*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R2/R3 Owner's Lounge

Hi guys, I got an aw 17r2 and something I don't understand while playing witcher 3.
The problem is that my cpu (4980hq) throttles to 2.8ghz nearly periodically and xtu says it's due to power limit throttling. The point I don't understand is, the time xtu tells me it is throttling due to power limit the tdp of the processor sits at 20W to 25W. So I checked with throttlestop but couldn't find a setting which helped me. The only thing throttlestop told me was that the limit is neither the Pl1 or the Pl2 limit. It just blinked "power", and that's why I don't know which limit exactly it is. I'm on bios A04 at the moment and the temperatures seems OK for me, normally at witcher they are around 74 to 86 wich some peaks from time to time to 90 on a single core. I really hope someone can help me here.

Edit: I also got the 980m and the 240W psu.

 

Why use bios A04 and not A00, when you already have a 240W psu?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/tdp-and-power-limiting-haswell.766743/

 

Because I tested A00 and the Temps weren't that much better as with A04. Also I use the 180W psu at school, Dell told me I can keep it so I thought it's a good way to go. I will try A00 later again after work. I also got a little problem with hwinfo64, if I want to check the sensors with hwinfo64 my system crashes at the time it trys to read the Nvidia sensors. It worked a few days ago but then it stopped without anything changed. I can post the error from the bsod later, can't remind it at the moment.

 

Double post, sry.

 

I just recently received my 17R2 with 980m. I also received a 240w PSU after asking for one without any issues and downgraded the BIOS to A00.

Can the GPU be over clocked beyond +135 core or does the VBIOS need to be modded\is there a VBIOS mod for the hard soldered 980m in ouw AW laptops?

 

I looked it up & the i7-4710HQ is not even sold anymore with the model. I hope thats not because the i7-4710HQ has performance problems or something else. At least I could make out that it can't reach a stable 3,5 ghz, anything above 3,3 ghz is not stable.

To remind anyone of the problems, prime95 & these were the results on the built in overclocking:

1 thread - around 3,4 Ghz (It jumped up & down between 3418 Mhz - 3378 Mhz)
2 threads - around 3,3 Ghz (It jumped up & down between 3368 Mhz - 3328 Mhz)

That means that it doesn't go over 3418 Mhz & only very rarely, maybe every minute or so, goes over that number. It is supposed to reach 3,4 on 2 cores & 3,5 on 1 core. Not that I care that much because I don't use programms that utilize only 1 or 2 cores anyway but it seems a little bit sloppy from Intel or whoever is responsible for that. Kinda neat how they also called it "Up to 3,5 ghz" so they can't be hold responsible...


About the 180w psu with gtx980m combination, you are wasting your time because people said it may also create problems with the fans. A04 should be worse if I recall.

 

What software are you using to monitor your CPU speed? Some monitoring programs have become so big and bloated that just monitoring your CPU is keeping 1 core active the majority of the time. When you start to run a single threaded benchmark, suddenly you will have 2 cores active and the maximum multiplier will drop accordingly. I like Intel XTU but quite frankly, it has become a bloated pig. It is not something I would leave running on my laptop 24/7. Even when minimized to the system tray, XTU is reducing the performance of your CPU.

When I run the single threaded RealTemp - XS Bench, it shows my 4700MQ has no problem using the full single core active 36.0 multiplier. When XTU is running in the background and minimized to the system tray, the RealTemp reported multiplier is not even close to that.



ThrottleStop T|I Edition
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0dpSo9k93jDZlpmbHNzeFlpcWc&authuser=0

Choose your monitoring and CPU mod tools carefully. Those fancy graphs in XTU look nice but they can decrease performance, even when minimized.

 

It's nothing special, I used prime, real temp & hwinfo. (never used or even heard of intel XTU, I'm kinda new to using all these programms)

I can understand if numbers are a little bit of due to sensors or the programms but why is it jumping up & down. Now that you mention it, the distance between the mhz is exactly 40 in both cases, thats so weird lol.

I did test again & same results. Real temp exactly same results & this time I also looked at hwinfo with same results. Only difference was that 2 threads peaked out at 3,3 ghz with hwinfo & didn't fluctuate. I really starting to get this feeling that the reason they switched the 4710HQ with the 4720HQ is because it is a faulty (or I just handle these programms wrong xD).

I found a review that stated this:
Overclocked clock speed 3.46 GHz
Overclocked clock speed (Air) 3.46 GHz

Maybe that is how Intel Turbo Boost is supposed to work. The high CPU temps & stuff are what really bother me because Turbo Boost is useless to me for 1/2 cores. I hope these are just because of fan profile & bios or whatever & that they get fixed with new bios because I can't add more fans.

Or are these temps here good?

Prime:
max 84°C (happened like once) with extra fans - cooled down to around stable 75°C - laptop fans not full speed (extra fans full speed)
max 89°C (happened like once) without extra fans - cooled down to around stable 80°C - laptop fans full speed

Heroes of the Storm:
max 85°C (happened like once) with extra fans - cooled down to around stable 71°C

I guess it makes sense because Prime is supposed to be the heavy benchmark on the CPU you can find & Hereos of the Storm is not.

I feel like an idiot now, look what I found:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/i7-4710hq-mq.753126/

 

RealTemp uses high performance timers within the CPU and a monitoring method recommended by Intel. Most other monitoring applications do not use this method. When there is a load on the CPU, HWiNFO is not correctly reporting the maximum multiplier.

If your CPU cannot hit the maximum single core multiplier during the RealTemp XS Bench test then you need to look at what Windows background tasks are running on your computer. Too many background tasks will keep one core active and will prevent your CPU from hitting the maximum multiplier.

 

Hello, i cant see any fan speed info in my sensors tab.. i disabled ec support in setings but still cant see rpm values...any ideas?

 

I noticed that one of my USB slots is bent or something (USB device doesn't fit 100% but it works regardless) & when I use this one to plug in my 3 extra fans, they still keep running when the computer is turned of & there is no power.

Is that normal?

 

Does the Alienware 17 R2 come with a free downloadable game? Why I am not seeing it? Do I need to request from Dell?

 

It could be that that is a powered port. Which port is it I will check when I get home

 

That depends on where you buy it. Not everyone participates in that Witcher 3 promo. It also may be already to late.
http://www.geforce.com/games-applications/pc-games/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt/bundle/terms

It's the "special" one, USB 3.0 port with Power Share. (left side, upper one)

 

Hello.

Any one find way to resolve thermal throttling problem? In my case when I play World of Tanks FPS 90 at beginning and then after about minute its going to 60 and in the end (after two minutes) its like 30-40 and lower.

Now I got 180 and 240 PSU and make my decision about playing in World of Tanks:
1. GPU Z + 180 PSU + A04 min 40 mid 50-60 max 90 fps and about 60% GPU load by GPU Z
2. GPU Z + 240 PSU + A04 min 28 mid 45-50 max 100 fps and up to 99% GPU load by GPU Z

I try A00 and see no changes in temps. With A00 I have up to 90C CPU and up to 70 GPU

So thats strange BUT average FPS in World of Tanks higher with 180 PSU and A04
But max FPS higher with 240 PSU, but not stable and throttled as hell.

UPDATE
And one more, after fan rpm goes high fps goes up, then again drops, and this is cycle.

 

Could it be that World of Tanks could be vastly different round to round in terms of required power that that's why you're seeing differences?

How about if you run an in game benchmark? Or 3D Mark 11 or any one of the free benchmarks and compare the 180 to the 240 on A00? A shut down and restart will be required for the different power adapters to be recognized.

Dell has claimed in a few places that they acknowledge the throttling issue and are "working" on a new BIOS that will apparently address the heat and the throttling. I'm not holding my breath.

This laptop is disappointing.

 

I still find it curious how so many folks are having throttling issues. This is something I have yet to witness aside from some power throttling with no noticeable drop in the CPU - Min it runs is around 2.65 ghz and max is generally holding at 3.61 ghz with the highest temps at 82.

I highly suggest everyone who is experiencing issues to use intel XTU and undervolt your CPU (and go ahead and open up all your cores to their max multipliers). It has NO harm to your computer, and if anything goes wrong, it simply crashes and reboots with defaults settings. I have been running an undervolt and overclock on the CPU since day 1 and have enjoyable results.

Running A00 - and 240 PSU on 4710 / GTX980M

 

The problem is most likely that there is variable quality of these chips. As well as Dell use new ugly methods from Intel to throttle the processor with settings in bios. It is not always that help with undervolt your CPU. Dell has also reduced Trottle temp on processor compared to Intel's own specifications of the processor.

 

Try putting it to sleep and waking it. Then in throttlestop run 8 threads and you will see the CPU limited to 30w instead of 47w cutting the max clockspeed right down.

Nothing but a restart will get it back to 47w.

Apparently Dell know about this and say a fix will come in A05 BIOS

 

Don't you lose warranty if you do that?

 

THIS I have witnessed - but know its a glitch in the sleep functionality - Have not dismissed this ;-) HOWEVER, I did manage to get my TDP to 60W for a brief spat while tinkering . . . have yet to duplicate that however . . .

No, undervolting cools your CPU and does absolutely zero harm. If you cut the voltage by too much, you'll just have a crash / reboot with normal settings restored within XTU. This is a simple and free way to reduce temperatures on the CPU and reduce throttling if thermal throttling occurs due to lower maximum values put in by Dell.

 

Can someone please offer a step by step on how to undervolt the cpu. Also does this mean a lot less performance in games?

 

A good write up on the HQ processors would be nice.

I tried undervolting my 4720HQ -50mv and my system rebooted just idling. Not sure if I undervolted correctly.

 

Wait, so if you put the computer to sleep , then wake it, the TDP ceiling is now 30 watts until you reboot, even for people not messing with XTU or throttlestop? Wow.

I've noticed with this laptop with a 4980hq and 980m GPU. With the GPU running Furmark and the CPU cores idle, it throttles the GPU and max power consumption of the AC adapter is about 171 watts, sometimes goes down to 163 watts or so, according to a kill-a-watt meter, which, assuming 90% AC adapter efficiency, means the laptop will only draw about 154 watts from the AC adapter, not even close to the 180 watt rating. I didn't try to charge the battery at the same time. With Furmark running, and also a CPU intensive task, the power consumption of the AC adapter does not increase and the CPU is severely throttled (seems to switch between 2.8GHZ on all cores and 800MHZ on all cores every few seconds). Temperatures are fine so it is a power issue.
240W should be standard! I just hope the laptop will be able to use most of it and not have some artificial ceiling that limits it to, say 210 watts.

I don't like that Alienware doesn't open up overclocking of the CPU unless the Graphics Amplifier is connected. I contacted them on Facebook and the rep claims it's because the dedicated GPU may need to come on anytime and there isn't enough power available for both an overclocked CPU and the GPU as well. But, I explained to him, clockspeeds can change dynamically so power consumption is kept in check, so in all but extreme circumstances the CPU overclock can be maintained. Didn't get a response. It's marketing.. BIOS hack anyone or is it possible to overclock with throttlestop, I'll read through this thread.


EDIT: Notebookcheck experienced the same throttling issues, with 180w AC adapter. They haven't tried a 240W. ( http://www.notebookcheck.net/Alienware-17-R2-Notebook-Review.140380.0.html)

 

If you don't wanna do that & keep your performance (I don't know if it reduces performance though) then get one of these:



Helps a lot in terms of keeping the CPU cool and when they finally make a better bios, then it is probably not even necessary anymore to undervolt anything. They work very well with this laptop because he has quite a few open (large) air vents.

If I could do anything, I would probably get rid of ghz going above 3,3 ghz on my 4710HQ but seems also kinda pointless. I would be getting rid of something that is never used anyway & that I don't need. Or am I wrong here?

I don't feel like sacrificing performance though unless it is really necessary. Some dude limited his CPU to max 3,0 ghz just to get better temps.

Also, I would be careful if I was you of changing stuff around you have no clue about & just some guy in a forum telling you it will be fine:

I don't know what that means but it seems like that undervolting can do hardware damage if certain requirements are met.

 

No. There is no hardware damage risk with undervolting. Not enough, and the system will simply shut off due to insufficient current. The risk is with the way the settings are stored. On older systems, bad settings would trigger failsafe settings to load. This is no longer the case, and the method for restoring the failsafe settings has become more cumbersome than it used to be, by far.

 

To undervolt download xTU and reduce the dynamic cpu voltage. Start at -10 and go down in 10 increments running a stress test or benchmark cpu intensive in between. When the computer finally crashes. Go back up 5 from the last result and that's your lowest possible undervolt. Mine is currently on -60 on a 4710hq but not all processors will handle it the same. This is why you need to trouble shoot on your own.

If you want lock your cpu to 3.3 ghz simply reduce your core multipliers on XTU to 33 across all cores. Increase your turbo boost time to 128 seconds and your current draw (85 amp at default) to 120 amp. Benchmark again and see where your temps fall and processor holds. Don't forget to undervolt the processor cache as well equal to your dynamic cpu undervolt.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I bought AW17 R2 back in April for my grandson. The HWmonitor shows that the battery life is already down by 7%. He has 240w psu. It is always plug in when he is using it. I know Sony Vaio has a battery charge function which I can set to 50 or 80 charge rate so that battery life can be prolonged. Is there a similar setting for AW? If there is where is it in windows 8.1?

 

What about 180W vs 240W Ac adapter results with A00 and maybe with A04 (if you feel like it)?

I would love to see users say that the 240W AC adapter resolves the GPU throttling and also CPU throttling to 2.8/800MHZ at times when both are taxed heavily (like Prime95 and Furmark), and if A00 is necessarily to stop throttling of the CPU, without needing to undervolt (or Throttletstop BDPROCHOT?). But seeing limited reports of score increases/FPS increases when starting to use the 240W adapter.

And kill-a-watt measurements of power consumption from the wall with prime95 +Furmark with 180w vs 240w, a00 vs a04

Then the only issue is the supposed resume from sleep continual CPU underclocking until you restart, problem. Does every 15" and 17" Alienware R2 laptop exhibit this?

 

I wouldn't use Prime95 and Furmark as ways to determine if throttling problems are resolved. Furmark is a power virus, and pretty much all NVidia cards throttle when running it - ever since the Fermi cards NVidia have been artificially throttling their cards when the Furmark.exe is detected - therefore it's not a valid or useful test. Prime95 is a little more applicable, although few of the CPUs can run Prime 95 without throttling below their 4 core max turbo values. I think the best test to determine if 240W adapter and combination of BIOS has fixed throttling is to play CPU & GPU demanding games and run various 3DMark benchmarks - you'd then compare scores with other systems of the same components & you'd also monitor what your CPU & GPU clocks were doing during this process. That's how I'd do it - during the gaming & benchmarking that I just mentioned I'd want to see a stable 4 core max turbo on the CPU, and likewise I'd like to see the max boost from the GPU too.

 

Yeah I'd expect that at least. I think with this laptop, A04, 180W AC adapter, GPU idle, CPU running Prime95, it can hold 3.1GHZ indefinitely. Maybe it was 2.8GHZ indefinitely, I forget.
If Furmark is too extreme, then what about Folding@home or Seti@home. It ought to run Prime95 and 1 of those on the GPU with no throttling ideally. It is supposed to be a premium laptop. My hot running Asu G50VT can do it, it doesn't complain, doesn't start throttling on either the GPU or CPU until about 97 Celsius.

Looking forward to details of confirmed improvements from 180W to 240W and from A04 to A00, and if anyone has a kill-a-watt meter and whatever else I say in Post # 1329. Somehow I am thinking I am going to be waiting a while. Not sure why? Many hard core enthusiasts own this laptop?

 

Many hard core performance enthusiasts don't want this throttling machine. We want a laptop with socket hardware that can be overclocked without this heavy throttling this new Aw laptop's have. Read this forum and many other forums and you know what I mean. Dell has ruined the Aw brand with those new modern "thin" gaming laptops.

 

I don't own a Kill-A-Watt or wish to ever go back to A04. And Dell wanted my 180w back when they shipped me the 240.

I'll see if I can get a Kill-A-Watt, but from the disappointing posts in here I don't think the motherboard will allow the machine to use more than 180w, no matter what.

And based on how great (rollseyes) Dell engineering is with new BIOS updates I doubt we'll see anything to combat the heat or throttling. Seriously my first and last AW if this is the service you get for $2500. Luckily mine was "refurb" (had 0 use from the looks of it) and was a thousand dollars off.

Now I'm debating buying a Square trade warranty for $340 for 2 years since I have a strange feeling this thing will croak before we get a working fan profile.

 

I posted this in a different thread a while back:

You are right with this:

 

Oh snap, really? And what's worse (as I may have mentioned in a prev. post), 175 watts from the wall is only about 158 watts to the laptop, so not even 180 is allowed.
But then why does Dell have a KB article that says a 240W AC adapter may fix the performance issues? I will post kill-a-watt numbers with the 240w adapter when I can use the laptop again, right now it's with my sister about 3,000 miles away (EDIT: So likely months from now I can measure it). Anybody else have a kill-a-watt meter to help confirm?
I suppose then Throttle Stops's BDPROCHOT checkbox won't help because usually it's because the GPU is running that it downclocks the CPU. But maybe undervolting. CPU runs at good speeds if the GPU is not taxed.
Maybe I can get her to run Furmark to see if the GPU core improves with 240W and/or A00. Right now stays at about 850-912MHZ (but might not be accurate because nVidia cards intentionally throttle when that program is running, says Robbo99999). Maybe just game FPS then.

And is the resume from sleep constant CPU throttling a real thing or just a few occurrences?

 

My 980M will run full clocks including boost while gaming, which GPU do you have in your laptop?

 

This is a true bug with every R2 and not intended like the throttle issue. Restarting or shutting down every time is the only way to prevent it.

Dell say they are working on it with the future BIOS so at least this one will be fixed sometime.

In reply to ickibar1234, My GPU never throttles either under any test. only the CPU does when the GPU is taxed.

 

When the CPU is throttling does it show up as Thermal Throttling or Power Limit Throttling? I'm assuming you're using XTU?

 

Nah, XTU is a bit heavy on the CPU. I use throttlestop for the CPU in conjunction with MSI afterburner to monitor the GPU.

CPU shows as power limit throttling in throttlestop when it throttles.

 

hello, got one today. Do you have suggestions about screen options? First thing I noticed are the fonts very tiny. What should I change? what options are you using?

 

You could change the DPI by going to Control panel > Display. Then put a tick in the box that says "Let me choose one scaling level for all my displays" Then you will get a smaller 100% - medium 125% -larger 150%

Choose whichever of these you like and log off and back in to see the difference.

 

I chosed medium, but Chrome continues to show small fonts, while Firefox looks ok.

What do you guys use? Maybe 100% scalins is ok and my eyes just need to get used? (I never worked on such big resolutions)

 

Throttle the processor when you use Xtu? Is this software to heavy in use (resource hungry) to monitor your CPU behavior during the benchmark tests? LoL.

 

I didn't mean it like that. I just prefer to use the 2 smaller programs.

XTU just seems too bloated to me.

Plus, I like the GPU monitoring tools MSI afterburner gives whilst in-game.

 

Hello,

I just got mine 17 R2 2 weeks ago and with the Cooler Master Note Pal 3 Plus. I dont know where to put those fan on if you have the same Laptop cooler as above can you show me your fan placement for the R2? Because when I gaming the middle of the R2 keyboard is really hot especially the Alienware headlight at the middle near keyboard.

Thank you very much and I apologize for my bad English.

 

Hi folks, I got my alienware 17 r2 about a week ago and I noticed my cpu idle temp is about 60C and gpu temp look normal. I already have the cooling pad on and rolled back to a00 bio. Right now I have 240 psu as well and the temp make me work if I get a lemon or not.
When I play far cry 4 with high setting the cpu temp jump to 85C while the gpu only around 71C.
Any suggestion how to confirm it is lemon or not?

 

980M/4980HQ. (reminder to self; blackbalt89 has A00 BIOS and 240W adapter and the 980m/4980HQ as well, per post 1196) I haven't really tested to see if it throttles during gaming. Didn't have much time at all to test the laptop before it recently travelled 3,000 miles away from me for a few months. Was quite concerned of sub 180W power consumption despite being maxed out and throttling like crazy. Maybe it doesn't throttle with most games. Maybe a heavily CPU dependant game will cause some throttling like GTA4. The owner of the laptop says it chokes up in some scenes of Star Citizen.

User 'Exklim' or https://www.facebook.com/exklim says that they aren't developing any fix for the wake from sleep issue. "AW have to rebuild that bios from scratch. And at AW speed, that will take about 6 months. The main problem right now is the AW Amplifier. That bios is not ready to do that strict change even by rebooting. AW team fired the best people inside. Sometimes I feel someone is working inside to screw Dell somehow. AW was a very big competition for many companies. Some of them put someone inside to do this. Is not normal. I know this sounds funny."
No I don't know what he means about the GA, I'll ask.

Yours doesn't throttle with Furmark?

Quote from mickbt26; "In reply to ickibar1234, My GPU never throttles either under any test. only the CPU does when the GPU is taxed."
Maybe mine is the same way, on Furmark the GPU throttles but maybe with anything else it does not, I dunno. Yes the CPU throttles when the GPU is active.

 

That is a big concern. And so what you demonstrated is the BIOS version, any one of them, the power is still limited to less than 160 watts to the laptop.
EDIT: Ah so it seems you weren't maxxing out your computer with just the video game. Post below this one by you, shows 225-210 watts power consumption of the AC adapter with more benches.

But still with 180W adapter, it's limited to sub 160W to laptop (to protect the adapter?) and starts dipping into the battery. 240W adapter improves things, assuming all BIOS versions can use it.
---

So... the laptop doesn't really need more than 160 watts (EDIT: wait, not sure which AC adapter you are using) to the DC in port in order to run demanding CPU bound games + GPU trying to output as many FPS as possible? Or just well optimized games that doesn't utilize the CPU cores that heavily.
User Papusan thinks the laptops throttles the CPU a lot (have to browse back later to see specifics), as well as user exklim EDIT: and I saw it when running Furmark + Prime95 but didn't run other tests.


Would love to see confirmation of the laptop being able to grab more than sub 160 watts from the DC out of the 240W AC adapter / 177W from the wall (besides possibly when charging the battery). And, once again, why does Dell offer a 240W adapter if it doesn't do anything? Something wrong

 

I have just ran another test to max out the machine.

I ran throttlestop 8 core bench whilst running furmark in the background with 16xMSAA

The CPU drops to 2.8ghz within 30 seconds. but, the GPU core never goes below 1126mhz throughout the 20 min test I ran.
Temperatures remain excellent on BIOS A04 (the GPU hardly reaches 70C and CPU tops out at 82C)

For these tests my laptop is peaking at 225w at the wall and dropping to 210w when the CPU is throttled. This is with the 240w adapter, So there should still be some power reserve left to charge the battery if needed.

Heres a screencap of the test and the meter

 

A i7-4980hq shall not throttle to 2.8GHz no matter with a so low package power 35.31w(i7-4980bga has TDP of 47W)and temperature of max 82 degrees when you don't even use up all the power from an 240W psu... Can you test with a full virus scan at the same time you run FurMark/Heaven 4.0 in the background ? Dell must have placed an power lock in bios or motherboard when not even the processor can use up its own TDP of 47 Watt which is the maximum TDP specification made by Intel... It is quite perverse that Dell not even allows for Intel's own max TDP specifications of this processor under maximum load. This processor don't thermal Trottle neither so there is no reason why the processor shall throttle with a TDP much lower than Intel's own specifications.