Trying to find all the upgrades I can do.

[Gat Pelsinger]

No matter how much I dream for a i9+xx90 PC, I am still very young and even though I should technically be happy for what I have, watching LTT has opened my eyes of what PC luxury is and I cannot stop being depressed about my setup. 

 

I daily drive a laptop, and well, I guess that is all I need to explain to justify my depression. Still though, I went from a machine which had a hard time running the OS itself, to a machine that at least is able to watch cat videos very efficiently and playing some games and even android emulation. Still though, PC luxury is like money, you can't get enough of it.

 

Lets come to the possible upgrades.

 

RAM - Got 1x8 DDR4@2666 Mt/s. So I should be able to upgrade to 16 or even 32 but not that it would make sense for a machine this tier. But what I am curious about is, that my CPU's spec list show that it supports DDR4 2666 and also LPDDR4 2933. Can I put the LPDDR4 modules in my presumably DDR4 slots? 16 gigs of dual channel LPDDR4 at 2933 would honestly solve a lot of my depression. But I will slightly be upset if I can only use the 2666 ones. This way the total memory bandwidth will be 46 GB/s, which honestly is very decent for me.

 

Storage - Got a single 512 GB NVMe Gen 3 SSD. It is I think DRAM less. I believe it is like Intel p660 or something. Read can get to 1.6 GB/s and write to about 1 GB/s. But of course I won't get that speed in real world. Updating Valorant pegs the SSD at 100% and I/O shows 50 MB/s read and the same for write at the same time. Should be able to upgrade to a nice 1TB SSD with DRAM. PCIe gen 3 is still very decent.

 

Display - Literally no mercy HP. 768p 60Hz that to 6 bit. Literally garbage display. I got to compare that with an Elitebook with 1080p display and nice color accuracy with I think some HDR support, and the difference is literally night and day. The blacks are so bad I literally couldn't even tell that some stuff was supposed to look completely black and not some shade of grey. And being 768p, I can't scale it lower and so everything has to look big so I cannot really resize a window much. I do have a HDMI out. So can I plug in a nice monitor easily? I never did this so just asking.

 

CPU - (i5 10210U) Here comes the fun part. Aside from my depression regarding the memory, my main depression is my processor. Having a Comet lake system today is very decent, but not when it is locked down to 15 watts. That is the PL1 and PL2 is 30. Even that 30 watts is not enough to run 4 cores at full 4GHz turbo, not mentioning the I-GPU takes 15-20 watts extra. But honestly, if I could get that 30 watts all the time, I would be living life. This is probably so not doable, but what are the chances I will be able to hack my firmware to allow high power? Of course that would put load on the motherboard, but honestly I can't care less except my performance, and at the least I can reduce my PL1 to like 25 watts then.

 

Cooling - Of course, all that power is literally useless if it thermal throttles. I could apply liquid metal (nahh) or a nice high quality thermal paste. But there is more to it. I found out that there is only 1 heat pipe. How hard is to solder like 2 more pipes? Upon that, can I replace the single fan I have with a more powerful fan? Don't know if it will fit though. Also, there is literally almost no space for intake. Either I can put a hacky fan below, or maybe carve the chasis (oh no). There is also this problem with my current fan that there is no way to control the PWM speeds through any software. HP firmware is very strict. So if I plug in a different fan into the same fan header, the problem will still persist, right? Is there any way around this, like maybe not plugging it in that fan header? That would be very unsafe I think (literally all of this is unsafe).

 

These are all the upgrades that I would ever want for my PC. There are other minor ones like upgrading internet speed, and better peripherals. I probably might not actually consider the CPU and the cooling upgrades (aside from thermal paste) as they are very hacky and mostly probably I won't even be allowed to make those upgrades but was just curios if that is possible.

 

Also when I refer to "depression", I am not talking it in a dramatic way. I am fine psychologically, probably...

[emosun]

12 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

watching LTT has opened my eyes of what PC luxury is and I cannot stop being depressed about my setup. 

ok well don't let LMG dictate how you feel even if it is minor.

They're paid to sell you crap. That's it. Every time they make a video telling you what you want they're getting money for it. Don't let their "old therefor bad/maximum capitalism" mentality force you to dislike what you have.

This is being typed on a 13 year old laptop

[Fasauceome]

34 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

RAM - Got 1x8 DDR4@2666 Mt/s. So I should be able to upgrade to 16 or even 32 but not that it would make sense for a machine this tier. But what I am curious about is, that my CPU's spec list show that it supports DDR4 2666 and also LPDDR4 2933. Can I put the LPDDR4 modules in my presumably DDR4 slots? 16 gigs of dual channel LPDDR4 at 2933 would honestly solve a lot of my depression. But I will slightly be upset if I can only use the 2666 ones. This way the total memory bandwidth will be 46 GB/s, which honestly is very decent for me.

The bandwidth difference may not be too large, the jump to dual channel will already be quite significant. You should check if this model of laptop was ever sold in a variant that included higher speed memory straight from the manufacturer, then you can at least know for sure if it's officially supported on this product. 

 

36 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Display - Literally no mercy HP. 768p 60Hz that to 6 bit. Literally garbage display. So can I plug in a nice monitor easily? I never did this so just asking.

A new monitor should be no issue, the HDMI that you've got will definitely support any modest 1080p display which would certainly be a big improvement. 

 

37 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Cooling - Of course, all that power is literally useless if it thermal throttles. I could apply liquid metal (nahh) or a nice high quality thermal paste. But there is more to it. I found out that there is only 1 heat pipe. How hard is to solder like 2 more pipes? Upon that, can I replace the single fan I have with a more powerful fan?

Cooling is a lot more complicated when it comes to laptops. Adding additional heat pipes may not really be feasible. 

 

On the other hand, you should consider a laptop holder with built in fans, kind of like this one. You can easily increase the airflow this way instead, which won't require modification to the laptop itself. 

40 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

CPU - (i5 10210U) Here comes the fun part. Aside from my depression regarding the memory, my main depression is my processor. Having a Comet lake system today is very decent, but not when it is locked down to 15 watts. That is the PL1 and PL2 is 30. Even that 30 watts is not enough to run 4 cores at full 4GHz turbo, not mentioning the I-GPU takes 15-20 watts extra. But honestly, if I could get that 30 watts all the time, I would be living life

I have a fairly locked down laptop myself, but I was able to use Intel XTU to squeeze just a tiny bit of extra turbo out of my CPU. You should download it as well and see which options aren't greyed out

[thevictor390]

Don't worry about the RAM speed. It will make almost no difference. Upgrading to 16 GB RAM (2x8) will feel really nice though.

[igormp]

1 hour ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Can I put the LPDDR4 modules in my presumably DDR4 slots?

LPDDR4 is only soldered, so no, you can't, just buy another regular DDR4 stick.

1 hour ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

But I will slightly be upset if I can only use the 2666 ones.

The difference in speed is negligible for real life applications tbh, and since you're on a laptop, the other lacking parts will make it even less noticeable, so don't fret over it.

1 hour ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Storage - Got a single 512 GB NVMe Gen 3 SSD. It is I think DRAM less. I believe it is like Intel p660 or something. Read can get to 1.6 GB/s and write to about 1 GB/s. But of course I won't get that speed in real world. Updating Valorant pegs the SSD at 100% and I/O shows 50 MB/s read and the same for write at the same time. Should be able to upgrade to a nice 1TB SSD with DRAM. PCIe gen 3 is still very decent.

That Intel NVMe does have DRAM, and it's a really nice unit durability-wise. Speed is somewhat lacking, but honestly it's not something that makes a difference in real life scenarios. Ignore that 100% usage, windows is kinda ass at taking proper measurements, unless you actually notice hiccups during those times.

1 hour ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

So can I plug in a nice monitor easily? I never did this so just asking.

Get a decent 1080p display and you should be good. Be aware that you may have limitations depending on your HDMI version and iGPU model, so it may not be able to drive a 4k60 or 1080p144hz display.

1 hour ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

CPU - (i5 10210U) Here comes the fun part. Aside from my depression regarding the memory, my main depression is my processor. Having a Comet lake system today is very decent, but not when it is locked down to 15 watts. That is the PL1 and PL2 is 30. Even that 30 watts is not enough to run 4 cores at full 4GHz turbo, not mentioning the I-GPU takes 15-20 watts extra. But honestly, if I could get that 30 watts all the time, I would be living life. This is probably so not doable, but what are the chances I will be able to hack my firmware to allow high power? Of course that would put load on the motherboard, but honestly I can't care less except my performance, and at the least I can reduce my PL1 to like 25 watts then.

That CPU is pretty similar to my laptop's one  performance-wise (LG Gram 14 with an i5 1035g7). Yeah, it's not the greatest, but you can manage daily usage, programming and whatnot without issues. Mine actually has the downside of only having a single channel of memory (which I've slotted a 32gb dimm), so you can actually get better performance than me if you get another stick for yours.

Only thing you're lacking is avx-512, which honestly isn't that relevant other than for toying with some stuff.

 

The max TDP up for that CPU is 25W iirc, so no way you'd be getting 30W. Anyhow, this is also related to the cooling, the CPU is likely throttling due to temperatures and power delivery, so even if you manage to hack the bios somehow it wouldn't be able to sustain those higher clocks.

 

1 hour ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Cooling - Of course, all that power is literally useless if it thermal throttles. I could apply liquid metal (nahh) or a nice high quality thermal paste. But there is more to it. I found out that there is only 1 heat pipe. How hard is to solder like 2 more pipes? Upon that, can I replace the single fan I have with a more powerful fan? Don't know if it will fit though. Also, there is literally almost no space for intake. Either I can put a hacky fan below, or maybe carve the chasis (oh no). There is also this problem with my current fan that there is no way to control the PWM speeds through any software. HP firmware is very strict. So if I plug in a different fan into the same fan header, the problem will still persist, right? Is there any way around this, like maybe not plugging it in that fan header? That would be very unsafe I think (literally all of this is unsafe).

A better thermal paste should help, specially if you never changed yours before. Soldering another heatpipe is an awful idea, you'd be better off finding a compatible cooling system for a similar, but higher-end model that you can just swap easily. Replacing the fan won't help much either and won't be easy to replace due to size constraints.

Another fan would still face the same PWM issues since that's a firmware thing, yeah.

 

50 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

I have a fairly locked down laptop myself, but I was able to use Intel XTU to squeeze just a tiny bit of extra turbo out of my CPU. You should download it as well and see which options aren't greyed out

Oh, does XTU work with non K/H models? TIL. Yeah, that could be useful for those TDP issues.

[Gat Pelsinger]

16 minutes ago, igormp said:

The max TDP up for that CPU is 25W

Yeah so TDP is PL1 I think so the max configurable PL1 that any OEM can put is 25 watts I think. But it can reach 31 watts which is the PL2 in my system. If not 30 watts, I would take 25 watts no problem. But still that needs a firmware hack.

 

16 minutes ago, igormp said:

Oh, does XTU work with non K/H models?

You can't overclock. Only increase the power limits that to sometimes if only your manufacturer allows to.

[Gat Pelsinger]

19 minutes ago, igormp said:

LPDDR4 is only soldered, so no, you can't, just buy another regular DDR4 stick.

My older laptop had a "DDR3L" slot. I think that means LPDDR3 RAM it was? 

[Fasauceome]

53 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

My older laptop had a "DDR3L" slot. I think that means LPDDR3 RAM it was? 

DDR3L specifically was "low voltage" and it was a stepping stone between DDR3 and the newer, more efficient DDR4. DDR3 and DDR3L aren't interchangeable because the lower voltage means it operated a bit differently. 

 

Likewise LP stands for "low power" and as mentioned before, it only comes in the soldered variety, unfortunately you can't get LPDDR4 in SODIMM format

1 hour ago, igormp said:

Oh, does XTU work with non K/H models? TIL. Yeah, that could be useful for those TDP issues.

Mileage may vary, I was only able to extend my turbo duration and slightly increase the turbo power limit. Although I miss the older days when on 7th Gen and older, you could directly control wattage and reduce the voltage, even if the CPU could not be overclocked directly. Had a crappy Acer laptop that became a lot less painful to game on that way. 

[igormp]

2 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Only increase the power limits that to sometimes if only your manufacturer allows to.

Would this be exactly what you want? If possible, ofc.

[Gat Pelsinger]

1 hour ago, igormp said:

Would this be exactly what you want? If possible, ofc.

You think I haven't tried?

[igormp]

50 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

You think I haven't tried?

You haven't mentioned it, and I lack a crystal ball to predict such things