Question Llano users on win 10

[Zepp]

I have a soft spot for APU's and felt like finding a machine with AMD's first gen, Llano. I found a cheap Toshiba Satellite with an A6-3400M to use as a simple internet'n machine away from home.

Since the integrated GPU is Terascale 2 what is the best option for display drivers? let windows decide? grab whatever legacy driver AMD has on their site? I assume modern Radeon Settings would not be compatible.

I know linux would be a good option performance wise but I have never liked using linux. It is a last option if win10 doesn't agree with the little machine.

 

[ao_ika_red]

You picked very old APU. It only works with AMD Catalyst Driver, and latest version is 15.7.1 WHQL and it only supports win 8.1. Good luck.

Tip: If you're looking for decent and cheap APU netbook / small notebook, look for A8-7410 APU. This was an awesome little APU.

 

[DrMrLordX]

If I had to guess, go with the default drivers that Microsoft gives you. Llano is so old and unsupported by drivers you'd download from AMD that even if you could find a driver package for it, I can't promise you with absolute certainty that it would install properly on Win10.

Hmm actually, read this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AdvancedMicroDevices/comments/3he651/psa_if_you_have_an_apu_think_twice_before/

Looks like things might not be so rosy regardless of how you go.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Friend of mine was just asking about upgrading his GF's PC to Win10, it has an FM1 APU (that I upgraded for them a year or two ago, to a quad-core FM1 APU).

I remember @waltchan telling me all about these FM1 mobos that were "Certified for Win10", well, they were actually certified for Win8 (maybe 8.1), but it all worked out, all devices were fully-supported out-of-the-box with Win10 when installed onto those boards.

Ironically, I think that newer versions of Win10, seemed to not support the FM1 APU's iGPU as well as older versions of Win10.

That actually makes sense in the context, that over the evolution of Win10 versions, they've upped the WDDM model version, whereas the FM1 APU drivers haven't been re-written, and are still WDDM-whatever-old-version, and haven't "kept up".

So, no, the FM1 APUs haven't aged very well. Maybe I can convince him to buy one of my GT630/730 (Kepler, 384CC) cards, at least then he would have supported video.

 

[.vodka]

I have a soft spot for APU's and felt like finding a machine with AMD's first gen, Llano. I found a cheap Toshiba Satellite with an A6-3400M to use as a simple internet'n machine away from home.

Since the integrated GPU is Terascale 2 what is the best option for display drivers? let windows decide? grab whatever legacy driver AMD has on their site? I assume modern Radeon Settings would not be compatible.

I know linux would be a good option performance wise but I have never liked using linux. It is a last option if win10 doesn't agree with the little machine.

Llano uses Terascale 1. Even older.

I know someone who's still using a Llano system I built them back in 2012 as a daily driver for the usual web browsing and office suite tasks. An SSD did the trick for them. They're using w10 since ~1803. No issues, no BSODs, etc.

Just use the windows update provided driver.

 

[Zepp]

I know someone who's still using a Llano system I built them back in 2012 as a daily driver for the usual web browsing and office suite tasks. An SSD did the trick for them. They're using w10 since ~1803. No issues, no BSODs, etc.

Just use the windows update provided driver.

good to hear. thanks

Llano uses Terascale 1. Even older.

It's a Radeon HD 6520G that's listed as Terascale 2

AMD Radeon HD 6520G

Specifications and benchmarks of the AMD Radeon HD 6520G graphics card for notebooks.

www.notebookcheck.net

 

[SPBHM]

TeraScale 1 would be something like Radeon HD 4870, Llano is similar to the HD 5570 GPU AFAIK, definitely TeraScale 2

I can't add much to the thread, but the discrete TeraScale 2 cards with the default driver (some form of Catalyst 15.7) works pretty OK, apart from being very old all seems fine.

I did see people having issues with old APUs and having to resort to manual install,
if you can manually install the 15.7 from AMD's website that would probably be a good bet, I prefer those over the 16.x beta.

 

[.vodka]

You're both right. I mixed up TS1 and TS2 as they're very similar (mostly just DX11 support added in the second version). I was thinking of TS3 as TS2 as that's the one with most changes.

It's been a while for those architectures. Memory becomes fuzzy.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I can't add much to the thread, but the discrete TeraScale 2 cards with the default driver (some form of Catalyst 15.7) works pretty OK, apart from being very old all seems fine.

I can't say I've had any issues with the 10 provided driver (15.7.1 I think it is) during the 4 years I had a system running a Llano APU on 10. It's completely stable.

Now, there may be issues if try and run newer games on it, and any issues that crop up will not be fixed. But for general desktop usage it's just fine.

I did see people having issues with old APUs and having to resort to manual install,
if you can manually install the 15.7 from AMD's website that would probably be a good bet, I prefer those over the 16.x beta.

Be aware that, among other things, the 16 Beta breaks HDCP support. I'd stick with the 10 provided one.

 

[Zepp]

Have another question about Llano. The laptop came with 1x 2GB stick of RAM, does Llano support hybrid dual channel if I were to pair it with a 4GB stick? I could save some money going that rout instead of buying an 8GB kit.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I know linux would be a good option performance wise but I have never liked using linux. It is a last option if win10 doesn't agree with the little machine.

I agree with others that win 10 will run well, particularly after you increase the ram. But since you find Linux unsavory, you can always install Android x86 when looking for a windows alternative.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Have another question about Llano. The laptop came with 1x 2GB stick of RAM, does Llano support hybrid dual channel if I were to pair it with a 4GB stick? I could save some money going that rout instead of buying an 8GB kit.

Dual-channel never works unless the sticks are identical at identical speeds/timings. Llano is no different.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Have another question about Llano. The laptop came with 1x 2GB stick of RAM, does Llano support hybrid dual channel if I were to pair it with a 4GB stick? I could save some money going that rout instead of buying an 8GB kit.

I don't think Llano supports anything like Intel's FlexMemory. I'd definitely recommend dual channel, performance really tanks with only single channel. Video decoding performance is affected too, to such a degree that the mainboard manual for my old FM2 system (and that's a generation newer) even included a flier that dual channel was required for HD decoding.

Dual-channel never works unless the sticks are identical at identical speeds/timings. Llano is no different.

With a bit of tweaking, you can usually get dual channel to work at the frequency/timings of the slowest DIMM in the system. If on a really tight budget. For absolute reliability, one should always buy a set of factory matched DIMMs. They are guaranteed to work together.

Then there is the additional caveat of Intel's FlexMemory. If you put dissimilar capacities on each channel, the matching amounts gets set as dual channel, while excess capacity gets mapped as single channel.

F.x. you could have an 8GB DIMM on one channel, and a 4GB on the other. That'd give you 4+4GB of dual channel, with the last 4GB operating in single channel mode.

 

[DrMrLordX]

With a bit of tweaking, you can usually get dual channel to work at the frequency/timings of the slowest DIMM in the system.

Yeah, but the DIMMs still have to be the same size. And if you have a laptop or other OEM box with no RAM tweaking options in the BIOS, you may be out of luck.

Then there is the additional caveat of Intel's FlexMemory.

Didn't know that. Interesting. But as you said, Llano won't give anyone that option.

 

[mikeymikec]

When I'm putting Windows 10 on older systems, I use the display driver that Windows 10 installed if it's date is more recent than the official latest driver (it usually is).

 

[AtenRa]

Yeah, but the DIMMs still have to be the same size. And if you have a laptop or other OEM box with no RAM tweaking options in the BIOS, you may be out of luck.



Didn't know that. Interesting. But as you said, Llano won't give anyone that option.

Llano supports asymmetric dual memory

2GB + 4GB DDR3 1333 is almost the same as dual channel 4GB + 4GB

TechnologyGuide

Thank you for visiting the TechnologyGuide network. Unfortunately, these forums are no longer active. We extend a heartfelt thank you to the entire community for their steadfast support—it is really you, our readers, that drove

forum.notebookreview.com

System Configuration:
HP DV6z Quad Edition
AMD A8-3510MX APU with integrated 6620G GPU
Radeon 6750m
15.6" 1920x1080 LCD
WD SiliconEdge Blue 256GB SSD
Blu-Ray Reader / DVDRW

 

[DrMrLordX]

Llano supports asymmetric dual memory

Odd. I didn't think that even worked.

 

[beginner99]

My GF has an old A6 llano laptop. Don't know exact model number. It runs win10 but don't no about graphics. It's only for office/internet usage so graphics performance doesn't really matter much. (I upgraded it with an ssd which made it from unusable to good enough again).

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Llano supports asymmetric dual memory

Well, you learn something every day. Thanks for sharing.

I suppose this goes for anything newer too. Apparently got some testing to do.

 

[Zepp]

Thanks for all the responses. The laptop arrived and windows seems to perform surprisingly well. I'm actually amazed I can watch 1080p youtube videos fullscreen and not hear the fan ramp up. like dumbfounded.
I used to have an Asus laptop with 35w Richland that was a non stop leaf blower.

 

[RetroZombie]

Its interesting they have drivers for the radeon HD 5450 for windows 10, and don't have drivers for the radeon hd 6520G on their website since it's the exact same gpu.
Windows 10 installs them automatic?

 

[AtenRa]

Its interesting they have drivers for the radeon HD 5450 for windows 10, and don't have drivers for the radeon hd 6520G on their website since it's the exact same gpu.
Windows 10 installs them automatic?

Sign In to AMD Community - AMD Community

community.amd.com

The following AMD APU products with AMD Radeon™ Graphics support up to WDDM 1.2 and DirectX® 11 on Windows 10:

• AMD A4/A6/A8-3000 Series APUs
• AMD E2-2000 APU
• AMD E1/E2-1000 Series APUs
• AMD E-200/300/400 Series APUs
• AMD C-Series APUs
• AMD Z-Series APUs

NOTE: These APU products must be installed only using the display driver version available via Windows Update. If you have upgraded to Windows® 10, please DO NOT install the AMD Catalyst™ Driver. Instead, enable Windows Update and allow it to detect and install the appropriate driver.

 

[Zepp]

Its interesting they have drivers for the radeon HD 5450 for windows 10, and don't have drivers for the radeon hd 6520G on their website since it's the exact same gpu.
Windows 10 installs them automatic?

I actually ended up installing win 8.1.
I went with 8.1 for now because the latest BIOS revision mentions adding support for win8 and the Toshiba provided drivers are only offered for win 7 & 8.

I decided if I had issues with it I'd move to 10, and if I had issues with 10 I'd move to Linux. so far 8.1 seems pretty solid.

 

[Jan Olšan]

I used Windows 10 on Llano in 2015. It was the destkop version but IIRC AMD did put out a driver for Windows 10 and that worked. But the driver in WU might be the same thing or even newer, no idea.

There was one new-era Radeon Software beta release that you can install on Llano (the first release) but I opted for the old stable Catalyst. Unless that was with Richland, but if Richland works then Llano probably does too.

I remember that when I tried this beta Radeon Software, I was getting some line artifact drawn in mpeg2 video, not sure if there are other bugs. I also heard people had problems on Llano video decoding through DXVA under W10 with the Catalyst but I don't recall testing that, maybe it was player dependent.

The "Win8" features in BIOS are modern UEFI support that's applicable to W10 too I think, as that is a direct evolution.

 

[.vodka]

Thanks for all the responses. The laptop arrived and windows seems to perform surprisingly well. I'm actually amazed I can watch 1080p youtube videos fullscreen and not hear the fan ramp up. like dumbfounded.
I used to have an Asus laptop with 35w Richland that was a non stop leaf blower.

Great!

Next step, use k10stat to set up the CPU as you want. Once you have stable settings (prime95 is your friend at every pstate), you can load it up on startup.

These chips can be undervolted nicely, some have a turbo mode that you can use to overclock some.

For example, I had to service an A6-3420m notebook once. That's a 1500MHz base / 2400MHz turbo model. k10stat exposed all seven or eight pstates plus the turbo state, I was able to undervolt all pstates by ~0.1v while raising that base speed to ~2.2GHz, and then overclock the turbo state to 3GHz ~1.3v.

Set up like that, it was surprisingly snappy and ran quite cooler than before.