Alienware 18 Bios A09

Oh thanks, I asked because my connector is damaged and I was wondering if there was another one I can get somewhere that can replace it. Should I call Dell instead?

 

I could not remember what thread or who asked, but I checked my spare M18x SLI cable on the Alienware 18 the other day and it fit without any problem. They are the same length. I did not try the Alienware 18 SLI cable on the M18xR2, but it should fit if you folded it in an odd manner so it would clear the cable/connector for the power button on the M18x. Although you could probably make it work, the way it is shaped, I do not think the 18 SLI cable would fit the M18x nearly as well.

If you have an Alienware under warranty I would have Dell replace it for you.

 

Great! Thanks a bunch Mr. Fox.

 

Alrighty then,
Finally came back from rome and my uni duties to mess with throttlestop and,some issues showed up. It all goes charm-fine until i try to set up the voltage with TS. Everytime I try to set it,may it be as lower as ",160" or higher as ",200" ,when I push apply the pc freezes and shuts down,either BSODs. After restarting,opening XTU shows me this

the XTU voltage profile is all messed up, and when I try to put it back as it was, the PC freezes and shuts down like on TS! I found a way to restore it back as it always worked by disabling OC on BIOS and re-enabling it, and then applying my saved profile on XTU. But then,I m still at the starting point with my TS voltage issue. Does someone know why this is happening? Also,what are these 3 bad guys in the power limit options of TS? by pairing them with XTU, I can't find a match with my current profile

 

Brother Rum. Open XTU and see if you have a "Turbo Power Lock" button that shows enabled. If you do, change it to disabled and reboot. The Turbo Power Lock button will be gone, and most likely, so will your problem.

 

Mr. Fox you must be a psychic, thank you for posting this tip. I have been trying to figure out how to increase the turbo boost power time window past 128, and I was just stumped.

Big thumbs up

 

Mr.Fox , thanks for helping again, however that's not the problem,since I did this long ago,you see?


What can it be otherwise?

 

Try setting Long and Short Turbo Boost to 125 each, Process Current Limit to 120.000A and Core Voltage to 1.175V and see if that is any better.

 

It could be your ambient temperature, I'm running in an ambient of 86'F, and getting BSOD when I overclock. What is your ambient temp, Rum? Fox is running ~68'F ambient with AC, so he has more headroom.

 

High temperatures do not cause BSOD... at least I have never experienced that with 2920XM, 3920XM or 4930MX. I do use my systems in a hot environment once in a while and what happens is {wait for it} ...it gets too hot.

If you're getting a BSOD at any temperature then your settings are not right and need further tweaking to have the system stable. High temps merely contribute to overheating, thermal throttling and shutdown.

 

Does anyone know if Bios A09 fixes the USB 3.0 issues on this gen of Intel chips for the AW 18?

 

what USB 3.0 Issue? Never had an issue with USB on A05, A06, A07, A08, OR A09

 

This:
http://www.cnet.com/news/intel-confirms-usb-bug-in-haswell-chipset/

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...14-17-18-usb-2-0-3-0-devices-not-working.html

 

I see, that affected the first stepping of Haswell motheboards, my laptop has stepping 2 which is probably why I never noticed this issue. I know my previous ASUS G750JX has stepping 1 and it was horrible with USB devices



well let me do a test, here is my copying a 4.95GB file to my external 4TB Buffalo USB 3.0 HDD



Here is my system.......

Alienware 18 (full specs in sig)
BIOS: A09 FTW
OS: Windows 7 Professional SP1 (Alienware Edition)
Chipset Driver: Intel Lynx Point HM87 Driver 9.4.0.1017
USB Driver: Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller Driver 2.0.0.102
IRST Controller Driver only (no app): IRST 12.0.7.1002
Intel Management Engine Interface: IMEI 9.0.2.1323

Mind you, no caching software is enabled (I mean RAPID for Samsung Magician is NOT enabled so this shouldn't be fake)

Mind you, on Windows 8.1 Update 1, that speed you see drops to 123 MB/S. Another reason to never use that crappy OS

 

Here's my info...As you can tell, I don't like to make changes to my system unless I really have to since I don't want to use the time to debug anything (I use the machine for work). I still run the stock delivered BIOS and was planning to upgrade finally.



Alienware 18
BIOS: A02
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1
Intel Management Engine Components: 9.0.0.1323
Intel Rapid Storage Technology: 12.0.7.1002
Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller Driver: 2.0.0.102

I'm not on SSD (just the stock HD and cache drive) so maybe it's fast enough...Would need to test with RAM drive to be sure...

Copying to a Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 memory stick.

CPUZ screenshot:

 

Wait so you're 7 versions behind in the BIOS and you're complaining? No offense bro but each BIOS update contains some fixes and I would certainly not run a stock BIOS...EVER

Now, that speed doesn't look bad at all, what's the problem? isn't that the transfer speed limit of your HDD??

I'm on an SSD that's why you see the speed so high

PS: your drivers are perfect, just like mine, those are the official Win 7 drivers by Alienware

Also, take a screenshot of your CPU-Z page like mine, show us your stepping if it's C1 or C2

 

Uploaded pic of CPU-Z page...Looking a various MBps to Mbps calculators, I guess my HD drives are bottlenecking my USB 3.0 stick since theoretical max of USB 2.0 is 480 Mb/s (58.59375 MB/s) and I was at 153MB/s so I guess USB 3.0 is working for me.

Doing a straight copy from same HD to HD, I only get 47 MB/s.

Thanks for all the info...will probably do a Bios update soon anyhow.

Using this USB stick btw (SanDisk's Extreme USB 3.0 thumb drive):
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3.0-thumb-drive-review,3477-7.html

 

where is your CPU-Z image?

 

Posted in original post:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-18-m18x/756943-alienware-18-bios-a09-7.html#post9767167

 

ok then really you shouldn't have any issues.

Your drivers are perfect and all official drivers from DELL for your laptop

Your stepping is higher than the first buggy stepping

The slow down is from running HDDs which by today's standards would kill any system and even the fastest system in the world would seem sluggish with an HDD! they should stop selling them really

SSDs are very affordable now take for example the Crucial MX100 which is an excellent drive:

Amazon.com: Crucial MX100 256GB SATA 2.5" 7mm (with 9.5mm adapter) Internal Solid State Drive CT256MX100SSD1

 

Yeah, agreed...To do the SSDs the way I would like, it'd take a pretty penny so I've been holding off...Just upgraded wife's M14x to a SSD and have used them previously on my old Dell and a netbook...

I wanted to do 1 TB (512GB x2 Raid 0 with Samsung 850 Pro or maybe for cost, live with 840 Evos x2) with 256gb mSATA for boot. Have too much data currently to go with less space and having a large quickbooks enterprise file, some reports take over a minute to run on my cached (I assume) default setup still. I see you are using 3 SSDs? Are they setup as all different drives?

Also, is there a way to "force" what file is in our caching drive when we running the old default: 750GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s + 64GB mSATA SSD Caching?

 

Previously I had two 1TB 840 EVOs along with a 1TB EVO 840 mSATA all setup in RAID mode. while the sequential write speeds were higher, that didn't mean one bit in my work flow because all that matters to us as normal or power users is the 4K speeds which were actually worse on RAID 0 and there was higher latency in addition to longer boot time due to the fact that the RAID controller has to initialize

Secondly, I noticed that when backing up my C: partition to my D: partition as a system image using Macrium Reflect it took 1:20 seconds while in a single SSD setup it takes 50 seconds.

RAID is good for people who all they do is transfer large 10GB + files like videos or large databases on servers. But for normal users, it's worse! it's not like the old days where RAID 0 would benefit a slow HDD in a great way. A single SSD is much better

read this and you will see how many users advice the guy against RAIDing an SSD:

1 Single SSD vs 2 SSD RAID-0
With that said, I then sold one of my 840 EVOs and got a single 850 PRO 512GB as my OS drive for extreme snapiness

 

How are you liking that 850 Pro so far? Every single review I read praised that drive highly.

 

I see 0 difference between my current 512GB 850 PRO vs my previous 512GB 840 PRO. Not one bit of a difference, heck, even the benchmarks are like slightly better not worth what I paid for it but oh well...

next upgrade will be when SAMSUNG releases a 2 GB SSD

 

I'll probably just have to give it a go and see if it's much different and report back to everyone. Funds are limited so I continue to wait for now...

My main use is for a large DB file with tens of thousands of customer records to search through so that probably isn't a typical usage for most people. I've always planned to keep my boot drive as non-raid SSD to eliminate the boot concerns. Before SSD on my old system, processing a single invoice would take over 10-15 seconds just to pull a customer record up. With SSD, that eliminated it to at least be usable. With 3 times the records now, reports are slow again on this new system so it'd be interesting to compare raid 0 vs. without.

 

oh for your usage workflow, RAID is actually good since you are accessing large databases, that's where RAID 0 shines in large sequential data. What I meant when saying it's useless is for the normal or even power users whos top priority would be those 4K speeds as that's what most data in Windows consists of

 

Hey folks.


Updating from A08 to A09 installed an admin password in BIOS (?!)

I went ahead and updated to 09 too, and now all is greyed out, aside from system lockedup. I never locked up the system, nor set a password for it. I tried re-flashing with 09 and even downgraded to 08 with same results. I can access the BIOS, but am locked out BIOS settings. If I try to set a system password and insert to unlock it, it won't accept the system locks and returns "System Disable" error, with a the service tag below. If I reboot and enter the BIOS it's again locked up. Has anyone among you who updated it, encountered this oddity?

Maybe a power drain might take care of this?

--------------

EDIT: did a power drain correctly, but the Admin Password is still there (the reason why the system is locked up). I'm also surprised that a power drain didn't reset the BIOS or at least set default values (with no admin password set?)

It's getting odder...

------------------

EDIT 2: after a 3 power drains I was finally able to set BIOS defaults and remove that password. No idea what really happened there. Now I am back to A08. I feel a bit weary to try the update again now

 

Mr Fox see if you can help me, I have a alien18 with 4940mx, kingston 4x8GB 1866MHz and 2 x 512gb Samsung 840 Pro, I used it two days, when I call again he has failed in raid on one of the discs, tried to assemble and disassemble the raid several times, always presenting the same flaw in one of the disks, and tested both drives on a PC and are running perfectly, only when using an SSD without raid can format and use however after some use it has BSOD, I removed the overclock the memory came to 1600 and showed no more BSOD (using only 1 SSD, if I add the second as secondary hard it gets caught in the splash screen alienware as if not able to identify the disk) currently use it with only one disk and the 1600 memory because if I overclock to run the actual speed of the memory 1866 he has BSOD, tried several ways but always presents overclock problem could tell me what I'm doing wrong? Or what is the correct configuration to overclock the processor and memory? Thank you.

 

It sounds as though you have two problems, both of which may involve defective parts. One of the SSDs appears to be defective and needs to be exchange. That is pretty straightforward.

Your memory issue may be on or more bad RAM stick(s), or it could be an issue with the BIOS/overclock settings. If you have 1866 RAM it should run at that speed by default. If you are only able to get it to run at 1866 by manipulating settings, then I would RMA that RAM and either go back to using the stock 1600 or try your luck with different memory. Your BSOD problem may be from the settings you are using to make the RAM run at 1866 when it doesn't want to.

 

So both SSDs were tested on a PC and are running perfectly, only memory I could not test another notebook, I believe the way is send for warranty, thanks for the help.

 

Hello Mr Fox! I have bit of situation here. My m18x r2 is not posting. I have i7 extreme and single gtx 660m with A9 unlocked. I had on stock setting when in win7 i pressed FN+F7 after reboot it powers on for second keyboard lights up but screen doesn't and shuts of after second. And i'm wandering is the reset steps same on A9 as described by u on this post? Any tips? I did try power drain and fn+ power button thing and no luck. Blind flash with stock A3 didn't work at all i mean it didn't do anything after fans started spinning at full speed it just kept spinning no beeping and I did try 2 different usb drives. also I did try steps u posted in A07 discussion How to 'Un-Brick' Your Mobo and it's not going quiet as described, at step 6 it's keeps beeping never tries to restart to place Ram. last time I waited more than 10 min and i don't see anything on the screen it's completely black just keeps beeping endlessly.
thanks