*OFFICIAL* Alienware "Graphics Amplifier" Owner's Lounge and Benchmark Thread (All 13, 15 and 17)

You always get some benefits. But you cannot make the most out of the graphics card. Games that are less cpu dependent run fine though.

 

Yup. That's what mine does. With as well as everything has worked without banging my head against the wall like some builds / upgrades, if that's the worst part of it... I'm golden. I'm personally just having trouble using that system to it's full potential, as I don't have a group to play The Division with, haven't started Watcher III yet, and don't have many other PC games that seem worthy of my ASUS 1080 GTX.

 

Just updated my GPU with new nvidia drivers, and fullscreen is working on videos on my external monitor.

Kind of scared to restart my computer now, because I know it's going to stop working.

 

Try Battlefield 1

Shadow Warrior 2, Gears of war 4 are good too.

 

So I went poking around in the system events to see if there was anything fun happening preventing the computer from shutting down.

There's absolutely nothing. From the logs, it appears as if the computer successfully shut down, except it never shuts off.

Very odd.

There's an application notice that dell update was using some registry keys during shutdown. I'll try uninstalling that for ****s, I guess.


Edit: If you turn off hardware acceleration in chrome, you can fullscreen videos on your external monitor without disabling the intel GPU.

 

Hi guys,

Not sure if you can help me but I have a problem with a newly bought graphics amplifier. It does not turn on.

I have an Alienware 17R2 laptop which was recently serviced and the motherboard was replaced. Unfortunately when I plug in the graphics amplifier to it the little head on GA does not turn on, and the whole unit is dead silent, does not matter if I have a card or not in the GA. Tried with two different cards.

When I go into the Bios to access the performance parameters for the GA the whole computer freeze does not matter if the amplifier is plugged in or not.

If I press the test button on the back of the amplifier the power supply fans and the light turns on.

The lights on the cable are not lit when is connected. Nothing happens if I press the buttons on the cable.

One thing which I did observe is that when the GA is plugged in and powered, I have extra USB ports in the device manager under windows, but that's it. Nothing else is extra.

Installed the graphics amplifier program from dell support, but it did not help. AlienFX still does not recognise that an amplifier is plugged in to the computer.

Running Windows 10. Originally the computer came with Windows 8.1

What could be the problem? Is the amplifier dead? Or the cable is dead? Or I am missing something?

Thanks

 

Do the usb ports work?

If they work, you know the connection's working. Can you take some pictures of the inside of the graphics amp?

 

The AGA's are completely hit or miss. The first one I bought did not work. The second one did. I honestly don't know if anyone has anything useful to try that will help without buying a new part. If you happen to have an extra power supply laying around you can try that. I do believe that has worked for one or two people. If that does not work you can try to buy a new one or hope tech support provides some help. The aga's do not have a service tag though so getting help on them is a giant pain in the dick

 

Just bought GTA5.

In some places, FPS drops to 50. GPU and CPU aren't maxed. Using GFE recommended settings (maxed). I've tried lowering AA with no difference in results. V-sync makes no difference.

Running AW15 R1 with Bios A00 and GTX1080FE. Any help?

 

My eVGA GTX 1080 FTW is showing up in GPU-Z as "Dell" as the Manufacterer. This is preventing me from using eVGAs Precision OCX app to enable KBoost.

I CAN Enable KBoost in MSI Afterburner tho by using the Precision OC Skin. Is this just what I have to do? No way around this? eVGA said this is a "Graphics Amp" issue not an issue with their card.

 

The usb ports work ok. I plugged in a mouse and was working without any problem in Windows.

Took some pictures from the inside of the AGA.

http://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/5811f3c6a6887/20161027_222208.jpg?
http://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/5811f3dabeb55/20161027_222218.jpg?

Please let me know if you need additional pictures.

 

Thanks for the advice. I'll try to find a spare power supply. I agree that support is very painful. My recent talk with them lasted almost 3 hours... and all they suggested was that they will replace the motherboard which they did and did not solve anything.

 

Thank you so much for your help man. I really appreciate it. I'm looking to upgrade to a 1440p monitor in the near future. One last question, I can't seem to watch any videos in fullscreen with the amp connected with the external monitor. It's quite a peculiar behavior to be honest. Also, I noticed that if the EVGA OCX is running I get this weird rainbow banding on the left side of the screen when I run games.

EDIT: Just saw someone post about a fix to the fullscreen thing.

 

Disable hardware acceleration in your browser. But i heard someone say that the latest nvidia drivers fix that bug?

 

So, some windows updates hit today. Again, the Nvidia drivers have disappeared. I disabled the automatic driver updates already, so that appears to be unrelated. Just the following were installed:

Update for Windows 10 Version 1607 for x64-based Systems (KB3199986)
Security Update for Adobe Flash Player for Windows 10 Version 1607 (for x64-based Systems) (KB3201860)
Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1607 for x64-based Systems (KB3197954)

 

Turn automatic driver updates off. you can use DDU for that or do it yourself in the system settings.

 

Yeah, that's already been turned off.

 

Very strange then. WIndows should not interfere with your drivers then in any way.

 

Hey guys! I have an interesting set up... and wanted to pick your guys' brain.

- I have an Alienware 15 (I'm not too sure if it's an R2 or not... It's touchscreen, if that matters.) hooked up to an
- AGA with a Titan X Pascal inside of it... And I use an
- LG Ultrawide 34UC79G-B for my monitor. 21:9 - 2560 x 1080

I have a handful of USB connection (Nothing connected to the actual laptop, all from AGA) as follows:
- Razer Kova mouse
- ***(Will be getting Razer Chroma soon)***
- Audioquest Jitterbug - with Audioquest Dragonfly Black 1.2 plugged into it - which is where I plug my headphones (Nighthawks) or speakers into. It's a better DAC in case you're not very familiar with their products.
- Audioquest Jitterbug - with a USB 3.0 SS Hub plugged into it (The hub is also powered by a seperate psu)
Which therein has these connected to it:
- Microsoft XBOX 360 Controller dongle (For my 2 wiresless xbox 360 controllers)
- An H4n that is connected to my Rode microphone.
- The Coolermaster laptop cooling pad under my Alienware 15.

OK. NOW THAT ALL THE BACKSTORY IS DONE.

You can probably tell, I'm trying to use my rig to stream gaming and such... But my problem is somewhere along the way something makes my system a little... I would call it... Jittery?

Sometimes my system seems to blip or lag a little, when I'm scrolling my mouse and listening to music.
When I play games like Witcher III the gameplay is fine but the cutscenes tend to "Jitter" and lag.
Same with Fifa 17... The gameplay is super smooth 144hz no problem, but when I am looking for opponents and such it will jitter. And the strangest part is! Sometimes my USB's DIE OUT and then reconnect back and my XBOX 360 controller will go from 1st controller to 2nd (sometimes connects back to 1st player) and then I find an opponent and gameplay goes back to buttery smooth.

This is an issue, and hinders me from streaming. I want everything to be super smooth.
It's embarrassing to have friends come over to play on your "Badass system" and then the usb's die out. Lmao

I haven't quite gone through all 255 pages of posts... Has anyone else had a problem like this?
Do you think it's all the USB's I have plugged in?
I haven't tried taking out my Audioquest stuff yet and just using the actual aux port. But imo I shouldn't have to. I WANNA USE MY SUPER COOL DAC

I've disabled all the other possible sound devices and the only one running is the Dragonfly, so it's definitely not being interfered with.
And it did seem to help a little, as in there is less jitter, but still jitter.

 

Sounds like a power issue. The AGA May not have enough power or bandwidth to power all the USB's or transfer data and use Titan X pascal.

Move as many as you can to to the laptop and see what happens. Try just the monitor to the AGA and go from there

 

It is a driver bug. i have reported this bug to alienware. try out an intel hd 530 driver from last year and you will see the stutter is gone. they are working on a solution.

At least, regarding the stutters/jitters in gameplay and windows while scrolling windows and apps around. I am not so sure about the USB ports disconnecting.

 

Titan X pascal ran fine in the AGA for me, as did the Titan X Maxwell before it which uses way more power

 

I'm thinking about a Gtx 1080 aero OC by MSI as an impulse buy :/


Can anyone advise if It will fit in the GA?

10.59 inches long by 4.37 high.


WOuld love to know today so I can pull the trigger!

 

I have problems with the USB ports not working on the AGA too. I can't have my headphones plugged into it, or my external harddrive.

 

My card is 10.98 x 5.51 and fits. It doesn't latch shut, but it's not noticable and works fine.

Dell officially says 10.5 inches, though.

 

If you mean this card ;

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi...hics-card-2560-core-1632mhz-gpu-1771mhz-boost

Then YES and a perfect card for the AGA, IMO the AGA and mini itx cases really benefit from a blower style cooler in the confined area and its one of the very rare times it will cool better than the large aftermarket coolers which in a normal case tend to do much better.

 

Guys. Just got the Graphics amp and an Asus GTX 1070 Turbo. Card fits well.. Had no issues installing . Worked in Instance. I guess they made some changes in AGA. The fan seems so quite on the AGA.. Doing some benchmarks now. Just wondering GPUu Z says the card supports PCI 16 v3.0 but Card is running at 4.0 .. Is that Normal? Will post some results soon

 

Thats normal. Those are the lanes available on a mobile platform. But it doesnt affect performance much.

 

Has anyone been able to get the MSI Gaming App to work with an MSI card in the graphics amp?

 

REPOST from general: This just arrived under RMA. The one i had had those bad VRM chips (not the overheating ones) so they sent me a new one in about a week.

I'm immediately applying thermal pads to the trouble areas that are overheating and once I do I will be running some tests with the graphics amp!

Last time I ran tests before the old one stopped working it was working beautifully (long story short it was working, then it stopped so i filed an RMA with evga - and it was a verified evga issue, not an issue with the graphics amp itself).

Going to play around with some REALLY high CPU speeds as well by overvolting the CPU and using this card to see what the limit of this laptop is when using a single EGPU.

a Titan X would push it to it's maximum limits, but I didn't want to spend $1200 on a video card that doesn't even fit in the graphics amp (yes the FTW does fit with some customization into the graphics amp itself).

 

This is a graphics amp test with only Graphics Amp GPU on, and CPU running solo (much lower temps).



CPU @ 4.3GHz (Stable) - No dips @ 1.25V - Cache is default 3.6GHz - when i raise it everything goes haywire and the CPU clock speed drops like crazy...

GPU: Alienware Graphics Amp with GTX 1080 FTW from eVGA - Overclocked +100Mhz core and +200Mhz memory over the stock overclock settings (hitting 2.1GHz on air) - Stable

CPU temps max 81C

GPU temps max 62C

Temps taken after running all these tests



---------------------------------------

Now, I had one benchmark hit 7200 with Generic GPU

http://www.3dmark.com/spy/670262



But then I figured out how to validate my scores!

I had to disable the intel graphics chip in device manager, and then boot up after resetting the BIOS to default so it only loaded up the GTX 1080 graphics amp as my only graphics chip.

This produced a validated score, but i think it also caused a driver issue so it gave me a lower 3dmark score Possibly but not guarenteed. Going to test a few things tomorrow.

Here's 3 validated scores:


Timespy 7013: http://www.3dmark.com/spy/670520




Firestrike: 17,542 http://www.3dmark.com/fs/10654394



Skydiver 36628: http://www.3dmark.com/sd/4372945





From the looks of it GTX 1080 only benefits on the DirectX 12 games, the 1070 is doing almost just as well at firestrike and skydiver

 

I get a "Code 43" trying to install a evga gtx1080. I've tried reinstalling the card, drivers, switched out the psu, uninstalling and reinstalling from Device Manager....nothing works. When I power it up the lights on the card come on and the fans spin.
Keyboard and mouse plugged into the usb slots work.. The Nvidia control panel disappears but comes back when AGA is disconnected or turned off. Device Manager shows it as a GTX 1080 but has the little red triangle on it saying "code 43".

Really lost on what to try next other than RMA the card.

Any advice?

 

It might be an Nvidia driver problem because I know one of the 373.xx drivers caused a problem with the GA.
You could try to reinstall the latest or a pre-373 driver.

 

Tried three different drivers. All older than the 370.xx. Using 375.70 from Nvidia's site right now. Guess I got one of the defective EVGA GTX 1080 cards I just read about in the 17 R4 forum. w00t !! get to do the RMA dance now. LOL

 

Enable PCIe Hot Plugging ( it might be worded differently in the BIOS) , and the latest drivers will work.
They added beta Hot Plug functionality , to help eGPU based hot plugging. But it's causing issues on systems that don't have Hot Plugging enabled in the BIOS, over PCIe.

 

There's no such option in the BIOS.

 

Same, just checked. I'm using 1.3.6 bios. That option is not there

And my bad....it's a 17 R3

 

Gotcha. Yeah then your best bet is to stick to 372.70 and prior drivers.

You can even look for it under PCIe Settings / Chipset , if you have not checked already.

I do not have an Alienware, but in my custom BIOS, the drivers started working with my 1080 Strix (hooked up over M.2 port externally) after i enabled Hot Plugging.
Same was the result with other people over at TechInferno forums. Mainly an issue for eGPUs hooked up directly to any type of PCIe interface. TB3 however works fine since it goes via the TB3 controller and then the PCH.

 

W00T ! ! ! ! ! The Beast is ALIVE ! ! ! ! ! The 372.70 did the trick. Thanks all for the help. Now off to fire up Guild Wars 2 and Tomb Raider and crank the settings.

 

I am wondering if you all ran across the issue I am having. I have spent over 2 weeks trying to troubleshoot this and can't figure out what's up.

Windows 10, Alienware 13 with GTX 970 in AGA. All latest drivers installed(sorta....I will get to that).

Everytime I boot my laptop, Windows seems to be reinstalling a video driver even after a complete removal and clean installation of the latest Nvidia driver.

After I boot and it goes through its song and dance, I start a game and it crashes. I then hear the Device removal sound and I have to reboot for it to actually use the GTX 970.

I have to do this every time to get it to work. Never had a issue with Nvidia IG but I needed a little more horsepower.

This can't be normal and I am hoping that it is something stupid i'm missing.

Any ideas

 

That connecting of the videocard is normal. that is not a reinstall. it is simply enabling it.

 

I just ran timespy on my fresh 1080 and got a 6443 with a desktop i7-6700 (alienware x51r3). Pretty low, right?

This is higher than the 980ti I had in there before, but still... I was hoping for at least 7000. Its a Gigabyte card and for some reason the overclocking software won't recognize the card... is this due to the amp?

 

This is with a P870DM-G with a 6700k @ 4.5Ghz and a 1080 Stix hooked up externally over M.2 :

http://www.3dmark.com/spy/568274

I think if your Graphics score is 7200+ , you should be good. Otherwise there are a lot of things that can make a difference, like background apps and the temps of the GPU.

 

Try doing a clean install of of the Dell nvidia driver. Whatever one is on the support website. Then update from there

 

That sound he is describing is windows acitvating the videocard. This is normal and is not really a driver reinstall. It is like connecting an USB mouse.

 

But is it normal for the video card to crash at first boot and have to reboot every time to play a game?

Just doesn't seem right.

 

It shouldnt crash at first boot. If tha tis the case I would try a different videocard. If it still doesnt work you might have a faulty AGA.

 

New 1.3.9 bios for the R2/R3s that states :
Dell Alienware 15R2/17R3 System BIOS
Fixes & Enhancements
Alienware Graphic Amplifier enhancement.
Version
Version 1.3.9, 1.3.9
Category
BIOS
Release date
04 Nov 2016
Last Updated
04 Nov 2016
Importance
Urgent

 

I wish they'd update the R1 bios ;_;

 

hey guys could someone help me pls ive had an Spahirre Radeon 480 in my AGA everything worked normaly on 3dmark !! today ive put an gtx 1080 into it my physic score was nearly nothing ive had 9300 in firestrike before now ist 5300 in timespy ive had 5300 now ist 3600 everytime it starts the cpu test my cpu goes from 3,6ghz lower than 2,0 ghz could anyone help!
BIOS and every other Thing is updated
my System
Alienware 15
GTX 970 / GTX 1080 AGA
I7 4720HQ
8GB Ram