M17xR2 Bios A08 Discussion Thread

touchpad is at 60Hz with synaptics driver and 80Hz with windows driver. (vs 25Hz before)

 

Not providing excuses for anyone, but this was a long holiday weekend for most people here in the US. They might have just all been away from work like they are supposed to be for *Labor Day*.

 

Yeah I took the dive, because I don't have i7 extreme CPU. The touchpad is now polling ~80-85 Hz with Windows drivers. It feels pretty good now.

 

Same here, quite happy with the update. The TP is kinda important to me.
I'm sure the extreme CPU crippling issue will be addressed.

 

Let us hope! I'm not thrilled about reducing my OOB performance

 

I just didn't get what was the reason behind CPU "nerf". Was the fan really going that loud as Joker said? Temps too high?

I don't remember anyone here even mentioning it - and a lot of people. Just asking as I was thinking about the possibility of upgrading it at some point (not so soon).

 

someone mentioned that they did it to fix m15x throttling issues, and applied it to m17x too since both also need the touchpad fix.

 

Hi, i know there has been issues with performance with 940 CPU after the flash but has know one had performance or slow down issues with m620 after flash.

Since flashing every web browsing seem alot slow on screen and when using second monitor refresh rate is slower.

Do you think i should flash back to A07?

 

The performance nerf is only effecting extreme cores (920 and 940), everything else is not effected. Not sure the actual reasoning since we've not seen a reply from a rep but I bet it has to do with the M15x thing and they got lazy and didn't make a separate BIOS for each system. I've never had any symptoms that would call for a tweak like this.

And boy is the nerf noticeable after a couple hours of gaming, I could have sworn I was playing on an old 98 system or something. It was horrible and had to do a restart. Can't comment on the external monitor thing since I don't have the right system config to check that out but you should be fine if you don't have an extreme.

 

there should be no performance hit for a non extreme cpu machine.
I am currently on A08 and i didn't see any performance drops.
I never benched the machine before and after but the feeling is the same, never noticed a slowdown.
I bet your issue is with something else..

 

Cheers, well test further and see.

 

Good to know everything is fine with your system CPU wise. How's the flickering in games with 4870's now? Are you using the 10.8 drivers?

 

Just back on the forums after the long weekend. Oh man. And to think, I was going to ask them to send me a test BIOS to check out before they released it to the masses. But I thought.. what can they possibly flub up just changing the touchpad polling rate?

 

No flickering whatsoever, but the truth is I never had flickering before too.
I am with A08 directly from Dell, installed them over A05, didn't even uninstall the previous ones
Very happy with my machine overall (knock on wood).
I am full on into SC2 now, and the game plays wonderfully!

 

Just got my 940XM and am installing it tomorrow. Then this news. I'm tired of getting kicked in the crotch by Dell. First with my 1730 and then this.

 

it's not such a big issue, just install latest throttlestop to fix the multipliers limitation.

 

From what i understand of it, just dont update to A08 if you avoid it....sure it fixes the track pad but for extreme cpu's its a kick in the nuts. Other posts seem to suggest that running throttlestop with A08 does rectify this to a degree but as i dont have an xm, im not completely up on it.

If it were me, i wouldnt update as i dont use the track pad anyway.....waste of time if you have an external mouse and leave it sat like i do, as a desktop replacement.

If portability is an issue, then maybe update to A08 and throttlestop till Dell release A09 which speculatively may resolve this issue but i doubt it as it seems that they have been using xm's against Intel's protocol.....maybe thats the reason the xm's seem to have been pulled....punishment via Intel??? - again speculative but its the only thing i can think of to explain why they arent avaialble atm.

 

i do not own an extreme cpu myself but it had been confirmed that TS resolves the issue

 

Yes you can run TS to alleviate the problem caused by A08, though that is just a band-aid fix and not something we should have to do to get the performance these had when released. Just run BIOS A07 unless you desperately need that trackpad.

And uh Stevie, the extreme procs are still available. In fact, you can now order an M17x with both the 920 and 940 and they still claim the same top speeds on them. So that leads me to believe this is still just the engineers being lazy and not splitting the BIOS for M15x and M17x.

 

Rockwell, you cant order them via the UK website...they are now NOT an option....there is a thread on this on NBR and also other countries are not able to order the xm's too......im not just making it up dude! - have a look here http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ering-940xm-anymore-something-better-way.html and here http://configure.euro.dell.com/dell...en&m_30=322839&oc=N00W7X01&rbc=N00W7X01&s=dhs

 

Stevie, this happens from time to time. Typically its always a supply issue. Give it some time. Lets stay OT - thanks.

 

Sorry, didnt mean to get OT but i was merely stating that they had been taken completely off the UK site and other sites and felt others should be aware of it....my apologies.

 

Just don't install A08. Do you really need to use the touchpad? I just rely on a good mouse.

 

Well, I guess this thread officially puts and end to my nice long vacation weekend.

I'll talk to engineering tomorrow to see what is going on...

 

Brian, hope you enjoyed your weekend, and thanks again for all the work you do to look into our concerns.

 

What a star you are Brian.....i would vote for you to be president and im not even an american!

 

Yes, hope you had a good weekend. Keep us informed on the extreme nerfs.

 

Thank you so much Brian. It is comforting to know you are checking into this. Just please let us know if this is the direction the engineers are planning to go or if it was an oversight for the extreme cpu owners.

 

And while your at it Brian, see if you can sqeeze out a release date for the 470m SLI version so I can get one as a replacement.

I still cant play games on my machine with more than one display active, even with the new cards.

-Ash

 

It didn't bother me...I just figure fan noise comes with the territory of a high-end machine...

 

Welcome back Brian, hope you had a restful fun weekend.

 

Lordqarlyn - I couldn't have said it better about the fan noise coming with the territory. Well I couldn't have done so without a whole lot of sarcastic comments.
The only time they are noticable for me is during rendering with Autodesk software. In game I could care less, it's no different than an aircleaner and if I have headphones on so as to block out a couple of arguing teenagers.... I would much rather have a noisy fans than accumulating heat. And if I'm not mistaken, Ashe's cooling mod cuts down the fan noise by providing superior cooling from stock. But that mod is mostly dealing with the gpu's/fans. A little high quality thermal paste on the cpu and temps are even lower than stock. Keyword = quality. I never had heat issues with the cpu. This reeks of a band-aid fix. Shutting up.
Now that Brian is back and looking into it, I will continue to withhold judgment. Just having a rep here and actually listening to issues, and understanding them, restores a measure of my faith. I still can't get over the fact that we have a few on these forums and they actually care. It's a great trend that i hope continues.

 

i hope next bios will remove those xtreme cpus limitations because A07 will be the last one we gonna use.

 

yes, my exact point; I am either wearing headphones, or having the volume turned up, which obscures the fans' noise. Even when doing rendering or something, I'm usually playing a movie, again with headphones or volumed turned up.

 

Thanks guy - it was a nice weekend, although they are never long enough... I spoke to engineering briefly this morning about this and they are going to give me an explanation or statement, most likely by the end of the day. As soon as I hear back from them, I'll relay the news...

Thanks for your patience...

 

Should be an interesting explanation considering Dell is going to have change the printed speed of the extreme cpu in their advertising. Blatant false advertising is a big no no.

 

Or change it back lol.

 

A very nice point! Thank you Erawneila!

 

Here it is - the statement for A08 from engineering... I'll post this over on the M15x board as well. Read it and let the questions or comments begin! Thx.


The A08 BIOS is designed to offer M15x and M17x-R2 users enhanced stability.

As has been pointed out on this thread, the A08 BIOS for both M15x and M17x-R2 assign the processor’s Turbo Ratio limits to Intel’s default values, thereby allowing Turbo Mode to dynamically adjust core frequencies in real time. For M15x users this should immediately resolve any performance issues they may be experiencing.

The M17x-R2 has a greater threshold for both thermals and power draw than the M15x, and this has kept M17x-R2 from exhibiting throttling issues to the same extent as the M15x. However, we have discovered certain scenarios which lead to similar errors that can be attributed to the prior Turbo Ratio limits. To ensure the highest possible levels of system stability, the A08 BIOS is meant to fix these potential errors. Some users may experience a minor decrease in CPU scores, but that should be limited to benchmarking software and extreme CPU-intensive applications such as real-time rendering. Even then, it should be negligible. Users should not notice a performance decrease in casual use or even intense gaming.

 

Garbage.

SC2 has a noticable decrease in performance.

Also, I have never noticed the M17x R2 to throttle, even with my overclocked multipliers using throttlestop.

My M17x R2 with i7 920xm is currently sitting on a 28x multiplier for 1-2 threads whilst at the same time running the 5% FSB overclock.

The opinions of the engineering team that users wont experience lower performance from lower CPU speed... - wait, what?

"Users wont experience lower performance if we reduce the speed of their CPU's"

No.

Not good enough. Tell them to wake up and put it back.

M17X R2 wont throttle with the multis it used to have. Tell them to revert the multipliers.

I have not seen one user here report throttling on the M17x R2 and we are the kind of people who stress their machines with benchmarks.

Brian, do me a favor. Please PM me with the email of the brainiac who comes up with this crap. I would like to teach him some things he should know about engineering. He is obviously lacking skill/experience/qualifications/common sense and I am sure I could help him out.

Also, allow me to mention again that I still cant game with 2 displays active in extended mode. Are these geniuses even looking into that? I just had my cards replaced and it made no difference.

-Ash

 

Brian could your engineers describe those scenarios that can lead to errors with the A07 BIOS? I am really interested to see how you test those laptops

 

What a bunch of crap, I am stuck with a worthless touch pad after 1 year of waiting for a fix I am told to get that fix I need to give up 30% of the performance I paid for buy buying a 920xm extreme chip because I need to be saved from a problem I don't have, I have a problem it is the touch pad and DELL not my performance, Fix it or take it back.

 

I'd like to thank everyone in the engineering department for fixing possible problems that I could run into but have never experienced. Thank you for keeping me from that hassle if they would ever come to light. Since they have not I guess I'm just not pushing this thing hard enough. Thanks for letting me know I can push harder.

Now, on a more serious note if we are not going to be getting our 30% performance back... would one of them like to give me $4200 in exchange for my system so I can take my business to another company? Because the performance drop can be seen when playing certain games. I know several people have purchased this system to use for rendering with Autodesk and such for work related projects (myself one of them) and the drop is extremely noticeable there. The M17x can handle the heat and stuff much better then the M15x, as they stated, so the M15x tweak should not have been included for the M17x. If anything it could have been made as a separate thing and IF people wanted it they could get it. Not force people to get it by combining it with a fix everyone wants who owns an M15x and M17x. You don't fix what isn't broken just because it could possibly happen, wait till it actually happens and is proven to be an actual problem and not a isolated issue. No one on here has ever ran into these so called problems and if anyone should it would be people on here, not joesixpack that bought this thing for normal day to day gaming and internet surfing. Then again, even those of us who bought it to use for rendering have not seen these problems. Well, at least I know I haven't and that's not even as intense as some of the benching going on around here.

 

Wow, just wow. - this is disappointing. The m15x and m17xr2 are two entirely different machines with entirely different thermal signatures. Why a fix for the m15x would be included for the m17xr2 at the cost of a huge performance penalty increase. My m17x r2 is in the return period and may well go back. This is a shame.

 

I'm sure there's a simple fix for the A08 BIOS - undo the CPU "level cap", leave the touchpad fix. That's all.
There's no throttling observed on M17X systems, even when pushing the extreme CPU's far beyond Intel specs.
If we made a poll regrading the issue, I'm sure everyone would agree on that:
1) Bravo on the touchpad fix!
2) Undo the XM CPU crippling.

 

I am now still running A05 is there any advantage to going to A07

 

I'm curious about this mysterious throttling as well. I've never once experienced it and I push this system pretty hard. Even if there was a case of isolated throttling in some random application, would that really warrant dropping the performance to that extent? They claim it doesn't cause much of a performance loss and we know that's not accurate based on the tests I ran. The screen shots are proof of that. It's really hard to figure Dell out sometimes. I can understand wanting to anticipate potential problems but if the customer's aren't complaining, especially the most hardcore enthusiasts which are found on NBR (myself included), does Dell think the average person will? Not a chance. At least Dell got the vbios right, seems Clevo is having trouble with their 5870m Crossfire setup.

 

Brian, I understand that you are simply the messenger here and you are doing everything you can while playing for both sides of the field but these engineers must of thought about how this 30% reduction would cripple the Alienware guarantee of the "all powerful laptop". There's simply no reason for this fix to be tied in with the m15x and the m17x. How can they justify reducing performance despite the 3,000.00 price tag? If we payed this much for a name brand laptop then shouldn't we be treated more so like V.I.Ps rather than stripping away what was originally promised to us from all the flashing ads, reviews, and promises about being the worlds fastest gaming laptop? I just don't understand how the guys over there think that this is an acceptable response to fixing a terrible touchpad that should of already been fixed before being shipped from the factory. But like I said I know that you have been much like a savior to us over here at this forums and I for one am extremely grateful for all you've done for us. But I'm just trying to speak out for the community here who is often left confused at some of the decisions that the higher ups seem to be making. If we're promised a high-performance laptop then they should give us exactly that.

 

answer:
flash back.

 

I feel sorry for those people too
It seems that A07 BIOS will be the last BIOS revision for me.