Daysky D-Book Pro

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Thermal Repaste & Overclocking The Nvidia 940M In The D-Book Pro

Thermal Repaste & Overclocking The Nvidia 940M In The D-Book Pro

The Daysky D-Book Pro is an interesting $350 combination of dedicated Nvidia 940M 2GB GPU and the ever so common Celeron N3450. The CPU is far too weak for any real serious gaming as it bottlenecks almost all of the new and demanding titles, so I set out here in this video to see if it’s possible to improve both thermals and GPU performance.

And If you caught my review of the DaySky D-Book Pro you would have seen that thermals got up to 80 degrees on the CPU, that’s perfectly fine if it’s a passively cooled CPU and normally it is. But Daysky added a  small fan and I set the power limit to off, so it will use up to 15W if needed. I knew that I could improve thermals, but all that was required was a repaste on the CPU. Daysky used a horrible gum like a thermal pad or paste. Quite poor. With some Arctic MX-4 it dropped from 80 degrees C max to 74 degrees C max.

The GPU, on the other hand, would reach 90 degrees C after an hour of gaming. I decided to add a 20 x 20 x 1 mm thick copper chip and this lowered temps around 7-8 degrees C but this was after I overclocked the GPU. My Nvidia 940M overclocked like a champ. I was able to add 450Mhz  to the memory clock taking the RAM clock from 800Mhz stock to 1250Mhz. I used MSI afterburner to find the highest possible RAM speed before it displayed artifacts or crashed the GPU.

The CPU core clock is locked out, this can’t be overclocked with software, so I had to dump the bios, edit it using Maxwell bios tweaker. This involves editing the bios clocks and flashing it to the GPU. It’s rather simple and covered in the video. But there is a risk it could crash or you could brick the GPU so bear this in mind.

Through trial and error, adding just 10Mhz to the core clock at a time I found 1346Mhz. This is a nice increase over the stock 1176Mhz boost core clock. And as a result, the GPU performance in Heaven Benchmarks increased a massive 36% and in games and other benchmarks are 25% which is still a huge increase. Nvidia Maxwell overclocks well but remember this is my 940M GPU, your one might not overclock as good or even better.

Overall, games do run smoother and are more playable taking FPS in GTA 5 and Rise of the Tomb Raider up on average 6-7 FPS, but the CPU bottleneck remains and this is what caps performance and cannot be fixed in this laptop.

Below are the files need as shown in the video if you want to tweak and flash your 940M. I’ve also included the stock Nvidia 940M bios the D-Book Pro uses just in case. You can find them in the D-Book Pro download section.

Video tech reviewer and tech blogger. I have a huge interest in the latest tech, tablets, laptops, mobiles, drones, and even e-scooters. Active in the tech community since 2008 days of the Omnia i900 Windows phone. Samsungi8910omnia.com, Samsunggalaxysforums.com founder from way back.

12 Comments

  1. It’s a shame that the only downside is the cpu, only reason preventing me from buying this one as its the perfect match for portability and gaming performance. What about battery performance without gaming, I hope the gpu doesn’t eat battery when browsing and watching videos, any way to prevent it from eating battery to get around 6, 7 hrs of battery.

    Also any news on gemini lake or amd ryzen mobile. Really hope Chinese takes advantage of what ryzen brings to the fold.
    My perfect Ultrabook would be same as this with the exception of ryZen 2500u with dual channel 8 gb ram and precision touch-pad with 6,7hrs battery at least without heavy use under 400$ with shipping.

    My second option would be intel gemini lake with n5000 with 940mx for 300$.

    Third option would be this if it reaches 270$ in offer.

    I just want an decently fast ultra book with big battery life and one to play fifa 18 and pes 2018 on weekends as I wait for my 2 young children to grow up and not destroy my laptop every time I blink and for 7/10nm 8core intel cpu and 7nm nvidia gtx3070 cpu 17inch qhd 120hz ips to come out in the next 2/3 years. Lol.

    I usually watch dramas x265 and movies and 10tab browsing and some games at weekends and juSt have my 8 year old destroyed msi gaming laptop that is literally super-glued together with gpu not recognizing screen so I only game with hdmi and use laptop with disabled gpu.

    Lol long post sorry. Also Chris u have any fifa 18 or pes 2018 laying around to see if it’s limited by cpu or not or playable in 1080p resolution? Thanks again for great review.

  2. It’s a shame that the only downside is the cpu, only reason preventing me from buying this one as iTS the perfect match for portablility and gaming performance. What about battery performance without gaming, I hope the gpu doesn’t eat battery when browsing and watching videos, any way to prevent it from eating battery to get around 6, 7hrs of battery.

    Also any news on gemini lake or amd ryzen mobile.

    Really hope chinese takes advantage of what ryzen brings to the fold.

    My perfect Ultrabook would be same as this with the exception of ryZen 2500u with dual channel 8 gb ram and precision touchpad with 6,7hrs battery at least without heavy use under 400$ with shipping.

    My second option would be intel gemini lake with n5000 with 940mx for 300$.

    Third option would be this if it reaches 270$ in offer.

    I just want an decently fast ultra book with big battery life and one to play fifa 18 and pes 2018 on weekends as I wait for my 2 young children to grow up and not destroy my laptop every time I blink and for 7/10nm 8core intel cpu and 7nm nvidia gtx3070 cpu 17inch qhd 120hz ips to come out in the next 2/3 years. Lol.

    I usually watch dramas x265 and movies and 10tab browsing and some games at weakends and juSt have my 8 year old destroed msi gaming laptop that is litterally superglued together with gpu not recognising screen so I only game with hdmi and use laptop with disabled gpu.

    Lol long post sorry. Also Chris u have any fifa 18 or pes 2018 laying around to see if it’s limited by cpu or not or playable in 1080p resolution? Thanks again for great review.

  3. Or maybe you still have to add some benchmark testings before you give you conclusion.

    • I’ve done that all in the review and as always this hasn’t changed my reviews are based on the tech out of the box, no tweaks, repasting, not mods etc. Otherwise, it’s not fair to those that aren’t modders etc.

      • “my reviews are based on the tech out of the box, no tweaks, repasting, not mods etc. Otherwise, it’s not fair to those that aren’t modders etc.”
        Good point Chris. That is why you video tutorials are so much important especially to us noobs. You are the one taking the risks and we are always the ones benefiting out of it.

        • Thanks. Well someone has to take these risks first and it seems no else is going to do it.

  4. Hi Chris, as usual, an excellent guide and tutorial. One question though, where would you rank this Laptop in your Best Budget Laptop category or do you think is it time to create a separate rankings among budget gaming laptops? Thanks.

    • Hi, It ranks 9 out of 10 for performance in it’s Apollo Lake category. The overrating is much less as I look at the whole picture, if the speakers, touchpad and keyboard were good it would be right up there as one of the best as the screen is fantastic, super bright and I really love it. Just that cheap feeling keyboard and touchpad ruin the rest of the laptop.

  5. Pretty incredible what you were able to push out of this device with some simple hacks.

    Love seeing how much can be squeezed out of the cheap Chinese tech, this is great content Chris!

    • Same here, I love getting the most out of my tech like this even if it’s $999 Xiaomi laptop or this budget $350 one.

  6. Chris, on GTA V try using DirectX 10 instead of 11. You should see an increase in framerate.

    • Later I tested this with my overclocked core to 1346Mhz and was able to keep it above 30 fps with a max FPS of 38 fps. Not bad I feel for 720p low without any further tweaks.

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