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    Turned OFF SpeedStep - Performance seems better?

    Discussion in 'Alienware M11x' started by Zuu, Aug 23, 2011.

  1. Zuu

    Zuu Notebook Geek

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    So, I've really been having some issues lately with my m11x, random blue screens, tons of freezing, etc. So I decided to try whatever I could and decided to turn off SpeedStep in the bios. Wallahh, it seems as though my FPS has increased slightly (though this could just be my imagination :)) and that I no longer have issues.
    Has anyone else experienced this issue/Could someone explain to me why it may have been causing problems?

    THANKS!
     
    Zuu, Aug 23, 2011
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  2. DeeVu

    DeeVu That Compsci/Psych Major

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    Just from experience on my old R2 - most people keep it on because with it off battery drain and heat is substantially increased.
     
    DeeVu, Aug 23, 2011
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  3. froogle

    froogle Notebook Evangelist

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    Your performance mileage will vary as well. Some games will fly without that on. Others, more recent games developed with Speedstep in mind, prefer it turned on.
     
    froogle, Aug 23, 2011
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  4. Zuu

    Zuu Notebook Geek

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    @Deevu, my temperatures have remained in the low 50s or 60s even after a few hours straight on Battlefield 2 BC, battery life doesn't matter to me, I'm always near a plug, and if I'm not... then I probably shouldn't be playing games anyways :)

    @Froogle, what games prefer it on? Could you list me a few?
     
    Zuu, Aug 23, 2011
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  5. froogle

    froogle Notebook Evangelist

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    I seem to recall Witcher 2 likes it. I used to believe a sweeping generalization that all sims will love it to (the CPU will just ratchet up a notch when it needs to to cope with the heavy CPU load), but I recently discovered Arma 2 (which is, technically, a sim) prefers it off.


    I don't think there's a general rule for what to do it though. On the M11x's I have I leave it on. On the Aurora, it's off, but the CPU is also heavily overclocked and the last thing I want is the CPU suddenly demanding more voltage than I have everything tweaked to handle.
     
    froogle, Aug 23, 2011
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  6. Zuu

    Zuu Notebook Geek

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    Thanks froogle, I think I'm going to keep it off and try to reoverclock my GPU and see if it actually works, like I've posted a thousand times before, it sucks messing around with this U5400 processor :D I'll turn it back on if I see any temperature gains but as of now... not seeing much
     
    Zuu, Aug 23, 2011
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