Had a few adventures considering an Intel Laptop overclock before actually trying it. So, here's what I learned. It may help somebody, even if this thread is tad old.
I'm running an Acer Aspire F5 573 723q(based on i7 6500u/Intel HD 520). I have an InsydeH20 Rev 5.0 Unlocked BIOS, it is not modded though, it's the
original Acer one. Version 1.27;
Most Acer laptops, from my own experience and digging have the Advanced/Power tabs hidden and can easily be unlocked by learning what's the specific lock used by the manufacturer. That will involve a little digging and testing. Mine revolves around powering off the laptop, holding Fn + Tab, then powering it on, and entering the BIOS by spamming F2 before the Acer logo appears(Yeah, requires good reaction timing). My digging shows that these advanced menus being hidden rather than non-existant is much more common than many believe.
Before considering if it's doable(heat and power brick), I considered if it's possible. At first, two things came to mind: the multiplier, and the BCLK.
Since in Skylake PCI became independent from the BCLK(sorta?) and I was running early DDR4 RAM(2133mhz) I could try my luck and increase the BCLK. Except I found no way to do this, as even my unlocked BIOS can't mess with the
Intel ICC profiles. Software such as SetFSB didn't work either, changes didn't get applied. Which lead me to discard the possibility of even being able to mess with the BCLK without doing BIOS modding. As I have no programmer or SOCLI8 to mess with the BIOS(nor an spare device to actually fix the BIOS, lol) I gave up. Even if I could mess with it, I'd probably get caught up by the Intel ME(Management Engine). This little thingy doesn't tolerate even a few mhz and I'd probably get 50mhz at best, while being lucky if my BIOS didn't get messed up.
So, my only option was the multiplier. And you probably know how this went. OEM BIOS'es don't have multiplier settin-... oh. almost not.
I have access to the Flex Ratio Override and Turbo Override settings, that would allow me to mess with Base/Turbo speeds(Base 2.5, Turbo 3.1), but setting any illegal value registered by the CPU will either not allow me to type the value or the BIOS will just reset the value itself. Welp. Was an good attempt. My last clutch is the Overclocking Performance Menu.
Insyde "Power > Power & Performance > CPU - Power Management Control > CFG Lock" I could disable the Overclocking Lock and the CFG Lock, which hopefully exposed some memory addresses I'm not aware of(yeah, I'm not good with low level coding stuff, much less so with Firmware memory addressing). In the Advanced tab, I had an Overclocking Performance Menu which you can see
in this same shot I've sent before.
For all except Uncore I can set Voltages, either Override or Adaptive mode, with either + or - offsets, and obviously, the offset/override values. For the CPU Cores, I can set Max OC Ratios, but can't mess with the multiplier. For the Ring, I can set a Min and Max OC Ratio. For the memories, I can mess with the frequency multiplier and all timings just fine, as well as voltages. For the iGPU, I can set Overclocking frequencies to both the Slice and Unslice, but those don't take effect. I can also give an "Extra Turbo Voltage" to them when they're running at higher frequencies(which is obviously the Turbo Mode they have).
I also have the IMON Scaling Support feature enabled and RSR disabled, as you may see on the shots.
One thing to point out is that, in the System Agent configuration menu inside the Advanced Tab, I could mess with a few settings for the iGPU, like "Gfx low power mode" which I set to disabled and "Graphics IMON Turbo Current" which I set to the max, 31(legal values were only 14 to 31, seemingly).
As a last thing I found out, doing some digging I found manuals that included info about the GT - Power Management Control menu which I can't access. The menu is there, along CPU - Power Management Control, but if I try entering it, the BIOS becomes unresponsive. My external keyboard dies although the internal one seems to work just fine as I press Numlock/Caps lock/Scroll lock and my LED's in the external keyboard light up. The BIOS won't come back, I need to forcefully shut down and re-boot. I point this out as many manuals I found actually had an "GT Overclocking Support" setting inside it which is by default set as disabled, which may be the reason applying any value to the "GT Overclocking Frequency" on both the Slice and Unslice doesn't change anything. And even then, I'm not sure whether the Intel ME would tolerate it.
Hope this helps somebody. If anybody knows anything that could help me or if they need to ask anything, feel free to.