Alienware 17 R4 GTX1080 in game random Stutter & Freeze

Would you say I'm better getting Alienware to do this as it's still under warranty or am I better off just doing it myself?

Thank you

 

Do it yourself. Just be careful.

 

I doubt they will do it themselves. If it did not come out like that fresh from the factory its considered a customization and they have "guidelines" that techs follow so if its not listed there you are left to do it alone... unless ofc you can force them to do it for you or you have pro support or something tldr its a shot in the dark/ long shot for them to be doing the repadding.

 

@alexnvidia hi alex i need your help i have the same issue you had with your alienware 7820hk and im gonna do it myself so can you give me a list of things i need to buy because its my first time doing it

 

I know this is regarding the 1080 alienware 17 r4..but i have a 1070 with a 7700HQ 17 r4 and im looking in my gpuz perfcap and im seeing this the vrel...this is at stock tdp (no tdp mod has been applied to my chip) and i have a +200 core +250mem OC...and im feeling concerned about this...really hoping i wont have to do a complete repad...a repaste is what i can do..but i cant afford pads atm..

 

are u experienced in disassembly or repasting the laptop? if you are not comfortable doing it, i suggest you contact dell support to sort this out.

if you know what you are doing, then you will need good thermal paste like thermal grizzly kryonaut, reasonably good thermal pads like arctic cooling size 0.5mm, 1mm and 1.5mm. use the guides in first thread here and also disassembly thread as reference but do not follow them blindly. you need to customize the pad thickness to your heatsink and motherboard because all heatsink are manufactured differently.

having said that, the stock pads are alright too. you just need to make sure they are making good contacts with the power delivery circuits (VRM, choke) and also GDDR5x, so you might have to bend the metal a bit to get more contact pressure

 

are you experiencing any kind of stuttering or issues?

 

It seems they are happening rather lightly..i did notice some small freezes for like a split second here and there...but maybe its because my 1070 is maxing out its tdp? This pic was when playing bf1 just now...there is alot of blue but he stuttering was not happening that crazy in actual game play

 

your GPU is fine. there's nothing to worry about. from your GPUz graph i can see the load remains consistently high, gpu and memory frequency are stable as well. The only reason you are getting Vrel is because you have hit your GPU TDP limit. sometimes during gaming you might get a bit of wierd freeze or stutter but that could be coming from somewhere else.

have you repasted your system? the GPU temperature seems a bit high but then again im not familiar with 1070 system with a smaller heatpipe and heatsink assembly. My GTX1080 under full gaming load like BF1 can hardly hit 65C. it usually hovers around 61-63C.

 

well you definitely calmed me down quite abit! im actually about to perform a tdp hardware mod tomorrow so that should help things..also..should i use the latest nvidia driver..or should i use the dell nvidia driver from their site for the 17 r4...i also updated my bios to the latest..i hope this was okay too.

 

Just use the latest driver from nvidia and ensure your laptop BIOS is fully updated, despite many claims saying older bios are better etc (just my personal opinion).

What you might wanna consider doing is using voltage curve to undervolt your GPU to lower the TDP. you'll also find that your GPU can boost consistently higher. you can do that using msi after burner and pressing ctrl+F. there are plenty of guides online. this software tweak is fully reversible rather than doing a hardware mod.

 

I want to do the hardware mod to allow more power to my 1070, heh

 

how are you going to do that? you have a reference link on showing the steps? i would be curious to find out too

 

Well i had to buy a hardware flasher, clip, 1.8v adapter..wires lol...it was alot of stuff but it will allow me to write bioses to bios chips. (im using it for gpus) and i am going to be unlocking my 1070 tdp from the stock 115w to 150-170w. it will increase performance by 10-15%...its kinda the same thing as the official bios that dell released for you 1080 users out there for your 17 r4...but they never did it for the 1070..well with hardware flashing..now it can happen.

 

Let us know how it goes

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-feedback-thread.806161/page-28#post-10565005 start from page 1

 

Thank you for helping me. actually its going to be my first time to repaste laptop so yaa i dont have an experience. but im gonna do it myself because there is no dell center in my country. Do i need to buy a cooper shim or anthing else?

 

and do i need to buy new vga ram heatsink ?

 

Have you tested your system? Do u have cpu core temperature differential problem?

 

Yes i had the cores temp difference is between 2 to 6 c
the average temp is 75 and the maximum is 87 to 90

 

to be honest, your heatsink is in good shape. temperature differential of just 2-6C is quite ok. There are many people having over 15C or some even over 20C. i think all you need to do is a repaste for the cpu and gpu.

if you are getting stuttering during gaming, fire up GPUz and check if your gpu load drops to 0 and perfcapreason showing vrel when it happens. if that's the case then you need to check the contacts of the VRM, choke, and GDDR5x. Ensure the thermal pads are making solid contacts with all those components so they do not overheat during gaming. U need to be extremely visually attentive and detailed when checking for gaps. just one tiny gap will ruin your day.

 

Yup exactly that is my case the gpu load drops to 0 suddenly and the temperature is over 70 when i played any game but do i need to buy new heat senk for the vram or the cpu? Or the pads gonna do the work?

 

u dont need to buy new heatsink. just buy some pads and try to fix it first. gpu temp over 70C is pretty high for alienware 17 r4 gtx1080

 

2-6C is totally fine as long as you are not hitting crazy temps. Do your games throttle or reach insane temps like 90C? If not, then just enjoy your laptop.

 

yes sometimes cpu tump reach 90c

 

sry i meant over 50 and the cpu over 70 like 85 or even sometimes 90c

 

@alexnvidia do the 4 small pads on the heatsink come off?



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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

No. They are double sided taped to the heatsink from factory. The only way to remove them is by force. Make sure u have replacement thermal pads before attempting to remove them.

 

Thanks, what thickness should I use? I have arctic pads
Had to use 3mm to bridge one of the gaps


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Assuming u removed the factory pads and double sided tape, Ideally 1mm. But if that is not making any imprints of the VRM when u screw the heatsink down, u might need to add another 0.5mm as u see fit.

Be careful not to overdo the pads, if they are way too thick, u risk lifting the gpu heatsink causing poor gpu contact with the copper heatsink. That is when your gpu Temps will sky rocket to over 80C

 

I actually did a repad once but didn't replace the 4 little ones and the other one next to it, doing so delayed the onset of stutters from 5 mins to 25 mins I then downgraded back to the old bios and was able to play BF 1 for an hour straight without any stuttering

Thanks again.


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Just an update to my experience in this thread. I sent my second purchase back. I received a total of 4 machines. Two original and two exchanges and they all had problems. Stuttering on the originals and 100C / 12C core differentials on the replacement. Sad to see the name Alienware used in this same comment.

I'm going to try an EVGA SC17 1080 and see if that fares any better.

Time will tell.

Enjoy your labor day weekend!

 

It won't!
Get something with proper cooling!

 

Don't expect miracles with the EVGAbook. You pay Premium for the design and the aluminum body... Same as Razerbook's. Not for what's count... The performance and the cooling!! Can't have both. And FYI EVGA's fancy bios Gui doesn't mean you will get raw performance and very good hardware temp.

 

Define "proper cooling".

The AW would've had "proper cooling" if the heat sinks were manufactured properly and installed correctly but they weren't so it didn't.

The 1080 SC17 is thicker than the AW 17 and has taller fans with more heat dissipation. It also uses a true 4 bolt pattern for securing the heat sink. If it has problems then I'll try something else.

However, I know the 4 Alienwares I had didn't have proper cooling. I can only go try something else at this point.

 

See heatsinks of MSI and Clevo p775dm or p870dm3

 

MSI is on the short list too. However, the aesthetics aren't very nice on my eyes and I don't really buy in on the split heat sink design. It's kind of like the single rail vs mutliple rail PSU argument. Unless you're at 100% on all cooled ICs you have more overall cooling ability to take advantage of.

Anyway, I might end up with an MSI if the EVGA doesn't work out. Maybe even an HP Omen-X.

Who knows. lol

 

The cpu heatsink in the old Clevo P870 can remove almost 132W heat from the processor. And still have headroom for more wattage aka remove even more heat!!

FYI. HP Omen-X haven't the best cooling if that's what you want!!

 

It does or it doesn't?

It's not even out yet and there's no reviews of it.

Edit: Also, there's a limit to the amount of ugly I'm prepared to accept and the Clevo surpasses it.

lol

Just my .02.

 

Don't hold your breath regarding the cooling in any models from HP. New ain't the same as better!! I and other enthusiasts have seen a lot From terrible to awful. You can't imagine how bad cooling some OEMs design for their notebooks!!

 

lol
I know what you mean. I had a D901 once and it was almost as ugly as it was powerful.

As Papusan said, difficult to have a good form factor AND very low temps (even if I'm quite satisfied with my unit now).

 

I can verify and replicate the stuttering, where load drops to 0% due to vrel. I can confirm 100% that it only happens when the back is lifted, which actually results in lower CPU/GPU temps, so something funky is definitely going on here.

Witcher 3 started stuttering after 20 minutes on laptop cooler, GPU temp max 68c. I put it flat on desk, and it was stutter free for 2 hours with GPU temp max 76c. Then I put it back on the cooler, and stuttering started again within 5 minutes.

It's hard to believe that pressure or airflow over the thermal pads would change significantly due to the angle of the laptop, so tomorrow I'm going to test it flat with all corners raised to see if it's the angle of the laptop causing this, or the extra airflow is somehow messing with power delivery. It's a small step before I open it up again. I'm also going to try to underclock the GDDR to see if it has any affect.

 

it actually makes sense. when you raised the laptop, the two large intake fans can draw air directly, bypassing the middle components, whereas compared to laying flat on the desk, cool air has to be forced all along the vent holes underneath allowing cool air to sweep across the power delivery circuits and GDDR5X chips.

I've done a separate testing on this theory several months ago, by simply covering the vents directly under the two main fans, forcing the fans to draw air from the center vents. This method cools the PCH without any modification or heatsink and needless to say the VRM, chokes and GDDR5X get cooled as well. the only drawback is increased CPU and GPU temps. Anyway, after i ensure proper contacts with the power delivery circuit and GDDR5X, everything is smooth sailing regardless of raised back or flat on desk. makes no difference.

 

It's possible, but my PCH temps are also lower when on laptop cooler, leading me to believe everything is cooler down there.

But I'm glad you've been able to find a solution, and hopefully I can replicate it and provide another data point.

 

Does HWInfo provide a PCH temp reading? May be worthwhile someone hopping on the forums and asking Martin what he needs, to be able to add to the config files.

I found adding a thermal pad between the PCH and the back of the keyboard, which kept it under 80C, stopped a particular type of crash I was getting in my P870.

So its not like Clevo don't do similarly retarded things in design, like leave these chips naked, thinking anything under the rated failure temperature is a guarantee of as a stable operation...

 

I

HWInfo64 does show PCH temps.

I also added leftover fujipoly on my PCH, and mine doesn't get hotter than 67c. Not as cool as the heatsink mod, and I think it's still throttling the cpu 100-200ghz when laptop is flat on ground. I ordered some heatsinks so I'll see how it goes.

 

****, stuttering is back. I'm just going to downgrade the vbios.

Hmm tried doing the vbios downgrade from this page: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-17r4-1080-overclocked-vbios-issue.802964/page-5

But I just get this error:

https://imgur.com/a/nfo1e

 

if i remembered correctly the vBIOS downgrade will only work if you have the OC vBIOS installed.

 

where do i grab that. I just have the system bios 1.1.9 installed from the dell download page.