Clevo N960Kx (N960KR) Thread - BIOS Unlock, cooling mods, etc.

[YAR1307]

laptop Hasee TX9-CA5DP (similar to CLEVO N960KR)
I'll ask a very stupid question, how to change uefi to legacy? I want to enter DOS from a USB flash drive, but it is not in the boot device.
p.s. DOS was created correctly, it works on another PC but only through legacy

[kaz26]

Does anyone know how to replace the f-keys on this laptop? I accidentally popped one off when I was removing the keyboard, I was going fast and didn't flipped the computer over and thought I was pulling on the keyboard. It didn't break, but the hinge part separated. That's the part I am having trouble with and I don't want to break the small tabs. 

 

@YAR1307That's actually an interesting question to me. I'm not sure to be honest, maybe someone else has an answer to that.  
 

[razor0601]

If I remember correctly than you can‘t switch to legacy anymore.

[razor0601]

@kaz26 normally you can pull the f-keys out 

[kaz26]

I'm trying to put it back on. I will post an image later if it will help. 
- - - - - 

EDIT: It's looking like I might need to start a different thread for this...

[elnathbudi]

im using 140w vbios but gpu cant pull more than 125w, is this normal?

[kaz26]

@elnathbudi That's a very good score, I am only getting a little over 6700. You are also pulling more power than mine is. I thought my problem was either a lack of power or that it was temperature throttling. The most wattage I have seen my GPU use is 119W.

I'm curious what your settings are. Are you overclocking? Have you done any cooling mods? Also, are you using a debloated version of windows or anything else? 

 

I have only done basic debloating and have not yet done any cooling mods on the GPU heatsink yet. 

[srs2236]

12 hours ago, kaz26 said:

@elnathbudi That's a very good score, I am only getting a little over 6700. You are also pulling more power than mine is. I thought my problem was either a lack of power or that it was temperature throttling. The most wattage I have seen my GPU use is 119W.

I'm curious what your settings are. Are you overclocking? Have you done any cooling mods? Also, are you using a debloated version of windows or anything else? 

 

I have only done basic debloating and have not yet done any cooling mods on the GPU heatsink yet. 

Could it be because he has an i5 instead of your unlocked i7? I checked, his i5 is 65W while your i7 is 125W. Maybe that is giving him the extra power headroom he needs to achieve a higher score. Just my guess.

[kaz26]

6 hours ago, srs2236 said:

Could it be because he has an i5 instead of your unlocked i7? I checked, his i5 is 65W while your i7 is 125W. Maybe that is giving him the extra power headroom he needs to achieve a higher score. Just my guess

I was thinking the same thing. I tried running the i7 undervolted with turbo disabled and still got the same benchmark score.
 

 I do not recommend running a K-version CPU in this laptop unless it is required for CPU heavy applications. I might trade it out for an 11900 (non-k) version in time. The 11900 has a 65W TDP. Even with the 11700k tuned down, it’s still around 95W. 
 

I would still like to know more about the machine with the 6969 superposition score. 

[elnathbudi]

I haven't made any mods to the laptop because if I open the bottom cover, I will lose the warranty, so for my benchmark, I use performance mode, throttlestop, and NVIDIA Inspector clk+200 mem+550. As for cooling, I use a table that I make holes in and put a fan under, and I put foam between the laptop and the table that surrounds the edges of the laptop without blocking laptop vents, and  make it airtight, so the air generated from the fan will be forced into the vents. It sounds simple, but it really works! and my max temp was just 66.(i can change the table with a proper acrylic but as for now i will just using my unused table)

My gpu power can reach 128 watts, maybe because my cpu uses less power than yours and the rest of the power can go to the gpu, but the gpu doesn't want to take more than 128 watts no matter how I try it. Changing vbios seems to only change the boost clock that can be achieved with OC. I have also tried Vbios 150W, but nothing changed.

[elnathbudi]

Do you guys have the same problem with SoundBlaster 6? I think it's because of a Windows update, but I don't know which one. I've already tried to reinstall the SoundBlaster driver and Realtek from the Clevo website but it useless.  The speaker sounds low without SoundBlaster

[kaz26]

Very nice! I thought about using a laptop cooler or making something like yours, but didn't think it would deliver quite the results that you are getting. The only way to know if that's the only thing holding mine back is to try it, and now that I have seen yours, I think I will. 

Thank you for the info! @elnathbudi 

[blackrtx88]

i got the same result without cooling mod, just re paste the cpu with kryonaut. gpu core 200 memclock 200. with I7 11700 wich is 65watt, the gpu cant get it more than 129watt, i think the power adapter 230 are not enough to deliver more power gpu need. so it stuck with ~125watt.

 

for the cpu since it's not the K version, so i had to play with the PL, with 130w PL1, the cpu temp stress test are 92C. 

[kaz26]

That's very interesting. I did some benchmarks with the 11700 when I had that first and actually got better benchmarks with the 11700k. I have a 330w power brick, but the adapters both burned up when my charging port was bad. I will try to run some more benchmarks this weekend and provide the results. You must have a good system!
 

Which BIOS are you running? And have you adjusted any settings in the NVIDIA control panel?

[blackrtx88]

3 hours ago, kaz26 said:

That's very interesting. I did some benchmarks with the 11700 when I had that first and actually got better benchmarks with the 11700k. I have a 330w power brick, but the adapters both burned up when my charging port was bad. I will try to run some more benchmarks this weekend and provide the results. You must have a good system!
 

Which BIOS are you running? And have you adjusted any settings in the NVIDIA control panel?

the bios version is 10.7.14, other than the clock mem setting i didnt set anything else in nvidia control panel. it just wierd your 11700K got lower benchmark. also i'm using vanilla win11 (no debloat). seem you need find out what's make your system performance lower than my i7 11700.

[ViktorV]

🤫

[srs2236]

19 hours ago, ViktorV said:

🤫

That's very cool. Did they use higher speed chips? 2125MHz is pretty crazy speed.

[ViktorV]

6 hours ago, srs2236 said:

Did they use higher speed chips?

Yes, Samsung 2gb HC16 memory chips. Now rtx3070 16gb.

[kaz26]

@ViktorV I don't understand what you did to get 16GB of VRAM. 

[srs2236]

5 hours ago, kaz26 said:

@ViktorV I don't understand what you did to get 16GB of VRAM. 

It is quite simple actually.

 

1) Get your hands on 8 x 16Gb Density Samsung GDDR6 chips (IC's). This can be wherever you can source them. I know AliExpress has them but there is probably other sites aswell.

 

2) Desoldering the old VRAM chips without damaging the board or in this case the motherboard. The old chips can be reused or scrapped depending on how good was the removal.

 

3) Soldering the new RAM chips in place of the old ones. Usually they come preballed so all you have to do is align them and solder them without causing damage to the motherboard.

 

As far as I know, this shouldn't even require a VBIOS mod. I am 99% sure this worked right out of the box without any additional modifications but @ViktorV would know best. The pinout of the VRAM chips is exactly the same, that's why you can just change them in this kind of fashion. As to why it just works - my guess would be that NVIDIA doesn't just expect someone to do this kind of modification and has left support for multiple VRAM IC's in their VBIOS for compatibility reasons. It's similar how one card can support both Samsung and Micron memory chips etc.

 

I could be completely wrong though and feel free to correct me if this is the case. But I think I am correct on this.

 

Anyway, he definitely soldered new chips on the motherboard that's for sure.

[kaz26]

16 hours ago, srs2236 said:

Anyway, he definitely soldered new chips on the motherboard that's for sure.

 

Nice, that's what I thought, very cool!  I was just surprised to see this. 

I would like to know more about this procedure. Removing the VRAM modules will not be easy without bumping those capacitors that are right next to them and between them on this board. I'm also curious if any resistors need to be removed or replaced. 

 

 

[ViktorV]

9 hours ago, kaz26 said:

 

Nice, that's what I thought, very cool!  I was just surprised to see this. 

I would like to know more about this procedure. Removing the VRAM modules will not be easy without bumping those capacitors that are right next to them and between them on this board. I'm also curious if any resistors need to be removed or replaced. 

 

 

Yes, the memory chips were replaced and the strap resistors were shifted.

[srs2236]

1 hour ago, ViktorV said:

Yes, the memory chips were replaced and the strap resistors were shifted.

Oh so I was wrong. I didn't know about strap resistors. Cool stuff.😎

[kaz26]

@ViktorV Thank you for sharing this. Did you document the process at all for this laptop? This is something I would like to try as soon as I get a backup machine. The increased VRAM should make a big difference with the programs I use, especially with this GPU, which should probably have come with 16GB to begin with. 

[kaz26]

I'm still hoping for more information on the VRAM mod. 

If anyone else has done mods of any kind to their N960Kx, I'm sure all owners would like to see it. I still believe this machine has more potential that we have yet to realize.