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

my 2960xm I have set to 99/56/99 with Pri at 2400 and vid at 5 currently clocking in at 4.5ghz, triple pipe does help but if you're on a double pipe just shoot for like 4.2ghz and setup your Pri at 2000 and vid doesn't need to be moved at all. Should be stable and Downclocks will happen when temps get high so don't be tweaked because it doesn't stay there all the time. its not meant to.

 

on a double pipe ive hit 4.8/4.9 no problem... depends on what your trying to do with it.. is this for every day use? if so there are alot of variables that come into play..
Since it is summer..where do you live? whats you house hold average temp? if your house is warmer.. then 4.0 should be ok.. any higher tho it might raise temps on your note book..
what works for some one else might not work for you..

 

Oh just remembered bump the throttling point in the bios up to 90C. its standard at 85C if memory serves right.

 

I don't think that setting has any effect though. Do you actually get throttling at 90 C?

My CPU does not throttle all the way up to 100+ deg C even though in the BIOS the throttling point cannot be raised above 90.

 

Ya i get throttling once I get to 90C it starts to kill the clocks to keep the temp below 90C But since my new triple pipe i haven't had a single problem. Cept for hot days......... Blasted Iowa weather of weirdness!!! Its like florida and texas made a baby of heat and humidity and said your name is IOWA lol

 

I have to change my settings on the weather...during winter I can run at 4.3 without any issues and in the summer now I have it at 4.0. Temps are a huge factor and I hope you get yours up and above the 4.0 mark soon.

 

Yeah it will depend on where you live and the conditions!

I would go for the triple if you want to push it on a regular basis.

 

Wow, really appreciate all the feedback guys!

So, the project for this weekend is to get the unlocked bios on her and see about adjusting those "hidden" settings properly. I'll report back shortly on the results, hopefully to exclaim "You're all awesome! She's humming along @ 4ghz beautifully"!

Also, I'm currently in Southern California for the summer, but this place is air-conditioned to around 70f (21.1c) so ambient temperatures shouldn't factor in that much.

 

That is why we are here.

 

Hi every one,
I just received my new m18x r2, it came with samsung msata 64gb, also with another 1 tb.
My question is:

1- Why can't see the msata 64gb in the windows 8, i only see the 1tb, which tell me that its the OS hard drive?
2- I am welling to buy new ssd, and keep it as primary OS drive, in this case should i remove the msata drive?

Thank you

 

You can't see the mSata because it is being used to cache or accelerate your 1tb drive. If you open Intel RST, you will see it there as being used to 'accelerate' your raid array, which is x2 500gb HDD, Raid 0, right?.

If you buy a SSD for the OS, I'd recommend leaving the mSata to accelerate your 1tb array, which you can then use at close-to-SSD speeds for storage. Make sure the SSD is installed on port 0 of the HDD caddy, and have the two HDD's on the remaining ports. Leave the mSata to do its job of speeding things up, mainly because 64gb (once formatted etc) isn't going to provide you with much storage capacity gain really - it's best to use it for caching so your machine flies.

 

With a non-XM CPU, you can set all of the multipliers as high as they will go in the BIOS and it should be fine. It will not harm your 3740QM. If the BIOS will allow you to set 2 cores at 4.1GHz, then yes you can. If I am not mistaken, the BIOS will not allow you set a multiplier value higher than what your 3740QM is capable of handling.

 

I will try these settings on my unlocked 3720qm CPU where may I get the unlocked bios for my M18xr2?

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You'll need to become a member of Tech Inferno forum and make either 5 quality posts or a donation to have download access.

 

I actually messed up my 32gb msata raid when I reinstalled windows no idea how to raid it back up :/ so I formatted the msata drive and used it as ready boost :/

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So i recently got my 3940xm. I have overclocking enabled in the bios...set to level 3. I have the intel extreme performance tuner montior program open to see whats going on. According to my bios settings, when I have 1 core active it should be at 4.4 ghz. I'm playing crysis 3 right now for the last 10 min and when I look at the charts it says when 1 core was active it was only running at 4.09, and when only 2 were active 2.99. Anyone know why it isnt running at what it was set to at each core usage level?

 

You might need more Pri Plane in the BIOS if you're not hitting the full 4.4 Ghz.

Also if you disable C-state in the BIOS you should have all your cores showing your desired clock on every core 24/7 (provided you can manage those clocks)

 

Hi all, I'm a newb when it comes to OC'ing and was wondering if I could get some advice. I currently have an m18x-R2 (running windows seven 64-bit) with the following stats: i7-3940XM / 32GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600 MHz / Dual 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M SLI Enabled / 768GB RAID 0 (3x 256GB) Solid State.

My goal is to achieve a stable every-day type overclock, NOT the awesome insane type of benchmarking that folks like Mr. Fox do (which is darn cool, but just not for me, at the moment). I downloaded and installed CPU-Z, HWiNFO64, and Intel XTU. I do not want to modify my bios; currently running A11, and would prefer to stick with stock bios.

Any recommendations? From reading through the forums, I decided to try 42 for each of my four multipliers, and 0 for the Flex VID thing. Ended up stopping the Intel XTU processor stress test since temps were creeping up near 103 Celsius, and throttling was occuring. So, no good? Or, is this like the worst case scenario and theoretically I could continue to use these settings and not see any problems?

Perhaps I'm being too aggressive. Should I not push it past 40 for the four multipliers? Then, as Mr. Fox suggested, start with 0 for Flex VID and increase if any issues.

Any insight would be GREATLY appreciated. Figured I'd be able to push this thing to 4.2 GHz with stock bios, but maybe I am being greedy.

 

are those settings available in a stock vbios? or only the modded one?

 

ok so when i disabled "turbo short power max enable" I am able to hold higher clocks. Doing a cpu stress test... with stock settings and just messing with the multipliers in XTU, I am able to set 44,43,43,43. She is able to told 4.29 (close enough to 4.3) with all 4 cores active in the stress test. she's able to hold 4.39 with one. If I try and increase all to 4.4 it crashes, i can only do 1 core 4.4 and the rest 4.3, all with stock settings. Does this sound good?

 

By stock settings do you mean a flex of 25 in the BIOS as set by Level 3 OC? That is certainly better than my puny ES but I wouldn't know how it fares among OEM chips. Beware though that while stress tests like Prime95 and IntelBurnTest can generate the maximum amount of heat from the CPU, there is no definitive way to guarantee perfect stability. When you're dancing close to the fire, it might just start to burn in the middle of a random task that may or may not be very intensive.

How are the temps and wattage by the way? Ideally you wouldn't want the power to be limited by the turbo long power max but on the other hand throttling is downright pathetic when you skirt around 105 degrees C. I'd be happy if you're not using much more than 90W in Prime95 and not exceeding 100 degrees.

 

the highest temps i've seen at 4.4/4.3 is 91C. I have just set the multis to 4.3 all 4 cores... strangely, it runs at 4.3 but randomly goes up to 4.4. even though I have all of them set to 4.3. Anyone know why that could be? Anything to do with the intel intel dynamic platform and thermal framework driver or something?

 

This happens by design. But, I don't don't like it. I disable c-states in the BIOS and my CPU clock speeds stay exactly where I set them.

That's pretty decent for temps. Mine does that once in a while with the 4.4GHz thing.

 

And what was the power consumption at that time? If you were running Prime we can be sure the CPU wouldn't get hotter than that but if it's just XTU stress test we simply do not know for sure unless we have a wattage reading that corresponds to the 91C.

In any case the numbers look pretty good. Good job with the upgrade :thumbsup:

 

Its weird how it does that. I dont have the c states option in bios. Its an unlocked only bios option isnt it?

yeah temps never get higher then 91c. 43x all cores. I cant get it to run 4.4 all cores though, only one. If I put more then one it crashes. with the 43x all cores I think I have flex at 0. Its all the default settings, I only moved the multipliers.


can anyone explain short turbo power max option? I have it off by default on the overclocking mode. but it is on with the default settings. Seems to run faster with it off but I'm not sure what it does.

 

C-states can only be configured with an unlocked BIOS.

Short turbo power max sets the power limit within the short turbo time window (28s default I believe). Immaterial for any unlocked CPU.

43 multi at 0 flex is amazing.. Now I wish I had bought the other $500 3940XM

 

Is it? I wouldn't know lol. I'm pretty new to all this stuff. The flex 0 was what it was already set to when I checked the bios after setting the multipliers in xtu. I set it to tdp over clocking mode in the bios, but once I change the clocks in xtu, and restart, the bios goes back into over clocking bios mode and has the clocks I set in xtu there. Not sure why it does that, but when it did flex was set to 0 default.

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Another thought here , anyone know how to over clock using the Intel dynamic thermal driver thing? It says to do so when setting rtdp over clocking mode in the bios. I installed the driver but don't know where to set it. So i use xtu and that reverts the bios out of rtdp over clock mode and back into bios over clock mode and mirrors the clocks there that I set in xtu. So I don't know how to over clock using what rtdp tells me to use when inset it in bios. Any ideas?

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cTDP OC basically allows 3 OC profiles to be configured independently and used with different power plans. I'm not even sure you'll have access to all the settings without an unlocked BIOS though! For all intents and purposes, BIOS OC mode is the most well understood and suits most people's needs. After all the cTDP (configurable thermal design power) gimmick was chiefly meant for the ultra-low voltage processors..

 

bumping this one hope you guys don't mind

 

In this context the XTU stress test is pretty much the worst case scenario in terms of maxing out your CPU on all cores and threads. You should be able to run 4.2Ghz with 0 flex day to day and in gaming without seeing temperatures like that. There are other variable's that can help keep your temps down such as raising the back or your machine and whether or not you've repasted the CPU yourself and done a less than stellar job (not saying you have). If you have the stock TIM that should suffice and is shouldn't be a concern at this stage.
But for the most part your temps don't sound ridiculously high considering the stress is the only time you are seeing these temps. I'd try things at 4.2 and monitor temps during normal usage and gaming.
As far as the throttling you observed, that is normal when reaching those temps with the standard BIOS - nothing to worry about.

Try some real world usage and monitor things and let us know how things go

 

So what is the best stress test for the CPU. I've tried a few and they all come up with different temps. With the XTU stress test I hit a Max of 88oC @4.4Ghz across the board. Otherwise it hovers 79-85oc throughout the test

 

So I'm running at 43x all cores at 0 flex. Max temp 91C. I dont understand what flex means, can anyone explain it to me? It was set to 0 flex at default. These are the settings. the only thing I ever messed with in xtu was the multipliers:

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u104/DanDan112988/20131008_122921_zps3f608a2e.jpg


The highest I can get it to run right now is 4.4/ 4.3 4.3 4.3. Same as above, only putting 4.4 on the one core setting. I'm guessing messing with the flex will allow me to push it to 4.3 all cores instead of just 1? but i don't understand what it does.

 

You need to change the Overclock level setting to Level 3. This will open up some other setting that you change to 99/56/99. This should help. You may also want to re paste the CPU with something better. Take a look at my temps in the picture. I never get higher than 88 at 4.4Ghz across all 4 cores.

View attachment 102920

 

Those seem like great temps. They seem about right. Its pretty hard to say what the "best" temps are for an XM cpu. There are more than 1 variable/s. Ambient temps immediately comes to mind...

 

Your temps are fine, especially if you are just setting the laptop on a flat surface with the fans running with the stock tables (meaning not enhanced by a HWiNFO64 profile). This is going to vary between one system to the next based on many factors... type type and condition of your thermal paste, the ambient temps in your work environment, how clean your fans and heat sink radiators are, how your fans are behaving, etc., etc. and 91°C is not a problem as a peak temp. It's actually pretty decent. Without modifying the BIOS thermal settings, most people will start to see temperature-based core clock throttling above 90°C, but it takes 105°C to cause a thermal shutdown on Ivy Bridge.

Flex VID is a voltage setting. Setting it at zero is the default voltage, which may be enough for 4.3GHz on 4 cores. You will likely see better performance, perhaps with no change in temps, setting Flex to 15. Zero Flex is not ideal for the best performance and in some cases it will cause a BSOD at 4.3GHz on 4 cores.

With an Ivy Bridge CPU, Flex is "Additional Turbo Voltage" when viewed in XTU. (There is no "Flex" setting for Haswell. They use an "offset" scheme with adaptive core voltage instead of Flex.) With an Ivy Bridge CPU, one click in XTU equals "1" in BIOS Flex. In other words, clicking the right arrow 15 times will be the same as setting 15 in the BIOS. If you do that and then enter the BIOS it will be set to 15. This is 58.59375mV of "Additional Turbo Voltage" as viewed in XTU. Each click in XTU or increase of "1" is 3.90625mV.

If your voltage (Flex) is too low you will typically get a 0x124 BSOD. If it is too high, your CPU will overheat and throttle from heat.

Pri Plane (accessible only with an unlocked BIOS) is power (watts or amps, depending on how you choose to measure it). The default is zero mean "Auto" and that is equal to 896W. When viewed in XTU, Pri Plane is "Core Current Limit" and the default of 896 is displayed as 112.000A. This should never be set lower. Again, setting zero in the BIOS is the same as setting 896. If it is set to zero in the BIOS it may be displayed as "Default" in XTU.

As you increase your multipliers you must increase Flex ("Additional Turbo Voltage" in XTU) to avoid a BSOD. Once you reach a certain point in overclocking, 896 Pri Plane also needs to be increased or the CPU will "power throttle" due to lack of power (watts/amps) to sustain the core speeds. 960 Pri Plane (120.000A in XTU) should be enough for 45x4, but 1040 (130.000A in XTU) is better. Changes to Pri Plane (Core Current Limit in XTU) requires the MSR Lock setting be changed to "Disabled" and you will find that in the menu just above Pri Plane.

Don't bother with Secondary Plane. That is only for the Intel HD Graphics and it is basically worthless for our purposes. Leave that set to zero.

Hope this helps.

 

Amazing answer fox. I'll read and play with this and report back

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If Pri plane is for core current limit in XTU, then what is for the processor current limit in XTU?

I gotta prepare for when my bricked 18 is eventually fixed. I shall call it "The Phoenix" by then. And hopefully the BIOS issue would have been fixed by then.

 

I'm not exactly sure. It's something extra on Haswell. It does not exist on Ivy Bridge and I cannot find a register for it. It seems somehow related, but I know for certain that Pri Plane is Core Current Limit in XTU for both Haswell and Ivy Bridge. Haswell is very different in some ways, not so much in others.

 

I mirrored these exact same settings in my XTU and got a BSOD. not sure whats going on. Plus I have an OEM cpu so it should have gotten there easier. yet.. i can do 43x flex 0 all day with no bsod. Weird

 

Use the settings that work best for your CPU regardless of what works best for someone else, but always be willing to try something new. At 43x4, try increasing the flex to 10, 15 and 20 and check if ThrottleStop 32M or wPrime 32M test results change for the better or worse with those different flex settings. You might be perfectly stable with zero flex, but may not be getting optimal results. If you check other settings, then you'll know what is ideal.

 

So fox, should I mirror those settings again only increase the flex more? What about the core at that's set at 3000

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I dont get something... I ran stock TIM when I got the machine, it was great and nice ofc I dont OC so much just enjoy stocker power so monitoring temps much and logging wasnt my idea then, then I changed TIM to ICD24, worked fantastic, then few months down the road it apparently started to give me hot temps so I changed TIM on CPU and GPU's to PhobyaHeGrease Extreme, Great paste and all and I did notice temp drop about 10-12 degree C' comparing to few month old ICD24 (on CPU). GPU heatsinks had some uncertain past from dell factory (at least one) and so I had to lap them both well to be worthy reinstalling, ofc all I can say 680m " 1.15GHz stock fan cooling no elevation from desk and ~20-21c ambient temp cards never pull more than 85c with this OC and with some generous overvolt.

Now I'm runing A11 unlocked moded sys bios, so went and did some tinkering. Went little by little as far as 44x4 priPlane 900, flex 15, 99-56-99, MSR lock disabled. unless I use hwinfo with fan to 3800rpm + laptop elevated at the back I almost get system throttle due to high temps. otherwise if raised I get up to 101c max. question is, do people really measure their ambient temp or all of yous run manual fan controls or chill-air feed pipe to the bottom of your alienware?

SOmething I just dont quite get it yet.

Ofc I need to raise power limit little more as I may get few crashes of wprime app @ 1024m run.

EDIT:

regardles of how much I increased priplane or went higher on flex(tried not to cross 25flex) I get wprime to crash at random times. so ended up with 45x5 already 1040priplane and 25flex, still crashing. however, I think hwinfo has some potential bug to jam system so trying not to use that

 

I been Using Gelid GC Extreme and I saw great Temp drops but if you don't get it just perfect with the amount you put on you will see higher temps after a few months and if too little you see high spikes in temp. So far I have it almost down to a science with my pasting. So far my gpu's never see past 83C at +240/+650 with the 1.075v and the CPU at 4.67ghz It will sustain but down clocks to 2.79ghz after a little time benching. And my house stays at about 70F all the time. Honestly how they do it is the Notepal U3 setup with the fans directly under each fan and then like the heavy benchers do like an Ice cabinet underneath the computer for colder air flow. so if you get a Notepal U3 and put the fans directly under each fan you will notice a much better temp level. I'm stuck on the Cooler Master SF-19 which is fine but its not really designed for the M18x. Also a Dual PSU setup helps with the issue of say benching where it draws so much power that the system kicks out or starts to downclock due to the high clocks on the cards and cpu. You gotta think if you have that kind of overclock on the cpu and gpu you're probably pulling over 330w Basically if you have a setup like mine your gpu's are probably pulling right around 250w on their own with full load from a benchmark. CPU is pulling roughly 70-110w if your past 4.2ghz so you have to calculate that in during benching. All in all its all based on what you do for cooling and overclocking. Also keep in mind the triple pipes have a sweet spot for temps so try doing open heart surgery and adjust the heatsink while benching to find that sweet spot. After that you should see dramatic differences. By the way the credit for the triple pipe sweet spot on cpu is from DumbDumb and Johnksss Idk if Mr. Fox did it but I'd assume with his impressive results he has done the same. I've seen with my rig at 1 point I had my cpu max out 73C while benching at 4.485ghz, But now I have lost that sweet spot...... Now it hangs around 80-85C during benching. Basically the best Advise 1 can give is play around with it. Eventually you will find where you like it and keep there.

 

I'm having an issue now holding a clock on all 4 cores. It'll run at 4.3 for about 20 or so seconds, and then goes down to 3.9 and stays there. temps at 85 c. turbo voltage at 39.06250 core current limit 300.000. Dont know why its doing that. But if i set it to bios over clocking level 3, it has no problems running the clocks that are pre set. Which is 4.0 on 4 cores 4.4 on 1. But if I use these same settings and just up the multiplers at all, like push 4.2 on 4 cores it will hold it for a short amount of time and then go down to 3.9 and stay there...

 

which system bios version are you running? Im having stability issues with my CPU OC cases, cant go anywhere beyond level3 that be error-free stable clocks, always either throttles or powers off(not due to overheating), Im on unlocked A11 by svl7.

wondering wondering...

 

a11 unmodded. Ok.. new updates. So, with flex set to 0, core current limit set to 112.00A, and everything else stock, i can run 43 all cores in game not stress test, but as soon as I use the BIOS level 3 OC presets of 25 flex, 85W turbo boost power max and turbo short power max 95, if i move the multipliers at all from their 44,42,41,40 preset, even to 43x, i get that BSOD 0000123. So according to this.... if I keep stock everything, I can run 43x. 55w turbo boost 68 turbo short boost 0 flex and 112.000A core current ...If I up it at all, even using the factory level 3 oc presets, I BSOD using the same multiplier settings. Shouldn't it be the other way around? As in, my processor dies if I up the multiplier without increasing power? Because right now it crashes increase power with the same multiplier settings that work fine with stock voltage. AHH!!


Edit: I wonder if intel thermal frame work driver is causing these issues... hmm?

 

Good question about A11. Attempting to use it stock and relying on XTU for overclocking may be the reason you are running into problems. The MSR lock needs to be disabled. You can only do that with an unlocked BIOS and I have a hunch your overclock is maxed out for the limitations of the stock BIOS. With the MSR lock enabled, any changes to pri plane (Core Current Limit in XTU) will be ignored. If XTU lets you set something higher than 112.000A, it probably is not actually taking effect. With an unlocked BIOS, you can set the pri plane to whatever you want and it never takes effect with the MSR lock enabled.

I use A10 and found A03, A09 and A10 unlocked all worked well. Might be worth considering dropping down to A09 or A10 unlocked to see if it makes an improvement. Downgrading to an older BIOS carries some risk. The reason I am still on A10 is I felt the risk of going to A11 was too great to roll the dice with A10 working flawlessly. I do not want any drama associated with downgrading back to A09 or A10 if I found A11 to not be as good.

I really don't understand the logic of using a stock BIOS with an XM CPU with an unlocked BIOS readily available. That is sort of like putting a supercharger on an engine with a rev limiter set to 4,000 RPM.

 

Hey guys, for some reason, using a level 1 overclock (3820 qm) is causing some harsh dpc latency and audio stuttering. Basically, i can't play games or do anything audio/visual at all. I think it hits 3.8 or 3.9 ghz on all 4 cores, the temps are fine (max out at about 83 C) but it is unusable. I downloaded dpc latency checker and sure enough I see those red bars fly into the 100k us zone. Any idea why this is happening? It only occurs with a cpu oc, and the mildest one at that (level 1).

thanks.

 

If the flex is defaulted to 25 when you set the Level 1, try lowering it to 15 or even zero. See if that helps with it. If your system is stable with flex at zero, no need to use more.