Alienware M18xR2 New/Updated BIOS Mods - NOW WITH MAXWELL LEGACY SUPPORT - Testers Needed

What about identyfing PCI express bus that this sensor uses and disabling it using unlocked BIOS?

 

Any tips on how to do this without me having to guess and check? If there is no down side to ignoring it. I am cool with that. I only brought it up so that Swick has some info, for a possible patch, on the next release.

 

Check in device manager which PCI bus this sensor uses.

Then go to the unlocked BIOS and PCI express settings. Find sensor lane and disable it. It should be a option there. This will cut power to it. It should, I haven't tried it.

 

Thank you for the pro top! Now I just have to figure out what sensor it is so that I find the correct PCI Bus in Device Manager. I am guessing the free-fall sensor as it did not have a driver by default from Windows 10; at the same time there couldn't be too many sensors . I'll check ASAP. Thanks again for your help

 

Hey Guys! been awhile since i have commented on here but im following the maxwell progress very deeply.

so what i gather to make this work in my r2 i will need to
-get swicks bios mode and flash to unlocked bios

- then i need to get premas V2 vbios mod for the 980m

my questions are now that it has legacy support will it work throttle free on my windows 7 ultimate? or would it be preferred to install windows 10? I just bought a 128gb samsung 850 evo m-sata drive that im going to fresh install a os on so im determining do i want to stick with windows 7 ultimate or take the plunge into windows 10.

Also has the cold boot issue been addressed yet? ive heard it being kicked around here for awhile. Does it happen when waking from sleep because i never shut off my Alienware i always just put it to sleep.

also when modifying the driver .inf what is the device id for a 980m? like 119F is a 780m / 11AO is a 680m

thanks guys and hope we can get everything working even more smooth! keep up the awesome work!!

 

Go to device manager. Click GPU->Properties->Details->Hardware IDs

 

There haven't been but one or 2 posts about throttling since this BIOS came out (Looks promising) I have heard some people have had luck using MSI Afterburner to prevent the Boost clocks from going too high (prevent thermal throttling, plus it should keep your TDP down to a safe level if you don't have the 600w dual PSU mod on your system (with SLI)

 

IMHO, I would stay on Windows 7 for driver compatibility, Windows 10 is running, But i is not 100% stable, I get random freezes in Fallout 4, Hard freezes, End Task won't force close, Logging off sometimes works, If it will let you, I have been forced to do several Hard reboots since Windows 10, With windows 7 pro, I have had no such issues. (I am using HWinfo64 for fan control (pro tip, put OpenFanCtrlMin=1 in the bottom of your HWinfo64.ini and the fan control will Autorun, if you have HWinfo64 to run at boot).

There are ACPI sensor issues "The embedded controller (EC) returned data when none was requested. The BIOS might be trying to access the EC without synchronizing with the operating system. This data will be ignored. No further action is necessary; however, you should check with your computer manufacturer for an upgraded BIOS."

- To be fair, this is not a Swick BIOS issue, as he did not touch the ACPI tables, This is a known dell issues they never bothered fixing, Messing with the tables can possibly cause your laptop to brick (or so I understand from Swick).

Long story short, I will be sticking with windows 7 pro for the time being. (besides the boot time is 2x as fast - according to TS 360 startup manager then windows 10)

Just my humble opinions, I hope it helps you in deciding what route to go. And as I said before I will know more on Sunday-ish, when I get back "in town"

 

@djcgeez2189 I bought a 1tb samsung 850 evo m-sata drive and make two partitions with dual boot with Windows 7 and Windows 10 in a legacy environment. All running perfect with the best of the two worlds: Windows 10 for directX12, Windows Store and new Steam ganes and Windows 7 for old games that aren't working properly in 10 like Dark Souls 1 and emulators. Dual boot is the way to go in my opinion.
To avoid throttling you can do the bios trick IGFX to PEG already explained in this forum.

 

Have you had any issues with windows 10 and app freezes? When it happens to me i have no errors in the system log. Memtest gave a full pass for me too.

 

Nope no errors here, its stable like my old Windows 8.1 was, just make sure you do a fresh install with the latest iso provided by Microsoft site. I advise to install it in on a SSD rather on old platter HD drive

 

Off topic, could you direct me toward the page that links to the iso, Having trouble finding it on Micro$oft's website. My copy is older, (and yes I have my legal valid key)

Nevermind
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Here is something useful that Microsoft is working on, A True refresh tool NOT like the one built in, This standalone lets you reInstall windows on top of itself like in Windows XP (while keeping your files and it downloads a fresh copy as well), https://t.co/Fof1VxXKcp

 

Got a fresh copy installed of windows 10 direct from Microsoft! Seems to be working well! It is screaming on the Raid-0 Evo SDD setup as well. Feels like a brand new computer now. I have tracked down what drivers work with windows 10, it is a mix of windows 7 & 8.1 for the M18XR2 and a couple from the AW18 Windows 10. If anyone needs it i can zip it all up and see if it will fit on my dropbox or something (if you know a better way to share it please let me know)

 

I'm just waiting till next month when redstone is rolled out. Meant to have bugfixes and stuff included too.

 

im having some issues with windows 10 my aps arent freezing everything runs great but for some reason my cpu usage is always so low. and its causing all my games to have fps dips. but in windows 7 i never have these issues. and games run great with 25-50% CPU usage but the same game in windows 10 uses 7-15% usage i cant speak for your system but that could be causing issues for you as well

 

Try to find and use a application named "Unpark-CPU-App", it prevent CPU cores staying in idle state and dont forget to put your machine CPU in high performance mode. Inform results later.

 

yup did that already i also went into the power plan and made sure the maximum cpu state is also on 100% i also downloaded throttle stop to make sure there was not a throttling issue. it runs at 4.3ghz at 60-75c which is perfectly acceptable temps. it only does it in windows 10. under windows 7 it runs perfectly fine.

 

one thing i can add is i downloaded the iso from windows site and activated it with my windows 7 ultimate key. also i notice by default my page file is 2934mb but on windows 7 its 16334 mb... why such a difference?

 

With 16GB of RAM you don't even really need a Windows page file. Something being there is helpful for antiquated software that relies on a page file. Windows doesn't it needs it, whether 7, 8 or 10 with 16GB. Windows 7 was designed back when it was insane to have that much memory, so it is applying what it thinks it needs to apply based on a formula for what was normal back in the day. The reason for the difference is when Windows 10 was released.

 

So I should just disable the page file all together ? Any other tweaks I should try? This is blowing my mind ...

So far I disabled my privacy settings
High performance is turned on
Unparked cpu cores
Set resolution timer to .5
Updated to newest nvidia driver 368.59
Performed a clean install
Checked the files system for errors
Disabled hibernation
Disabled back ground apps
Disabled privacy settings and windows error reporting


I know windows 10 is not officially supported in the r2 but something is fishy

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/windows-10-driver-guide-m18xr2-and-alienware-18.762513/

These are the drivers I'm using

 

Are you running HWINFO 64?

 

no i dont have that app doesnt it just control fans?? temps are not my problem and my fans work great.

 

what else does it do? i use throttlestop right now does it do anything like that?

 

I was gonna say if you run it on windows 10 on a M18xR2 it will cause windows to hange or freeze, disabling the battery sensor fixes this.

 

i see yea im not having issues with hangs for freezes windows runs great its the games that for some reason dont run correctly. every game dips to 56-57fps randomly and im getting low cpu usage in games.

 

Windows 10 sucks and physics performance is going to be lower than Windows 7 on any system, not just the M18xR2. Set resolution timer to the max. With 780M you're likely to have throttling issues with drivers released after 345.20... I had horrible problems with that. I think there is a huge chance the reason for your erratic FPS in games is newer NVIDIA cancer drivers. This can cause low CPU utilization as well.

Be sure your minimum processor state is also set to 100% for plugged in and battery.

I have disabled page file on my systems. It will only be an issue if you are using older programs that rely on a page file to function correctly. There is no harm leaving it to default value. I doubt this has anything to do with the problem you are having.

 

can you please explain the resolution timer?
what does it do, and what are the benifits of changing it,
im assuming loser should be better if its latency related, no?

 

Has the display dying issue upon Win10 upgrade been resolved yet? I'm curious to try Win10 as I think my Win7 install has some issues after cloning over the OS to a different SSD. Rather than reinstalling Win7 I'm curious to try Win10, if only for the faster boot time (boot time is so slow on the R2 even with SSD).

 

Yeah, for the most part I think so. There are a few examples of the LCD getting bricked by Windows 10 without any explanation for why, but the vast majority of examples where this has happened to Alienware and Clevo notebooks, they are all LVDS and it was triggered by EVGA Precision X. Precision X (the newer versions developed independent from MSI Afterburner) will corrupt the EDID no matter what OS you are running. I had to flash the LCD at least once daily until I discovered Precision X was a major offender. The day I stopped using it is the day it stopped happening. I told Alienware and NVIDIA about that and that was also the day they stopped trying to get to the bottom of why. The offending version of Precision X had worked flawlessly for me for a very long time until Windows 10 was added to the mix, so the connect there cannot be ignored. Perhaps Windows 10 and/or Windows Updates that prepare a system for a Windows 10 upgrade kills a write protection bit on the EEPROM or something similar that creates a vulnerability.

Other than that, I think you'll be OK. Don't expect much. I am running Windows 10 in tandem with Windows 7 on both of my machines because 10 sucks real bad. I'm forcing myself to use it since the Windows 10 insider program first started and I don't hate it any less than I did in the beginning. It will hinder your CPU performance same as Windows 8.X does. I am using Enterprise edition and have it severely hacked to suit my own specifications, and it still sucks. The nicest thing I can say about it is that it is as butt-ugly as Windows 8.X continues to be. Same abuse of white and pastel puke bomb colors everywhere, skankey looking fat borders on everything and riddled with worthless app crap adware/bloatware... and no Aero transparency unless you add it through hacks.

 

Actually, now that I remember, I swapped my display for a custom bezeled display sans reflective plastic that I believe originated from an M18xR1. Is the problem also resolved with the R1?

How much of a performance drop in benchmarks are we talking about vs. 7?

What about actual gaming performance?

Boot time?

The boot time right now is completely unacceptable for an SSD (around 45 seconds).

 

I tested about 7 different games that have built in benchmarks and they have identical performance Win7 to Win10, all except Batman Arkham Origins, which lost about 10% performance in the benchmark (Batman Arkham Knight performed fine - same on Win7 vs Win10).

 

The M18xR1 and R2 screens are exactly the same. EVGA Precision X will corrupt the EDID on either one, as well as the Alienware 18 and the M17xR3, R4 and AW17 screens. Among Alienware and Clevo, the EDID corruption is primarily machines that use LDVS instead of eDP. As far as I know, there are only three or four examples of the M17xR3/4 120Hz eDP screen getting messed up.

In things where CPU performance is irrelevant, there is a very small margin of difference between 7, 8.X and 10. All three OSes trade turns holding the top spots on performance in one thing or another. The thing I hate most about 10 is the fact that it is a butt-ugly spy trap that is loaded with ridiculous crap app bloatware trash. It reminds me a lot of a cheap Android phone OS that is loaded with garbage until you root it and take out all of the trash.

I kill everything nasty in Windows 10 with registry tweaks, Group Policy and DWS (Destroy Windows Spying). I use DWS to destroy telemetry functionality, disable UAC (really disable rather than mute it) and remove all of the apps and Windows Store. From there everything is done with third-party utilities to dress up the ugly mess. It is a huge pain in the butt to deal with. It takes me 3 or 4 times longer to get a new installation of Windows 10 to the point that I can tolerate it, whereas Windows 7 is almost ready to rock and roll as soon as the drivers are installed. Windows 8.X was a similar pain in the butt, but not quite as much as Windows 10... 10 requires more tweaking and polishing than 8.X does because Micro$loth screwed up quite a few more things in 10.

CPU performance hit is pretty huge in some things, less in others, but blatantly poor in 3DMark 11... about 1,000-1,200 3DMarks less in Physics test. Fire Strike doesn't matter. It doesn't count CPU performance hardly at all in the overall score. You can get good Fire Strike scores with a really crappy CPU, and the majority of games are OK even with a wimpy dual core. There are exceptions, but not that many. As @Robbo99999 indicated, it can have an effect in limited application.

I don't pay any attention to boot time unless there is a change or problem that surfaces. Both OSes seem/feel about the same to me. I only notice when something is wrong and it takes abnormally long. A fresh install would likely fix your Windows 7 lengthy boot time.

 

Ah I see, thanks for the clarification Mr. Fox, and + rep. I am running MSI Afterburner, which is essentially identical to PX (EVGA shamelessly copied AB). Is the issue the same? Does this mean I cannot use AB if I were to "upgrade" to 10?

 

Yes, MSI Afterburner is safe. It was deemed utterly worthless to me due to the absence of voltage control, but @j95 recently turned me onto a hack to enable it. That will allow up to 100mV. For extreme GPU OC the only options are EVGA Precision X and NVIDIA Inspector.

 

yes to follow Mr.Fox msi afterburner is the best option right now and youc an just set a boot command in nvidia inspector to overclock the voltage. and it will not corrupt your display. however so far windows 10 has been nothing but a waste of time. everything installs and runs great but the gaming performance cant touch windows 7.

everything runs night and day better in windows 7 so far for me... ive been working on this for the last 3 days and i cant find a single solution to the poor performance other than windows 10 really sucks or it hates 780m SLi

 

Strange that gaming performance on Windows 10 is worse for you than Windows 7, I've not seen that, they perform the same (apart from one game I tested).

 

Yeah, but you don't have 780M SLI. NVIDIA cancer drivers literally completely ruined the ownership experience on 3 generations of Alienware machines for me, and when Windows 10 is added to the mix the problems only got worse.

 

True, maybe that configuration doesn't play nice with Windows 10!

 

I don't remember if Clevo + 780m SLI became just as crippled as AW 18. Or is AW 18 in a unique position when it comes destroyed performance? Dell - Nvidia and M$ on top kill the performance?

 

I think it's all NVIDIA's fault. Windows 10 has tons of sucky things about it, but I can't blame the Redmond Mafia for NVIDIA's cancer drivers. It might not be worse with Windows 10 if you could use antiquated drivers that work correctly. Those worthless scumbags at NVIDIA broke it, possibly by accident. But, they know they did. They don't care about their own flagship products once they have something new to sell, nor do they give a rat's butt about their customers, so they just blew us off and left it broken.

Hit or miss. It did affect some, but not all, Clevo owners. And, as far as I know it was limited to certain machines that were SLI. I had probably a half dozen Clevo owners tell me they were having exactly the same issues with 780M SLI. And, it's not just Alienware 18. M18xR1 and M18xR2 have exactly the same problems with 780M SLI unless you use drivers from February 2015 or older.

 

Hey mate would it be ok if i sent you a PM, sorry i know this doesn't belong here.
Cheers.

 

Maybe I'll upgrade to Win10 in some time and I'll tell you if 880M throttles on Win10. It does not on Win8 353.06 now. Im still too scared to install any newer driver or Win10 but MS will force me to do this in next years probably.

 

Since this topic is about the A11 bios mod I want to ask something... by the time I update, this screen is bugging me and I dont know how to get rid of it. Even disabling it using Shift + FR10 if you turn the notebook off it goes back again. Someone here knows how to get rid of this screen permanently?

 

Just Disable PXE Boot in BIOS?

 

And where in the unlocked A11 Bios can I find this option? I looked everywhere and don't find any option to disabled PXE boot inside the BIOS. In boot screen If I press Shift+F10 it appears an option to disabled it and F4 to save configuration but in the next cold boot PXE boot screen appears again... With the locked bios that screen dont appears so it must be something changed in the process when it was unlocked by our friend Swick. Hope it can be fixed in some future update..

 

I had this same issue. I think i will replace the LAN module with the old one from A10. I hate this screen and it adds to boot length.

 

That drove me nuts, too. That would not stay disabled for me using the PXE boot configuration screen. I think he added it on purpose. I hate that on Clevos and disable it on them also. With Prema BIOS you can disable anything being bootable and leave only the OS boot drive if you want to.

If you look on the main screen, where you have the option for USB Power Share, it may be there. I don't remember now, and since I don't own one I can't check. I figured out how to stop and don't remember what I did now. Have you tried changing the boot order also, to be sure LAN is last?

 

Yes in boot menu order, network is the last option there is. But now seeing this as a common problem with other users aswell I'm a little relief because I think it only happening with my R2. Thanks Mr.Fox, I will try again to find anything I overlooked in BIOS related with PXE boot.

Edit: Nope, cannot find any info about PXE boot inside BIOS, hope it can be fixed someday...

 

I have Win10 on my M18X R1 GTX880M SLI with WIN10 368.25 and i have not had troubles with throttling.