***NEW*** Prema Mod Alienware 15. 15 R2 / 17 R2 and R3 Performance vBIOS

Do you people experinece CPU throttling on 15/17r2 when you OC GPU core clock? I was trying to find a stable OC and I increased the core clock by 100 MHz (also mem clock by 400 MHz but that didn't had an impact on throttling I guess) and when I checked Throttlestop it was reporting TDP throttle. I'm starting to feel bad about my purchase again

 

It is a laptop, you cant expect the same type of overclocks in such a small form factor. For similar performance you need at least 450watt in a full sized desktop PC. You really expect too much in my opinion of he machine.

 

But people overclock their gpu core clock by 135 MHz and they don't report problems. Maybe getting 330W PSU would be a better setup for OC, I am currently using 180W&A05 so I don't really complain about the problem anymore.

 

Not every GPU is equal in quality, some just run hotter than others. Same as with CPU's some can overclock higher than others. thats just how it is. 100mhz more is already pretty good for a laptop of this size.

 

No, it's not really because it is a laptop and you don't need a desktop to have something wicked. All you need are the right components, the right design, and a more accommodating form factor. It's because they didn't build the new products like an Alienware should be built. It's built like a BGA notebook it typically built, with low TDP parts for mainstream consumers and a GPU to help it play games instead of being totally worthless for playing games running with Intel HD Graphics. This never used to be a problem before the current models. They're focusing on a different end user than they used to be focused on. This is exactly what some people wanted, but not what others wanted. It's a matter of personal preference and either option requires compromising on something... size/weight or performance... cannot really have the best of all worlds because there are no OEMs with magical powers.

 

I am quite a hardcore gamer. I am very glad Alienware went this path. Portable machines, with long battery life and very suitable for gaming. I experience zero problems for the purpose it was built for. Which is gaming (BF4, Witcher 3, COD AW, FC4 etc). Current day gaming laptops are far more suitable for gaming and perforrming near the level of desktop high end gaming PC's compared to older models which always performed like a mid end gaming PC with the performance of a generation older GPU. The gap is now far more narrow than it ever was.

 

I partly agree with you but don't you experience any problems such as heating and throttling?

 

Well, I am a hardcore overclocker and performance enthusiast, and a hardware junky that likes to upgrade. I don't replace machines every couple of years. I prefer making old machines kick the teeth of of the newer gamer machines, including single GPU desktops. I love being able to run my CPU and GPUs 500MHz to 1GHz beyond stock specifications and setting performance records in benchmarks. It's really fun to do all of those things, and much less expensive in the long run than buying a new machine every couple of years that cannot do most of those things.

Gaming is something I do when I am bored. The new machines are totally unfit for my purposes. That's why I mentioned personal preference. There is nothing wrong with the new machines if they suit your needs and serviceability is a secondary concern. Using the wrong tool for the job is never a good deal for anyone. Most games only need a decent GPU and most gamers can get by with a pathetic CPU (thus there is still a place for low budget AMD CPUs in the gaming world). I use my battery for an integrated UPS. It doesn't matter if the system will run for 1 hour or 12 hours to me. These machine absolutely do not perform on the level of a high performance desktop, but they do give similar performance to low budget single-GPU gamer machines.

All that really matters is that the customer is happy and the machine satisfies them. You'll never convince me to buy one for myself because they are woefully inadequate to suit my purposes and they are incapable of making me happy because of how they are built. They definitely look beautiful and play games well, but that's only about half of what I require. Neither one of us is more right than the other, we just have different interests and expectations. The only sad part of this is, there is no longer a place for me to be seated at the Alienware table. I'm super bummed out about it, but I didn't create that situation.

 

Nope not any at all. Durin gthe current 20c~25c ambient temperature I experience no throttling. I might be able to force it to throttle while running furmark and prime at the same time for example ofcourse. But in normal gaming scenarios I do not experience any problem. Something I was worried about before using the laptop while reading a lot of posts on this board.

 

Tried out the vbios and everything seems great so far. Originally had my 970m at +135/400 on stock vbios. Tried +200/400 at stock voltage, but it froze in firestrike. Backed down to +162/400 and no issues. Load temps were 64C in unigine heaven.

Tried +262/400 at 1.05v, and that worked fine. Load temps were 66-67C in heaven. Then I tried +292/400, but that froze immediately in firestrike.

I think I will settle at +162/400 at stock. I could probably squeeze out another 20-25mhz, but I rather play it safe. I need this bga laptop to last. I plan on using graphics amp anyway in the long term.

One other thing I noticed is that it seems fps stutters don't happen as much with this vbios. These are the sequences in firestrike or unigine heaven where there is a split second stutter. I don't think it has to do with throttling, as my gpu meter shows the clocks are at max boost and gpu utilization is still full during these moments on both vbios.

 

Do you get BSODs when you run heaven for long periods (45 min- 1 hour)?

 

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/5183294/fs/5745367

~10% increase with the new vbios at +265 / +400 max voltage (ignore physics score as my CPU overclock was not on the latest run)

 

I haven't ran it for that long. Longest I ran was 20mins, Pretty certain +162mhz is stable.

 

Maybe it's about heaven since it's hard on cpu and gpu. I'll try doing some gameplay at 150/350 and report back.

 

hi. how do you use 3d bench mark? is it a software that you need to buy or its just in the website free to use? teach me please.. thanks

 

Been very busy lately but i had some time to try out the vbios.

I used the 3dmark vantage performance and from an initial score of 25919 i got, it is now at 26385.

I played 2 games of dota2 with "fps_max" changed to 240 from the inital 120 and i am getting 140-150fps on laning phase and 90-100 on battles/clashes but for some reason the game crashes at one point take note this happened once per game. I dont know if this is a dota2 issue or something else. I also played some battlefield 4 campaign and i see increase in fps at 60-70 on ultra. Again it crashed 10-15min into the game.

I really like the increase in fps 10-30fps is nice. will try to play more games if i have the time hopefully its not because of this.

 

Disregard this post, it got posted in the wrong thread for some reason.

 

I had many crashes too so I just reverted back to the original vBIOS. Do you have CPU throttling? The thing I noticed was the exact moment my CPU throttles down to 2.6 GHz my laptop crashes. I use throttlestop to stop throttling but even when I use throttlestop sometimes the CPU drops down to 2.6 GHz.

 

I dont know much about cpu throttling. How do i check? I will try to do it later. I am using a02 scared to revert/downgrade to a00 cause i bricked it already before took 3 days for a mobo replacement. Fan profiles are better though using this vbios

Sent from my SM-N910S using Tapatalk

 

Do you use HWiNFO 64 to manually control fans? If so you should be able to see your maximum, minimum and current CPU frequency while HWiNFO is open. Play a game or do some stress tests which stresses both GPU and CPU. Even if you don't control your fans just download HWiNFO 64 and let it run on background. Do the stress test at least 20 mins. You should see your CPU throttling if your machine does throttling. It doesn't affect your gameplay so it's normal that you didn't seek a problem with your machine but this is still unacceptable for a machine priced so much.

EDIT: I just noticed you have the 970m. You probably don't have throttling anyways but I'd still check if I were you.

 

Hi, I just flashed prema BIOS but my overclock options seems unnafected , same voltage and speeds :| , did something wrong?



I says MODIFIED but no extra overclock options :|

 

That's not the Prema Mod. Sometimes gpu-z shows 'modified' even on stock vBIOS.
Just repeat the flash.

 

can't save 970m vbios, i tried following the youtube method but gpuz would freeze whenever i tried saving. I tried disabling gpu, no luck.

 

Something is going weird here , if I repeat the Flash process the flasher program shows identical code for firmware installed and new, the first time i did the code between the prema and installed was different.

Any ideas? Thanks for the hard work and support Prema.

 

So I tried saving my stock vBIOS with GPU-Z however it tells me "BIOS reading not supported on this device" My 17r2 has been running great with ThrottleStop but I definately wanted to check out this mod however without being able to save my stock vBIOS I am to hesitant. Any ideas?

 

Disable the Nvidia card from Device Manager before you backup from gpu-z or use nvflash.

 

Worked perfectly thanks Xenow.

 

Hello !

Thx for the bios. It seems like it works but i can't activate anymore the V-Sync in Ultra Street Fighter IV.
No matter how many times I enable it, it won't take into account and returning to the option settings shows me "VSYNC Disabled" in game.

Since I did not do any save of my default GTX 980m Alienware 2015 R2, can anybody upload it and share it for me plz ?

Thx a lot !

Edit : Prema if u could give me your stock vbios, I'll make a donation for all the help you gave us ;D

 

Mine did the same thing just reflashed, restarted and boom worked fine.

 

I don't think the vBIOS has anything to do with this, it might be the latest driver.

I'm on stock vBIOS with the 970M & driver 355.60 and cannot turn on VSYNC either.

I usually force VSYNC in the Nvidia control panel for USFIV, which I have done now in the new driver, but VSYNC is definitely not enabled.

Edit. And every time I enable it in the in game settings, when I go back it shows as disabled, so I would say it's not the modded vBIOS.

 

hi just wanted to ask if you use prema vbios is it a must to have the latest nvidia driver for gtx 970m or not? if ever im just to scared to do this can some recommend me the most stable nvidia driver for gtx 970m please. thanks.

 

I dont think you need the latest driver. its basically an overclock on your gpu performance so whatever driver will be fine(I think)

 

Oh ok thx mate, so you can confirm me that you don't have prema and vsync isn't working either ?

The thing is that I format my Win 10 but before that, it was ok. I could play USF4 with v-sync. And I think that the drivers were the first ones released for win 10 :/
Weird issue...

 

It worked... thanks!!!

 

Anybody OC'ing the 970M, what clocks are you getting?

 

I did it yesterday.

970m + 200Mhz Processor + 300Mhz on Memory
Windows 10.
Bios A05 + 180W.
CPU stock.

3Dmark Firestrike 7533

 

New 3dmark:

Settings:


3dmark: 7822 firestrike
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/8323999

Prema thanks for this vbios.. great job!!!!

 

Looks like the best score up there for a Dell GTX970M, yet...

To see the actual difference we have to look at the graphics score (9291 in your case) as the total score is limited by the CPU model.

 

i got 6595 using firestrike 1.1 how did you guys go above the 7k mark?

 

Installed Prema vBios, HWinfo to max Fan Speed and keep temperatures at acceptable lvls, then using Nvidia Inspector with the settings described in the picture above, and profit

 

how did you max fan speed? i cant find the option in hwinfo64 although i saw it in nvidiainspector, it is greyed out

 

http://forum.techinferno.com/hwinfo32-64-discussion/65-alienware-fan-control.html

http://alienwareusersupport.weebly.com/unofficial-aw-fan-control.html

Follow this images:
http://imgur.com/a/UYC3s#0

 

Hi guys I'm trying to flash this new bios on my machine however before doing so I'm trying to save my old bios however NVFLASH keeps freezing on me so it's impossible to save my bios or flash over my current one has anyone had these problems before?

 

Ok, this my max result with PREMA vBIOS and 970m:

Firestrike: 7901 with graphic score of 9780
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/5816791

Using this config:


Temp max at 90ºC so i'm not going to force it beyond that.

Only AGA could take more juice from this AW.

 

Any help regarding this fellas?

 

Sorry man can't help, my backup worked wihout problems. I'm on Windows 10 if it helps.

 

Nice!

 

I played some games today without flashing the bios yet. Running A05 now. In BF4 and COD AW max temps of 72c with an ambient temp of 22 according to the climate control of the building. Did something change with the later batches of the AW15 with the 970? Because here higher temps are reported. Doubting if i should flash.

 

Disable the Nvidia card from Device Manager and it should work fine.

 

Just wanted to let you guys know all of you are pretty damn amazing. I'm very new to this computer gaming/overclocking thing. I've been reading the different threads over the past few days. I've been able to improve my AW17 r2 a ton. I didn't run any benchmarks before but after i installed/tweaked everything i say everything is running pretty smooth/fast. Thanks again and i'm really looking forward to sticking around this community...

FIRE STRIKE: 8136 Graphics: 9815

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/8340131