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    CPU Undervolting + GPU Overclocking the T500

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by batmodem, Mar 7, 2009.

  1. batmodem

    batmodem Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hey guys I've been "successful" at combining an undervolt and gpu overclock on my T500 and thought I put it here so save anyone who wants to do this some headaches.

    I should tell you that undervolting is fairly safe, but there is always the chance that if any instability arises and there is some hard disk activity you could lose ALL your data.

    On the overclock side he risks are much higher and you should know that even if the overclock is stable and you keep the temps down, you are in fact shortening your gpu's life, there's no way of knowing how much (i.e. see what is happening with the nvidia mobile gpus).

    So if you want to try any of this you will at your own risk.

    I quoted successful in the first paragraph because I haven't been able to set the undervolt or overclock permanently. The only undervolting app that supports my half-step CPU (T9600) is CPUgenie but is still buggy so if I set the voltages when I restart my machine or the program it fails to load them. To overclock the gpu the only thing that worked was the AMD GPU Clock Tool. I'm on Vista Business 64bits by the way.

    So what do we need?

    1. CPUgenie. http://www.cpugenie.com
    2. AMD GPU Clock Tool. http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1128/AMD_GPU_Clock_Tool_v0.9.8.html
    3. Ati Catalyst 8.10. http://downloads.guru3d.com/downloadget.php?id=2095&file=4&evp=10b4cb8d0891a95766ccdcef6d2f9a88
    4. DH Mobility Modder.NET. http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php
    5. TPFanControl V0.55. http://www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/donate.html
    6. HWMonitor. http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php
    7. AtiTool 0.27 beta 4. http://www.techspot.com/downloads/3294-atitool.html (non beta hasn't been maintained in a while).


    Undervolting

    Install CPUGenie. The program has a wizard that can help you find the lowest stable voltage for each multiplier. Because the bug related to my CPU I tried to run this wizard but it BSOD and when I restarted I lost all the voltages so I ended up doing it manually. You should try with the wizard first but it takes around 10 hours to run with the basic 3 minutes stability tests.
    The most important voltage is the one the highest multiplier has because its when the thermal output will be highest and the one that will be in use (let's say 95% of the time) when doing cpu intensive taks (like gaming :)). For my CPU and my OS this was the only program that "works" but if you don't have this constraints you should be good doing it with RMClock or whichever you prefer.

    I'm not getting deep into the process of finding the voltages here because there are many guides even here on NBR Forums. I'm putting the voltages that I found manually for reference. Have in mind that most of this I tested with the short 3 minute tests. If you want to do it manually you should start at least .05V higher and gradually lower it and test for stability.

    Mult New V Stock
    10.5 1.050V 1.150V
    10 1.025V
    9.5 1.012V
    9 0.987V
    8.5 0.925V
    8 0.9V 1.075


    GPU Overclocking

    First double click on the Catalyst Drivers you downloaded. What this does is decompress the driver installer itself on the folder that you've selected normally under C:\ATI\SUPPORT leave it there, don't install it yet.

    Install and run DH Mobility Modder. Select the driver location, for me it was C:\ATI\SUPPORT\8-10_vista64_dd_ccc_wdm_enu_69565 then click on "Modify". The progress bar should move all the way to the end and you should see a message that the drivers were correctly modified.

    Next you must disable switchable graphics and install the 8.10 Catalyst Drivers. Restart you computer and go into the BIOS (press F1 at the thinkpad logo) go to Config->Display, select Discrete Graphics (instead of Switchable Graphics) and disable OS Switchable Graphics Detection. Reboot the computer and uninstall the switchable graphics driver. Uninstall the "ATI Catalyst Install Manager" from the program list and reboot, this will uninstall the ATI and Intel graphic drivers.

    After you've rebooted you should see your desktop at a low resolution and are ready to install the new ATI drivers. Go to the folder of the modified Catalyst drivers and execute the Setup.exe, just follow the wizard, I selected Express install. Reboot.

    Now things must be looking better.

    Before we can get to overclocking our GPU a bit of warning. When I started testing the overclock with a Core of 700Mhz (up from 600) and Memory of 800Mhz (up from 700Mhz) I got maximum GPU temps of 107 Celsius which is too high. This is where TPFanControls enter our story we must have this installed and configured before we try to raise our clocks. However, even with TPFanControl we can be doing some harm to our little Lenovo because the used setting for the fans is only supposed to be used on emergencies according to some instructions in the ini file of TPFanControl.

    Install TPFanControl. Go to where you installed TPFanControl and make a copy of the original TPFanControl.ini just in case we mess it up. Now we can change TPFanControl.ini as is the file that the program will read for settings. Here are the settings I've changed:

    IconLevels=70 80 90

    Level=60 0
    Level=65 1
    Level=70 3
    Level=75 7
    Level=85 64

    Notice how the emergency fan mode (64) kicks in at 85C until it goes back down to 75C. When the emergency mode kicks in...well just let's say ...you will notice. The utility has two smart modes, this corresponds to the Smart 1 mode so you could make one profile or mode for overclocking and another for noise reduction. You can setup TPFanControl to run as a Windows service, read the FAQ in the download page for instructions.

    For monitoring temperatures I used HWMonitor. This has no installer just execute HWMonitor.exe. If any temp goes higher than 95C I recommend you STOP and lower your clocks.

    Install AMD GPU Clock Tool. Again you should have basic understanding of the Overclock process. Because ATI PowerPlay is enabled by default you should see that the default Engine and Memory Clock numbers don't match the 600Mhz and 700Mhz that our card is supposed to have. Here you can choose to disable PowerPlay or simply enter the 600 and 700 values as a starting point. This are the default frequencies, however when I started I took my lucky bunny tail and hold it very thightly, then prayed and finally tried the default frequencies of the ATI HD 3670 which are 700Mhz and 800Mhz. And there was no lockup but the temps where insanely high so I got it down again and then found TPFanControl.

    Start by raising the Engine frequency on steps of 30Mhz, and run some benchmark like 3dmark06 or Far Cry 2 Benchmark. If you start having distortion of geometry or colors STOP go lower till you don't see them anymore. My Engine frequency topped at 715Mhz, anything higher would turn off the monitor and reboot the computer.

    Now start raising the Memory Clock, also I think 30Mhz is a good threshold. When you are overclocking memory you know that you have reached the top because your computer caught fire or..not really I'm joking...

    Install ATITool, even if this doesn't let us change our clocks has a feature that can scan a 3d image for artifacts. This will be very useful because when you are reaching the top memory frequency you should start seeing well..."artifacts" in the 3d picture, like white spots or in my case the image just got all distorted with yellow lines so it was time to lower my memory clock. It is a good idea to mix some ATITool's Scan for Artifacts with some benchmark and watch the image closely for artifacts so you can be assured that you're going well. My final memory clock ended being 981Mhz.

    Results

    As you saw I got the engine clock to 715Mhz and the memory to 981Mhz wich is a 19% and 40% improvement accordingly.

    3dmark06 (1280x800) went from 4300 to 5250, a 22% improvement :eek: .

    Far Cry 2 is playable now at 1440x900 and high settings.

    The gpu temp maxes out at 89C but when TPFanControl kicks in it goes down and stays at around 82C.

    Sorry to have no comparison between the previous temps and the new ones but I haven't had much time.

    Now let's overclock that T9600 :D .

    Disclaimers

    I understand that there are some tools to stress the GPU but I have no experience with them, If you want to suggest one to test stability feel free to post it. As you can see this isn't a complete guide! rather than a reference point to what kind of results and what tools can you use with the T500 to undervolt the CPU and overclock the GPU. Also English is not my native language so I'm sorry for any orthographic mistakes and unidiomatic language I may have used, thank you for understanding.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 8, 2015
  2. MastahRiz

    MastahRiz Notebook Evangelist

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    is this guy for real?
     
  3. Scrubjay

    Scrubjay Notebook Guru

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    Cool, thansks for the info. I am thinking of undervolting my T500 CPU just to see if it has an effect on battery life. I will probably not overclock the GPU as I want the Thinkpad to last many, many years.
     
  4. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Undervolting your CPU will definitely effect your battery life. I got a great reduction in temperature (at least 15 deg C lower on load) and a noticeable increase in battery life (nearly 30 min).
     
  5. kcrazy

    kcrazy Newbie

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    Anyone have rough specs for undervolting a t400?
     
  6. martinmach

    martinmach Notebook Evangelist

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    excellent post, i am going to underclock my cpu
     
  7. Bwoody2016

    Bwoody2016 Notebook Guru

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    Lol... Seems pretty serious.
     
  8. mullenbooger

    mullenbooger Former New York Giant

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    All chips, even the same model, have different tolerances. Just need to check yourself thru trial and error.
     
  9. mullenbooger

    mullenbooger Former New York Giant

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    Are you getting 89/82 max when running 3dmark, or when gaming?