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

Speaking of chrome...Do you get green lines when watching videos?

 

It's not their fault you lost your log in credentials and had to create a new profile (& therefore have to make those 5 oh-so arduous posts before you could download), and I should think it's not a very difficult process to recover an old account if you've forgotton the login details either. It's not a big deal, I think you're making a mountain out of a mole hill.

 

Glad it worked out for you bro.

 

@vulcan78 That's because Doom is on OpenGL that doesn't support SLI. Plus Nvidia cripples kepler now. In next years maxwell will be crippled too.

 

And thereafter Pascal This will never end!!

 

http://www.geeks3d.com/20101209/tip...nd-crossfire-support-for-opengl-applications/

@GodlikeRU We just have to wait for the DOOM OpenGL SLI profile and we will be good to go.

 

Standard Alternate Frame Rendering 2 does work reasonably well on DOOM (2016) under OpenGL, but shadows must never be maxed out to Nightmare level. In essence, one can run the game on ultra with SLi. In fact, the support for SLi has already been there since the 368.39 driver release. Where it doesn't work, however, is under the Vulkan API.

 

AFR2 has bad scaling. OpenGL SLI mode is barely used and very bugged.

Vulkan api is there already but there is no SLI support in API yet so basically Vulkan is dead for me.

 

With DOOM (2106), at 70-90%, it's certainly not what I'd call bad scaling. It is far from ideal, but one gets categorically more FPS with it and it is supported with id Tech 6 under OpenGL (unlike id Tech 5), which was really my primary point of contention.

 

Microstuttering and visual bugs

 

It was only possible with your help brother, thanks for the SATA cable!

 

Damn NGreedia!!!

SLI seems to work as of one or two drivers ago, as Kade Storm points out below, with 680M SLI I was seeing 99% utilization on both cards, but the issue was the 2GB VRAM and the SLI optimization is far from perfect. It is so much smoother on a single card.

Well guys, I feel like I just took ownership of my R2 for the first time all over again, over the course of the past few weeks and a series of unfortunate events to include the failure of my boot drive and then a RAID / AHCI mis-match necessitating reinstalling Windows 7 twice in a row (not just reinstalling, we're talking about 250 something updates and installing all of the programs and going in and tweaking Hwinfo64's layout etc.) I now have a boot drive that hits 5-6GBPS read / write (850 Evo in RAPID) and you can certainly feel it in the snappiness of the OS etc., I have 2x 680M SLI with 8GB of VRAM performance on a single card, I have a 74Hz display, and some other pleasant surprises accompanying the switch to a single 980 are that:

The unit is noticeably lighter, the secondary 680M, heat-sink and fan are in reality probably only 1 lb in total. But I can FEEL that it's lighter.

It's much more efficient, the wattage-to-performance blows my desktop completely away (980 Ti at 1500MHz alone pulling 325W, i7 4930k @ 4.5GHz pulling 170-180W itself, total system power draw probably 600W at least). I'm seeing 110W reported in Hwinfo64 under load with the defaul vbios from the 980M with maybe another 90-100W from the 3920 so in total probably under 220W. The PSU is far more cooler, it's lifespan extended, and there is far less heat emanating from the chassis and with one less fan there is less noise, especially with the fan's at 3700 RPM and less power draw on battery.

It really feels like my M18x R2 is a new computer.

(Just moving windows around on the desktop and the 74Hz is noticeable!)

Edit:

Oh and 4.5 TB of storage!

1x 500GB Samsung 850 Evo
2x 2TB Samsung Samsung Seagate Spinpoint M9T's

 

New best with default Dell vbios, +135 / +300

(10.5k GPU)
http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/9400643/fs/9257164

Now what is this "backplate mod" for the 980M? I PM'ed Codenamemafia but haven't head back from him yet.

 

You should be getting about 13k with one 980m try out Prema's vBIOS (At least that's what i get with SLI off) and a weaker processor. But make sure you save your Dell vBIOS with GPUZ in case you end up liking it better!

-Make sure you backup that vBIOS to the cloud or something secure, just in case the Kool-aid man busts through your wall or something

Just kidding, noticed you where using Firestrike. disregard

Actually, Would you please send me the Dell vBIOS you currently are running?

 

kool-aid man lol!

Will do when I have access to my M18X R3 in a bit. Currently using Galaxy S4.

Yeah I'm not sure that +300 is stable, Firestrike crashed during successive runs and although there was no display driver failure the clocks seemed to revert to default l. So back on +125 / +200.

 

Great news, I'm using a thicker book to prop up the laptop with less impeded airflow and my temps dropped a good 4-5C.

Thank goodness for cloud saves, I didn't have to start Dragon Age: Inquisition all the way at the beginning. I'm right at the part that you defeat the Pride Demon early on in the game and then run around Haven for a bit. Playing for about an hour or so my temps didn't really exceed 75C with the default vbios, whereas before they would have hit 80C. This is with the clocks holding at 1248MHz on the core and +200 on the memory.

DA: I is one of those games, along with Doom 2016 that has poor SLI optimization. It was the game that I happened to be playing in the summer of 2015 that really prompted me to upgrade from 2x 780 Ti SLI to a single 980 Ti in my desktop, and doing so alleviated all of the SLI related stutter.

It's pretty much the same story all over again with the recent move from 2x 680M SLI to the single 980M.

I also just downloaded Batman: Arkham Knight as with 680M SLI I didn't even bother doing so as the game would have been completely unplayable (no SLI support, period and VRAM hits 5-6GB).

Hopefully that game has cloud save feature as well, if not, it's a good game that I don't mind going through again.

Here's a SweetFX profile that I've created for anyone who has B:AK

https://sfx.thelazy.net/games/preset/4683/

Now with the lower temps I'm tempted to try Prema's vbios, from what I gather the only issue with it is that the voltage isn't dynamic, as it completely disables boost, which although is great performance will get your temps up to 90C if youre not careful (as has happened to a few members here recently).

Edit:

Fan speed @ 3700 RPM.

DA: I felt pretty awesome at 75 FPS, the entire experience is about 70% of that of my desktop now (27" 144Hz ROG Swift, G-Sync) as the game was running around 90 FPS at 2560x1440.

 

Update:

Man I am loving this card, Call of Duty: Black Op's 3 runs like a dream at 75 FPS, which would have been completely impossible with 680M SLI. I'm seeing 7-8GB of VRAM with all of the settings on Very High and with a single GPU I have access to "Filmic TXAA" which looks amazing.

Batman Arkham Knight mostly works, far better than it would with a single 680M.

 

First run with +135 / +250, default voltage (nearly the same as before, -50MHz memory) simply by moving to Prema's vbios

Picked up 1k GPU!!!

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/9430127/fs/9382040

Here's 980M OC'ed w/ 1.062v compared to 680M SLI OC'ed w/ 1.050v

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/9430127/fs/9257164

42% gained in Combined!

Going to monitor temps a bit with Doom 2016 and Dragon Age: Inquisition

Edit:

I pulled up my initial run with a single EVGA 780 Ti SC (1006MHz base -1150 boost) when I first put my desktop together and 980M is nearly as fast. The i7 4930 definitely skewed things a bit in favor of the 780 Ti (16k CPU).

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/9430127/fs/2183597

VERY impressive for a 4 year old laptop, I must say.

 

New best,

+150 / +300 @ 1.062v

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/13523519

That's a 45% increase in Combined compared to 680M SLI:

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/9459379/fs/8375176

Prema's vbios absolutely rocks. Prema if youre reading this I sent $10 your way, thank you!

Also, I can't believe how easy flashing was this time around, simply right-click and run Modme.bat as Administrator, first ensuring Prema's vbios is in the NVFLASH folder of C:/.

Thank you Mr. Fox, once again:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-17-r2-and-r3-performance-vbios.780158/page-3

Temps are about 3C warmer overall, which is a worthwhile compromise considering there is zero throttling, the core clocks hold at a steady 1277MHz with this vbios whereas with the default vbios they like to "hang out" at 1100-1140MHz, occassionally going up to whatever the OC is.

I simply run this Hwinfo64 fan algorithm, with both GPU 0 prim and "i7 3920xm DTS > Core Max and although it gets noisy above 75C the temps hold steady there with the fan at 4200 RPM. I initially had it where the fan would go to 4200 RPM at 77C but what I've found is that there will be noise at some point irrespective of what the 4200 RPM temp. is set to so I might as well keep the temps as low as possible. On a positive note, temps don't really even get that high in some games, such as GTA 5 where the avg. is 73C. Doom 2016, which actually will run smoothly at the native 75Hz refresh rate, sees higher utilization and does get up as hot as I will let it.

I've heard that the 680M heat-sink is not up to the task with 980M and I think I would have to disagree. Running any games or benchmarks in single GPU will run that single component about 5C hotter than SLI. I remember playing Planetside 2 with SLI disabled and seeing peak GPU temps of 85C with nearly constant 99% load with the single 680M at 1.050v! So yeah, 75-80C is right in line with how hot a single GPU can get.

Which brings me to how AMAZINGLY efficient this card is. I cannot believe that this card is nearly as fast as the 300W EVGA 780 Ti SC I had in my desktop last year (11.5k GPU vs. 12.2k) yet is only pulling 140W (peak in Firestrike, in games its 125W!)

That is truly mind-blowing.

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/9459379/fs/2183597

Edit:

I just wanted to warn everyone that I have been experiencing a situation with Hwinfo64 that I believe is related to it's "custom auto" fan setting in which eventually, after several hours of operation, the fans will stick at 2500 RPM for whatever reason and closing and restarting the app. doesn't work as although the app's window closes, the actual program lingers on in the background and is unkillable in Windows Task Manger and with Process Explorer as well. If you attempt to restart the computer that also hangs with only display shutting off, forcing you to attempt a Hard Shut Down after which there is no Windows Failure Prompt before boot and you get a BSOD as youre trying to do the PEG to IGFX trick for 980M.

So yeah, avoid the headache and just set the fans manually with Hwinfo. Too bad the auto feature doesn't work, it's a real pain in the ass to have to go in and manually set them if you transition in and out of games frequently as do I.

Edit:

Actually I believe the problem only occurs if you have Custom Auto set to the CPU. I faintly remember this being a problem and I don't remember having this issue with custom auto set to only the GPU.

 

What is your 3dmark 11 score. Most of us use that as it is more CPU intensive. Plus I have Mr. Fox's old scores I'd like you to compare too

 

I would DL 3DMark11 but my DL speed is about 250kb where I am at the moment (public library). My CPU score is about average.

 

Here is my 3DMark 11 score with just one 980M in my 15-inch baby beast.

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/11440229



And, a Fire Strike...
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/13593207

Spoiler: And this...

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/11440376


http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/13594023

 

Mr. Fox youre tempting me to add more voltage. I might actually have some thermal overhead in that if I run the fans at an ear-deafening 4200 RPM the temps will not exceed whatever temperature I designate them to run at that RPM. I'm tempted to try for another 100MHz on the core, say 1350-1375Mhz @ 1.1v or so and see what the temps do.

Right now I kinda have to run the fans at 4200 RPM in some games where the avg. load sits above a certain point, say 80%, as the temps will continue to rise and somewhat stabilize at 80-82C with the fans at a tolerable 3700 RPM.

With games where the avg. load is lower, like GTA 5 which I doesn't run well at 75Hz, for whatever reason, I am seeing peak a peak of 74-74C and an avg. of 70C with the fans at 3700 RPM and avg. utilization a bit lower around 60-65%. This with everything nearly maxed out, including Tesselation, PCSS shadows, etc. Really loving this baby 980.

I really wish I could run just the GPU fan at that speed, it would cut down on the noise a bit.

 

Update:

Well I suppose the perception that I had thermal overhead was a placebo effect, I ran Valley until completion and not only did the temps get up to 85C at the end, both at 1.1v and 1.087v but the second attempt resulted in a black screen, welp.



This with the fans at 4200 RPM. Just re-ran it at +136 / +250 @ 1.062v and got 77C at the end. So yeah, that extra 30Mhz on the core is absolutely not worth the additional voltage.

 

That is not quite accurate. We use 3d11 because it's Not cpu core influenced in the gpu score makeup. And only partially cpu speed influenced up to 4.0 ghz on any one core.
If you want to go fully test a cpu, then you would need to run vantage cpu test 1 and 2. And most of you will crash on that with these high overclocks on cpu.

 

Thank you for the correction brother. apologies for the misinformation.

 

No problem.

 

Hey I just noticed that my fans do work without Hwinfo64! I had just booted up and got preoccupied with other things and didn't get a chance to turn my fans to 1500 RPM (whilst web browsing etc.) in Hwinfo64 and a few moments had gone by and I heard a faint whirring noise and low and behold it was the CPU fan activating around 60C. So then I fired up Unigine Valley and sure enough the GPU fan kicked in around 75C and kept the temp. stead at 77C, even under 99% load and with a far less audible report than having both the CPU and GPU fan's manually set to 3700 RPM!

I thought that the default fan algorithm was inoperable with 980M!

Edit:

Unfortunately it seems the fans wont exceed 3700 RPM.

 

The fans worked 100% for me without 3rd party programs when I had 980m SLI in my r2. It seems to be hit or miss with some systems.

 

Yes it is definitely hit and miss, mine also work fine.

 

Stock fan control works for me too, but i still use HWinfo64 as it makes my cards run way cooler.

With these settings on 980 SLI I haven't seen my temps go above 71°C yet (even while benchmarking, 3dmark11, Fire Strike, Valley) Also using Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut for the GPUs and some upgraded 3m Thermal Pads

 

Oh and if HWinfo64 keeps hanging try either the beta or what Mr. Fox suggested, go to settings, safety, uncheck EC Support

 

Then you have not overclocked high enough or reached the ceiling!!

 

Thanks for your help with eliminating Hwinfo64 hanging, which used to require a hard shut down! Running the latest Beta and it's yet to hang, but I've also disabled "EC Support" as well just in case.

I haven't heard of that TIM and am looking into it now. I am running Gelid GC Extreme with some success actually, with the following fan algorithm my GPU doesn't get above 80C and this is with Prema's vbios and the core clocks pegged at 1262MHz @ 1.062v and avg. utilization of 65-70%. I have the fans set to go to max at 75C as some games don't even get the card that hot to begin with (GTA 5 @ 60Hz). I'm currently playing Dragon Age: Inquisition (great game BTW) and with most of the settings turned up or maxed it does get up in between 75 and 80C some of the time, especially running around in Ferelden's Hinterlands.

Beast might either actually be running some fantastic TIM and / or is still gimped with a single 330w PSU and his cards might not be seeing the full 125-138W that they can see under full load. That and some excellent ambient temperature to begin with. And that fan algorithm is pretty aggressive.

Edit:

Disabling "EC Support" in Hwinfo64 results in Custom Auto not working at all (it might be that the fan speeds are custom value as there was a prompt indicating that only 0, 2000, and 4300 RPM values are valid). So I re-enabled EC Support.

Hopefully the new Beta doesn't hang, so far so good today.

 

Running CLU on the CPU and Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut on the GPUs. Doesn't get any better as of the date of this post

 

I'm going to try to find a comparison between Grizzly Kryonaut and the other best performing TIM's.

Also, an update with the hwinfo64 hanging issue, it happened to me again last night on the latest Beta. Mega supreme frown face!

So I have the choice of either disabling EC Support, and having only 3 fan RPM states of 0, 2k and 4300 RPM or simply setting the fans to 3700 RPM before gaming (depending on ambient, right now in foggy SF it's only 53F with an interior ambient around 65F but if I head to a library a little further south in San Mateo the balmy weather with an ambient about 10 F higher necessitates running the fans at full bore to keep the temps under 80C.

Concerning the temps, what I find rather interesting and comforting is that nearly all reference Nvidia cards get up to and sit comfortably at 80C, GTX 970, 980, Titan X, 980 Ti and even now the 10 series cards all sit around 80C under load but here in notebook land we're suddenly aghast that our overclocked mobile card might be flirting with 85C in the tight confines of a laptop chassis!

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/nvidia_geforce_gtx_970_and_980_reference_review,8.html

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/nvidia_geforce_gtx_titan_x_review,9.html

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/nvidia_geforce_gtx_1080_review,9.html

Sustained 90C is a different matter altogether, i.e. Truly Fatal melting his/her mobo after 6 hours at 90C. But if your card's occasionally flirt with 80 or even 82-85C don't fret!

Papusan, I almost forgot to comment on your Clevo P870-G, that's an amazing mobile device my friend, I can't believe you have a quad core intel CPU flirting with 16k CPU Firestrike! For comparison, my desktop hexa-core i7 4930k is around 16k with two additional cores! Very impressive. What kind of temps do you see at that level of performance or is that only for benching and not indicative of the kind of performance experienced whilst gaming? Seriously impressed dude. Let me know if you want to trade for my desktop.

 

@vulcan78 Your TIM is just as good. If TGK was a 100% yours would be a 99.9% It's only marginally better specs wise. I don't know if there is any real world difference. and who knows maybe the other one has a longer life too? That would be my only deciding factor between the 2

 

All of the comparison's I could find show that while Grizzly Kryonaut is the best performing non-conductive TIM it is only slightly, and I do mean slightly better than Gelid GC Extreme, which I am currently running on both GPU and CPU:

http://overclocking.guide/thermal-p...d-with-air-cooling-and-liquid-nitrogen-ln2/6/

http://extreme.pcgameshardware.de/luftkuehlung/393255-review-thermal-grizzly-kryonaut-hydronaut.html

If youre running Arctic Silver 5, yes gains are to be had moving to Kryonaut but if youre already running GC Extreme or IC Diamond the gains are going to be fleeting.

I don't recommend CLU at all. In my experience it doesn't last more than 6 months and I had to take a cutting edge to my CPU die to get it off and it seems permanently affixed to my heat-sink. To top everything off if youre thinking about running it on your GPU if any of it gets on the lands that surround the die you can kiss your GPU goodbye if you don't get it off and power up the component. If you want to use it on your GPU('s) I recommend placing painter's tape around the die while applying.

All of that risk and hassle for maybe 3C cooler temps. It would be great if it was a semi-permanent application, and the very nature of the TIM (liquid metal?) leads one to conclude that it might be, but again, my experience has been that it doesn't last any longer than the non-conductive alternatives and prepare to have your razor blade ready to remove it when it comes time to reapply.

I'm curious as to how long Grizzly Kryonaut lasts compared to IC Diamiond and GC Extreme.

Oh and IC Diamond absolutely will scratch your die. Been there done that regardless of the claims the manufacturer.

 

@vulcan78 100% agreed

 

Funny, I won't use anything except CLU whenever and wherever I possibly can and I've never had those problems. I even have it on my wife's XPS 15 and that has been more than a year. It also lasted me over a year on the Alienware 18, M18xR1 and M18xR2 with no evidence of degradation (and would have gone longer except I had to take the machines apart for different reasons) and I think @Papusan is beyond the 2-year mark on his Alienware 17 4930MX with CLU and still going strong. The only issues I have had with it is it won't work at all with a sloppy fitting heat sink. It cannot be used to plug up big gaps like IC Diamond can. Kryonaut works nice and so does Gelid GC Extreme, but I have not found either of them to be durable enough in extreme OC conditions, and both are too creamy and subject to pump-out. I had Gelid dry out and turn to a dry, powdery dust over time. Never had that with anything else before... it was really weird. IC Diamond is the only non-conductive paste I will typically use because the stuff seems to be close to indestructible. So for me, CLU #1, ICD #2, Kryonaut #3 and Gelid #4.

 

I will take your word for it and may reconsider reusing ICD 7/24 again (7 grams and 24 grams respectively). But ICD does scratch your die and it wasn't indestructible on my CPU, requiring an annual repaste.

Are you running CLU on your GPU('s)? What I said about it getting on the lands and killing your component is very real, I believe it happened to someone on here in recent years. And I had that on my CPU at one point and just as with ICD a repaste at least every year was in order.

Your components might see maybe 15 to 30 minutes of constant, peak voltage as youre using it primarily, if not solely for benching. My components can sit at that voltage for hours as I use them for gaming. CLU and ICD we're absolutely not indestructible for me. I got tired of the mess with CLU on the CPU and ICD 7/24 scratching the die so I dropped back down to the next best TIM in the line-up, which now goes to Grizzly (depending on other factors including longevity, price and ease of application).

 

That happened once with me on my desktop. Where my 3930k was under a custom water loop with Gelid, certain areas dried up. But i re-pasted with a new tube and it never dried up again. Maybe it was a batch thing.
TGK has not failed me yet, unlike a few other here. It was going strong for months straight until i decided to change things to CLU after nodding the heat sinks. (on my system)

 

Annualy repasting with IC Diamond is about 4 times longer than any other non-conductive thermal pastes have ever lasted me, and most are not even that good, so for me that is as close to indestructible as it gets using normal thermal pastes. Most are good for less than 90 days of normal use and many are good for 2 or 3 days max the way I overclock my CPUs. And, I am speaking primarily of CPU because I seldom have GPU thermal issues regardless of what brand of paste I am using. GPUs are not as hard on thermal paste. The toughest parts of a GPU to keep cool are not the core and they have no thermal paste on those parts... and they also have no thermal sensors to let us know they are getting hotter than we would like them to.

I am not running using CLU on my GPUs now simply because I don't need to and CLU is too expensive to use unless you have a good reason for it and plan on leaving it be for a long time. I am using IC Diamond on my GPUs now because it does a fantastic job, it's super inexpensive and there is a ton of paste in a 24-carat tube. I don't have to worry about the cost if I am swapping out parts and experimenting because the cost is negligible using IC Diamond. But, I have used CLU on my GPUs in the past and have no hesitations about doing so. On an unprotected Dell MXM card with all of the surface mounted components surrounding the die being exposed by default it is foolish to leave them that way no matter what kind of paste you are using, and it would be truly insane to leave them exposed using CLU. Clevo MXM cards have a plastic shield covering them and I have used narrow strips of electrical tape to cover them on Dell MXM cards. There are many things you can use for this. I have also used liquid electrical tape (used that last on 780M SLI in the M18xR2) and hi-temp automotive RTV silicon to fill up that valley and seal off those components to protect them. I believe @Papusan used clear nail polish or varnish on his Alienware 17 GPU.

I do some gaming as well and I seldom ever see CPU and GPU load as anywhere close to as high as when I am benching... especially not CPU load. When I do game, which is not as frequently as most gamers, I go on binges that can last anywhere from 5 to 12 hours of non-stop gaming (except for bio breaks and to refill my drinking glass). I also do not find a need to overclock my GPUs for playing games and they always have good temps with CLU, IC Diamond, Kryonaut or Gelid. I realize no benefit from overclocking my GPUs for gaming. Knowing they are very fragile (and super expensive) compared to an Intel i7, I don't push them hard all of the time.

When I am on a benching spree that is usually for several hours at a time. Just one of those benching sprees is enough to wear out most thermal pastes and end the benching spree prematurely. IC Diamond is the only non-conductive thermal paste I can do that with and not have to repaste when I'm done, and doing so still requires AC cooling with anything except CLU. Also, bear in mind that my CPUs are also always overclocked as high as I can get away with based on thermal limitations. I push them as far as they can be pushed while still maintaining acceptable temps. That varies by system, CPU bin quality (how many volts it takes for a given CPU overclock) and cooling system quality. I essentially never run my 6700K lower than 4.7GHz. The P870DM-G keeps it as cool as it needs to be to sustain that overclock. I run the 4790K at 4.5GHz all day and my 2920XM, 3920XM and 4930MX were fixed at 4.3GHz. The 4960X that I had in the Eurocom Panther was fixed at 4.5GHz. The 4930K I had before the 4960X was 4.3GHz because it took the same voltage at that speed as what the 4960X needed for 4.5GHz. I would not be able to push any of these system in a similar manner without CLU. My last benching spree with P750ZM the 4790K was sucking down 180-200W through a series of probably 30 to 40 benchmark runs and the CLU works as well as the day I applied it.

 

CLU #1, ICD #2, Kryonaut #3 and Gelid #4 = BIG YES!! But I would use Gelid Extreme before I had to use Grizzly kryonaut with a bad fit heatsink! And my Liquid Ultra on my 4930MX in AW17 is soon 2.5 year and with the same good temp as first time I used it. I know... Aw laptops have always had good heatsink(good fit on die). Bad/warped heatsink and Liquid metal isn't the best you can use. Liquid metal can dry out because of bad fit from uneven/warped heatsink... And Not FROM the quality of the liquid paste.

BS! Only cosmetic scratch not danger for the die. Do the cleaning properly and use enough isopropanol or similar liquid and all will be good!!

Some temps from my benching with 4.8 GHz. Delided processor with Liquid metal all over!!

Spoiler: TEMPS IN BENCH

View attachment 137252 View attachment 137255

 

You do have the advantage with lower than normal ambient temperatures.

 

Yes maybe. But under 69C in Cinebench with 4.8 GHz is anyway quite good when you don't have access to a AC setup during benching. Although it is lower temp in this snow country, the houses are pretty well insulated + my wife loves to keep the heat up at home

Spoiler: MORE TEMPS

The forum problems with slow site is never ending. Now also problems with pict.

 

Those are not normal ambient temps good sir. Stop showing off.

Spoiler: :|

 

More like this?

Spoiler: AFTER BENCHING

 

You're very fortunate to not have to live in a blast furnace. I hate hot weather and I live in the hottest place I possibly could, LOL. Too bad your wife likes it to be hot inside of the house. I wear short sleeves and go with no jacket in the snow and like the inside of the house to be in the 50-60°F range at the most. But, I don't like rain or snow. I prefer dry, frozen tundra with no precipitation... just frozen dirt and crispy frozen grass. That, with cloudy overcast skies and no wind is my idea of paradise weather.

 

Although the summer here at home is around 20-21C, there is plenty of rain + humidity all the summer here(I hate the rain and humidity her home because of my bad lungs - I have only 40% lung capacity). But inside its much hotter I tink. In the winter it can be cold. But it does not help me that much... We have hot ovens standing on summer and winter + fire in the fireplace smoothly all the time in the winter as well. If the temperature falls below 21C inside then begins my wife and children freezing. Then they will put into even much more of firewood in the fireplace and the temp return to 26-27C(to much for me). I'll get myself a AC later when I have a bit more money (such is expensive here at home). I can't have it to cold home because of my lung problems, but 19-20C would be Ok and 15 would be ok for benching. The great thing about a AC is that you can cool down your laptop in no time. Without the inside temp gets too cold in same time. This is a big win-win for my wife and me