Unlocking Intel CPU

[Lightning Reborn]

Hello,

I have an Intel I7 3632QM that runs at 2.2ghz W/O TurboBoost, and I would like to overclock it. The prolem is that it is a "locked" processor, so I can't OC it. Is there anyway to "unlock" it to make it availalbe to OC?

Thanks.

 

[InvalidError]

Aside from BCLK overclocking which has about 5% worth of relatively safe wiggle-room? No. AFAIK, there is no way to unlock locked SB/IB/Haswell CPUs.

 

[bignastyid]

Another large problem would be its a laptop, I doubt the cooling solution will be able to properly cool an oc'd cpu, and it's very rare for a laptops bios to allow overclocking.

 

[jaguarskx]

Laptops generally do allow you to overclock the CPU. I do not know of a single laptop which does except for a couple of large workstation laptops that actually use desktop CPUs in them.

 

[InvalidError]

I do not know of a single laptop which does except for a couple of large workstation laptops that actually use desktop CPUs in them.

IIRC, there is the Intel MX (Mobile eXtreme) product line that allows overclocking but not many people are interested in paying ~$1000 for a laptop CPU.

 

[blowntaha]

While the 3632QM is indeed a locked processor, and **by default**, you won't have much ability to overclock, aside from increasing your TDP limits IF your manufacturer allows it via BIOS setting.

HOWEVER, us overclockers don't care for defaults and locks and limits, right? With this CPU, depending on what chipset/mobo you have, almost always you can gain short/long term TDP turbo boost control. And if you have one of these chipsets (some may be desktop ones): Z77, Z75, QM77, QS77, UM77, HM77, then you can 100% always always gain BCLK control. In other words, you can increase the default 100 MHz reference clock (BCLK) to ~104+ depending on your particular motherboard. Since the max single core multiplier for this CPU is 32, and you increase BCLK by at least +3 ending with 103 MHz; you will have gained 99 MHz which is basically the same thing as adding +1 to your turbo multipliers as well as increasing PCIe/SATA speeds and boost ur eGPU performance (if you have one). This can also be a bad thing, but I won't get into that since you can just google it.

Here is how to do it; for gaining turbo TDP control, you need to set a setting in your BIOS called "Turbo PWR Limit MSR Lock" and set that to disabled. Afterwards, you'll be able to change your short/long turbo TDP limits in Intel XTU, throttlestop, etc. If you happen to have a locked BIOS or you do not have this setting, you can use an IFR structure extractor (plenty can be found via simple googling) to extract the correct decompressed module of your BIOS, this will then produce a .txt file with your BIOS settings. You just find the Turbo PWR Limit MSR Lock setting, find its variable hex value, boot into EFI Shell (grub) to change the NVRAM variable to 0x00 and reboot. And you will have turbo tdp control.

BCLK unlocking is significantly more difficult to do for the first time and will take me to long to tell you how. So, the short version is it involves unlocking your flash descriptor and then dumping, modifying and finally flashing your newly modified Intel ME FW. Then of course followed by a reboot, and you should have BCLK control in Intel XTU.

Sorry for the thread necro but it seems none of these replies go in depth or clearly answer the OP's question.