*OFFICIAL* Alienware M18xR1/R2/18 Benchmark Thread - Part 3

Yeah, that about explains it: your core clocks are running very low.

 

Hi
Any idea of the reason for poor performance?
you need more information to discover the reason

 

I am not sure how to fix your issue, but your clocks should be between 980MHz and 1150MHz.

What NVidia driver are you using? If you have an older driver, I would suggest installing a newer version.


-imest

 

@ssj92 ... I got a pair of GTX 980 Desktop. I don't have M18X no more. Feel free to let me know if you want to come out and test it.

 

Brooooooooo LOL damn why'd you have to get them when I ordered the Area-51M

I'm down to test them for science. Maybe next weekend? Can you send me pics of the cards in PM and the price they cost you?

We definitely gotta test them in the M18x and do some benchmarks.

Do you still have your dual PSU adapter?

@Raidriar @Mr. Fox @Johnksss

 

$800 GT80s 6QF barebone MFG refurbished with warranty from MSI. I couldn't pass up the deal.

I do still have the Dual PSU.

 

Do they still have more? That's pretty good. Got a link to the page?

 

3rd party retailer. I think its their last one. But they do get systems from time to time.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MSI-GT80S-...4720&nordt=true&rt=nc&orig_cvip=true#viTabs_0

 

Did you receive the laptop already?

 

yes, since they are located not too far from here. I got it within two days. Paid for it Thursday afternoon and got it Saturday morning.

Same design as the GTX 1070

 

I have two extra heatsinks (one master, one slave) might need some tools though to modify them. Also have a extra SLI cable.

Just need the cards and dual PSU adapter at that point to really test them. I'm afraid of the slave slot not accepting the card. We can remove the subwoofer but there might be other clearance issues.

EDIT: Yo @Rengsey R. H. Jr. you might wanna confirm it has 980 SLI and not 980M SLI. From the listing "specs"

MSI GT80S Titan SLI 257
• Does not include OS will need to be installed
• Intel® Core™ i7-6920 HQ Processor 2.9Ghz 3.8 W/intel Turbo
• 18.4" Full HD Anti-Reflective Wide View Angle Display (1920 x 1080) IPS Level
• NVIDIA GTX 980M SLI 8GB GDDR5

 

It's the Desktop 980. I usually look for specs on the packaging. I noticed the 980m on the listing. Packaging will say what its true specs.

 

That's so beautiful 980 SLI...run some firestrike..it's probably 1080 level lol

 

Here is a stock run.

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/34175613

 

where did you get this 980? I'd be in for like 4 lol

EDIT nvm saw you bought a barebones. Hella jealous, I would have loved to turn my M18x into a 980 SLI machine.

 

@ssj92 @Raidriar , take a look at the screen shot of the GPUz of the GTX 980, is the BOOST clock in the Default suppose to display " 0 " ?

 

Not a clue, never worked with a 980 core so I don't know how its supposed to behave. I'd ask @Khenglish

 

It should show proper boost. When I had 980 (Clevo) it showed everything properly.

Might just be a GPU-Z bug. If I see another one of those MSI barebones I might cop one.

Let me know if you're down to test it in the M18x sometime.

 

WOW!! What an amazing deal!! Good find!

 

For M18x R2 the power draw of the 980 desktop cards in SLI is to much. They don´t run at full performance.
https://www.3dmark.com/fs/19852154
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/13410851

 

What desktop gtx 980 version are you running in the m18x r2?

 

Desktop GTX 980 (13c0)

 

What brand ? Can you upload the vbios pls?

 

Vbios is from prema mod. Please contact him.

 

Interesting, I thought the M18xR2 could draw as much power as 2x330w AC Adapters allowed.

@Mr. Fox was able to OC heavily with 680m SLI, 780m SLI and I think he also benched 980m SLI in these systems.

 

The 980M never functioned correctly in an Alienware M17xR4, M18xR2, Alienware 17 or Alienware 18. Something was always off in the overall behavior on all four systems, and the performance was always less than normal for 980M. But, it was not due to not having enough power. I had no problem pulling 600-700W using the dual AC adapter with 780M SLI.

It was because the GPU was not properly supported and simply never delivered full unfettered 980M performance in an Alienware. That is why I switched to Clevo and retired all of my Alienware laptops. And, @Johnksss did the same for the same reasons.

It comes as no surprise that a 980 "N" doesn't work correctly either. I would not expect it to and would not waste any of my own time trying to get it to.

 

Where did you get your cards?

 

Hi Mr. Fox, may I ask, since you retired your Alienware gear, does it mean you would be willing to part ways with your dual psu mod v3 for the m18x r2? if so i would be willing to buy it off you

Thanks

 

Hi Bro. I sold everything Alienware that I owned and do not have that any more.

 

I hope whoever got that Corvette R2 is looking after it. I'd give my middle nut to have that old girl.

 

Understood, it was worth a shot thanks for the quick response.

Having put a 1070 into my m18x r2 it throttles a lot and I am not convinced anymore it is a driver issue (which I though it was to begin with).
TimeSpy gets me 5.1k when it doesnt and 2.6k when it does throttle.

That's why i want to try the dual PSU to rule it out.

 

It would be interesting to see if it helps. It made no difference with 980M SLI. It was never clear exactly what caused that to happen. It was severe with 980M SLI even with the dual PSU. The problem actually started with 780M SLI and the only way to stop it was to use an older driver. My theory is that NVIDIA started adding some kind of code in their drivers that added a layer of communication with the Compal EC and something in the Compal EC was set to a lower than appropriate value (perhaps a power cap value designed for the wrong laptop) that never mattered in the past.

Have you tried any of the tricks that worked for 980M SLI, like putting the laptop to sleep for a minute or two, then waking it up? I think there was also another temporary workaround, but cannot remember what it was. I think (assume) that doing that temporarily severed communication between the EC firmware and NVIDIA driver with respect to a total system power cap.

One thing I never thought of testing was using the oldest version of AWCC (like the first release version) for the M18xR2 to see if that had any effect on the behavior. If I am not mistaken, AWCC had some sort of communication with the EC.

 

I did try a few methods like cycling between iGPU and SG in BIOS but none of them worked. The two times I have been able to get it to work without throttling was:
* using Section 160 rather than 18 within the nvdmi.inf (kudos to DaMafiaGamer, such a helpful fellow!)
* changing nvidia global 3d settings, power management mode, to "prefer maximum performance" from whatever the default is

But after restarting the system the GPU would start throttling again...and even reinstalling the drivers or making sure the power management thing is set to a correct setting it would still throttle anyway.

Now, I have just tried your method of making it go to sleep and then waking up...and oh boy did it work, thanks for the tip! 5.1k in TimeSpy (no overclock on CPU or GPU).

With the rear of the laptop on bottle caps the temps in 3dmark have been reasonable too, max of 78 for CPU and 76 for GPU.

I have switched the laptop off, and on, and it still works, not sure how long though

Whilst it works I have run FireStrike and got 12.2k so that's probably not too shabby either.

The weird thing is HWINFO still says "yes" next to Performance Limit - Power which it did when it throttled too...

I dont really use AWCC so might actually uninstall it, what's your thoughts?

Thanks again for your help.

 

Great, I am glad to hear that this helped. I would uninstall AWCC and see if the behavior changes. It may be that putting it to sleep and waking it up again temporarily disrupts whatever communication link is causing the undesirable throttling behavior.

 

I will try that later definitely and also the dual psu mod if I can get one cheap enough.

Thanks again man, much appreciated!

 

You do not need dual PSU mod for a single 1070. 330w should be more than enough even overclocked.

I am running 3920XM @ 4.4Ghz with 2x 780M SLI and no issues.

Try the things from this thread and see if it helps (NOTE, REPLACE PEG MODE WITH SG MODE, everything else should be the same)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/780m-sli-throttle-m18xr2.829574/

 

Weirdly enough it seems the sleep & wake trick from Mr.Fox has so far been permanent and I have not had any throttling issues since.

When I say no throttling issues, i mean no visible drop in frame rates in Time Spy, however HWInfo still triggers a Yes in Performance Limit - Power...so yeah, not sure why that is.

I haven't tried overclocking my 3920XM yet, so it's running stock clocks, not sure I am going to see much of a gain in games like Witcher 3, I guess mostly benchmarks would see the difference.

I have read your thread but will refrain from trying anything new right now as it doesnt seem to be throttling anymore.

Do you have upgraded cooling for the cpu to run at such high clocks? I have the triple pipe heatsink so it's running reasonably cool at a max of 75C (under gaming or benchmark load).

 

This is what I have always used for laptop overclocking when I was still doing that.

I have since moved to desktops and use a water chiller... like this.

 

Did you ever remove the bottom base cover on the M18x when overclocking?

 

For mild overclocks (up to 4.4Ghz) I just use the stock cooling in the laptop

For higher overclocks (4.7Ghz) I use AC Cooling like @Mr. Fox

If it's not throttling then leave it as is and enjoy

 

Omg and there I was thinking how do I get an air conditioner chilled air to the bottom of the laptop, lol, well done! I also searched for frozen mats etc no luck hahaha.

The desktop cooling was another level entirely though! Kudos to you Mr.Fox.

I see, thanks, and what temps are you getting with stock cooling at 4.4?

 

70s under load on the CPU. The M18x had good cooling, just needs a decent paste.

 

That's really low for load conditions, is it fans on full blast or not yet? Reason I say it is for gaming that would not just annoy me but wake up my wife and kids too for benching it doesnt really matter I guess.

 

The CPU runs in the mid 70s on load, for peak it can hit low 80s. This is all on auto fans.

When I am benchmarking, I put the fans to 100%

 

Thanks, nice one, I might try OCing mine at some point then, I'm not up against it just yet

 

Ah, just cleaned up my M18x. Looks amazing. They don't make them like they used to.
Excuse the ultra wide distortion, courtesy of the Note 10+ @Mr. Fox @M18x-oldie @Rengsey R. H. Jr. @Raidriar

 

Noooice Is it the 5g variant?

 

Naw I got the regular LTE model. 5G isn't ready imo with AT&T yet. Maybe next year I'll get the Note 11+ 5G lol

I didn't like the iPhone 11 Pro Max so I am staying with Android. So much more fun and flexible.

 

Agreed. Noooice was about you m18x rather than the phone though

I am thinking about getting a new palmrest as mine is kinda scratched from the previous owner.

That would transform the look of mine

 

I recommend checking eBay. I basically got a brand new palm rest and complete lcd assembly (better 1600x900 display) for my gf's M14x for like $80