HELP: underclock & Undervolt Mobile Duron - Morgan Core

Hello all,

I have a Sony Vaio pcg-fx501 laptop (about year 2000/2001 I think) which
sports a Mobile Duron, 1Ghz, Morgan core.

It runs very hot so I'm looking to underclock and or, at least, undervolt it
slightly.

There is, as far as I can see, no facility in the bios for this so I have to
go software method but I'm struggling.

I've installed Notebook Hardware Control but i'm both not sure what I'm
doing and not sure that the software functions on my machine.

In addition, whilst trying to underclock I've been confused by the stepping
settings. The laptop usually steps between 500mhz when idle/under light load
to a max of 1Ghz under load with no itermediate steps. Is it possible then
to lock the frequency at 800mhz, for example, or am I limited to either
500mhz or a Gig?

Any insights?

Noriek wrote:
Hello all,

I have a Sony Vaio pcg-fx501 laptop (about year 2000/2001 I think) which
sports a Mobile Duron, 1Ghz, Morgan core.

It runs very hot so I'm looking to underclock and or, at least, undervolt it
slightly.

There is, as far as I can see, no facility in the bios for this so I have to
go software method but I'm struggling.

I've installed Notebook Hardware Control but i'm both not sure what I'm
doing and not sure that the software functions on my machine.

In addition, whilst trying to underclock I've been confused by the stepping
settings. The laptop usually steps between 500mhz when idle/under light load
to a max of 1Ghz under load with no itermediate steps. Is it possible then
to lock the frequency at 800mhz, for example, or am I limited to either
500mhz or a Gig?

Any insights?


You can get some information about how it works, from a datasheet. FID and VID
are programmable. FID is the multiplier. VID is the voltage. Table 1 has the
allowed values of FID. I think 3x is as low as the multiplier can go. The initial
hardware defined multiplier at startup is 5x according to the datasheet.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/cont...docs/24068.pdf

On an OS that supports ACPI, support for the feature might be built-in. Perhaps
WinXP takes care of the adjustments itself. It might be called PowerNow on an
older processor, while on a newer processor AMD calls it Cool N' Quiet.

Older OSes may need help, to set the speed. AMD has their own software for
that, or there may be third-party utilities.

Presumably one of the special registers on the processor, reports to the OS
what the limits are.

For example, I found "PowerNow Dashboard", but I have no idea what Microsoft
OSes this supports. And drilling down in the amd.com driver/downloads section,
isn't particularly easy. I found this by other means. But I don't know what
web page on the AMD site, this is from.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/cont...ardInstall.exe

I think there is likely other software that can do stuff like that. RMClock
allows a person to define a custom entry in the Power control panel of a Windows
OS, and select frequencies and voltages. There are probably overclocker
utilities that offer similar control.

So right now, as I see it, the toughest part of your project, is determining
what the min and max values are. You need some idea of what (FID,VID) to use
for minimum operating frequency, and what values are correct for the nominal
operating point. And that is contained in Table 8 on PDF page 48 of the datasheet.
It looks like 1.20 volts is good for frequencies 500MHz or lower.

This is another example of a program that can set the FID multiplier.
When I used this, I found it was a bit tricky, in that the settings
didn't take right away. And you can observe the results, with something
like CPUZ from cpuid.com . The version of this that I used, seemed
to be easier to understand than RMClock, but it looks like this
has changed since the last time I tried it.

http://crystalmark.info/software/Cry...D/index-e.html

Have fun,
Paul

On Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:42:15 +0000, Noriek wrote:

Hello all,

I have a Sony Vaio pcg-fx501 laptop (about year 2000/2001 I think) which
sports a Mobile Duron, 1Ghz, Morgan core.

It runs very hot so I'm looking to underclock and or, at least,
undervolt it slightly.

There is, as far as I can see, no facility in the bios for this so I
have to go software method but I'm struggling.

I've installed Notebook Hardware Control but i'm both not sure what I'm
doing and not sure that the software functions on my machine.

In addition, whilst trying to underclock I've been confused by the
stepping settings. The laptop usually steps between 500mhz when
idle/under light load to a max of 1Ghz under load with no itermediate
steps. Is it possible then to lock the frequency at 800mhz, for example,
or am I limited to either 500mhz or a Gig?

Any insights?

Well, I don't use notebooks or run windows, but there's several things I
can point you toward. On the software side, search for athlon stop-grant.
This diconnects the FSB when idle (which is most of the time) and will
lower the temps on the cpu by a lot. For linux one of these programs was
called athcool (search). It did such a good job I could run the cpu
without a fan. If you can find something similar for windows it would
solve your heat problems. I'm assuming you've cleaned the cpu cooler
already.
Another thing to consider would be replacing the old Morgan core cpu with
a later model. Perhaps one of the tbred B core cpu's with a 133MHz FSB
(266FSB). I would think a duron 1600 or 1800 would work. Even if your
system doesn't support a 266FSB (really 133MHz) it should run at a slower
speed with a 200FSB. I don't know for sure how it would work on your
system but in the desktop world the cpu FSB really doesn't matter. I've
run 400FSB athlon cpu's in boards that only supported a 200FSB. They just
run slower at default multiplier speeds, or sometimes faster depending on
the MB's supprt of the multiplier lines (4 vs. 5 in newer boards.
Multipliers of up to 24x can be achieved. See bottom link in sig and
these for more info.

http://fab51.com/cpu/guide/opn-xp-e.html

http://www.amdboard.com/amdid.html

http://www.ocinside.de/go_e.html?/ht...md_pinmod.html

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