So here's the question no one ever asked.... can I ditch the 25w CPU that comes with the miniscule Lenovo M710Q and go large! - yes, you can, but that 65w power brick wont do.
I swapped to a reasonable 65w i7-7700 and it ran fine on the stock power brick, but it said it was CPU thermal throttling when benchmarking, and clocks were all over - temps were reasonable though, and it was struggling to maintain more than 25-30w TDP. I swapped the power brick to a 90w version and hey presto, I have 30-50w+ running through the CPU on Prime95.
This runs well but does thermal throttle quite quickly, a -150mv core voltage offset did wonders here, instantly smoothed out the temperature and boost clocks to the max of 4.0ghz for 4 core loads but only for 10 minutes, after that IntelXTU reports Motherboard VR thermal throttling and I see "VR VVC Temperature" in HWinfo is reaching around 96c when throttling kicks in. I popped open the case and as is to be expected, non of the VRMs are cooled at all. I cut up and stuck on some rudimentary cooling with Sekisui#5760, just to test theories - it seemingly made no difference. I covered the two driver/mosfets IC's near the CPU, as well two below it, and also a controller on the back of the motherboard - alas...... it made no difference at all..........
So next up, I'll get the mobo setup out of the chassis and get it toasty and then hit it with the FLIR, and see if I can see anything that looks uphappy - that'll have to wait a few weeks though.
Stay tuned to find out the answer to the question that's literally not on anyones lips!
I swapped to a reasonable 65w i7-7700 and it ran fine on the stock power brick, but it said it was CPU thermal throttling when benchmarking, and clocks were all over - temps were reasonable though, and it was struggling to maintain more than 25-30w TDP. I swapped the power brick to a 90w version and hey presto, I have 30-50w+ running through the CPU on Prime95.
This runs well but does thermal throttle quite quickly, a -150mv core voltage offset did wonders here, instantly smoothed out the temperature and boost clocks to the max of 4.0ghz for 4 core loads but only for 10 minutes, after that IntelXTU reports Motherboard VR thermal throttling and I see "VR VVC Temperature" in HWinfo is reaching around 96c when throttling kicks in. I popped open the case and as is to be expected, non of the VRMs are cooled at all. I cut up and stuck on some rudimentary cooling with Sekisui#5760, just to test theories - it seemingly made no difference. I covered the two driver/mosfets IC's near the CPU, as well two below it, and also a controller on the back of the motherboard - alas...... it made no difference at all..........
So next up, I'll get the mobo setup out of the chassis and get it toasty and then hit it with the FLIR, and see if I can see anything that looks uphappy - that'll have to wait a few weeks though.
Stay tuned to find out the answer to the question that's literally not on anyones lips!
