Merom Laptop Owners Lookie Here!!!

[njkid32]

I was just talking to an intel buddy of mine and he is showing me a pin mod for meroms.... This is all theoretical though..

http://download.intel.com/design/mob...s/31407802.pdf
Page 43 and the chart is on page 22.
VID's around AE/2
My Merom T7200 defaults at 1.25V reguardless of what cpuz says So this mean it prob defaults at 0010100. So to make 1.05V you'd set it to 0100100 which means insulating VID5 and grounding VID4 to the VSS just below it.



Also, in Power saving mode the vcore is 0.95V so with this mod it wont change the vcore setting in power saving mode. Cause 0.95V is 0101100 so with 5 insulated and 4 grounded it's still 0.95V.

[[XC] gomeler]

But that'd require cracking open your laptop and probably voiding your warranty :-\ I don't even dare mod my laptop(Macbook) as it would defeat its purpose, be stable and useful no matter what.

[njkid32]

Very true! I wasnt going to do this to mine but I know a few out there that would. I just learned of this mod so I thought I would pass it on.. Less volts= less heat

Edit: I actually thought this was pretty big news cuz there doesnt seem to be any merom pin mods or anything to that aspect out there..

[Vapor]

Opening a laptop and replacing/altering a part does not void the warranty, just the warranty on that specific part (with most manufacturers at least....not sure about companies like Acer or Asus).

This also mainly applies to socketed Meroms. Apples and other thin laptops are BGA and soldered to the motherboard, making it slightly more difficult :-/

[[XC] gomeler]

Psh just desolder the BGA, insulate, and resolder! Heh.. In regards to the pin mods, I'm pretty certain there will always be pin mods available so long as the CPUs are identical chips with multipliers fixed in bios and multiple FSBs are capable from the same socket. Now if we move to a socket that only supports 1 FSB speed and the chips only support 1 multliplier then we are screwed but that won't ever happen, you can't sell just 1 speedbin

[[XC] leviathan18]

njkid your manual states that you can open your laptop and in fact they show you how to do it step by step and you will have warranty

[STEvil]

You can accomplish this a lot easier by using RMCLOCK.

[Martijn]

Or notebook hardware control, which allows you to overclock your videocard as well, set custom speedstep modes (well, we won't use that), watch battery use/wear/charging and loads of temp sensors.

[meshmesh]

I am a bit confused about the purpose of this mod.

If Vcore is modded to lower default value, then the cpu may not be stable at full load. Unless you also intend to drop the default multi, it may not even boot into windows.

If the issue is heat, then why not just leave power saving mode enabled, and set the WCG preference to use less than 100% CPU. participants have reported that it works and has positive effect. Try 80% (4 seconds on, 1 second off) or 75% (3 seconds on, 1 second off).

If cpu power saving feature is enabled, I imagine that the CPU may (on occasion) take the opportunity and also drop the Vcore during the "off" second and this should increase the cooling effect further.

[njkid32]

Martijn, I just installed the new version of that and I BSOD instantly Weird.. Oh, BTW did you get your mem yet?

@Mesh, these cpu's dont need the default vcore... Nothing againts your knowledge (I am not sure if you know this or not) but if you know anything about overclocking a cpu (which there are several ways of overclocking)---

Lets take a s939 3200 Venice testing for stability.. Default volts around 1.34v.. In order to find your voltage limits and how far you can push the cpu you want to stay at stock clocks (2ghz) and lower the vcore then test with sp2004 or equivalent. I have seen some of these cpu's make it as low as 1.1v or so for the default clocks... So their are 2 things achieved-

1) lower vcore means less heat
2) If actually overclocking the cpu you'll know that its not going to need a ton of volts to get a high clock speed..

This whole thing is almost like a burn in process as well... But, with laptops and the heat they put of and power consumption. So, the lower the volts the better battery life and less heat... Yes, some cpu's may not be able to achieve as low volts as others but thats why we test it out for stability..

I hope my explanation made some sense

[kiwi]

If your laptop is not sealed you won't void anything

By the way, I've found out that it is much more fun to buy a barebone notebook and install cpu, ram and hdd yourself Besides you can easily save a few hundreds this way. And barebones are not as bad, at least the ones that I can get are nice

[jspace]

This would be a good mod for barebones users. I mean, you have to open it to install things anyway, right?
I've been thinking of getting a barebones lappy. Maybe when I get some money.

[STEvil]

meshmesh - I agree there are different methods of reducing power consumption and heat output, but I look at this way: I bought a laptop with a 2.16ghz CPU. If it cannot run at at 2.16ghz 100% loaded then apparently I didnt get what I payed for, did I?

I'm picky though.

[meshmesh]

@njkid32: I see your point. TBO, I never tried my cpu on lower voltage. I actually didn't know that the manufacturers over do the voltage. Shows you how much I know.

When I OCed my AMD, I just added fsb till it was unstable then added +3.3% Vcore to make it stable, and that was it really. Thank for the info.

@STEvil: I see your point. This way there will be more production. Personally, I wouldn't do it in a laptop. Sounds a bit "eXtreme" to me to disassemble a laptop, remove the cooling pipes, etc.... I would probably take the 20% hit and leave it at that.

But I do see the benefit of longer battery and higher production. It is just a bit scary though. I changed the CD ROM on my Thinkpad once, and it was very fidly and IDE cable was very small and pretty fragile.

Hope it works fine.

PS: can undervolting not be done in software the same way systools manipulates the fsb? That would be a nice idea

[STEvil]

Yes, RMCLOCK allows you to adjust Yonah/Merom multiplier and voltage on the fly (to the manufacturer limits anyways).


I had my Alienware apart within 2 days of receiving it.. changed cpu's

[Martijn]

Martijn, I just installed the new version of that and I BSOD instantly Weird.. Oh, BTW did you get your mem yet?

Installed the C2D patch?? And no, I didn't get my ram yet

[wwwww]

This has the advantage of being permanent, rather than having to set it everytime on startup or something. In addition, you can still allow it to use the speedstep with the mod.

Eg:




Insulated VID0 - VID4, probably the best option as it still permits an even lower vcore in idle state (anything lower and your idle and load vcore will be the same - thus needing to be high so stable at load) - very easy, just need a pair of tweezers (I use one of those mechanical pencils - sit the pin in and tweeze around a bit) and a careful guy who doesn't drink coffee.

Be sure to test if it is stable at those vcore before modding.

I get 2.16GHz @ 1.113V load, 1.0GHz @ 0.713V idle.

I really should have checked my battery life pre-mod, iirc it was around 100 minutes - I remember seeing like, 5% left, 5 minutes left.



Seems to be an improvement, though this is pretty idle...the 100 minute figure was general usage though - this is fresh off the AC just typing here.

This would be particularly useful for B1 CPU - they run at much lower vcore but have higher power usage/vcore.

I have to say though, I feel much safer insulating contacts of LGA cpus...hurry up Intel and release your LGA meroms...

[STEvil]

Speedstep still works with RMCLOCK if you want it to.

I have set my laptop so that if it is unplugged I will run at 997mhz and the CPU will be throttled to 50% max (wcg shuts down when unplugged as well).

[kiwi]

I just got a merom laptop from barebones but I have trouble enabling lower vcore.
How do you get RM clock working? I tried decreasing voltages at Profile and management but it still shows 1.175 at load (in the Current column)

[kiwi]

Anyone? I guess I will just have to try pinmod

[Jaco]

have you tried Notebook Hardware control ?

I don't have a Merom but it works fine with Dothan. (i'm at 1.21 vcore , default is 1.34v )

[meshmesh]

I just got a merom laptop from barebones but I have trouble enabling lower vcore.
How do you get RM clock working? I tried decreasing voltages at Profile and management but it still shows 1.175 at load (in the Current column)

??

It shows 0.95 in the current column, and 1.175 in the maximum column.
If I understand correctly, isn't this what it is supposed to do?
Increase voltage under load (up to maximum) and reduce it when idle (up to minimum).

[STEvil]

sorry, been without net a few days. This is how mine is set up.

Note:
In the maximal performance profile I have not set any battery info in the battery tab
In the power saving profile I have not set any info in the AC Power tab.

[kiwi]

Thanks, it works now Notebook Hardware control works too. Now time to test some stability

??

It shows 0.95 in the current column, and 1.175 in the maximum column.
If I understand correctly, isn't this what it is supposed to do?
Increase voltage under load (up to maximum) and reduce it when idle (up to minimum).

Yes but what I want to do is to decrease voltage under load (in my case multi 10x). Now it is 1.175V but I wanna try 1.1V and maybe even 1.0V under load

[kiwi]

Nice, I did some testing and my cpu seems to be stable at full speed and only 0.95V instead of 1.175

Cpu fan also spins slower at load and there is not as much heat as before. Excellent software, I am using notebook hardware control