HP AMD Laptop - Can't Run Stock Clocks?

[toastem2004]

Got an HP Eny 6-1110us laptop (laptop1 in sig). I attempted to play some games on it, nothing heavy really, and its performance was substantially sub-par. After some investigation i realized it was not running the CPU at stock speed, or the GPU. The GPU portion is to run @ 443mhz, all it seems to run is 211mhz. The CPU does occasionally run @ 1600MHz, but during games, its chuggin along at a leisurely 900mhz.

I bought a laptop cooler pad (a coolermaster one with 120mm fan) but that hasn't helped any.

My main question is this: Any one else have similar experiences. Secondly, isn't this false advertising? I knew not to expect to see the cpu turbo much, but i would expect the system to run at its rated speed when tasked.

 

[Hood]

Boot into BIOS and disable power saving settings - it may default to these settings to keep heat (and warranty repairs) in check. Check all BIOS settings for ways to increase performance and fan speeds.

 

[newtekie1]

The CPU should never drop below 1.6GHz when under load, it is actually supposed to turbo to 2.4GHz, but the minimum it should be under load is 1.6GHz. The GPU should never be below 320MHz under load, and it should turbo to 443MHz.

I can almost guarantee the culprit is temperature. At idle the GPU is reading 85°C. I bet this is a case of completely shit cooling on HP's side, which they are known for. And those laptop cooling pads never help.

I'd check to see if there is a way you can control the fan speed in the laptop and make it run at full speed all the time, I'm betting HP runs the fan way to slow(or even turns it off most of the time) to keep the noise down, but it leads to overheating.

Edit: It also looks like there is a BIOS update for your laptop, Version F.15, you might try installing that to see if it fixes the issue.

 

[Liquid Cool]

I had the HP ENVY 6-1129WM(same specs), but sold it back in May...and actually just bought another one this last week off eBay(There is one left). It'll be here on Tuesday.

When I owned the original unit TPU's utility froze up the pc every time I launched it so I could never use it. Although, when I get my laptop on Tuesday I'll take a look and see at what mhz it's running at.

I've always liked the Coolsense program from HP, but with the new version that was on mine...it took away any ability to change settings, basically leaving you with on or off. Kind of ridiculous.

I'd make sure you have your power options set to hgh performance and then go into the advanced setting and change the cooling to active vs. passive. Your video card is running unreasonably high. These are essentially ultrabooks and the cooling isn't the greatest, but I could never get mine over the mid 60's even if I was trying. I'd also check to make sure that temp is being reported correctly, try speccy as a back up...if I remember correctly, it was reporting temps rather accurately.

These are great little notebooks, not heavy gamers...but my last one ran very well(after I ditched the 5400rpm hdd). I beat Borderlands 2 and Singularity on it without any trouble, but if I recall, some of the heavier games began to chug a bit.

I'll be back on Tuesday night...

Liquid Cool

P.S. I uploaded this picture of the base. Not much in the way of openings, but the cpu/gpu are right under these vents...I'd imagine you'd need a cooling pad that has fans toward the high side of the pad.

 

[toastem2004]

Thanks all for advice and opinions. I updated the BIOS, but there is nothing to play with other than Visualization (on/off) USB boot and date/time. The HP coolsense is as Liquid Cool described, merely on off. My bottom is exactly as pictured as well. I'm going to try another monitoring program later this week. Seems like i might be sadly out of luck. I did manage to get GTA: Vice City to play ok. Also got CoH to do reasonably well.

Perhaps its time to do a mini-ITX build

 

[Solaris17]

I work on the envys everyday at work and the DV 6/7 laptops were notorious for heat. I have had 2 in in the last week (envy) and they required board replacements because of temp issues.

if you dont have stripes or its still under warranty get it replaced if it isnt re thermal it the bottom is easy enough to get off the bottom bezel pops off you disassemble from the bottom up on the envys.

 

[Liquid Cool]

I wanted to take a day or two to play with the laptop before I responded....

My HD 7600G seems to be resting at 211MHz too...that is, as long as there is no activity. I loaded up GPU-Z and started a log file, then loaded Tomb Raider and let the log go for awhile. Sure enough, it ramped up to 320, then 423.5MHz in no time. The load on the CPU you can see in the snapshots below, the first one is at rest, the second is with a load on the processor. I will mention....the temperature reported for the GPU in GPU-Z is incorrect. No to mention, the reported temperature in Speccy on the CPU as well as the GPU. A laser thermometer will confirm, they're just about 1/2 of what is being reported.

Now onto your problem of the CPU running at 900MHz. You're using a power saving feature somewhere. I have the 'High Performance' option checked in 'Power Options'. If you still have the 'ENERGY STAR Qualified' option checked that the notebook comes with from the factory...or any other power saving option checked...this lowers the MHz level the CPU is running at. When I did this to mine, it promptly lowered the CPU to 1.1MHz.

Overall, this little notebook, for an ultrabook...or sleekbook...or whatever label they want to put on it....runs pretty decent for the specs. Again, my GPU never exceeded the 60 degree celsius range after 15 minutes of gameplay. Although, in many cases I do agree with Solaris17's comments above. I've owned and repaired many many many HP laptops. Heat issues are very common.

Best,

Liquid Cool

EDIT: I also wanted to add....that in my original post above I mentioned that you can go into 'power options', advanced settings and change your fan profile from passive to active. I usually don't recommend doing that with these thin ULV laptops that already run cool. I'd also go into your BIOS(hit esc at bootup for the menu) and change the fan control from its factory setting of active to passive...and then your laptop will run much much quieter. After putting on some new thermal paste, my fan barely comes on at all.