How to Supercharge the M11x with Core i5/i7 UM CPUs

your powering the TECs off the fan header?

im surprised they are doing anything at all on that low of a current. let alone haven't fried the controller circuit for the current draw TECs typically have.... that would be like shorting out the fan header with a screwdriver....

im really confused how all this is working.

what wattage are the TECs your using?

 

At the moment there is only one TEC, on top of the processor end of the default cooler and it's 55W at 14V. Given the curve in the specs of the TEC, at 1-5V the draw should be absolutely minimal and safe

Ofcourse, when adding the second TEC (75W@14V rated) for the GT335M, there will be a separate circuitry for powering the TECs, but as I`m totally nil in programming I won't be able to do it so that is powers the TECs according to the processor/video temperatures, opening up a floodgate of potential problems (like moisture accumulating because of the temperature differences).

 

Hi! I do not know much about computers so I'm wondering if anyone can help me. I have an Alienware M11x R2 I7 U640 @1.2GHz

Here's my ThrottleStopLog while running Black Ops - ThrottleStopLog.txt
Throttle Settings -


I'm wondering why Uncle's running at 25 x 133.7 MHz while mine's only running at 13.23 x 133 MHz. Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks.

 

Great job. love it, man.

 

His example picture isn't from an M11x, that's why it's different. With the M11x, your increase comes from increasing the bus speed higher than 133, the multiplier cannot be changed. The multiplier will change automatically based on the cpu load.

 

So with these overclocks what 3DMARK 06 scores do you guys get?

 

Hey Folks,

I'm not much of a gamer, more of a media guy and probably just a bit of a nerd sometimes. I enjoy tinkering with OC settings and throttlestop just to see what my computer is capable of. I've read up to page 80 and had some good luck so far. I OC'd to 162 (haven't tried higher yet, just kinda started there) and am getting around 26s for the 32m of wprime with peak CPU temps in the low/mid 70's. Whether I go 30/30 and 20/60 settings for TDP/TDC with Force TDP/TDC at 8, I haven't noticed much difference but i'll have a bit more time to play with it tonight.

I never knew all these temp monitoring programs existed, so I'm more curious to see what my cpu/gpu do when watching a 1080p video on the laptop but outputting to TV via HDMI.

As for actually doing this all, outside of gaming, is a person likely to see any notice any difference using ThrottleStop during normal usage?

I suppose while running on AC it can't hurt to have this all maxed out. I just rebuilt my computer yesterday as I was unhappy with how it was running. It would see the odd lockup prior, not sure if that was due to the OC or what (wasn't using TS), but I'll need to test and monitor now to see what happens.

All in all this thread has been very interesting as is this ThrottleStop program and all the related stuff.


Update: Ran 1024 prime @ 812secs but temps got up to 91C which I'm not overly thrilled about. I suspect they woulda kept goign up more n more as it went. Suppose I may have to try taking this thing apart and blowing it out with air a lil.

Update 2: Ran 1024 prime @ 783secs OC'd to 167mhz after blowing the vents with some compressed air and the temps maxed out at 74C. I'm thoroughly surprised at how much a lil compressed air helped...there wasn't a lot of dust that came out or anything. Now I definitely have no reason not to just keep this enabled

 

Has anyone tried to decrease TDP/TDC to increase battery life? My max CPU in Windows power management is 50% when on battery. Would reducing the TDP/TDC increase my battery even more?

 

The ThrottleStop TDP / TDC settings control the amount of Turbo Boost the CPU gives you. If you don't want to use Turbo Boost then use the Disable Turbo option or set a lower multiplier. What you are trying to do is kind of the opposite of Supercharging the M11x. You probably won't see a huge difference in battery run time but it never hurts to try.

 

Hi UncleWebb, I've used ThrottleStop 3.00 for a long time and it's really good and help me a lot while playing some heavy-CPU-demanded games. Until today, I just saw that you release a 4.00 version, so what the newer features? Is it ok to use with R2 i5 CPU or just R3 CPU?

Looking foward to your reply

 

ThrottleStop 4.00 should work OK on either the R2 or R3. I don't own either one of them so give it a try and let me know how it works for you.

 

Throttlestop 4.0 works perfectly on my R2 thanks Uncle.

 

Thanks Uncleweb. Just upgraded to 4.0 on my R2. Great work!

 

TS 4.0 bug: on start TS enables C1E (maybe EIST too?) even when 'monitoring only'.

 

Looks like monitoring only refers to the clock modulation settings as well as the multiplier and VID on Core 2 CPUs. It gets too confusing when EIST and C1E are checked but they really aren't active because ThrottleStop is in "Monitoring only" mode so that's probably why I left it like that. One man's bug is another man's feature so I won't be changing this.

 

disable this checkboxes when monitoring.

 

Does updating to 4.0 change performance, or is it more optimization than anything?

 

You are the first person to mention this so I have to assume that most users don't care one way or the other. The 112 pages of M11x-R2 owners in this thread seem to be happy with the 30% to 40% increase in full load CPU performance they can get when using ThrottleStop. For the R2, I think EIST should be enabled. Whether C1E is on or off is not a big factor to performance or power consumption. I prefer to leave both EIST and C1E unlocked so users can do whatever they want with them.

If you open up the Windows Resource Monitor, ThrottleStop tends to be near the lower part of the list when it comes to CPU Usage so you probably won't see any significant difference in performance when comparing any of the recent ThrottleStop versions.

 

Hi i have just started using this followed the guide which seemed great but i got confused when you said the Set Multiplier is optional for m11x, what does that actually do?

I have mine checked, overclocked my machine to 160 in bios and ran the Intel burn test program and Throttlestop together and it said that my machine is stable at this overclock.

So is that it? i am overclocked now? it seemed really easy considering this is my first time overclocking.

 

If you went into the bios and bumped the base clock up to 160 and followed the first post and set the TDP to at least 30 using ThrottleStop then that is pretty much it. It's not rocket science. These two simple changes can make a huge difference to your full load CPU performance on the M11x-R2.

In general I like having Set Multiplier checked but some users did some testing a long time ago and found out that on the M11x-R2, it didn't make any difference. The Set Multiplier setting checks the CPU on a regular basis and makes sure that the multiplier request register is set appropriately. Some laptops were dropping this down to the lowest value when fully stressed but I don't think the R2 has this issue.

The biggest problem with the R2 is that the Turbo Boost TDP is set too very low by default. Bumping that up so TDP and TDC are both at 30 is usually enough so that you get full Turbo Boost. It won't hurt anything if you go higher than that. This setting only controls how much Turbo Boost you get. Once you reach maximum Turbo Boost, you can raise these values as high as you like and it won't make any difference. The CPU can only draw so much power.

If you overclock higher than 160 does your computer become unstable? Some of the i5 CPUs can get up to about 180 with the help of SetPLL but I am not sure if they are still IBT stable at that speed.

Here's the link for where the real fun begins.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-use-setpll-overclock-your-r2-over-166-a.html

 

Thanks for reply and link!

 

Hi, just recieved my M11X R3 i7 i've downloaded ThrottleStop 4.00, went to overclock like i did on my R2 and the TPL interface looks totally different? everything is greyed out and i can't edit the TPL to 30/30 like i did on my R2.

Why does the interface look different compared to TS 4.00 on my R2?

Any help is appreciated.

My processor is the new i7-2637M if that helps?

 

The R3 uses the new line of i series of processors known as "sandy bridge." They are a completely different architecture than the previous i series in the R2. They are very limited over-clocking abilities.

 

Cheers for the reply, it seems that the turbo thing is different to the R2 as well?

 

That is correct. The previous gen of i core processors had turbo boost in its basic form, the Sandy Bridge processors employ what Intel calls turbo boost 2.0.
The original Turbo Boost won’t exceed programmed power limits, even if thermal headroom exists to push performance harder. Turbo Boost 2.0 allows the processor to exceed its power ceiling until it reaches its thermal limit, at which point it drops power to conform to those same programmed limits.

 

Uncle, I was averaging 57secs in TS Bench 32M with stock everything. When I changed the base clock speed in BIOS to 160MHz and TDP to 30, I started averaging 72secs in TS Bench. Any idea why?!

 

cause your tdp is at 30. you need to raise it to 100 + to make sure you wont reach the voltage limit the cpu hits. of course then you need to make sure its going to be stable after that.

 

The TS Bench is very dependent on the background junk you have running on your computer. TS Bench is OK to create some heat in your CPU but personally, I would use an independent benchmark like wPrime.

While bench testing, run a ThrottleStop log file so you can see what multiplier your CPU is using when fully loaded and what temperature it is getting up to. Upload that somewhere convenient like MediaFire so I can have a look.

 

@unclewebb: god bless your soul !

First time in the last ten years of me being a performance junkie, this is the first time I have ever seen anything like this.

My WPrime scores for 32M dropped to 24secs from 32secs.
My 3DMark2006 scores jumped to 8700 from 7900s.

But forget about the synthetic benchmarks, WoW, Skyrim, SWTOR have all seen such a ridiculous amount of performance increase I can't even describe. The games I ruled out "unplayable" like SWTOR is not only playable now, but plays almost as well as my gaming desktop.

It feels like after a year and a half of owning it, I finally have the M11X I originally hoped for.

Two things I need to say:

1) I am 100%, fully, completely baffled by how Dell can do this. On a so-called gaming laptop nonetheless. As an avid customer over the years, can't find words to describe my disappointment with Dell, sorry folks.
2) THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU !!!!

 

Alienowner: You are most welcome. Always nice to hear from another happy user. Intel's low power UM series would not have been my first choice if I was designing a small gaming laptop.

 

Found this guide and decided to give it a go. What do you think?
bios OC 166-TPL 30/60. The max 77C was recorded while playing GTAIV a few min before this test.
throttle stop on 23.3 off 28.6

http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg536/Crazynatew/Untitled.jpg
http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg536/Crazynatew/2.jpg

 

Now you can lower the Force TDP/TDC option and you might be able to get a little bit better times.

The average multiplier should get a little closer to 14.00. Stop lowering the Force option when performance stops increasing.

If you are going for your best possible wPrime time, I would turn off TS GPU monitoring and then restart it. I would also disable C1E and turn off the Log File option and minimize TS to the System Tray so it consumes the least possible resources. When you click on the C6 option, if you can change that to C1, go for it. I think this laptop might have that feature locked though.

Your temps are fine. As long as these laptops are clean and the heatsink is properly attached, overclocking and using TS will not cause any over heating issues.

 

After making the changes you mentioned I made a best time of 23.4 on 30/30
with the avg being around 23.6.

EDIT just hit 23.3 which couldn't be done on these settings before the changes

 

Hey guys. Im very new at all this, and I'm doing my best. I just dont seem to be getting the best results.

I have a 1.20Ghz i7 M11X r2. I have ThrottleStop 4.00 on the machine, and used the following settings: OC 160mhz, TDP 100/TDC 100, Set Multiplier Turbo, Checked EIST and a value of "8" under Force TDP/TDC. I'm getting low 40s for my TS bench, which seems pathetic next to other people's numbers here. Am I doing something wrong?

On a completely unrelated note (sorry, this is a new M11X so I have questions lol), unlike my original M11x R1, this one seems to make a loud metallic clicking noise from the front right of the machine. I saw another thread say that this was normal, but he did not describe it as loud. I know what a dying hdd sounds like, and this one doesn't groan or moan like one. Just a loud ticking noise (usually 2 in a row or 3 tops) every once in a while that scares me when I hear it because it's so freakin loud, lol.

Any help on either of these issues would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

Most users are running the wPrime benchmark. This is a totally different benchmark than TS Bench and the results are not comparable. Run wPrime 32M and compare your performance to what was posted above. FreeBeer&HotWings wPrime numbers look good to me. Post a ThrottleStop log file while wPrime is running so we can see what average multiplier your CPU is running at or post a screen shot of ThrottleStop while your CPU is fully loaded.

The TS Bench is totally dependent on how much background junk you have running on your computer. If your TS Bench numbers are not comparable to other users then start turning off background junk and your results should improve.

 

This isn't "normal". It would seem people are just dealing with it.

What it is, is the speaker. If you take the palmrest off you will see that the speaker wire is supposed to be tucked behind some clips. Instead whoever put them together was lazy.

So the speaker wire is being pinched when the palm rest is on. Just tuck the wires under the clips where they belong and this will go away.

 

i got 28.55 seconds on wprime.
how is that compared to others?? r2 i5

 

Is it just the i5 and i7 or does my i3 also have this problem?

 

Uncle, any idea why I keep getting the following error when trying to run wPrime?! I tried Running as Admin and Compatibility modes with no success:

ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

I am currently stock.

 

Someone please help me!

 

Did you try holding down the shift key like the first line says. There used to be a bug in this program when trying to detect hardware when it first starts up. Use an older version like 1.55 I think if you have this issue and can't solve it.

 

Hey guys, just an update:

The HDD was actually indeed failing (3 days old!). I just got it replaced, Windows re-installed, Alienware drivers etc put on it.. fun times. It's running perfectly now, no loud metallic ticking from the hdd. Put back all my important files, but still have to re-download tons of Steam games.

Anywho, one of the first things I did was put Throttle Stop back on there, and this time I dloaded wprime. Here are the results.. I think they're pretty good!:

32M - 24.291 sec (2565.0 MHz Arrandale K0*1)

 

Uncle, that's what I do. Whether I hold Shift or not this message comes up. Tried previous version 1.55 with the same problem... =(((

Uncle, turns out that placing wPrime.exe in the C:\ drive and running it resolved the issue. Now, I averaged 39.73 (average between 3 consecutive runs) completely stock on my system. Where do I go from here? Should I overclock in BIOS (I think I only become stable at 158MHz at most, is this normal)? Then play with TS?!

 

If you overclock in the bios, you should be using ThrottleStop to maximize performance. Dell put an overclocking option in the bios because they want you to use it. A max of 158 MHz is normal. With better memory, some users can go 167 MHz and beyond.

 

Uncle, so I got everything going. Set TDP/TDC to 30/100. Then set Force TDP/TDC to 8. Then Force Multiplier to Turbo. When I start running some 32M Tests, I get around 27 secs. However, after a while it jumps back to 55, 60, 77 secs. Any idea what it could be? I have the Performance Profile set to always be on when on batt power (which I always am).

 

Are you running these tests on AC or on battery power? I don't recommend using ThrottleStop at all while on battery power. Post a TS log file so I can have a look if you are having problems while plugged in.

 

Does this work for the R3 also?

 

This Supercharge thread is only for the M11x-R2. ThrottleStop works on the R3 but most of the features have been locked by Dell in the bios so you won't be able to make any changes. If something is grayed out in ThrottleStop, blame it on Dell.

 

Thanks for making this clear. I nearly tried everything but TS remained grey.

Is there any possibility with the Bios OC option of the R3? I cant see any effect?

 

Hi guys my winamp 5.621 has started stuttering in the last few days and wondering if it's because I've overcooked my CPU.

Didn't find anything recent on google about winamp stuttering so thought of TS and the fact I've been hitting 90+ degrees C with CPU, not infrequently, in recent weeks doing nothing more than my usual browsing/MS office files/music/videos (sadly no gaming).

I understand 90C is within acceptable limits but did make me wonder. Any thoughts?