Intel Centrino Overclocking Guide Posted!

[Pug]

@Inspector:

IMPORTANT -- FSB and MEMORY are not the same

Your FSB is SUPPOSED to be at 100 Mhz.. that is perfectly all right and just as it shoult be

Your Memory should be at 166 Mhz...
...

Pug

[yakrider]

Hey, Pug thanks for all the info. My laptop makes almost no noise except for the hard drive (the fan almost never runs) however, I was interested in RMClock so that I could economize on my battery when I'm moving around with my laptop.

Sorry that I'm such a newbie, but I cant seem to underclock my processor any more with that. The only range available seems to be from 6x FID to 16x (which my 1.6G centrino processor does automatically), and the VID range from .7 to 1.484 V which is the normal range too. There were more .reg file, but they didnt seem to help much either.

Also, I have Radeon mobility 9600 but havent overclocked it. I would appreciate any suggestions as to the best way to go about doing it and recommendations on what values not to cross. I dont really use my laptop for much gaming though.

Thanks in advance

[Pug]

Hi.

First of all...

If you don't use it for gaming ...don't overclock ... neither CPU nor your Ati..

RMClock allows you, to use a lower Vcore - thus the CPU does not get as hot as it would at default voltage.
For Example..

A Pentium M 1.5 Ghz usually needs about (this differs!!) 1.454 V for the maximum speed. At 600 Mhz, it only needs 0.989 V.

You can use RmClock to do the autostepping (switching from 600 - 1.5 Ghz) for you. Moreover you can TRY out lowering the Voltage.
Be very careful - a voltage that is too low possibly lets your System freeze. You have to restart - but thats it..

I recommend to you to download a tool like prime , with which you can start a "torture test" - Cpu is 100% in use and calculates known values..as soon as an error occurs, it stops.

Run the torture test ...To be sure that your system is stable you need to run it for AT LEAST 60 minutes..while doing that, you can lower your voltage step by step.

So:
Use rmclock to set your cpu to MAXIMUM speed ("P-state Profile: maximum")
start torture test
lower your Vcore.. I can lower it sth like 1.19 V...some get even under 1.0 V..which is just great.. Then your fan may not even be used while playing doom3 or comparable...

As soon as prime reports an error and stops the test - go back up one or two steps in the voltage.

The do the same with P-stat Profile minimum... Here it should be possible to get as low as 0.8 V or even less.

After finding your Voltage settings... choose them and put a link to rmclock into your startup folder.

Thats it.
Sounds difficult - but in fact its easy...!!

Only try this if you are sure what you are doing.
Keep in mind that you are meddling with expensive hardware. IMHO undervolting is NOTHING compared to overclocking in regard of a possibility of permanently damaging your system...,, - but nevertheless.. be careful.

Thats about it.Hope it helps..
Excuse my sometimes disappointing english.

Greetings,
Pug

[Inspector Gadget]

Pug: I should have written memory instead of FSB - I know the FSB is supposed to run at 100 Mhz and the memory at 166 Mhz - a 3:5 divider, but CPU-z reports that my FSB runs at 100 Mhz and my memory runs at 100 Mhz too - a 1:1 divider

[Pug]

@Inspector:

Very strange indeed that your M6N is using a 1:1 divider.

As well it is very interesting to hear, though. For hardcore overclockers who try to use a FSB of 133 Mhz, a 1:1 divider would not be THAT bad - the memory, in our notebooks probabably PC333 DDR-Ram, would only use 133 Mhz...

I don't know how to change the divider on the M6N - and I doubt that we'll find a way how to do that....

But how did you? hehe... How long do you have your notebook. I cannot believe that it was sold like that....

This gives me hope...

Greetings
Pug

[Inspector Gadget]

I like that you look in it that way

I really don't remember how I have been able to change the divider... Before I read the german thread in the one of the links you gave me, I tried to "experiment" with some different clock generators... but I never noticed anything about the divider being changed.

[Inspector Gadget]

I have had my notebook for about a year, and I haven't tried overclocking it before now.

[Pug]

You could try hard-resetting your nb. On the back there is a really small hole. punch it for a couple of seconds.. maybe the divider is set to the original again....

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by yakrider

Hi all,
nice forum this is indeed. and great guide.
I have a centrino 1.6Ghz laptop with i855 chipset and my motherboard seems to support the clockgen too. However, the funny thing is it shows my PCI at a value of 50.1 at the normal setup (even without overclocking) I was wondering what this means for the system in terms of performance and possible safe overclocking limits.
Also, I have a Toshiba 5400 rpm harddrive which is supposed to be fast but still is the slowest component in my system. heres a screenshot without overclocking.

Also, I noticed in the overclock shot of the guy with OC Dothan where his PCI speed was 56.54 too. So what is the deal with this thing?

also, as you might have noticed, although the screen shot is without overclocking, the actual values for all the values were much lower since my 9 stepping centrino wasnt muscling out all its potential as i was taking the screenshot. What happens once i overclock it? does it get stuck to the overclocked values all the time? or how does the cpu speed stepping work then.

Hello yakrider,

As mentioned in the guide, ClockGen can misread AGP, PCI bus speeds. Do NOT trust those values.

By default, your AGP bus should be 66MHz and the PCI bus is at 33MHz. Assume that they are running at those speeds, no matter what ClockGen says.

To double-check that overclocking the FSB also overclocks the AGP and PCI bus, you can confirm by testing the burst transfer rate of the hard disk. Again, this has been covered in the guide.

So, if your motherboard does not lock the PCI bus (as we would expect), then overclocking the FSB by 10% will also overclock both AGP and PCI bus by 10%.

ClockGen will detect the clockspeed the processor was set to run at. The Pentium M will automatically clock down itself according to workload but that's independent of the clock generator.

Don't let the false PCI and AGP bus speeds confuse you...

[Inspector Gadget]

Pug: I tried pushing a small button in the bottom of my laptop. It restarted after I released the push, but the divider unfortunately didn't reset :-/