ice.cold

Ah, I thought that VT-d was disabled in the 4930mx, but I must have been thinking of a different cpu. I know that it is disabled in the i7-4770K, as well as the Ivy/Sandy bridge i7 K-sku. Thank you for sharing how you were able to unlock the ratios. I probably would have never come up with the idea of overclocking without the microcode updates myself, if this hadn't been publicized. It's probably also possible to unlock the extra 'artificially-disabled' features like vt-d or additional cache on processors like mine, since intel have previously done this with their 'Intel Upgrade Service'. Too bad it's now discontinued, it would have been good to find out how it worked.

It's very nice to see another unlockable haswell model. Just out of curiosity, do the VT-d capabilities of your chip still work properly while overclocked? It's disabled in many of the 'normally unlocked' chips, and since they're already amongst the most expensive ones I can't think of any good reasons for intel to disable it, unless it becomes unstable quickly when overclocking.

Yep, the OVP/FIVR faults was the problem, when I realized that I found that my processor had already hit it's clockspeed wall; trying 48x at 1.5V still occasionally locked up, and I don't think this chip will hit 5Ghz unless I rig it upto some impromptu LN2. The benchmark scores do improve with increasing clockspeed, and there dosen't appear to be any throttling. I don't know what TS scores you get, but mine could be lower possibly because of calculation errors during the test from too low voltage, and possibly also the fact I was only using 1 stick of 1333mhz CL9 ram at the time. Don't worry about the efi program; I thought you were just going to send me something you were already using. I figured out a way to set the multipliers before the OS boots .

The bricked bios was no big deal really, I've had to take the chip off before and I was able to do that without issue, though I guess it can only be desoldered so many times before something breaks. Luckily it was just the 3.3V line, which can be easily sourced elsewhere from the board. Actually removing the microcode had nothing to do with the bricking - ironically the recovery module decided that it would act out a scene that could have been written for mission impossible, by erasing it's own boot block and then abruptly shutting itself off without warning. I got this multiplier upto 47x with ~1.31V, attempting to set the voltage even a little bit higher resulted in lockups; so it's giving me the same issue you had, probably due to the VCCIN bug you just mentioned. It's likely not stable at this freqency and voltage either, it will probably crash if I try using loads other than the TS8 benchmark. In terms of binning I'd say it's similar to your chip. Thanks for the MSR tip, though all the bits from 47:0 seem to be read only, and the rest just crash the laptop when set. While monitoring that register and using TS, I did notice that bits 7:0 briefly showed the maximum turbo ratio when I pressed the reset turbo button, but anything I try write to it is ignored. I think the maximum multiplier is set elsewhere, unless I'm missing the elephant in the room. The Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 Design Guide is what I was trying to find, though it's only avaliable under NDA so I don't think they'll be a public version anywhere. I'm sure you have a much deeper knowledge of the configuration registers for these cpus than what I do, even if you say you don't know a whole lot. I also tested the TS trick with microcode 07, and the max turbo dosen't increase anymore, but the 4C ratio can be pushed to 36x like I posted before. I am using CSM with an MBR partitioned drive, but still send through the EFI file, I'll see what I can accomplish with it. Actually I tried to test the microcode update facilities in the biosbits environment, but it seems to read the CPU platform ID as 00000001 instead of what it should be, so it won't upload any new microcdes for my cpu. I'm not sure if it's a bug in the program or if it's due to my ES processor, so I'll either need to patch the platform check out (to upload microcode version 1C) or just use the windows update. I think 1C disables the buggy TSX instructions, and probably should be used if possible. Update: Just doing a little more research into the topic, there have actually been discussions about bios mods for mobo's with Xeon E3-1231 processors (cpuid 306c3 - same as 4700mq), which say that they can increase their 4C turbo multi's upto the 1C max, by using microcode version 07. These processors might also have the unlockable multipliers. Link: http://www.win-raid.com/t785f16-Discussions-UBU-Tool-related-Questions-Reports-and-Suggestions-54.html#msg7914

1 bricked bios later and a wiring bypass after the VCC solder pad broke off my mainboard, I can now report success! Here's a screenshot of my cpu @ 42x running an 8 thread 7-zip benchmark using the initial microcode: The cpu voltage readout for my cpu is wrong without any microcode updates, due to erratum HSM32. It should be double the displayed value (I used a +125mv offset). I was actually able to use Throttlestop 8 to overclock the processor, as the max turbo multiplier increased by 2 every time the FIVR controls were opened after setting the core ratios to the max multiplier. Quite a convenient bug (or feature), and somewhat ironic since it disabled your overclock. It's funny that intel decided to omit this from their errata sheets. I'm a little surprised it wasn't discovered earlier, but I'm more surprised it actually works on your retail processor, as I would have thought they'd use locked microcodes for them. Still a nice find nonetheless, and worthwhile trying on any other ES cpus that seem to be locked. My bios can be crossflashed to one from a P170SM, which includes hidden settings for voltage control and overclocking of the cpu, igpu, ram etc (some options do brick the laptop), though it does honor the programmed limits and refuses to set anything beyond 36x. Hard-coding the values dosen't work either. I think it would be easier to setup the cpu multipliers in a pre-boot environment, which could also be used to update the microcode. I don't use UEFI, but it should be possible to script something for the biosbits test environment. I am having trouble finding programming documentation for overclocking haswell processors though. Maybe I'm not searching for the right terms.

I managed to get this partially working using microcode version 07 (earliest version I could find; from an early lenovo Y510 bios). It seems to be fixed in microcode version 08 though. My bios allow me to enter any number between 0 and 255 for the core ratios, however this bios only sets the registers up with +2 bins over the default, regardless of how high the entered multi is. However, I was able to run an 8 thread load at 36x by manually adjusting the limits under MSR 0x1AD, and the requested ratio under MSR 0x199. It still dosen't go over 36x using these registers, even if they are set higher than 36x. Did you need to adjust any other registers to use the higher bins? Microcode version 08 seems to just ignore MSR 0x1AD. My bios is for a clevo P150SM, and is AMI Aptio 4 based. Judging from the bios string in your CPU-Z submissions, your MSI bios is also Aptio 4 based, so it's behaviour should be somewhat similar to mine.

So from the sound of it, with an AMI Aptio IV bios, all I need to do is just prevent the bios from uploading any microcode (forcing the cpu to use the factory provided one), and then adjust the ratio limits under the Advanced -> CPU Configuration menu? Is that all there is to it? I thought it would be more complicated than this. I'll give this a shot over the weekend if that's it. Do you know if this 'bug' was fixed by a particular microcode revision? Or is it just any microcode that's been released with stock bioses since the 4700mq launch?

It looks like you managed to solve your 1.3V limit issue . I actually have an ES version of the i7-4700mq, though I wasn't able to increase the turbo multiplier any more than +2 bins over the default max (upto 3.6Ghz). How did you manage to unlock your retail version? It'd be interesting to see if it works on my ES model.

Wow, that's a nice overclock for a 4700mq. I haven't seen anyone with an unlocked, non-extreme edition mobile 4th gen before. Nice Find.