Windows 10 and nVidia 980M GTX upgrades for Alienware (M17X-R4, without Optimus: Working Great!)

I don't think you're ever going to get a Maxwell GPU to not throttle on an Alienware unless the new 18 with a special BIOS and vBIOS is an exception. Shoot, I cannot even get my old Kepler 780M SLI to not throttle any more unless I run older drivers without the new GeForce cancer injection. I believe what is happening is the BIOS has information on what the nominal functional limit of a stock AC adapter, and through help from NVIDIA's latest poopy drivers it talks to the vBIOS and says " you're allowed to draw X watts and no more" and as soon as it hits that value *wham* you've got throttling. Using the stock 980M vBIOS greatly reduces the throttling, but an unlocked vBIOS increases power consumption and thereby exacerbates throttling. Older GeForce drivers appear to have ignored this nasty and useless information. My conspiracy theory is we have the new Alienware BGA turdbooks to thank for this asisine "feature" being added to the drivers, since they are crippled six ways to Sunday, including power handling. As far as I know, the only cure for this is buying a Clevo. That's the only reason I own one now.

 

i don't see any throttling on my GPU so i assume(d) it's just an SLI thing.

 

Basically what you are saying is that I'm already at a good point where throttling is only a "few" Mhz.

Can you, please, let me know your sBIOS settings to check if I missed something? Or any other suggestion is welcomed.

 

i'm not on the same model.

 

Yes, very much so.

Nope, only to the extent that SLI draws twice as much power and can easily gobble up 330W without even trying hard... @mikecacho had a horrible time with 980M throttling on his M17xR4 and so did I with only one 980M installed in my M18xR2. They behaved the same... very bad.

 

maybe i don't know what constitutes as being "throttled". most games will run a max clocks.

 

If they run at max clock and voltage and stay pegged there, then they are not throttling. For me (and @mikecacho) it involved dropping to 400MHz core/400MHz memory and running like crap in the most severe case... but, in a mild case, anything less than full 3D core and memory clocks is throttling and causes a decrease in performance.

 

i haven't seen that happen. maybe i got lucky?!

 

No, you saved yourself a lot of frustration by showing up fashionably late. That was smart and you didn't miss anything special.

 

And how about Prema's vBIOS that in the first lines of the thread on TI states that he disabled the Power Throttling? No way to give the PCIE some more juice? Even keeping the clocks at default? 330 W psu won't help either?

 

You really should look into a 330W AC adapter and make a dongle like @Nospheratu did. A single 980M can totally exhaust a wimpy 240W AC adapter without a great deal of effort.

Yes, @Prema vBIOS helps a ton. Thank God for Prema. That problem was nowhere even close to being figured out when I stopped trying to get 980M SLI to work right in my M18xR2 and bought a Clevo so I could actually enjoy them to their fullest. Things are better than they were in the beginning.

 

i guess there are benefits to waiting it out

 

You know, Prema's vbioses are used by many clevo companies as their default vbios, no joke. He's not some after market support, he actually provides the support directly to larger companies initially.

Also, about the 240W PSU, i can not keep count of how many times I've gone into detail about about much power a laptop uses. You can add up all the power reported by programs like sisoft sandra or HWmonitor all you want, but poeple also forget to include efficiency, with these small cheap china made PSU's that are a recycled design from 15 years ago, they waste like 35% of the power they draw. So, when its at 240W - its really not at max, it can still draw like 300W from the wall, to give the laptop like 240-250W but then the spikes and vdroop increase exponentially too, causing system crashing, because the power is also not as clean,. even a bit noisy. This can cause damage, or even make programs that OC your components like XTU to simply not even work.
OMFG here I go on another rant..lol OKAY I stfu now..before this becomes 5 pages long.

 

Yup, in fact, my "stock" Eurocom Panther (Clevo P570WM) system BIOS from Eurocom is Prema's newest unlocked BIOS. He is an amazing and very talented man. Eurocom is going to announce some pretty amazing stuff here before long. I'd hate to see anyone getting a new AW18 with Haswell CPU and 980M SLI when something insanely more powerful in a 17" SLI configuration is headed our way from Eurocom.

Both Prema's handiwork...

 

Yes, you mean x4, x6 and the x9 coming out soon. Just look at the smaller end - already has Skylake, unlocked K desktop CPU and 980M and M.2 2280 and thunderbolt 3 . . . That matches DELL/Alienware and raises them until they fold.

Did I mention DDR4 (albeit UBER expensive)

Edit : Though - I do not encourage anyone just going from any laptop with an extreme currently, to go and get a Skylake, CPU sandybridge/Ivy bridge/Haswell are still so powerful. Skylake has not fixed the issue with INTEL not releasing more powerful CPU's. Just more efficient - again. Maybe 5-10% more powerful trend as per usual. So, like if you have a 980M and aIvy Bridge - you'd still be crazy to buy a new system, for thousands of Dollars - just to get 5-10% better CPU scores... Performance in games will still be matched by this M17X-R4 I'm selling that has been around for... going on 3-4 years now ?
I do not know if that is a credit to DELL/Alienware or an insult to INTEL for just not giving us better performance in a chipset/CPU in half a decade...sinc ethey started with these core i3/i5/i7 idea's

 

yep, will be making my next pc a clevo

edit: it's branded as Metabox in Australia but it's a clevo

 

http://www.metabox.com.au/P650RE-overview.asp

definitely more expensive !.. like 50% more at a minimum though. After conversion they wanted like 6800$ for a config I can get for 2200$ on the lowend it was like 2400 for something I can get for 1400$

 

Cos the AUD is craps.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

I think it is both. A credit to Dell/Alienware for having built solid machines with unlockable BIOS and Extreme CPUs. The fact that after 5 years they can still spank the life out of everything below flagship level and bite the heels hard enough to draw blood from Intel best mobile Core i7 Quad CPU is a HUGE insult to Intel for being the half-butted outfit they truly are... C'mon 5 years is like a decade in computer world. Such a minor improvement in performance is inexcusable. But, after just a glancing look at AMD we understand they don't actually have to be awesome, or even just "good" to be the best because second best is so lame.

 

Well, PC gaming has been slowed heavily by the lack of INTEL performance over the last few years.
At least in the budget department. Multithreaded aside, because they have some crazy CPU's they're released but they're all aimed at servers and not consumers. You basically have to have one of those, these days to increase CPU performance.

Well here is the X6 from Eurocom. But if you place an order, keep in mind it will be 2-3 weeks at least before you get it, but take advantage of the lowered pricing, if you configure through a rep like myself.
http://www.eurocom.com/ec/configure(1,332,0)ec

If someone wants a barebones I will have one mid October, but not before. Now, keep in mind, even though everything is top of the line, its not significantly more powerful then something from a few years ago even. This is not Clevo's fault, but INTELs. Also seems they are still having small issues with DDR4 but for the most part its usable, just not perfect yet. I suspect early adopters of this generation, will be left behind quickly half way through next year when the performance catches up. But, until then, I think things won't catch up much at all. DDR4 speeds can still be matched , because they're being limitted.

 

I solved completely my throttling by flashing Prema's last vBIOS.

Thanks to everybody who helped me!

 

i wonder if @Prema will do more vbios tweaks or if v1.1.1 is the last vbios?

 

The Clevos are running fine now with v1.1.1 on all currently available MXM Maxwell Geforce GPUs...
I'll pick up development of the AW version soon (was out of station), which needs to be redone from scratch in order to fool the sBIOS (which is really causing the throttling in AWs).

 

Greetings Woodzstack, I am the one trying to buy your 970m on ebay, hope this will get to you.

 

easier to buy directly than through ebay since they don't have to pay seller fees

 

Yeah, that's how we did it eventually, did you buy from them as well gh0sts?

 

yup, might see if i can get a CPU too

 

Nice, I am thinking about it too, cpu is a bit expensive too, I need to hold back for a while, lol. How's your card working for you?

 

working nicely. the only problem i have is the popping and crackling i get due to me using HWInfo to control my fans individually. HWInfo is just a CPU hog.

 

Oh, are you doing that because gpu fan does not auto control anymore after switching on the new card?

 

no, i did this before i swapped from a 780M to the 980M i had already been using HWinfo to control fans...it just took me this long to figure out it was HWinfo that was causing my DPC latency issues.

the auto fan settings are terrible that's why i went with HWinfo.

apparently disabling any EC monitoring reduces the frequency of the popping/crackling and i am still testing that.

 

Got ya, I never had problems with my fan, maybe I never pay attention to them... But anyway, I hope you find best setting working for you.

 

custom control + repaste = lower load temps.

 

I never touch the fan controls with a program, because it seems to screws the fans up permanently (in so far as having to go into bios and manually set them again - if you have an unlocked bios)

 

not for the R4 but for the AW17 R1.

 

Thanks in advance Prema

Question for you, I know you might not know 100 percent but im sure you have an idea. After your upcoming vbios is flashed in to cards on m18x r2; would we still need to use the modded drivers for throttling that j95s kindly does for us ? or would we just need to modify the hardware ID in order to install the drivers and we are good to go?

Kinda like back with the 780ms...(before the newer drivers crippled them) everything was so smooth and you could just download whatever new driver from nvidia mod the hardware ID and done. No further tweaking needed.
that was nice because you could always be up date.

Thanks

 

The driver won't matter...anyway j95s driver has other 'tweaks' / benefits, so it's always a good choice.

 

yes I agree J95s adds up good stuff I love the changing sli without restarting along with other tweaks.
is great to hear that we will be able to update the drivers as soon as they come out.
Thank you sir!

 

J95 is BAWZ !

 

I've got a question about the preformance of my GTX 980m. ( Not quite sure I'm in the right place )

I'm running Windows 10 on my m17x R4 in dedicated mode, unlocked a11 BIOS, stock vBIOS, 352.84 modified driver ( From Woodzstack's guide ), with an 220w AC.

I've been reading through quite some forums, and apparently everyone with the same setup seems to be getting quite a lot better benchmark scores. ( My highest Fire Strike score was 7660 so far )
Also while I am gaming, ( No matter what game ) my fans go berserk and, according to Nvidia Inspector, my GPU is running at 100% pretty much constantly.
I'm also having trouble booting up, ( It shows the Alienware logo and the circular loading animation thingy, but then everything goes black even though Windows is booted anyways ) and shutting down seems to be a problem aswell since some days it might take about 20 ~ 30 min just to shut down.

Could anyone advice me on what to do further that might solve any of these problems?

 

this thread here has some advices for black screen: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-the-display-will-not-wake-up-turn-on.780879/

Generally speaking, people (and myself) around here with Alienware got scared enough after this http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...illing-alienware-and-clevo-lcd-panels.779449/ to avoid windows 10 for now.
Regarding your preformance, from what I understand without overclocking and thus 330 PSU, you are not going to see anything above 9000 at best.

 

Looks like you still have some updates, an maybe you might also need to do a FRESH install, not an UPGRADE. The whole thing where MS offers you a free upgrade won't work, you have to get a KEY and use it yourself.

The performance is lower then expected, yes, and my Fans on the M17X-R4 I sold (finally) never even turn most days, because I have no trouble keeping the computer and the videocard below 50C maybe 55C when benching...

However, my results took like a year of repasting copper shimming and using the right driver, manually setting fans tables too. And other stuff. Most of us who get 10,000 or higher are OCing. But stock - even with a cheap CPU the 980M should give you at the very least a 8500 Firestrike. Possibly even 9000 because of Turbo's if nothing else is limitting it.

I do not know why your fans are at 100% but that woudl suggest they're keeping your card alive. What are your temps?
Also, could you open your case up, remove your card and do a full inspection of it, laterally and see if its not got a bent heatsink, that it is indeed touching the RAM and GPU die properly, maybe even repast - but just to be safe go google or youtube how LESS is MORE for thermal paste and how to spread your specific brand of choice, before doin so. THEN also take note of how your thermal paste looked when you removed the heatsink.

You will have to use your judgement here, but maybe you will find something saving your videocard in this advice.

Again, as always, hope this helps.

 

Thank you both for your response!

After reading the thread Maksym posted, I've reverted back to Windows 8.1 which actually fixed my black screen / shutdown problems aswell.

This afternoon my new cooling paste will be delivered so I will replace my GPU to make sure there wont be a cooling problem.

I've been looking around for a 330w AC Adapter but since they're quite pricey I might have to save that for next month.. ( I hope this will speed up things a bit more )

Thank you both again for the tips.

 

Make sure to do a close inspection all round the card, maybe something is not even making proper contact.

 

Are people on this entire thread not getting a corrupt LCD with windows 10 and Nvidia drivers?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...illing-alienware-and-clevo-lcd-panels.779449/

 

I replied to your comment in the original LCD bricking thread.

 

I've gone through a dozen installs of either AW 18 , M18X-R2, AW17 or M17X-R4 and no LCD issues yet, since people announced this issue. I think, its possible its affecting like 1% of people or something. I've helped upgrade like 100+ Alienware laptops, and none have come to me saying they had an issue, though I've found one reporting he had the issue, who I know I've done business with. But he never confirmed what he did, exactly or if it was my videocard or what. I do not think that matters though, even if it does sound like it makes me look better to say mine are perfect - I think its irrelevant. Its surely somethign to do with the LCD's EEPROM being faulty and searchable/programmable.

 

Hello, I am new here and Woodzstack was the one who pointed me here for help. I have an Alienware M17x R4 that I upgraded the GPU with the help of Woodzstack to a nVidia GTX 980m. It was working wonderfully and then I decided to upgrade to Windows 10, which Wood also was amazing about helping me through the entire process. The issue is that since then it hasn't been using my 980m, and only using the Integrated Intel 4000. So what do I need to do to get it working? So far I have heard mention of switching to PEG mode, but that that might require an unlockled BIOS, modified drivers, and dedicated mode.

I am rather inept when it comes to all this and this is fairly over my head. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks.

 

Hi Tom!

Wood claims that it is not necessary to have an unlocked Bios to boot in dedicated mode, but it never worked for me, so I don't believe him. (I'm kidding).

Jokes a part, if you do not feel comfortable with flashing stuff you can try the procedure in the OP (the one with removing the card and holding down the button). Again it is not worked for me and eventually I ended up flashing unlocked Bios to the system. By the way, I'm not trying to force you, but if you have some basic knowledge, the flashing procedure is not difficult at all.

 

Well my biggest thing right now is not wanting to have to completely rewipe my computer or reinstall windows 10. I'm a fairly quick learner but I don't know anything about flashing BIOS...yet.