*Official* Alienware M18xR1/R2 CPU Overclocking Thread - Learn How and Share Tips Here

Yeah cool will try your settings and yup already using MSI OSD, HWmonitor fans full and back raised.
Will try and get screenshot and upload. Will warranty be void if I repaste? I did it on my m17xr2 and they still fixed it..

 

As long as you dont physically damage. I had one go to depot with non standard paste never got a complaint. Technically i believe its void of warranty but Michael Dell said users can replace paste so dont worry

 

Ah that's interesting lol running the same settings as Fox and CPU @ 4.5 8thread holds with wprine32 0flex & BLCK 100. Running vantage now and will upload pics shortly

 

As soon as it starts CPU tests in vantage core2 hits 100c and laptop shuts off!
When doing the wprime32 1024 test when CPU hits 96c it instantly throttles and brings clock speed down (fans go full to mid speeds on & off)

 

Yep, 100c is shutdown - hardcoded into the CPU regardless of what the system bios is set to. You have to make sure to stay below 96-97 (good to have some buffer in case temps spike for whatever reason)

 

So MrFox and Scook... I think unlike most people Dan is actually a user who really might need to repaste. Most dont need to. 80's and 90's is okay on those other cores... Fact that they are that cool and the one is 10c higher is bad and will always cause temp probs. Do you guys agree? That wprime32m pic holy crap you need a repaste no way 1core should be in 70s and another in high 90s celcius. 10c can be about 20farenheit so thats crazy Dan! Cool that baby down call the fire department someone lol

 

I'm glad that it is that! It's been driving me crazy. Will repaste soon and report.. Maybe it was always like this since I got it and it has just got worse in the last month?? Will check out some of my old bench pics

 

yes thats very likely. It probably got thin or was already thin somewhere in contact with heatsink and must of got worse. Only other scenario if you move system a lot maybe heatsink loosened over that core... but most likely just like you said. Yeah its not your cpu or computer but a hot core atleast its a fairly easy fix being as you already repasted an M17x R2... Lol i had one too and they are almost built the same

 

Dan - I have never heard or read that re-pasting CPU or GPU will void warranty. I don't think it will. I think it's even a given that most Alienware owners do this. Alienware provides written instructions for CPU overclocking, LOL. During the last conference call with Dell (Bill B. and Louis Bruno) this subject was discussed and there was no indication by either gentleman that this would void warranty. If you cause damage in the process, that might not be covered under the standard warranty, but it might be under the accidental damage warranty. (I would have to read the wording to see if there is an exclusion for damage caused while doing maintenance.) You're actually doing Dell/Alienware a favor by taking care of it yourself. Otherwise, they would have to dispatch a repair. (You're also doing yourself a favor, by not exposing your system to damage by a careless or otherwise technically incompetent tech.)

What are your temps like on a standard Dell L1, L2 or L3 OC? If they are still too high on those settings, and re-pasting does not help, you may need to have your CPU and heat sink replaced.

Wouldn't it be interesting to find the wrong heat sink installed? (Like a standard 1-pipe instead of a 2-pipe XM heat sink.) It would not surprise me based on other things I have seen coming from China lately. Compal quality control is becoming notoriously poor.

 

Wow I have missed allot. Been in lake Havasu for the weekend.

 

Well i dont know about cpu replacement .. Maybe. But everything else above i agree 100% Mr.Fox. Yeah that what i thought Dell made it obvious to us that we can replace bad paste... I mean you own the computer its your property

 

No not this again lol it's a repeat of my m17xr2 with a 940xm... Lol looking back at some of my benchmark pics I uploaded in benchmark thread it seem the same with core2 being really hot & core1 cool. Would you guys repaste or should I just call Dell?

 

Welcome back, bro! I wondered where you were. Hope it was fun.

Mostly a bunch of talk and troubleshooting. I posted one new bench for the leader board yesterday.

I would re-paste first, then when you call (if you need to) you will have demonstrated that you've taken the initiative to try to correct the problem. If you call them now, they may ask you to do that or may want to dispatch a tech to do it. If you doing it does not fix the problem, they will likely dispatch a replacement heat sink, CPU, or both.

What did they do with the R2 when this happened?

 

that sounds awesome John you fish or just went as a vacation?

I posted a cpuz for leader board too. Brian K posted a bench for leader board and was it terry that also posted a bunch in one post.

Welcome back John.

Dan i say try the repaste yourself if you get no good results your no worse off if you repasted m17x r2 you can repaste an m18x

 

Well should work like that MrFox but he may want to not mention vantage and ithers as they are most likely going to ignore anything about a benchmark... try mentioning it happens in normal apps if it comes to that.

 

If it happens in Vantage, it may happen in Crysis, Crysis 2, Metro 2033 or some other games that tax the CPU. Vantage is not entirely unlike a game and I think I remember Louis saying something during the conference call along the lines that Dell/Alienware sometimes uses Vantage for in-house testing.

 

This is temp Level 3 overclock and back raised

Core1 & Core2 Temps look off. Is there anyway i can tell if i have 2pipe heatsink without openning?

Also my m17xR2 was repared twice with same temp probs and was replaced with this m18x

 

Thanks.
Fun and work. Helped a friend move.

Thanks.
Not a real vacation yet, but the next time it will be. Me and the misse's will be on the water.

 

No way to see the heatsink without taking it apart unless you have x-ray vision.

Those temps are not terrible with L3, but there is quite a variance between cores.

Before they replaced the R2 with the M18x for the same problem, what did they do to try to correct it?

 

Nice John on the water sounds cool. Never really been on a boat Mr.Fox that is very interesting and good to know. Yeah i thought such a variance in core temps is not really helping even at level 3. (minus the flex 25 a little much)

 

I can't seem to get past the black windows screen at x48 multipliers on all four cores. This would be with 2400 Pri Plane, BCLK 99.8mhz, Turbo Boost Power Max 99W, Flex VID at 0, 20, 30, 60, 80 or 99. I found more success sitting at x47 and dropping my Flex VID to where I could just barely get into windows without crashing. I managed to get 5.262 running x47 and Flex VID 10 but I crashed shortly after that though I did get a screen shot of x47 and Flex VID at 20 running at 5.279. Also I haven't been able to bench x47 at anything over a BCLK of 100.5mhz regardless of Flex VID. I think I might have hit a brick wall unless there is a something that I'm missing. Maybe the additional turbo voltage in XTU? I have been running my ram at default so maybe that could be it?

 

there was Gpu problems too but they replaced motherboard, CPU & heatsink twice and then replaced. I don't really want the tech to come as half the time he doesn't know what he is doing and has never pull apart my model. My m14x had the motherboard replace recently and he damaged the keyboard surround which i replaced myself as i have a good dell contact. Not sure if i should pull apart and repaste now... want some good result like you guys are getting

 

Ray try 30 flex to get into windows to see if 48x will run on your cpu... If not try higher in steps of 5 flex to see if you can even boot 4.8ghz

 

See that's the problem. I haven't been able to boot whether my flex is at 30 or greater. I think my this might be as far as I can push my cpu. This is assuming that there isn't a magical flex number between 30, 40, 60, 80 or 99 that I've yet to try.

 

It means you are at your max more than likely. So drop down to 2 cores and see if it will boot. and you may nee flex in the 50 to 70 range for it to go into windows. To much pri plane can throw it off when going to the chips max speed.

 

Brother Dan - try this test for comparison and see what your temps are, or if you get a thermal shutdown.

• 44x on all cores
• 0 Flex VID
• 880 Pri Plane
• 101.1 BCLK
• C states enabled
• Long Duration 99/56
• Short Duration Disabled

See attached for my temps with these settings and Vantage score on CPU. Only run Vantage CPU1/CPU2 tests. Fans forced to 100% with HWiNFO64.

 

Ray and John see if you agree for cpuz type idea to check if a speed works try the flex like John said drop to no hyperthreading and 1 active core. Recent what worked for me is Johns suggestion of 1200 primary plane... For this purpose... Thats 150amps max... and for me 25watts to boot to windows and test your max bootable speed like John is getting at once you know what it is assume 4core max is under that could be max is like you said at 4.8 4core...

Mr.Fox good suggestion and test for Dan

 

Just tried your exact settings and HWmonitor full fans and got thermal shutdown after about 20secs into first test. Core2 hit 100c. Idle temps in all overclocks are within 2c of each other but when load is put on CPU core2 rockets.
Repaste or could It be something else

 

Its an issue of repaste, heatsink, cpu, tension etc... Give that repaste a try it wont hurt to try it... Could be way better

 

I guess it's to good to be true receiving my first flawless Alienware haha. Will pull it apart tonight and see how it goes. Have any of you repasted CPU/GPUs?

 

yeah i have and so have others. Ive even repasted the vram modules and voltage regulators and anything a sponge was found on Gpu heatsinks and obviously the core. I saw a few celcius cooler on core and even cpu and almost 15 20c cooler on vram for my last AMD cards... Thing is one paste job was better than stock one was about same for me. Lol and for me Dan 1 out of 3 factory m18x pastings... were good temps so my current one is pasted outstanding. rest were in between first was acceptable but on hot core like yours a lot over other cores. Second one had huge difference in cores and two cores were extremely hot. So lol maybe its 3rd time is the charm lol

 

Thanks mate makes me feel a little better. Just wasn't sure if I should email my dell contact and let him know what's happening. I'm not new to pulling apart computers (itadmin) etc but worried about snapping keyboard surround. Here's hope repaste will be better

 

Mods move this post if need be. Is this the correct heatsink?

 

Yes it is the correct CPU heatsink

 

i am more delicate working on mine than any tech i have seen work on mine... not saying there arent good techs but who better to trust your pride and joy with than yourself? I know i handle all the pieces delicately. The tabs on the keyboar surround are not tricky if you get little edge lifted and wigglie it with your hands and work around edges pops off havent had a tab brake on me yet dpot sends me refurb and my own back with tabs bent and broken on the plastics lol amateutrs lol... Trust me you will handle it with more care than whoever may be recieving it your qualified your in the right field... Accidental coverage covers the plastics even from attempting a repaste its just dont cover deliberate damage from what i read sweet right?

 

Should I put a heat pad on the regulators to the back of the CPU? Looks like back of heatsink covers them? Just cleaned sink and CPU and about to put on paste AS5

Update....

When i went to take off CPU Heatsink i notice Screw1 had hardly any presure on it so possibly rushed of the build line.
Its all back together and wow that has fixed it. Core2 is still a little higher but within reason.

This was running at 42/42/42/42 900pri 0-flex 99wlong Disabled-short. Will try pushing it more now

 

AWESOME! I knew you could do it, Brother Dan. Glad that fixed it. Let the benching begin.

When my system came back from depot one of the heat sink screws was left completely loose and others not tightened. The system was shutting down within minutes because of it. Are the "regulators" you are referring to the 2 silver capacitors with the black band across part of the top? If so, those seem to be fragile. My previous mobo blew one of them out. I wouldn't touch them.

Your heat sink should have included a pad across the rear, behind the die area. That one can be re-used.

 

Great Dan glad its all running cool now. Now push that 2960XM check out my new wprime in bench thread

 

i see some of you guys are using the intel extreme tuning utility.

has anyone tired the autotune and what results did you get?

thanks

 

I did i even have a log. It fails normally and i paid attention to the changes... seems the ram multis voltage etc all get changed and the ones that XTU cant change only bios can i changed whenever it went to reboot. In this way it took hour or two i did the one that alots max voltage recommended and not the longest one as it would have taken 6hours if i remember right perhaps less. Anyway results only lead to a recommended 100.3 baseclock lol overclock it set my 1600mhz to 1067*100.3 lol lame overclock. Ill dig out log and post it its interesting how it tests though. Your own testing will come up with a better overclock. The max voltage it gave to cpu was about 21flex i think which is not bad for an everyday overclock to use its not overly high if you want some higher single and dual core speeds and still have a 4.5ghz 4 core overclock with who knows 85-99 watts limit so it would slow down in loads heavier than games. The mem it set to 1.6v in the end so thats an important thing to note. If XTU had the power to change all itself it would give a decnt everyday overclock based off system handling. The overclocks discussed around here are higher than anything XTU Autotune will accomplish.

 

Thank for your help fellas now i will get back in the lists in the benchmark forum!

Mr Fox my heatsink didn't have any thermal pad on it for those 4 regulators/capacitors (4 square things) which is why i asked if i should pu one on there? unless they don't produce enough heat? has anyone got some pics of the dual heatsink with the thermal pad on it?

 

you need to get it eventually if not i pasted those too you can do that instead but id put paste or pad on them anytime you load up cpu heavy those will get warm and trap heat... Thermally connecting it to heatsink like normal helps dissipate that additional heat. The pad goes along the edge that shows a drop from the height of the piece of heatsink that goes down from where it touches cpu die... The immediate drop you see there its a groove made just for a thermal pad same length the 4 voltage regulators are. I suggest use a small amount of paste about 1/16th inch thick on each so as not to have a lot of excess all over the motherboard.

 

If I can slow down enough to do so, I am going to re-paste one night this week. I will take a photo of that for you if do. I would call Dell/Alienware about this and have them send you the pad. That should have been there from the factory. It's ridiculous that thermal pad was never installed on the heat sink.

Edit: found this photo showing the thermal pad posted earlier in the thread...

 

That would raise temps more so since its been like that from factory. I agree Mr.Fox should have been there in first place.

 

Will email my contact at dell. Would like to see your pics Fox if you do a repaste. I did read here in the warranty forums that a guy repasted his CPU and the support rep wiped his warranty. In AUS would it be any different. And will they send out parts like a CPU heats ink without a tech so I can install?

 

Hi,

Please, i need some help here u see i have alienware m18x 2960xm A05 and my Perfomence option menu is locked. So is my boot option and so on. what can i do to fix this please help me

thanks in advance

 

You need the A05 unlocked bios if you search from google for that its should point youbto thread... The search doesn't work here.

 

Never mind thanks for your help i just had to clear the cmos on my m18x and i had unlocked bios installed but now that i cleared the bios it works fine

kind regards

 

glad you got it working Zeraki

 

Thanks for the pic Mr Fox.. Looking at that photo my heatsink looks second hand the square black pad on the outer edge of heatsink looks all frayed on the inside edges. I am missing the pad on the outer edge of the heatsink which goes along the 4x Cap/Regulators. How can i get this replaced as i am hesitant to tell dell i opened it even though i work in the field and qualified.

Update: emailed my contact and he is sending out a new heatsink,motherboard,wifi card as i asked him if there was any news on the fix for the DPC problems which i know is nvidia issues
plus no tech is coming i get to install myself will see how temps are after new sink is installed