this i have 22 multipliers.EDIT: as i said with the Multipliers, while playing Bulletstorm i windowed the game and checked CPU-Z and the multipliers were all the way down to 4 :S

Have a good one,

The Happy Swede ; )

And yeah its kinda sad that alienware wont allow you to overclock, for times when my multiplier go low i would like to be able to have a set multiplier so it wont swing....

 

Forget CPU-Z for reading the clock speed of your processor, get Throttlestop, that's much more accurate.

 

Will do

Yeah alright, now it shows 15-16 multipliers.... damn, Dell make an OC program for alienware!