Alienware 18 BIOS A07

I switched back A05. It has almost been a year since the 18 has been out and still not a solution Will there ever be a solution to the cpu and fan limitations? I feel like Alienware have really shot themselves in the foot. Still a decent laptop but not the extreme performance we had paid for.

 

FYI - HWiNFO64 fan controls work for me with UEFI or Legacy BIOS. Each fan can be controlled independently (one for each slider). I checked it both ways to confirm that. I decided it did not do any good to be mad about it and see if I can push this beast as hard as I could on A05. Looks like I almost can. It doesn't play nice at 4.8GHz on A07 any more.

 

Fan control didn't work for me, it's greyed out. I see that you run the latest HWiNFO64. I have installed it and tested it (previously was using portable ver).

Nope it doesn't work. Are you running Windows 7 or 8?

I noticed something. You have Dell EC, I have Compal EC in HWiNFO64. My mainboard has been replaced 2 times last yr. Maybe I should go get another no POST and ask Dell to send another mainboard.

 

Fan control is behaving the same for me. It is greyed out in HWINFO, Afterburner, and Precision.

 

Mine is also greyed out on Compal EC using UEFI. (Windows 8.1 Update 1)

BTW there is no point asking for a new board, all the motherboard since the GTX880M seem to use Compal EC.

I assumed my fans are locked because if UEFI. Maybe I was wrong.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

Hey there. Same for me. Either UEFI or Legacy Fan 2 and 3 stay greyed out. I tried different versions of HWInfo with same result: fans cannot be controlled. I also only have Compal EC and not Dell EC apparently.


EDIT: never mind. I was able to activate Dell EC sensor and switch to manual fan control -- fan2 and fan3 are not greyed out anymore. I simply followed what Mr. Fox suggested HERE. That HWinfo64 setup allows the program to detect and use Dell EC sensor. (Thanks Mr. Fox).

 

Blackjack, Q1: Did you flashback from (A06) or (A07)? Q2: Did it brick your motherboard with a no post. Thx, it might save me a few hours.

 

I flashed back to A05 from A07 without an issue. In fact, I did it several times doing some comparative testing (about 7 hours worth of overclock testing). At one point I got an error message "invalid firmware" but I ran the BIOS executable immediately after that and the flash completed.

In spite of how grim things look with the complete absence of usable settings in the A07 "Ultrabook" BIOS, you can overclock the CPU without problems using XTU and ThrottleStop. You need to use XTU first to get the Turbo register unlocked, and then you can switch to ThrottleStop. Even with ThrottleStop I am finding that sometimes I need to toggle one of the multipliers up or down and click the apply button to make the CPU wake up from its 2.0GHz slumber party after rebooting.

At any rate, I would stick with A07 for manual fan controls. Haswell runs way to hot to have to rely on the gimped stock fan tables.

I did "soft brick" the motherboard several times in my testing, but each time I revived it using the method mentioned earlier in this thread. I recommend you do not use any previous XTU profiles. Even though a new profile with identical settings might work, I found (twice) that using an XTU profile saved from A05 bricked my system. Using ThrottleStop with the original INI file bricked my system as well, so delete the INI file and let ThrottleStop create a new one at first launch.

After flashing A07, I can no longer run 4.8GHz stable and cannot run 5.0GHz at all any more... even back on A05. Applying A07 tweaked something that wasn't good for extreme overclocking. I can still do 4.5GHz stable without an issue, but clock speeds above that are hit-or-miss. I even flashed A05 using the USB DOS approach and even that did not clear whatever undesirable changes A07 made.

 

That's exactly it. I was getting tired of the constant overheating. The notebook is but a few months old and I didn't have any major issues with temps and overclocking during the winter. But now that the weather is getting warmer I have seen the CPU temps spiking up to 90C just gaming, which is not acceptable. The fans would pick up the pace way too late (as it's well known). So, I stick with A07 for now, where at least I can push the fans when temps go above 60C.

 

Running A06 without OC the fans kick in at about 80C. While running a McAfee full scan the CPU push to 63% and the cores went up to 95C with the fans running at mid level and Cool Master laptop cooler running at max. Ambient temp didn't help at 84 F. Just bought a $400 window AC unit that pushes 14,000 BTU to keep computer cooler this summer.

 

So I have the CPU fan control enabled but I only have two speeds 1800 and 3700 and the GPU fan2 shows 1700/3500 rpm where GPU fan3 shows 3300 rpm, is this normal?

 

Yes it is. Manual fan control using Del EC sensors only allows those set speeds. Maybe there is a way to set it like it was with the M18x where you could configure the fan speed/temperature as you liked, but I haven't found it yet.

 

To make matters worse, the fans can actually run about 500 RPM higher than what the EC on the Alienware 18 gives them "permission" to run. When the CPU or GPU(s) start getting warm, it would be very helpful if the fans were allowed to run full blast.

 

I noticed that the fan at full blast on the AW18 seem to run less or slower if compared with the M18x. So, it makes sense brother Fox. Will this ever be over for us?

 

Probably not unless or until the people that design and build the system start thinking more like we do. They used to be built by performance enthusiasts for performance enthusiasts, but it seems like it may not be like that any more. I don't understand why this changed, but it seems that it has. If I had to take a totally wild and completely uninformed guess it would be that either different people are in charge, or the people that are in charge of design have new marching orders that must be followed whether they want to or not.

When you flash the BIOS it is more than obvious (audibly and by the amount of air being forced out of the vents) that the fans can be a LOT MORE aggressive than what they are, even with HWiNFO64 manually controlling them. If a CPU or GPU hits 90°C at any point, the fans should instantly react, max out their RPMs and run the same as when the BIOS is being flashed. At least that's would I would like to see them do.

 

And I fail to grasp the logic behind such approach. Why would you build a space ship that's only allowed to fly inside the atmosphere and not in space? Maybe because that way you're sure it won't be pushed to its limits, hence won't break? sure, then why build it at all? Probably we don't see the big numbers behind that choice, maybe enthusiasts or those who seek to enjoy the true potential of these machine are a minority and our voice is not (economically) loud enough, while the masses who for instance cried for less noisy notebooks are heard? Sad me

 

^Alienware is going "mainstream" in order to increase sales is probably the logic behind it all. Less flashy exterior, less flashy keyboard, hell less flashy power button all seem to point to this.

 

If i'm not wrong,this is the first alienware laptop that came out since Dell acquired Alienware,right?

 

No, it was quite some time ago... 2009. The M17x (aka M17xR1) and M15x were the first releases under the Dell brand. Before Dell they were basically a boutique Clevo laptop reseller that has flashier than normal aesthetics and custom colors much like FalconNW.

 

I updated to A10 after reading your post (Mr. Fox) on how to set the sensor to Dell. Since then, I run the fans maximum whiles gaming. I get what you're saying in regards to the max fan setting in HWINFO. I'm sure the fans sound louder and more heavier on stock at 85-90c than how they sound at 4600 RPM.

 

The maximum fan speed with HWiNFO64 is exactly the same as the maximum fan speed the EC allows. The fans are capable of 4100-4300 RPM on the Alienware 18, but they never run that fast except when flashing the BIOS.

 

I hate how much the Alienware team have restricted these new models.

 

If only there was a way to force those fans to reach 4300rpm. What about hwinfo alternative programs?

 

^there's a way, but it involves a somewhat risky hard mod

 

^^^ Yeah I think I may give that one a miss. I did the same sort of thing on a 360 for my nephew. Suffice to say, it shorted out the mosfet fuse.

 

Yeah, I'll pass that one too, but thanks for the info. It's always fascinating to see to what extent pure and incredibly talented enthusiasts will mod and tweak in order to have this machine work as it already should. If it weren't for them now we would all be running big and underpowered (more than they already are) bricks.

 

Very true. I myself am waiting for just 1 and only 1 modification. That would be the 880m vbios from Slv and John. Other than that, my system seems to run ok. It's far from perfect, but it suits my needs for the time being.

Oh the other thing I'm doing, is changing the thermal paste from AS5 to ICD. Just waiting on the thermal pads and paste to come.

 

Yeah, it won't be long before I'll repaste the CPU with ICD too. I'm getting tired of seeing 80C+ when playing games like Batman at 4.2Ghz. I see temps like that with fan "full" blast (3700rpm).

 

It would be nice to have just a good old fashioned dial or knob rheostat type of fan controller where we could turn the dial for the desired fan speed and do away with all of this BIOS/EC controlled garbage. It could be toggled between EC or manual for those that don't like being in control of everything.

 

It's not that hard. If you have a fine flat head screw driver and you're careful, it'll only take a couple minutes. Not to mention you can always stick them back in if you need to send it in for warranty. My 18's using that right now and I love it. Sure it's a tad loud, but atleast it's cool.

 

You're correct. And, it causes no harm. It's not even actually a hardware mod in the sense that you are not doing something that the hardware was not designed to do. All you are doing is stopping the signal that tells the fans to run slower. It's completely safe if you are careful and do not break the pins removing them from the plastic connectors. There is no reason that this would void the warranty. Plug those two connectors back in and it's business as usual.

I wish I knew of a clean and simple way to put a fan controller in-line to manually manipulate things using hardware like a desktop fan controller.

 

I wonder if electronic stores sell a female to male with the 2 middle pins blank. That would be far easier than pulling the 2 pins out. I don't think I could bare the fans on max at all times. My system idles between 37-42 and it rises to around 57 whiles multi tasking apps/programs. As for gaming, well just a whole other story.

 

Is it safe to leave the fans running at all times with HWiNFO64?

 

so I have this BIOS but haven't even figured out how to set my fan thresholds, where do you find the setting in BIOS?

 

I would say so, but over time I should imagine it will ware your fan motor out. That's just my opinion though, others may state otherwise once they chime in. Oh... brother Mr. Fox.. haha

I've been unable to find fan settings in the BIOS. My bios is very limited since updating to the A10 for my AW 17. I still have access to come CPU over clock features. I'm manually adjusting both of my fans via HWINFO 64 by using the settings Mr. Fox provided us with.

Follow THIS guide to unlock the 3 fan sliders in HWINFO.

 

May, 2035... Dell releases BIOS revision A038 which finally unlocks all overclocking functions and manual fan control for the 2013 Alienware 18. In a press release on the day of the A038 BIOS release, Dell said "We'd like to thank all of our loyal customers for their patience and understanding regarding 2013 Alienware 18 BIOS issues. We've always listened to our customers carefully and we feel that we've given them exactly what they've asked us for in a timely manner."

*Mr. Fox jumps out of his wheelchair, flailing his arms triumphantly in the air shouting, "Mrs. Fox, Mrs. Fox, come look! My 2013 Alienware 18 finally beat my m18x R2 in Firestrike!!!"

A truly triumphant day for PC enthusiasts...

 

ROFL That is too funny

 

That made me chuckle , too.... ......

 

Yeah, I thought that was really funny. As I will only be 72 years old in 2035, I probably will still be overclocking and benching, but not likely the M18xR2 or the Alienware 18 will still be kicking for that long. Hopefully, I won't be benching from a wheel chair. Although, my office chair does have wheels... just like the office chairs that you young whipper-snappers are sitting in, LOL.

Who knows though... by then there may be nothing left for any of us to overclock as far as PC goes. Everything will probably be running a 0.5MHz 500 core processor that runs on 0.005mV solar-rechargeable coin cell battery... Haswell XXIV with a Hex-SLI integrated GPU, 20TB of Cloud storage and a 5-inch 4K display smart phone hybrid PC form factor. Yay! .... NOT!

 

Well, I'll be 61 then.....I'm hoping there's no wheelchairs involved either. If there are, and if there are no computers to tinker with that are "worthwhile", might end up having to turbo charge my wheelchair instead.

 

...OR by that time we will have already been assimilated by MicroBorg, and we will actually be part of a gigantic entity, half human and half machine. And even in that situation we will be still try to overclock our short-term/long-term memory CPU and gain 1 more Ghz with our bionic eye.

 

I take it you'll be shooting for a cool 1.0MHz overclock across all 500 cores? You're gonna need one hell of Silver-Dollar sized, all-in-one, wind-powered liquid cooling loop made from recycled materials to make that dream come to life... look out leaderboards, you're goin' DOWN!!!

 

I'd like to think by 2035 the display will be at least over 9K...

 

That's assuming we don't all end up in jail for having contraband copies of "extremely violent" legacy games depicting wanton acts of animal abuse, such as Angry Birds.

Well yes, but 9K will be reserved for the behemoth systems with 7-inch touch displays, hyper-threaded 500 core processors overclocked to 1.0MHz and dual coin-cell 0.010mV PSUs.

 

Hi
Do you have one picture of the adjustments in the bios (overclocking)? Do not know if I dare to and add A10 bios for alienware 17

 

Sure thing.







If someone could help me over clock just a little bit in the above settings, I would really appreciate that.

 

On the Alienware 18, if you have a 4900MQ, 4930MX or 4940MX the stuff in the last photo (OC LV 2, 3, multipliers, core voltage and turbo override) are all grayed out with A07. The only BIOS overclock option is OC LV 1. On the Alienware 18 A07 these settings are only unlocked for 4700MQ and 4800MQ, maybe because they do not overclock very high. I don't know if they gimped A10 for the Alienware 17 in the same way.

You can still use XTU and ThrottleStop for overclocking without the BIOS options, but I had to figure out new power settings on this Alienware 18 because the old settings did not work as well. Applying my old XTU profiles made my system fail to POST and I had to pull RAM to force a reset. The good thing is that A07 (and I believe A10 for the 17) allows for manual fan controls using HWiNFO64.

 

So are you running on A05 or A07 now? The turbo boost power is not locked in A07? How do you circumvent that? I found that it resets back to a rather low value upon reboot.

 

Ah, so throttle stop would be my step forward here then. I'm learning as I go along, but I don't want to alter the 4 cores in the bios until I actually know for sure what I'm doing. I'll check ThrottleStop out and see what performance increases I get. Thanks Mr. Fox.

 

You're right... it does that until you circumvent it. It is absolutely terrible, but the good news is that it can be circumvented.

Yes, I am running A07. I cannot overclock quite as high as A05, but 4.8GHz wasn't useful on the Alienware 18 anyway because the GPU overclock is severely limited by the power handling constraints of the motherboard. My 4930MX is running absolutely rock solid at 4.5GHz on A07.

The Package Turbo Power Lock is enabled at first, but it is unlockable. The problem that occurs is not obvious. I discovered it by accident. The core multiplier ratios get ignored without help from XTU or ThrottleStop to force a response to your settings. I spent about 14 hours testing and tweaking. Thankfully, I found some great workarounds. XTU is required at first, but once you have disabled the turbo power lock and dial in your new A07 OC settings it will stay unlocked and you can use ThrottleStop going forward. Here is the down-and-dirty quickie version of what I found to work really well.

Circumventing A07 Overclocking Limitations
4930MX (may work the same for 4900MQ)

cTDP Overclocking Functionality
A07 - using BIOS Defaults
Extreme Edition: cTDP (BIOS default)

• System malfunctions by default (CPU runs 2.0GHz with no Turbo Boost functionality)
• No configuration of cTDP is possible (the cTDP settings are locked away in hidden menus)
• No fix identified except through third party software

Note: after manual configuration of power settings using XTU and/or ThrottleStop (explained below) the CPU runs 3.9GHz by default with cTDP mode is set in BIOS and Turbo Boost is enabled. Beyond this, there is zero configuration potential for cTDP overclocking mode. Using this feature would require an unlocked BIOS with cTDP menus exposed to create custom profiles. (This is not new with A07... it was like this before as well.)

Manual Overclocking Functionality
A07 - BIOS Defaults
Extreme Edition: OC LV 1 - only option (no adjustments possible)

• System malfunctions by default (CPU runs 2.0GHz with no Turbo Boost functionality)

Corrective Measures:

• Set the Extreme Edition mode to "BIOS"
• Set the Extreme Edition Ratio Limits to "Disabled" (not OC LV 1) and leave it set to disabled.
• Install Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) v4.4.0.4 or newer (if you have it installed already, uninstall and reinstall it after flashing A07)
  Warning: using XTU profiles from A05 that worked well may "brick" your system. It did this to me three times using a couple of previously stable profiles. Delete or ignore your old XTU profiles.
• Change Package Turbo Power Lock from "Enabled" to "Disabled" in XTU
• Change Core Current Limit to 112.000A (can be left at 95.000A for stock 3.9 GHz turbo using cTDP)
• Click "Apply" and reboot
• After rebooting, if the system is still running at 2.0GHz, change one of the core ratio multipliers with XTU, click apply, set it back to the desired value and click apply. This will "unstick" whatever is getting stuck with the clock ratio settings.
• Before using ThrottleStop, figure out what power settings work best for your CPU overclock, then save the settings as XTU profiles. (What worked well for me with A05 was inconsistent with A07.)

Note: XTU settings are often lost upon reboot. After following the above steps, use ThrottleStop run as a scheduled Task to automate the application of desired overclock settings during Windows logon, or launch ThrottleStop manually after logon. You will need to configure the core ratios and power settings for three of your four ThrottleStop profiles, but your preferred OC settings from XTU should automatically populate ThrottleStop if you follow the right sequence.

Important: Delete or rename your existing ThrottleStop INI file before launching ThrottleStop. Set your preferred OC profile with XTU first, but do not reboot before you launch ThrottleStop. Your XTU overclock settings should then be automatically inherited by ThrottleStop which can be saved and used as your preferred ThrottleStop profile. Your system may not function with the original INI file. Mine would lock up 100% of the time as soon as ThrottleStop launched, so delete or rename the INI file to avoid potential issues.

These settings in the images below work well for me. You may find slightly different settings work better for your CPU. Do not automatically assume your overclock settings before A07 will be stable. They may not be at certain clock speeds.

See this album: Alienware 18 BIOS A07 Overclocking Fix for help getting things sorted.

Maybe some of the above will apply to the Alienware 17 as well. With the 4700/4800MQ you can most likely set the multipliers to their functional limits using stock voltage. If the Core Current Limit and Processor Current Limit are adjustable, you may need to increase them. I do not have those processors available for testing, but the theory should be the same with the primary difference being these CPU are capped off and cannot be adjusted past a predetermined level. The 4930MX is fully unlocked and can be adjusted using values that go well beyond its functional capacity.

Edit: 05/21/2014
The most compelling reason to "upgrade" to A07 is manual fan control. In spite of the undesirable lock-down to BIOS menus, the manual fan controls are too compelling to get hung up on the BIOS problems. Since you can still overclock using XTU and ThrottleStop (see album above) it's worth flashing A07 to gain the ability to manage overclocked temperatures more effectively. Here's a quick pictorial guide to using HWiNFO64. The last image is an "at a glance" guide to set up manual fan controls on the Alienware 18 with A07.

See this album: HWiNFO64 Setup Steps for help with fan controls. You will end up with this: