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

Good luck, just don't bother doing a proper paste job until you are sure it works

 

@Mr. Fox, how did you safely downgrade your BIOS? This is my biggest worry when it comes to downgrading... I don't want a bricked mobo... Then how does this PRR tool work? I really want to flash unlocked BIOS but didn't much help when I made a thread about this as info is a bit short about it..

 

I blind flashed it to A03. Blind flash works for your machine also, but uses a different file of course. You put the file on a USB stick, take the battery out, hold down the 'End' key and plug in the power cord while holding it down. When you see the read activity light flashing on the USB stick, release the power button and just wait... will start beeping and keep on beeping about 3.5 minutes, about 120 or more beeps, then it will reboot and the old firmware has replaced the newer firmware.

The PRR tool (provided to use with unlocked BIOS files) goes on a USB DOS bootable stick. You need to have already flash the stock BIOS version that matches the unlocked version. Boot from DOS, run the prr2.exe first, then the flash.bat and then when you see the success message it is done. BIOS menus exposed. All of the files for the unlocked BIOS are provided by @svl7 along with instruction. The prr2 tool disables the signature checking crap Alienware added to their BIOSes later in the life of our Ivy Bridge beasts. Too bad the tool is not effective on the AW17 and AW18... wish it was.

 

@Mr. Fox

I figure this is probably a better thread to talk about this since is about CPU overclocking. I already unlocked my Bios and i also re paste with liquid ultra both cpu and gpus. you said you would share your XTU profile for 4.3 and 4.5 a long with some bios settings. I am not too familiar with throttle stop. I am in California and temps are pretty high here my room temperature is about 74-76F. I would be happy with 4.3 24/7.

Let me know what your thoughts are.

 

@Mr. Fox okay i think i got stable 4.3 and ran a benchmark on intel XTU and got score of 882 max temps were 90c.

I got Vid voltage to 10 to get it stable (i think i got a good chip)i Disable the MSR Lock and put the pre plate setting to 1300 since i saw you use something around that setting mr Fox.

is there any other settings in Bios that i need to change? I got a physics score in fire strike of 11256

 

Sounds like you got it Brother @Juang1985. Great results!

In case you need more help, see attached. Every CPU is a little different, so the voltage settings may need to be adjusted up or down based on your individual system's needs.

 

@Mr. Fox Thanks!
I will double check all my settings when I get home.
I notice the 'Turbo Boost power time window" is set differently in your 4.5 and 4.3 overclocks.

Does this setting really matters? you also overclocked the reference clock to 103.00 I'll look in to that too.

 

on a side note, I wish i could run 4.5 24/7 but i think is wishful thinking with room temps 75f. I am running 4.3 and temps are just under 90c

 

Yes, it does matter. You need higher TDP than you do at 4.3GHz.

Yup, that is cutting it a bit close. I don't even run 4.5GHz 24/7. And, 4.3GHz is amazing for 24/7. Excellent for gaming.

 

191 pages... lots to read!

 

my new R2 came with a single pipe heatsink...for some reason i assumed it would have been at least double =/ whoops

 

why isn't this thread PINNED??

 

Bitcoin Core (a bitcoin wallet) managed to shut my computer down by maxing out all cores for its block processing....wow

im having crashes with memory could not be read/written errors on Arma3 constantly and im not sure what to trace it to..my bios settings are pretty much identical to what they were on the R1 and the GPUs and RAM are the same ones and running same OC and VID

 

ive had several BSOD in the last 2 days since i switched to the R2....machine check exception, and "a clock interrupt was not received on a secondary processor"

something is obviously wrong but im not sure what

EDIT: changed multi from 44x to 43x problems went away...wow...will try upping flex later and trying 44x again

 

i have a question about disabling PROCSHOT and Watchdog in BIOS..this lets my 3940xm go above 100C at full clock...isnt that dangerous?

 

ok so my 3940xm refuses to go above 4.3ghz stably

4.3/15flex is pretty much rock solid, but BSOD with 4.5/25flex

will try to see if 4.4 is stable at 20 at least

EDIT: 4.4 stable at 22...not sure if it's worth a 7 point increase in flex for 100mhz of extra speed

 

is there any way to change mutliplier and flexvid while in windows?

edit: for anyone wondering XTU does this on the fly in windows..how convenient!

 

Hello,

I have to say that im new to CPU overclocking. I often UNDERclock as I did with my GPUs (780M clocks, they don't even hit 82C!).

I set CPU to run 4x 3700 MHz and it works good but if I set anything higher like 4x 4000 MHz then cpu runs 3800 MHz for a sec and then falls back to 3700 MHz. CPU Throttling shows 0% and throttlestop shows 65W power usage (never went past 65W). Im including screenshot from XTU and throttlestop.




Can someone more experienced tell me why cpu won't hold 3900? Should I touch memory?

EDIT::

If anyone wonders why cpu shows 2400 MHz base clock then I have to say that it's ES2

@anarky321 AFAIK You can set flexvid and multiplier in ThrottleStop on Windows

 

@GodlikeRU make sure your priplane is set high enough.There should be an option in buried in the bios for priplane. Core current limit in XTU and Package current limit in throttlestop does the same thing.
Basicly P=I*V... if I is to low you wont get enough P

@anarky321 PROCHOT is a thermatrip for your cpu down when it get near Tj Max, for our 3920xm that is 105C... so yeh its dangerous, depends how you like to live
flex goes up exponentially when you increase your multipliers, My cpu needs 41 flex to hold 4.6Ghz and I'm pretty sure Mr.Fox has maxed flex out trying to handle 4.7-4.8 :O

 

@kenny27 There is no such a setting in M18xR1 unlocked bios. Only Core Current Limit in XTU. Should I touch this?

I even set flex to 15 and it's still same so it's not the problem.

Edit:: Got "Some of the settings could not be applied"

 

on my R1 the Pri Plane setting is buried under "performance" settings on one of the last tabs of the unlocked bios...make sure you looked through everything, i normally had this on like 3000

also make sure all the other settings like "short power" and "long power" are set correctly

 

can anyone explain this setting from XTU to me?

"turbo boost power time window" - default 28sec
"the time window over which the average CPU core power must be below the turbo boost power max (PL1 time)"

 

Just disable c-states in the BIOS, gives you infinite turbo time as long as your TDP is set high (I set it to 150) and keep the core up high too.

 

@anarky321
Yeah that was it!! Big thanks mate This crap is hidden really good

For the first time I set 250 and got 1600 MHz "Extreme" cpu lol

Running full stable 4000 on 999 pri plane. Ah and default was something about 600, not 780 as in i7-2920XM. This cpu is Engineering Sample (but as powerful as Production unit)

Sending screenshot if anyone wonders where this crap is located:

 

I have a 2920xm at 42x with bios settings similar to Mr. Fox's at page 159

However, I have noticed that when running extreme loads on the CPU (Prime95 max power consumption all threads, IntelBurnTest) for about a minute or so,
the multipliers will suddenly drop down to constant x25 every 10 seconds then back up to solid x42. This is different than the normal TDP throttling which gradually drops multipliers.

This is weird to justify to me because max CPU temps never exceeded 86C, and ambient was 70~72F. I have thermal throttling set to 90C and shut down to 120C. (Refer to Mr. Fox's bios settings on page 159)

For reference: Mulitpliers all set to x42, TDP short and long to 99W, then both to 130W. In throttle stop with MSR disabled but with the save result
TCP was 130A (1040 in bios). Also tried 1440, 2000
Flex is 0 and tried higher such as 5, and 10 but only lead to higher temps since it was already stable, again save weird throttling

I have around 27.5k CPU 3DMark Vintage CPU score and 9k in 3DMark 11. The 2920xm is performing perfectly fine in all cases (Gaming, other benches, Cinebench, even wprime)

it just cannot maintain the high multipliers for a long duration in both Prime95 and IntelBurnTest:

 

@ahmadmud just noticed your turbo time limit is set to about a minute same as the time it takes to throttle.... maybe that is causing the intermittent throttle?

 

I tried increasing that to 90 seconds, 200 s, and 1000 s, but with the same result.

 

Is Throttlestop on when your benchmarking? You could try using one or all of the the Clock Modulation, Chipset clock mod and set Multiplier options to force 42x.

 

@ahmadmud You can log your processor with Throttlestop under stress tests. Let @unclewebb look at the result and give a conclusion of what happens if not @Mr. Fox can give you better answers when seeing the question.

 

Look at what is and is not checked in the screen shot below. In TS options, but sure the PowerSaver C0% is set to 100. Go into the BIOS to the CPU thermal configuration menu, find and set the TC1, TC2 and TSP to the maximums (16, 16 and 32) and disable all sensors on that menu and raise the shutdown and throttle temperatures to the maximum settings. Then go find and disable Watchdog Timer and Bi-Directional PROCHOT#.

 

Throttlestop was tried with On, Monitor, and off (didn't start it) when your benchmarking, and also Clock Modulation, Chipset clock mod and set Multiplier are set to max (see pic)



Look at what is and is not checked in the screen shot below. In TS options, but sure the PowerSaver C0% is set to 100. Go into the BIOS to the CPU thermal configuration menu,
I played with different settings of TC1, TC2 and TSP including all set to the maximums (16, 16 and 32)
Furthermore, I tried and disable all sensors on that "Thermal" menu, and raise the shutdown to 120C and throttle temperatures to 90C "maximum settings.
Found the dog in the bios and stopped it from watching...pun intended same for Bi-Directional PROCHOT and all Watchdog settings disabled.

Is this case unique, as I don't recall many users encountering it.

 

I am not sure why this is happening. Sorry my suggestions did not help. Have you tried re-flashing the BIOS? Also, is Dell Level 1-3 overclocking set to disabled in the BIOS? Where it is set on now, try the opposite. Try setting the turbo power limit lower (like 8) and see if it makes it worse or better. Change it in both the BIOS (or with XTU) and in ThrottleStop just in case the changes in ThrottleStop are not being implemented for some strange reason.

If you are using XTU, what version do you have installed?

 

Not at all brother Fox, it is always good to hear from you and other NBR respected colleagues.

I have xtu 2.1 since other versions don't work so well for m18x r1 motherboard.

I tried flashing A03, A04, and A05+unlocked. The problem seems to appear faster when using higher TDPs ~120w/130w, but it is still there for 99w.

Will try Using Dell Level 1-3 overclocking, instead of custom ones.

By turbo power limit lower (set to 8) do you mean long or short?

 

@ahmadmud - The base multiplier for a 2920XM is 25 so it appears that your CPU is disabling Turbo Boost. I am not sure why. There are multiple methods using different CPU registers that can be used to do this.

Can you start by downloading and using ThrottleStop 8.00 that is in my signature. For your CPU model, I don't think this is going to make any difference but I just want to make sure that this problem still exists while using ThrottleStop 8.00. Setup ThrottleStop the same as your picture above this post. Change the Set Multiplier value to the maximum multiplier that you are trying to achieve.

When your CPU throttles back and starts running with the 25 multiplier, can you run the Dump program by Dufus. This great little program creates a file that will contain the value of each register within your CPU. After running Dump.exe, it will create a new file called Dump.txt

Open the Dump.txt file and copy and paste that data to somewhere convenient like www.pastebin.com and then post a link so I can have a look.

Dump
https://www.sendspace.com/file/iumw0k
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0dpSo9k93jDX1Fpa1FpTmo1Qk0/view?usp=sharing

Include a picture of how you have ThrottleStop setup. Also post pictures of the TRL and TPL windows.

I don't know if I can come up with a fix for you but maybe there is a clue somewhere that will help solve this throttling problem.

 

Here are the results with TS 8 Beta3, with dump, tpl and trl settings:


TPL:




Dump
http://pastebin.com/sXfwK6Yd

 

Are the links working, and is there any information I can add?

 

How many Windows Updates (if any) have been applied? If your Windows installation is fully updated, or close to it, try creating a drive image that you can restore later and do a clean OS install to see if it still happens (if you haven't already tried a clean install to fix it). If that fixes it, delete your screwed up Windows backup and keep the new one. If it is the same way, you can restore your image since that did not help.

 

I never let Miro$haft auto dump their shady updates into my system. I reformatted twice to a clean windows 7 sp1 with no updates installed. However, this still did not affect the behavior of the CPU.

 

The one weird thing I finally noticed is that the Non Turbo Ratio is Locked to 29.

Edit - I do not think the 2nd Gen CPUs use this register. This is probably just a bug in ThrottleStop.

 

Hi Mr.FOX
I have a question
I have Alienware m18xr2 3630qm/32ram/180ssd/500gb/7970m crossfire/330w
I did upgrade to 3940xm and new heatsint I have also Cooler Master Notepal U3 Plus
The question is what frequency cpu I can overclock my 3940xm on air with such a configuration?

 

I run my M18xR2 with 3920XM at 4.3GHz 24/7. On air and max fans, I can bench it at 4.5GHz with Liquid Ultra with no thermal issues, and using AC cooling up to 4.8GHz benching with either IC Diamond or Liquid Ultra.

 

Hi Guys,

Please excuse me if I am not following protocol, but is there a recommended Place to start with doing some mild OC'ing of my 3940xm that I got in last week? I plan on installing it over the next few days, and I know overclocking it is going to produce better results then my current 3820qm, but I am not looking to do bleeding edge OC'ing, but something good and yet still reliable.

I have 680m SLI, and soon 3940xm, and very likely have an older BIOS, as I havent updated it in at-least 2 years. Which Bios version should I use, and any 'starter' settings for s 3940?

Thanks and again, appologies if I was supposed to read all 194 pages before posting

I have an Alienware m18x R2

Jon

 

How many TDP & Volts when [email protected]/4.5/4.8GHz?
I current using 2920xm. Because of the high TDP, it can only reach 4.3GHz for any high cpu use software.

 

For 4.3GHz on 2920XM or 3920XM a Flex VID of 10 should be plenty. Long and short turbo power limits of 99 up to 125 each will be plenty, and Pri Plane of 960 (120.000A in XTU) should be ample for 4.3GHz on all cores for 3920XM. You want around 2400 for Pri Plane with 2920XM.

What is your system doing? Is it throttling? If so, changing voltage won't help that.

Try the settings shown in the 3 images I added to post #1 a long time ago. Those thumbnails are for 2920XM.

 

I'm ok with my system now . Just think about to upgrade to 3920xm.
My best record with 2920xm is running [email protected] for 30h not thermal issue. Not sure if 3920xm can do better. That's why I asked how many TDP with [email protected]. May be 3920xm can do [email protected].

 

I've never tried to use liquid pro/ultra/copper, which one suit best for mobile cpu oc?

 

Use Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra, Phobya Liquid Metal or Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut. They're all basically the same thing, and they perform more or less the same.

 

Can anyone please help with the overclock of my 3920xm? I get very high temperatures (100c) even with the level 1 preset. I have the three pipe heatsink and I did a repaste with prolimatec pk-3...With a complete stock cpu (overclock disabled) I get up to 90c. Is my cpu faulty? I think it's an ES version, I bought it from eBay for about 300 euros

 

What is your room/ambient temperature and is the center cpu fan spinning at full speed when under load?

 

Get a better thermal paste and check your heat sink closely to make sure it is fitting correctly... As brother @kenny27 suggested, be sure the fans are going full blast. At those temps they should be howling away at max speed.

Go with Liquid Ultra if you want good overclocked temps. Anything other than a liquid metal is grossly inferior. Liquid Ultra, Phobya Liquid Metal and Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut are the only thermal pastes I will consider using on my CPUs any more. The exception is if the heat sink is warped or has a sloppy fit. It that's the case, you need to use something super thick like IC Diamond to plug the gap until you can fit that.