Not trying to derail the thread here or anything, but anyone happen to know what size thermal pads to use on the AW18, since we're on the discussion of cooling?
I remember it being said that the chips on the GPU had thermal pads on the clevo units but not the AW units.
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I answered this in another thread already. These measurements are from brand new Alienware heat sinks with the thermal pads that come pre-applied from the factory.
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I'm considering buying a slave GPU heatsink from R&J Tech to see if it cools any better than the one I have now. XOTIC told me 95 for a converter so I'm pissed and debating whether I'll bother. -
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Meaker@Sager Company Representative
So long as the dimentions are all shrunk at the same rate (unless it's unbalanced to begin with) it's always worth trying getting the thinnest pad at 0.5mm.
Mr. Fox likes this. -
Yes, thinner is better as long as there is no contact interference that might tip or tilt the heat sink and cause it to not sit flush on the die or other components. You can check this visually with no thermal pads in place. If there is no such condition without any thermal pads you can use as thin a pad as you wish as long as you do it uniformly (not mixed pad thickness) as suggested. For those that don't feel confident about verifying that simply using the stock thermal pad thickness will definitely work fine.
pathfindercod likes this. -
I use HWINFO64 with RTSS to get an OSD going... the second I start 3DMark, it throttles the cards to 954MHz. It has nothing to do with heat at that point. I don't have a heat throttle with the stock vbios, just the modded one.
This extreme run just now had a maximum temp of 70C and the fan was on auto, it was no higher than medium speed the whole time yet I watched as both cards were throttled. Primary to 954, secondary went from 954 down to 889 at its lowest with both cards starting off the second benchmark at 993MHz before dropping again.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4940MX CPU @ 3.10GHz,Notebook P377SM-A
5423 graphics... Because my machine is significantly weaker than yours, my total was 4866 -
Im sorry, I ment that the laptop dont throttle as hard as it did when I bearly got 2800 points in FireStrike Extreme.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4960X,Notebook P570WM
This is my score now.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4960X,Notebook P570WM -
I just buy the recommended Fujipoly themal pad brand of 0.5mm thickness to install on my new 780M. Seeing that photo Fox posted here showing the themal pad layout in the Nvidia heatsinc there's a side with 3mm of pads.... must I pile 6 pieces of 0.5mm thermal pads to fill this gap or can I put less with 0.5mm pads? Thanks.
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Thanks for sharing though, I'm no longer thinking that having the P570WM would have been a huge benefit over the P377SM-A. Your score even offset by the much more powerful CPU is not that different from my own, at least not enough to warrant how much it would cost me to get the exchange done (15% restocking fee, shipping, time lost, etc).Mr. Fox likes this. -
D2 Ultima, pathfindercod and Severna like this.
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Either way the point remains that his scores have made me much less annoyed about having a 9377.
On a side note I found out what is freezing my computer. The nVidia 337.88 driver actually crashed on me earlier and it froze up the machine for about 2 minutes before the driver crashed. It was just sitting on the desktop. Well it froze again later and I waited again and sure enough, driver had crashed. So the freezing mystery is solved :|deadsmiley and Mr. Fox like this. -
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Robbo99999 Notebook Prophet
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I wish it was that simple. I have never had so much trouble pinning down a freeze before and I've been building machines since I was 10 and I'll be 30 this year. It's totally random when it happens - it froze while I was typing a document in WordPad of all things the other day and Bioshock Infinite freezes so much I stopped playing it. Watch Dogs freezes but has a lot more checkpoints so it's not a big deal.
It's annoying the hell out of me though. I really don't want to put Windows 7 on here, especially since I have a RAID configuration going with 8.1 (I have never had RAID before and I have no idea what it would entail getting the two to cooperate and if Windows 7 ends up not freezing at all I'm going to want to stick to it and dump 8.1) but it seems like it might be the only option I have right now. -
Robbo99999 Notebook Prophet
Ethrem likes this. -
I can tell you it's highly unlikely it was my RAM. I did the aida64 stress test which is far more RAM stressing than Memtest and it ran for hours with no issue. When I say the freeze is random, I mean it. It can be doing nothing and freeze or be stressed to the max with a game and freeze.Mr. Fox likes this. -
That kind of behavior is sometimes an indication of not using ideal CPU power settings. Haswell is unreasonably finicky and good settings for one system may not be worth a darn on an otherwise identical system. I think this inconsistency is causing problems for the OEMs because using "one size fits all" BIOS defaults for CPU power settings isn't working as well as it used to. To further complicate matters, some people are trying to undervolt to mitigate Haswell thermal issues. Taking this too far is probably causing even greater instability for some folks.
Haswell-powered Alienware laptops also have issues with system freezing, but this is almost always an indication that the Core Voltage, Core Current Limit and/or Processor Current Limit are not set for the correct values. It usually means one or more of those values are too low and you need to either increase them or, alternatively, reduce the core clock ratio so less is required. Having voltage and power settings too high is better than having those settings too low as far as stability is concerned. Unfortunately, system stability comes with a price tag of more challenging thermal management where Haswell is concerned. Nice job, Intel. -
Thanks for the tip. I'll bump the BIOS setting up from TDP Nominal (57W) to TDP high (67W) which will bump everything up higher.
Mr. Fox likes this. -
That may help. It may be easier to use XTU or ThrottleStop. I would start with bumping core voltage in 10mV or 20mV increments and leaving TDP alone initially. Or, lower the 4th core multiplier by one and see if that helps. If you experience clock speed drops under load, increase the TDP, Core Current Limit and Processor Current Limit. The core voltage being too low is the greater contributor to freezing. The other limits being too low impacts performance more than stability.
Ethrem likes this. -
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My m18x R2 is alive with 780M's and 3940XM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
deadsmiley, Mr. Fox, TBoneSan and 2 others like this. -
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Based on upgrademonkey's reputation I would certainly hope they took care of the situation. Although 3 bad Clevo 880M cards in a row really does raise an eyebrow, and makes one wonder whether it's due to a bad batch of cards or some sort of more serious quality control problem...
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Arotished has been using them in his P570WM without issue.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk -
Ethrem said: ↑Arotished has been using them in his P570WM without issue.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using TapatalkClick to expand... -
deadsmiley said: ↑This is really freakin strange.Click to expand...
Maybe the M18x doesn't fully support the 880M? It's the only thing I can think of since they work fine in the Clevo - Clevo machines are much more finicky than Dell machines when it comes to what video cards they will work with.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk -
n=1 said: ↑Based on upgrademonkey's reputation I would certainly hope they took care of the situation. Although 3 bad Clevo 880M cards in a row really does raise an eyebrow, and makes one wonder whether it's due to a bad batch of cards or some sort of more serious quality control problem...Click to expand...
Mr. Fox said: ↑Did we ever figure out what the deal is with those 880M cards? Do they act all goofy in the Clevo as well? Is the vendor going to refund or exchange them for 780M cards, or did they leave you high and dry?Click to expand...
Ethrem said: ↑Arotished has been using them in his P570WM without issue.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using TapatalkClick to expand... -
n=1 said: ↑Based on upgrademonkey's reputation I would certainly hope they took care of the situation. Although 3 bad Clevo 880M cards in a row really does raise an eyebrow, and makes one wonder whether it's due to a bad batch of cards or some sort of more serious quality control problem...Click to expand...
Mr. Fox said: ↑Did we ever figure out what the deal is with those 880M cards? Do they act all goofy in the Clevo as well? Is the vendor going to refund or exchange them for 780M cards, or did they leave you high and dry?Click to expand...
Ethrem said: ↑Arotished has been using them in his P570WM without issue.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using TapatalkClick to expand...
Ethrem said: ↑Maybe the M18x doesn't fully support the 880M? It's the only thing I can think of since they work fine in the Clevo - Clevo machines are much more finicky than Dell machines when it comes to what video cards they will work with.Click to expand...deadsmiley, reborn2003 and Mr. Fox like this. -
and now it happend again...
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Meaker@Sager Company Representative
Could be the motherboard spiking the cards then.
Arotished likes this. -
Yeah, it may very well be the motherboard Aritoshed. I feel sorry for you brother. I hope you get this resolved.
Arotished likes this. -
n=1 said: ↑If it's not downclocking due to hitting throttling temp (95C), then most likely it's downclocking due to TDP limit. This is where the 4900MQ becomes interesting, I have also observed the exact same thing you've talked about, but I found that if I fiddled around enough, I could actually get my 4900MQ to run at the TDP I want it to and hold indefinitely until it hits the throttling temp. Prime example would be the wPrime 1024M test where I can get it to go 3.9GHz all the way through pulling about 62W and not downclocking once. So in that sense I believe the 4900/4910MQ may be partially unlocked.
As for cooling, Clevo suffers from warped heatsink plates and restrictive vents. The fans are more than adequate (and according to Khenglish over at TechInferno, stronger than the Alienware fans), and I believe deadsmiley mentioned his 880M never went above 70C when gaming once he lapped his heatsink and opened up the bottom cover.
So, if somehow we could mod Alienware heatsinks to fit in Clevos, or get Clevo fans to fit in Alienware, we would have the world's most powerful cooling system.Click to expand... -
Wow, that's terribly low wattage draw for rendering. There is no way your CPU is going to be able produce amazing performance results with low power utilization like that. Are you getting high temps even though the watts are so low? My 3920XM hits just under 100W when doing rendering benchmarks and the 4930MX about 130W.
Have you tried adjusting the TDP higher with ThrottleStop or XTU, or did Intel lock it down at a low value like that for the 4800MQ? -
I think the original goofed up 880M cards did some kind of damage to your motherboard. It may not be something you can prove, but I think you're going to need another motherboard before your M18xR2 will ever function the way it used to.
The 880M cards that Johnksss and svl7 used in their M18xR2 and M15x, respectively, did not have any of the issues you encountered with those screwed up GPUs. I haven't seen many examples of M18x systems that have been upgraded to 880M yet. Probably too many people scared of losing a ton of money on something that does not perform well after see all of the drama going on in thread like this one. Plus, even systems that ship with 880M from the factory don't seem to perform as well as they should.
I know I'm one that got scared off by everything negative about 880M that has been posted. Other than amazing results posted by svl7 and Johnksss, I have not seen one single 880M benchmark that was impressive and most the ownership experiences that have been shared publicly are negative. I certainly don't mind spending money when I know the outcome is going to be amazing, but I'm not very adventurous when it comes to spending a lot of my own money on something where the outcome is so uncertain.deadsmiley likes this. -
Mr. Fox said: ↑Wow, that's terribly low wattage draw for rendering. There is no way your CPU is going to be able produce amazing performance results with low power utilization like that. Are you getting high temps even though the watts are so low? My 3920XM hits just under 100W when doing rendering benchmarks and the 4930MX about 130W.
Have you tried adjusting the TDP higher with ThrottleStop or XTU, or did Intel lock it down at a low value like that for the 4800MQ?Click to expand...
I have no overclocks on it though, and I did the adjustment through the bios, as Myth's bios lets me. Intel XTU had a problem with my computer; every time I used it, when I restarted the machine, it'd shut off before it even POSTed. I had to unplug my power cable, start the machine on battery, then plug in the power cable every time I did a restart or shut down/turned on if I wanted to keep XTU working or use it at all, so I simply ignored XTU.
I didn't want to allow for extra power headroom/drain on the CPU because before I started propping up the back of my machine, I'd hit 86+ degrees streaming or rendering (or even running a virus scan, as the scan uses about 60% of my CPU when running through the ~500GB of data on my SSDs as fast as the SSDs allow) so I kind of wanted it cooler and not hotter XD.
If there's anything you want me to check and report back with, post it here and also in a PM as I'll be shipping my machine back up to mythlogic sometime this week for a board replacement if all goes well, and I won't have the ability to check it for about a month (I'm assuming).
Edit: I should also note I do not have a second adapter. I've been mostly able to run -80mV and +100/500 on each 780M on this single adapter (though I don't OC them much anymore for gaming) so extra power drain is likely a bit of a problem for me XD.Mr. Fox likes this. -
Nothing I can think of right now, but thanks for asking. That just seems like really low TDP even for 4800MQ. The dual AC adapter is only beneficial for heavier GPU overclocking and the Alienware 18 does not utilize the extra power that is available due to a power handling limitation on the motherboard. But, the real power drain comes from the GPUs. You should be able to max out the CPU without depleting the AC adapter as long as the video cards are not overclocked heavily.
I hope the replacement works out really great for you, bro. -
Robbo99999 Notebook Prophet
86 degC sounds very hot for a CPU running at 60% usage during your virus scanning. 86 degC sounds more like what it might be during a P95 run. You might want to repaste your CPU if you've not done so already. (Apologies if you have, I haven't checked back through the thread).
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Robbo99999 said: ↑86 degC sounds very hot for a CPU running at 60% usage during your virus scanning. 86 degC sounds more like what it might be during a P95 run. You might want to repaste your CPU if you've not done so already. (Apologies if you have, I haven't checked back through the thread).Click to expand...
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The 780M card actually got the Code 43 error after I tried to do a 50/100Mhz OC on the cards while doing a 3Dmark11 run. The PC froze and after the restart, the second card was "damaged".
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Robbo99999 said: ↑86 degC sounds very hot for a CPU running at 60% usage during your virus scanning. 86 degC sounds more like what it might be during a P95 run. You might want to repaste your CPU if you've not done so already. (Apologies if you have, I haven't checked back through the thread).Click to expand...
As for power draw, I think it's purely because the default settings were used and no tweaking was done. I know I can definitely get my 4900MQ to pull 90+W when rendering if I up the TDP limit.Robbo99999 likes this. -
Isn't the IA Core value an estimate of what the chip itself is pulling based on the VID? Mine doesn't pass 45W but I couldn't tell you what it is at the wall as I'm too cheap to buy a kill-a-watt
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
Here's what my CPU does.
Stock:
-80mv undervolt in BIOS:
I took them both at 99% so it could easily be seen what is going on with the clocks and temps. Stock, it settles down around 3.4GHz while the undervolt pushes to 3.6GHz with all 8 threads loaded. Both of them hit 80C, the stock had a 1C difference which is basically a wash.
I didn't make any other changes to the BIOS and I don't have any tweaking programs installed on the machine so that's everything stock but with an 80mv undervolt in the BIOS. -
I don't get how your -80mV gives the same draw and such as your stock... I know mine hit 47 and 48 almost constantly without the undervolt.
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He has an MX chip, which will turbo as much as it can until it hits either the thermal or TDP limit. So when an undervolt is applied, it will just apply more turbo until it draws the same amount of power.
Ethrem likes this.
Just got my 880M twins!
Discussion in 'Alienware 18 and M18x' started by Arotished, Apr 22, 2014.