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

Can someone post settings for a stable 4.2 and 4.3 over clock? When I close my eyes I see blue. Lol either that or it will run at set clocks for like 10 sec and go back down to 3.7

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This is already posted more than once in the thread. I just skimmed through and found at least 8 posts, including instructional videos and screen shot where setting were provided for a number overclocks. You should try to absorb some of that. Settings will vary from one XM to the next. Try 43x4, 18 flex, set long and short turbo power duration and turbo time window to the max, and set pri plane at zero.

 

Ahh sorry about that. Alot of pages to read though. I'll try this, thanks!

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Thanks Mr. Fox, I'll try this after work.

 

Ok, So those settings x124ed me at 18 flex. BUT when I lowered the flex to 10, I was able to maintain it and pass the stress test for 5 min. This is weird to me because I thought you only get the BSOD if you dont have enough power, not too much. So I was increasing it more and more but kept BSODing. Now I see that lowering can also help this error. I'm going to try to lower it more then 10 and see. About the timings fox, its 99/56/99 right? Do you know why we set them at that rather then setting them longer?

Edit, just passed a 5 flex 43x. going for 0 flex now. Ok, just passed at 4.3 all cores 0 Flex. I think what was messing me up was those timings of 99/56/99. I dont think I had them set properly, maybe I had different numbers or something

 

please delete, double post

 

Ok so I finally think i got this to work.... 43 and below all cores 0 flex...stable with the xtu 5 min stress test. 4.4 all cores at 6 flex stable.


Can't get 4.5 though, even with a flex of 50, which is as high as it goes, I'm thinking i need to increase priplane but since i dont have an unlocked bios, moving it in xtu doesnt do anything, so I guess that is as high as ill go. Kinda scared of an unlocked bios, too many ways for me to screw up.

But 4.3- 0 flex and 4.4 - 6 flex works for me I suppose. Do these sound good?


Edit: what effect would lowering the 99 part of 99/56/99 during an overclock? I'm able to run a 4.4 with flex 6 and 86/56/86. Should we see how low we can get that, the same with flex? I would think it would equate to lower temps but I could be wrong. I'm able to run 4.3 at flex 0 and 81/56/81 stable.

 

99/56/99 is duration in seconds, so leaving it higher makes the specific clocks last longer. I may be wrong on something so I stand to be corrected, but I believe I may be spot on.

Also, I was on stock A10 bios and flashed over 10 times already while working with the man himself (guru of unlocked bios'es/vbios'es SVL7 )via pretty safe method, also would encourage you to do so if you really wanna experiment more on your system. However, I would not recommend A11 bios as it has some broken setup menus which may be causing me issues not being able OC properly on my CPU, it is ofc mostly just speculation but I somehow feel it has something to do with the A11 version. Im currently downgrading to A10 (few more things to test and to try )

BR

 

The 99 number has a W next to it and says power max, so I'd think it would be a watt setting? in which case the lower you can set it and hold a clock the better it would be, same with flex? I'm just speculating here, I'm not sure.

 

yea, my bad, that is max power setting tables, live n learn

 

No those are just limits: nothing happens if too high, throttling if too low. Mr. Fox has taken to setting those numbers to something like 4000 in his new 18. Your CPU might not throttle at 86W limit with whatever you're stress-testing it with but one day you might come across something that does want more than 86W..

 

I see. So is 99 a good setting for a 4.4 over clock? Or should it be higher

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99 is the highest it can be set in the bios. To take those settings higher it needs to be done in XTU.

 

Since it can be set to a million apparently. Does it really matter?

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Some updates... So i Can run 43x 0 flex no problem on the xtu stress test and 3dmark11 CPU test. at 4.4x I can run xtu stress test fine at 6 flex and pass, but as soon as i load up the cpu test for 3dmark11 it crashes for some reason. I increased flex, even at a maximum of 50, it still crashes. Not sure why since it passes the stress test fine with 4.4 and 6 flex but cant run that bench mark.... I also ran a few cpu intensive games with no problem. Weird.

All settings are with a 99/56/99.

 

Tried it and it didn't help at all unfortunately. Anyone else get audio stutter/latency when they use the factory o/c levels?

 

Have you tested the latency running on the IGFX instead of discrete graphics to see if it is any different? If the problem goes away on IGFX, maybe there is something messed up with your video drivers that is somehow affected by using the CPU OC levels. Look with your DPC latency checker to see what processes or drivers are associated with the spikes. Sometimes even WiFi drivers cause this and the changes in CPU frequency may bear some relationship to how things work.

Here is an old thread, but it might be relevant: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...e-m18x-gtx-580m-sli-dpc-latency-problems.html

 

Thanks Mr. Fox. I'll have a read through this info. My m17x r2 also had dpc latency issues which ended up in me sending the darn thing back. I will get this figured out.

 

I am very new to this overclocking thing (i understand it just dont do it often) and i just recently put 780Ms in (like yesterday) thats the only upgrade in a laptop ive ever done my previous cards were 460Ms anyways the 780M temps look great but, now for the subject of the thread

2 days ago before i had the 780s i put my 2920XM to Level 3 (4.2 ghz or something) and did a stress test. It stopped at 204 F then appeared to be throtleing at 3.7 ghz the fans were at full speed. Now i saw mr fox's 3D mark score with 680Ms and he got like 13,000 and i only achived 7000 his was at 4.7ghz. Any suggestions?

Btw how do u make it display ur notebook and specs at the bottom

 

Welcome to the NBR Alienware Community, Trickster29. We are glad you joined us. You have an M18xR1?

You set up a signature in the User Control Panel. Click on the link in my signature at the lower right corner of this post for an index of useful threads. At the bottom of that post you will find a link for Forum Rules, Private Messaging, Signatures, etc.

You may not have been using the ideal settings. If you set a Level 3 Overclock in the BIOS, lower the flex VID from 25 (default) to 5 or 10 and it probably will not throttle and run much cooler.

You will need an unlocked BIOS from svl7 if you want to do fancy overclocking. There are many posts in this thread with tips on settings you can use. I'm not sure of the 13,000 and 7,000 numbers you are mentioning. I have so many posts with benchmark results that I don't really have any idea what you are referring to.

To make it easier to understand your temps, please state them in Celcius... we don't use Fahrenheit as a point of reference for computer hardware and will need to convert your numbers if you state your temps in Fahrenheit.

 

Thank You Mr.Fox i look forward to meeting you more then just your 3Dmark scores which is the only reason i choose to upgrade my alien XD it proved it was possible

ill get the unlocked bios if the i7 continues to bottleneck my 3DMark Scores after i set it to level III

i will try the flex VID now ill tell u how it goes this time in Celsius

1 question b4 i do. i have the 330 watt AC adapter and the 780Ms use like 100 watts each at full load wouldn't this overclocking exceed the wattage

Thanks in advance

 

No, 780M SLI is fine running with stock voltage. The 330W AC adapter will handle that without issue. I am running about 975/1400 with stock voltage and CPU overclocking without issue. If you bump the voltage to allow for a higher GPU overclock, then you will start to exhaust the capacity of the 330W AC adapter if the CPU is also overclocked.

 

Thanks ill post how it goes

 

Although there are differences between Sandy and Ivy, sometimes the settings that work well on one work well on the other. Give this a try...


(click to enlarge)

(ignore the Max Non Turbo Boost Ratio... it does not matter and should not be changed)

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...30mx-4-3ghz-messed-up-bios-4.html#post9412265
Alienware 18 Teardown

Regarding the above two posts regarding the no POST issues on AW 18 and probably the AW 17, it seems that we can safely conclude that the one way to reset the BIOS on the AW 18, is by plugging in the 4700MQ. For those users who have OC'ed 4900MQ/4930MX, although I cannot say for sure, using Dell's OC LVL is apparently, not very safe. It bricked the replacement mainboard on my AW 18, causing no POST again.

Instead of using the presets, using customized values (ie the multipliers and the turbo boost power (there're 2 of them, one for short duration one for long duration and etc) might be a safer way.

If anyone with 4900MQ/4930MX is willing to test out my hypothesis, please go ahead but please note that chances are you might run into no POST. But if you have a 4700MQ around, then you could plug that in, let the computer beep, then restart and go into the BIOS to reset it to default settings by pressing F9.

With more and more reports on no POST situations for those who have 4900MQ and 4930MX, I think this should take precedence over fixing the throttling on the Haswell CPU. Not that the latter is not a serious issue, just that IMO it's a lesser evil of two. Having no clear way to reset a BIOS is clearly a design flaw. I am sure there might be some ways to reset it without using a 4700MQ, and Dell should let us know about it.

After all, if even Apple discloses it ( About NVRAM and PRAM), Dell shouldn't have problems catering to us enthusiasts who are the cornerstone of the Alienware brand.

 

i never knew there was a tuning utility o_o i always use the bios XD and that all i thought it was, with the exception of programs like setFSB or something like that. do i just get that tuning utility from intel or where do i get it o_o cause that looks awesome and when i get it ill give that a try thank you once again Mr Fox

 

Fox, I can run 4.3 with 99 56 99 and 0 flex. Is that more desirable due to temps vs those settings, provided it's stable.

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Good! That's great news. Nice job! :thumbsup: Use Cinebench R11.5 CPU benchmark to confirm it is stable at zero flex. If it Cinebench gives an error, bump your flex up by 3 to 5 at a time until the CPU benchmark completes without error. But, yes... the lower the flex the lower the temps.

 

I'm going to give that bench a try. Weird thing though fox, when I try to increase it to 4.4 I get BSOD spam. I try to increase the flex to stop it but it doesn't seem to work. 25..30.. even 50, still BSOD. Am I missing something?

 

ran cinebench. 8.27 at 4.3 settings. I increased flex, dropped to 8.0. with flex at 0 99 56 99 and time window at 28 thats what i get. Sometimes when I increase flex to much i get a bsod.

 

Your Cinebench 8.27 result it good for 4.3GHz. No problems with those settings. Good job.

What was the STOP code on your BSOD? Without that information it is hard to say. It may not be the CPU settings. It could be something else.

Install WhoCrashed and run it to analyze the bug check code, and then post the results here. You can copy and paste the analysis directly from WhoCrashed.

 

Blue Screen View works as well in determing BSOD. Sometimes, even though you could determine the address where it hangs, and the exact code for it, there could be more sinister stuff that causes the BSOD.

Blue screen of death (STOP error) information in dump files.

 

Wrong CPU power settings, defective RAM or bad timings, video drivers, WiFi drivers, LAN drivers, HDD errors, including excessive disk fragmentation... all kinds of stuff can cause a BSOD when overclocking. Simply stating you are having a BSOD without any investigation is meaningless. That is kind of like saying "my car is not running" and asking for advice without any further explanation.

 

How far can we push the FSB on the 3940XM?

 

Probably 102 or 103MHz, but Ivy Bridge is far less stable with high BCLK settings compared to Sandy Bridge. I generally don't bother with more than 100.3 to 101.0 because the system become too spastic without really doing anything meaningful as far as improving benchmark results.

 

What about the new Cinebench R15? I can run that with Flex 0 and the system is stable at 4.4Ghz. I also run Intel Processor Diagnostic Test to stress the CPU and it passes like a champ.

 

That is why I suggested the older Cinebench R11.5 for testing. What we want is to try to find a situation where the overclock fails. If it passes Cinebench R11.5 CPU testing then it should be able to pass Cinebench R15 or the Intel testing. If there is anything not right about the CPU power settings, Cinebench R11.5 will crash.

I use Cinebench R11.5 for testing overclock stability all the time. There is nothing at all wrong with what you are using, but I like to stick with a proven method that I already know I can rely on when providing advice to others. A person could use all three for testing stability if they wanted to, but it is probably not necessary.

Additionally, each CPU is different. I have never been able to run 4.3GHz with zero flex with my 2920XM or 3920XM. Both are unstable with zero flex. I can complete Cinebench R11.5 with my flex at 5, but I get a better benchmark score with flex at 18 instead.

 

I get a 000124 one. I tried to increase flex to increase performance with certain over clock settings starting with 4.3. So I increased it to 15 flex.... All good. As soon as I increase it to 20 flex I get a 0000124 bsod. So it's like working opposite for me.


On the same note. I did a run last night with a 1050v bios.. Running 250/600. At 4.3 15 flex 99 56 99 the cpu was only clocking 3.99. Am I hitting the power limitation of 330w? I'm getting lower scores at these settings then when I was 4.3 0 flex 200/550.

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No, probably not with only 4.3GHz and 1.05V on the GPU with a 200/500 OC. Use ThrottleStop 6.00 and you probably will not see that CPU throttling problem any more.

Increasing your Flex VID to 20 should not be causing a 0x124 STOP error. I don't know why you are experiencing that. The only issue I have ever run into with 2920XM, 3920XM and 4930MX from too much Flex VID is extra heat. I do know that having my Flex VID too low can cause a 0x124 STOP error as well as hard system lock-ups under demanding CPU utilization (i.e. 3DMark11 Physics Test and Vantage CPU Tests).

In addition to using ThrottleStop, download and run the Unpark CPU app and unpark any parked CPU cores: [ Download ]


(click image to enlarge in new browser window)

 

on a side note, i got 43x 0 flex 99 56 99 8.5 score on cinebench. I can get my cpu up to 4.4 but she throttles because of temps i think. It goes from 4.4 to 2.2 and back up. lowest i can get flex is 17 on 44x for cinebench not to crash. But my score sucks because of the clocks falling to 2s because of throttling i think.

Edit: I finally was able to do a run on cinebench without throttle at... 4.4 17 flex 99 56 99. Time window was the default 28 but im not really sure if thats impotant. 17 was the lowest flex i could get.. highest temps 103.. cine score 8.64

 

Quick question, sorry I have so many. if the computer just shuts down without a blue screen, that's a power starvation shutdown? It has happened to me a few times with a 200/550 and 4.4 to 4.5ghz oc

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Yes, that's highly likely a lack of Flex

 

Oh those cause shut downs too? I thought blue screens were for flex low, and shut downs for power starvation. I can't even run a 4.4 for too long as my temp get to 104 and throttle... Guess I need AC cooling for 4.4

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Sorry I misread.. I gave you wrong information.

Are the shut downs programs closing and strange errors ? If so that is likely a lack of Pri Plane

 

Try a re paste of the CPU. I'm lucky if my CPU hits mid 80's at 4.4Ghz with Zero flex

 

The programs aren't closing, the entire laptop shuts off. As if someone pulled the power out. No blue screens or errors.

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ht_addict - what is your XTU benchmark score, Cinebench and 3DMark11 Physics test looking like with 0 flex and 44x4? I can run with low flex too, but the performance is adversely affected and the system is unstable with low flex. The Intel CPU validation tool gives me a pass even though the performance is less than it should be and not stable with 0 flex.

 

I need to have it at 17 flex to be stable. Anything lower and cinebench crashes which to me means unstable. Xtu stress test for 5 min will pass with a 6 flex, but cine crashes, so I increased it until it didn't, which is 17. Is my logic correct?

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This occasionally happens to me. I'm still not sure what's the cause. I usually get it when I'm pushing the GPU's too much at the same time.

 

The PSU has a trip point, if you have been using it for a while it gets warm, and when it's warmer the efficiency is lower. If you run a benchmark/stress test that pushes both the CPU and GPU to their limits, if the system shuts off it might be the PSU tripping. Either that or the CPU/GPU is overheating.

I saw that at 3GHz the 4930MX uses about 35W, but at 4GHz it uses 65-70W of power. Twice the power for 25% increase in clock speed. Power increases quite a bit with higher clock speed, and the same applies to GPU too.

 

It's kinda laughable that Intel, with it's 'tree-hugging' approach of late, release an Extreme Edition cpu that consumes massive amounts of power at relatively average-for-XM clock speeds. I wonder what the power draw of a 29xx/39xx Extreme cpu is at 4ghz in comparison.....I never checked, but I am sure Fox or John or any other hardcore OC-er would now that stats...

It's a bit of a contradiction, much the same as having a v12 Mustang or the like that does 100mpg. You can't have performance and economy in the same package....