*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 Ranger (2013) Owner's Lounge Thread

I had to do it in optimus mode, run the command prompt as administrator, set the 780m as the preferred card in the nvidia control panel, then run gpu-z to get the card going and then the nvflash in the command prompt worked fine.

 

So does changing the vbios void the warranty? Is this likely to be something I need to do to max games performance or will I not notice?

 

Could you please post Afterburner graph of the core clocks while overclocking?
Nvidia`s new GPU Boost 2.0 have been plaguing people with 780M when they overclock, so it may not be Alienware related at all. I believe SVL have made a new VBIOS that removes the GPU Boost 2.0 for those who overclock. And its working pretty good for them. Johnkss got 11000 GPU points in 3DMark11 with his Alienware.

 

Hi guys,

Could anybody check if the msata has full speed of sata3 or it is limited to slower speed, for example limited to the speed of sata2. I'm asking it because some brands do it - for example Lenovo ThinkPad T530.

 

Loading a modded VBios can casue issues to the card if not done well.

Could be an OS or driver corruption, I'd try a clean OS installation.

 

Is this issue only happening with the 780s? How are the 770s fairing?

 

Apparently, it's safest to do vBIOS flashing from DOS (NOT the command prompt function from within Windows), that's how it worked for me. I followed the guide at this link, explains everything:

[GUIDE] NVIDIA VBIOS flashing

(I'm relatively new to posting here in forums, is it OK to include links to other websites in posts? I've done it a few times & not received any warnings or anything!)

 

And that 780M Dell vbios will cause issues because of the extremely low temperature limit you guys have put on it.

Oh the irony...

 

Yup, there's no problem with it, as long as it's not dodgy

I'm in production atm, hoping some of these issues are at least ironed out so I can fix them as soon as I receive my 17, and actually get around to enjoying my system. I feel sorry for those new 17 owners who don't know about this website and are putting up with shoddy performance completely unawares, when they've paid for a bleeding edge laptop. Really, it's not acceptable on any level.

 

Yea, I always flash from DOS. It's much safer, IME. Only takes a few minutes if you know what you're doing, and it's pretty hard to screw up.

 

Clock rate was fluctuating wildly at stock vbios because of thermal throttling occurring at 72-73 degrees core temp (no joke).

with svl7's vbios, the thermal throttling is gone, but gpu is not stable at frequencies above 910 MHz at stock voltage, with overvoltage set to 1062 mV (effectively 1050mV according to precisionx), I managed one 3DM11 run at +140/200 MHz, netting a score of 8248 with the Dell provided driver (this should result in a bit better score at 320.49)

When I had the gpu set to +100/200 MHz and stock voltage, it failed an unigine heaven run through the night (couldn't tell how long it lasted, but in fact it should have lasted indefinitely at that setting)

so I'm (more than ever) happy with my trusty R4, whose gpu ocs to +255/550 MHz solid as a rock. Just did a 3DM11 run for comparison, scoring P8141 (8369 graphics) with 320.49 whql.

 

I knew it. Sooner or later they'll declare your warranty is void because you used vBIOS.
Any way, like I advised 680m owners. Wait for 880m. It's a new architecture and it'll most certainly score above P10K at stock clocks in 3DMark11.

 

So other cards, including the newer ones, still have that issue with the throttling too?

 

I wholeheartedly second that.

 

yeah, Dell figured anything above 72 degrees would be bad for the card ... guess they want to play it *very* safe.

 

I imagine that the sales they would lose for doing that would outweigh the savings of voiding warranties. Alienware cannot play Apple's game and win. Not unless Clevo, MSI, and ASUS go under today. If the cooling system were good enough--if Alienware invested enough R&D in it--to keep an OCed 780m under 72C at all times, I would understand.

What do I know? This is Dell.

 

Wow, that's... lame. I can't even use my 580m because of this issue. I thought it was related to just that card.

 

The current situation is this:

Temperature limit is coded within the vbios on the 780M that is shipped from dell.

66C is max temperature for Optimus systems (Optimus enabled)
77C is max temperature for non Optimus (120Hz model/Optimus disabled)

If you go near those temperatures the GPU will downclock itself to reduce temperatures. Meaning performance will go down greatly. Which is why the reviews of the Alienware 17 only score 6000 in 3Dmark11. Same as GTX 680M score, but with a proper vbios like MSI and Clevo use the 780M should score 7500 since its a much better GPU.

It is also pretty likely that Dell have made an agressive fan profile that spin up the GPU fan when you are getting near the temperatures described above. In reality if they werent complete morons they could have allowed lets say 85-90C as the limit, only firing up the fan when going near 90C, this allowing the notebook to stay less noisy for longer and allow the GPU to perform like it should.

Not much clever engineering at Dell. It will scare customers away for sure, unless they issue out a new Dell vbios for the card with higher temperature limits.
For those who have the energy and want to work around the blockage, you can use a modified vbios from TechInferno and reflash the vbios to Dell again if you need to send it in for repair sometime. Of course, if the GPU dies and you are running a non Dell vbios, you are probably screwed.

 

Well that is BS. Who the hell put so low temperature limit on a beastly GPU like 780M? Its like putting a 700HP engine inside a tiny car and putting a blockage on everythibg above 500HP.

As for your overclocking troubles, MSI owners had the same issue, same did Alienware R4 owners. GPU Boost 2.0 destroy overclock capabilities above a certain point. Their remedy for this was to use a new vbios from SVL (not the one you use) that had GPU boost disabled. That allowed sick overclocks on the 780M. So that is what you did experience, GPU boost screwing things up most likely. SVL just havent had time to remove GPU boost from the Dell 780M Vbios yet

 

I don't even care about overclocking, I just want my laptop to work as it should. How can Alienware say they have the "ULTIMATE GAMING SYSTEMS" if you can't even game on it. 77 isn't even anywhere close to a "hot temp" for any video card put out in the last few years.

 

I tried flashing from DOS and it told me I needed a newer version of nvflash even though I had the most recent one, restarted into windows and tried again from in there (I know you SHOULD be doing it from dos) and it worked perfectly on there and I hafe my backup of the original just incase.

I do still think there is some weird driver issues happening though which is fine because i like doing a fresh os install on a new laptop anyway. Not to mention this laptop is so much more powerful than I was really expecting and hoping for, it might just be a full on desktop replacement for me. I think this weekend I am going to spend time backing all of my stuff up and install my 120gb ocz agility 3 from my desktop in my Alienware as I feel having that type of speed is more useful to have on the go, especially since this is more powerful than my desktop and will probably be my main machine from now on.

 

I flashed my vBIOS and got my graphics score up to ~P8250 with little effort. Still not perfect, but I expect much better scores once the kinks are ironed out. Definitely wouldn't bother with this gen if I already had a 680M loaded laptop. That wasn't the case for me, however, so I went ahead and grabbed one. Will probably throw in an 880M in next year, unless Broadwell is a decent step up from Haswell, in which case I may buy a whole new machine.

 

Are you seeing decent temperatures?

 

So with all this I'm seeing about the temp limits on the 780 I'm pissed! Does anyone know if they upped the temp limits on the 18? Or if its worth it to move from the 17 to the 18 with at least duel 770's?

 

Will the future graphics card be compatible with the new Alienware? If it is compatible, I might keep this machine

 

Tops out in the low 80s, averages just under that. So not fantastic, but reasonable. Fan doesn't seem to kick on unless I'm gaming, and temps are lower then. Only goes to 80+ when benching.

 

This 66°c with optimus and 77°c without optimus GPU throttling. Has Dell done this in the past? If so, was it improved upon via requests from communities? If yes, anyone remember how long it took Dell to act?

Also who do you think was responsible for setting this temp limit? Dell or Designers at Alienware?

 

I know I've had the issue since I received my m17x r3 a year and a half ago. They say that a heatsink replacement will fix it, but it didn't fix it for me.

 

I don't recall anyone complaining about temp throttle in the m17x r4/7970m or 680m days.

 

Alienware M17x R3 had the same freaking problem. GTX 580M had 78C temperature limit and many owners was furious about the GPU throttling all the time. I believe Dell issued a new bios later that raised the limit but it took a very very long time until they did it. In the meantime they had pathetic excuses like "repaste" "check your heatsinks" "dont game while its hot" bla bla bla.

Read about it here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/648538-conference-call-nvidia-geforce-gtx-580m-78c-throttling-see-post-191-later.html

m17x r3 580m Throttling Concerns

Looks like history repeats itself, only worse this time because they lowered the limit down to 66C and 77C. lol how pathetic..

Aienware M17x R4 did not have this problem


Someone should make a dedicated thread about this and warn future buyers.

 

The difference is that the 580m did not hit 78C quickly. The 780m runs hotter, and the new 17 has quieter fan profiles with cooling that is not much of an improvement over the r3's. If Dell had enough sense to design these systems, it should have enough sense to fix this quicker than the 580m problem.

 

Yea, there's serious throttling with the stock temp limit. I'll see if I can find the logs from before I flashed the vBIOS when I get home.

Oh, and something I didn't mention earlier. I brought the 17 with me to campus earlier, and got 2h 38m of battery life, which is about what was expected. Surprisingly luggable as well.

 

I agree. This is half the reason I'm upset with Alienware. I've had multiple video card replacements and the heatsink replaced and the issue still goes on.

I dunno, I'd say four minutes into Assassin's Creed 3 is pretty darn quick.

 

I'm so happy Dell called me and they said that they already shipped my Alienware 17 maybe by tuesday I could play on it. I'm so excited but I'm hoping everything is ok with the machine coz you'll never know. I could play my strategy games like Company of Heroes n Starcraft maybe I'm gonna try also battlefield 3..

 

Hi, I got mine today and I'm really not impressed with the 3D Mark 11 score.

Something is very wrong with it. Score : P4517, it should be around P7000 i guess.

My results : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4700MQ,Alienware Alienware 17

I'm new to Alienware laptops, windows 8, and I don't even know when optimus is enabled, cannot find it in the nvidia control panel. But I think it runs on the discrete not the intergrated.

I did changed the power plan to high performance.

Could you tell me how I can optimize it. Or maybe I should return it.

Thank you very much for your help.

 

BF3 with the GTX 770M runs at ultra very smoothly

I have 2 DDR3 2Gb (4Gb total) ram laying around. Can I add them to the 8Gb that I have on the Alienware 17 or can you not mix memory sticks?

 

How smooth? What kind of frame rates are you getting?

 

You could, but it would be best if they are the same timing. I believe the modules that shipped are CL9. Also, the slots are DDR3L, but I still haven't heard if that is any different from standard DDR3 (in terms of architecture).

Now, on to some first impressions:
1) The screen is a step up from my last monitor, but comes nowhere close to my older Inspiron 9400. I may just be partial to 16:10 aspect ratios, but 16:9 doesn't have the same quality in my eyes.
2) Build quality is excellent, although I do find myself cleaning the rubberized parts often.
3) Ports and fans are well-placed, HDMI-in works well, although the lack of a optical port limits Xbox/PS audio to stereo.
4) With no tweaking, this thing blows through the Just Cause 2 benchmarks (full maximum settings) capped at 60 fps. It does, however stutter during large firefights, although I think this is less of the system and more of DX10 (very stable, but it doesn't take advantage of some hardware).
5) Wireless. This is the reason I can't provide numbers from Battlefield 3. Downloading title updates and expansion packs has taken me the better part of a day. On my old Asus, Windows displays between 3-5 bars of wireless connection. In the same location, this card has yet to pass 3. I'm hoping this is a driver issue with these new Broadcom 802.11ac cards, and will be fixed soon, or I will be investing in a Killer wireless card.
6) Overall, I am very happy so far, as this is a huge upgrade from my previous system, and some of my issues are merely concerns, but when you buy an Alienware, you don't want to deal with issues and concerns. As I stated above, hopefully many of these things will be remedied in driver updates, and I can get back to why I bought this system - it represents the highest in performance and build quality.

 

Any thoughts on the 780 temp throttling, it's got me panicking!

 

What is this DUAL fan 17 inch laptop with the 780m actually hitting in 3dmark11? If I run my GT60 SINGLE fan at stock, and no turbo fan I am getting 78C GPU/80C CPU. With Turbo fan getting 67C GPU/70C CPU. Does the Alienware have manual fan control?

My temps were a bit better on the 4700MQ, but the 4900MQ pushed the temps up a few degrees. And with the thermal bridge, increased CPU temps are felt as increased GPU temps as well it seems.

Also MSI has no such throttling unless you hit above 92C GPU.

 

Best bet is vBIOS, as several others have mentioned, but I would wait until a more stable (and perhaps more official...) solution is available.

Also, for those having wireless speed issues, it may be due to the fact that Windows is download a crap-ton of updates (94 for me). Hopefully when those finish, my download speeds will return to normal.

 

You shouldn't panic. I've been able to max out Bioshock Infinity on Ultra (my most demanding current game) with no problems (average about 45 fps in F5 discrete gfx mode). The throttling will trouble you in benchmarking more than real game performance (I don't even bother with benchmarking). If I hit a FPS wall in a future game; only then will I Flash the vBIOS and overclock, but as of yet I haven't hit a wall. All in all its a massive improvement on my Razer Blade R1 with the GT 555m

Edit: Also I've had no wireless issues. 2.4 MB a second downloading a single item in steam this afternoon. Right now About 1.1 MBs downloading 3 simultaneous downloads (movies) in itunes.

 

I received my AW17 today and everything is fine except that the function keys do not work, AT ALL.. none of them. Anyone having similar problems or any idea on how to solve this?

 

Agreed about the throttling/benchmarking. I guess I should have mentioned that above. I also should have noted that Just Cause 2 (Steam) had no issues downloading. Origin (BF3) and Planetary Annihilation (a pitiful 400ish MB) are both downloading between 600KB/s and 1.2MB/s, where as my normal download speed is closer to 2.5MB/s. It could just be the files I'm downloading, and I'm having no trouble streaming video (so far), but according to everyone here, the ac card seems to be hit and miss. Hopefully the inconsistencies will be fixed soon.

Edit: It appears that my unthrottled internet has been throttled by my ISP. Clock hit the top of the hour, download speeds much closer to normal now. ISP will be getting a phone call in the morning.

 

After I flashed the modded bios and ran 3dmark 11 my scores actually started going down at first and I started getting worried. Once I changed the temperature limit to 77-82 and got it to hold I ran the benchmark again. Right now my scores look like P7351 and graphics of 7374. I'm pretty happy with the massive jump considering I was only getting 59xx or 6000 before and I haven't really started messing around with OCing at all and the drivers are still new and need tuning.

 

Oh boy, that brings back bad memories - I was on that conference call with dell techs in TX. Basically the tech was telling us how to keep the card cool, and all we wanted was the throttle limit raised or a better fan profile.

After a LOT of lively discussion their senior tech threw in his ace. Basically (from memory), he said that 78c was the max that the machine had been specified to when testing. I'f the card is properly pasted and on stock clocks (OC'ing is not supported) it should never get that hot. I cannot change it as any change to the thermal characteristics will require us to resubmit the machine for re-certification.' Something to do with 'skin-temps'. A special fan profile was talked about but never materialised. Most of the problems (including mine) were bad factory paste jobs anyway.

Never had an issue with this one even though the 675m is the same card as the 580m but it never gets hotter than around 72c even on a decent oc

So sad to see it all happening again, glad I never got one of the new ones and held off just in case of this sort of serious problem

I think a separate thread for tracking and others to folow is a good idea. It needs better visibility

Edit: forgot, dell did make support aware and if you had a 580m they would replace the heatsink without question or painful diagnosis...

 

The review here on Notebookeview shows the same thing. Benchmark-wise it was far behind the MSI GT60, but in-game performance-wise it was far ahead in most settings. All this talk about the performance, made me just about to cancel my order and get the MSI... then again I hate the MSI design...

 

I think I disagree with some aspects of this. If you live in a hot country, then you're likely to hit those throttling limits pretty darn quick. Also, there should be plenty of games that can push the 780M to 100% GPU usage, so if it's throttling in benchmarks that last less than 10 mins, then when playing a demanding game for an hour or two is almost definitely guaranteed to make it throttle. I think concerns over the temperature throttling limits for the 780M in the A17 are real & well founded.

 

When people are talking about P7000 scores I think they're referring to 3DMark11, not the latest 3DMark (which is the one you tested). Your results seem to be in line with other A17 users I think.

 

I agree. To give the above benchmark a comparison, here is a stock run for my M18x with 680m Sli and an XM cpu: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2960XM Processor,Alienware M18xR1 - from that, I'd say that the above result for a single 780m and a 4700mq is not too shabby at all....