HELLO EVERYONE, PLEASE HELP ME, SOMEONE, ANYONE!!!

[Prateek]

Hi Guys. I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 which I bought in March this year. It has a P4-M 1.8 GHz, 512Mb RAM, Mobility Radeon 9000 with 64Mb VRAM and a 40Gb IBM HDD. The chipset is the 845MP.

I want to overclock the CPU and get better performance out of it. I know that there would be absolutely no problems in trying to run the CPU at around 2.1 GHz. The current BIOS version is version A10 from Dell and as everyone knows there is no adjustment options in it.

The Radeon is overclocked thanks to Powerstrip and is doing 286.88 MHz for the GPU and 232.88 for the VRAM versus the default settings of 238.5 and 196.4 respectively. I have done some chassis mods to improve cooling within and it has helped a bit.

The PLL or CPU clock generator on the motherboard is the Cypress W320-4x and the W320 series is not supported by either CPUFSB or CPUCOOL. Dell have not posted any new video drivers since Feb and their last version A03 has started having issues with DX9 games, at least on my notebook.

Therefore I had to trick Windows XP to install the Radeon 9200 Pro driver from the ATI website, Catalyst 3.7, the self installer failing to initialise because of the Dell Mobility Radeon 9000 module that is in the system. I hope it is the right choice of driver and there are no issues with it as yet and performance is similar with better compatibility at least. I must admit that Powerplay has stopped functioning after the driver change even though the tab is still there in the ATI control panel.

This is the entire long story and now please help me achieve what I want. I am sure that it is not impossible by any means and I realy want to give it a shot. If the guys at Tom's Hardware can not do it, I wonder who could? So pleeeeese try and help me out. I think there is a way to trick Speedstep to go in the other direction but I do not know how. Need help here, pleeeeeese. Thanks a lot.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by prateek on 10/07/03 02:28 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[ChipDeath]

AFAIK, there are no laptop chipsets that support overclocking. So basically, (short of possibly some obscure hardware mods) you can't overclock it. besides, I doubt your memory would cope well with high speeds anyway. If you want to fiddle with overclocking, buy a desktop. a Laptop is never going to be the best performer.

That said, there may be some way to fiddle with the 'Speedstep' (or whatever it's called on a P4... Can't remember) stuff to increase clockspeed, but I guess that would need a custom BIOS....

I doubt anyone here has ever thought of overclocking a Laptop, especially when you consider that the cooling solutions on them are designed to be as small as possible, so they're never going to cope well with more heat than their design intended.

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<font color=red>The preceding text is assembled from information stored in an unreliable organic storage medium. As such it may be innacurate, incomplete, or completely wrong</font color=red>

 

[pIII_Man]

you can overclock a laptop just fine, the ability to overclock has nothing to do with the chipset. There are mods that you can do to the PLL to force it to run certain speeds, but i hardly think that you would like to solder on your laptop.




If it isn't a P6 then it isn't a procesor
110% BX fanboy

 

[Prateek]

Hey Dude, thanks for the answer, and I do know that desktops clock well, real well, but mine is not here, but back home in India. In Australia (I an studying here), a desktop would have been just too bulky. Therefore I wasted money on a notebook.

You say right that obscure hardware mods would work, but even though technically I have lost all warranty after opening it, if in the next 6 months that the warranty is still valid, something goes wrong then still I could convince Dell to repair it under warranty (even though their customer service is pretty crap). If I do do mods (I am a bit skeptical, will do them anyway if required), there is no chance of getting repairs done without payment.

This notebook was a desktop replacement for me and does not stay on my laps really. And believe me that even if I completely shut off the vents (in and out) I struggle to push the CPU temp at 100% utilisation (1800 MHz not 1200 Mhz with Speedstep) above 85 degree celsius. Normally it stays around 58. And at that high temp windows does not hang, really. I have played various games to test it in that conditions and it works. So there is scope of pushing this processor. The memory issues that might crop up is a good point to take notice of but I would rather prefer playing around with it than not try it at all.

Thanks again, bye.

 

[Prateek]

Thanks for your reply. I know that chipsets have got very little to do with clocking features. PLL mods and replacements????!!!! I don't know much about them.

I had a hard time finding the one on mine (had to remove the entire motherboard from the casing, turn it upside down, remove a few black plastic sheets and read the prints on the various chips on the backside).

I was hoping that CPUCOOL or CPUFSB would be able to provide a simpler solution, but unfortunately no. You seem like a PIII (a Pentium 3 chap), I have one back home, it is overclocked, a Coppermine 866 doing 1083. The motherboard, CUSL2-C won't allow me to go any higher and my memory isin't the best either, but it is a good effort anyway, I think. I would like to know more on PLL mods though. Could you tell me somethings about then. Thanks again, bye.