M15x A08 Bios Released - 3/9/10

920XM and 940XM are the extreme CPUs and have an adjustable multiplier and adjustable TDP/TDC. The 720/740/820/840 don't have those features so are great with the new bios.

 

inap: The test with the 25 multiplier across the board shows extreme chipset clock modulation throttling going on. Is this with bios A08? I thought Dell finally came to their senses and got rid of that. Not good.

ryanwhite123: When testing, did you set the turbo multiplier to 24 for 1 core, 2 core, 3 core and 4 cores active in ThrottleStop?

 

I have just ran some tests from a fresh restart, and then used TS to set the multipliers at 24x to test again. Should i run the tests again with your recommend settings or will it not make a difference considering the order than i done it in?

I have attached my first set of results. From cinebench the difference in clock speeds makes 8-12%.

 

yeah just ran that right now, and yes its A08, looks really really bad.

guess i still have to use the clock mod:

 

If you have to use the clock mod then that mean the A08 bios didn't fix the throttling if you run it at x25?

 

yeah but still a bit better then A07, with A07 with the clock mod on i still get throttling.

also i notice on your wprime you got over 8sec with 26x.

i got about 7.5 sec with 25x on my 920.

 

A wPrime run will depend on how much turbo throttling is going on. It's hard to tell sometimes from a simple screen shot what the CPU was really running at during the test. Some of those CPU-Z screen shots showing a 25 or 26 multiplier after a benchmark is done is meaningless.

 

hehe i7 720 for the win no throttling issues and good touch pad hehe

Dell is the best

 

I never get around 7 before. That weird I'm still using A07 with ts and I don't think my CPU throttle but your is.

 

Hey Guys,

Some updated benchmark results for you to compare my A08 bios with stock speeds against setting all 4 cores with a 24x multiplier.

3dmark06 and Cinebench R10

 

I have a 820QM with 260M with A07, and experience throttling in City of Heroes and Borderlands, amongst others. Will this bios fix my issue? Throttlestop is currently working for me, but I dislike hacks and would prefer if A08 simply fixed the glitch.

 

I would upgrade to A08 just for the touchpad fix alone. but so far the result have been good for most people.

 

woooooow i made cinebench 11 test with a07 got fps 27 with bios A08 jumped to 29.51fps btw am using nvidia driver not dell driver would i get better fps if i used dell driver ... btw before this bios i installed dell driver and made windows experience test and the gaming and graphic score dropped down to 6.6 i uninstalled the dell driver and installed nvidia driver made windows test again then it increased the score of gaming and graphic up to 6.8

 

so should i uninstall nvidia driver and reinstall dell driver again and test it with bench :S tired from installing and unstalling lol.. i dont want to get low score with windows experience dunoo didnt check with a08

 

I would uninstall the nvidia ones and use driver sweeper before installing the dell ones, which should in theory offer you better performance.

 

where could i get driver sweeper ryan?

 

I'm not Ryan, but: Guru3D - Driver Sweeper

Just take the "no installer, pure binaries" version unless you insist on having it nailed into your program files directory.

 

Some instructions for using driver sweeper...

Uninstall old Nvidia display drivers, restart. Once restarted, load up driver sweeper and tick Nvidia display, then click clean or okay down the bottom right. Once this has been done, restart, install the dell drivers, then restart again. Job done

 

thanks Fersknen for the link

and ryan is it important to make restart and restart and restart kinda boring lol kidding

 

Yes, it is. According to the documentation for Driver Sweeper, you actually have to boot into Safe Mode when using it. Though I doubt thats actually required. Windows 7 shouldn't load the driver when it's not referenced by anything in the device manager.

But you never know with these things. Booting into safe mode guarantees that the driver is not loaded.

 

Lol yeah its important, and very boring, but hopefully all that hard work of button clicking and waiting around will pay off with a good old throttle fix. Let us know if it works out okay.

 

So this bios allow us to go pass the 150watt?

 

okay ill start doing it right now hope so dell driver would be better with cinibench11 fps test and windows experience cuz ill cry if i made these restarts for nothing lol gonna let u know what will happen thanks again ryan.

 

Throttling has stopped and touch pad now works great. As a side my Razer Mamba now fells a hell of a lot smoother and more responsive on the default settings as well. One more thing, the synnaptics driver now disables the touch pad when my mouse is installed and it never did that before.

 

+1 to that, i love that the touchpad turns off automatically now

 

Checking on that now.. their initial answer was "I dont think so"

I still believe in my option it is needed. I hope it happens.

 

Never mind, download worked.

 

here you go:

Download A08 BIOS.exe from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

 

if you want the touchpad to still be on when a mouse is installed, you can enable it in control panel -> mouse -> Device Settings (the one with the red icon) and uncheck the "Disable internal pointing device when external USB pointing device is attached"

 

here what ive got sorry for saying that nvidia driver is better than dell driver
tested by windows expereince score and cinebench 11 fps


lets first give you the Results by typing and printscreen photos

Nvidia driver : with windows experience gaming 6.8 graphic :6.8
Nvidia driver : with Cinebench 11 64bit 29.88fps

dell driver : with windows experience gaming :6.7 graphic : 6.7
dell driver : with Cinebench 11 64bit 27.97

so nvidia is better and now lets check the printedscreens

 

Quite the opposite because when I would type before my hand going overe the pad would make the keys jump around.

 

I noticed the auto-disable prior to A08. Did you not notice it in A07?

 

check the diffrences between dell driver and nvidia driver with bios A08 well as shown in the results the nvidia driver is giving better fps and windows experience higher score

 

correct me if am wrong did dell claimed that dell driver is better than nvidia.. a guess not just check nvidia driver and test the fps and windows experience score and compare it with dell driver

 

The auto disable did not work for me in a07 for some reason. Its a very nice feature though.

 

Strange. I was also impressed by this simple feature, but I noticed it after I updated to A07


So....has anyone noticed their GPU voltage being increased with this BIOS? GPU-z always reported mine as .9v, but now its saying 1.0v

 

My processor WEI had increase with the A08.
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/6617/weig.jpg

 

yup thats what am saying nice to hear that dttran83

 

btw did you guys checked my last post screen shot that the fps jumped up when i installed nvidia driver and i made 2 screen shots showing the fps with nvidia driver and dells ? just try it and compare it with dell driver (check the FPS )

 

I have recently re tested my windows experience score

Currently running Nvidia dell drivers: Latest version

Windows experiance score went up from 5.9 - 6.3 after patch A08

Processor = 7.2
Memory = 7.3
Graphics = 6.8
Gaming Grpahics = 6.8
Primary Hard drive = 6.3

I dont benchmark my system as i dont much care .

seee link for image : Click here

 

whooops check this out i made clean fresh uninstalled nvidia driver and reinstalled it again got higher fps 30.21 was 29.88 :S i installed dell driver again no increase with fps :S just dropping down btw here is the screenshot that my fps has increased by fresh installing driver



also with dell driver i was over clocking my GPU 260m to reach 29 :S blaah now stock gpu+nvidia driver + Bios A08 = awesome

 

OMg thats nice going to run windows experiance to change my score from 5.9 as u 6.3 hehe thanks man for the post and nice scores youve got there

 

at full speed the gtx260m is always at 1.0volts, doesnt matter the bios you have

 

Bios A08 gets a big "FAIL" in my book. It is causing my GPU temp to stay at 50-51c at idle. This is turn is causing my GPU fan to rev up every minute or so for 10 seconds or more, then ramp back down again to whisper quiet. It's so annoying! Reverted back to A07 and what do you know, my GPU temp is now sitting at 44c (will fluxuate at most from 44-48c on average) and my GPU fan is whisper quiet and it will stay this way all day long aside from when I'm performing a graphic intensive task. Occassionally I'll hear the GPU fan rev up of course, but that's just occassionally and when it does it's far more subtle and short lived. I'd love to run A08 for the polling rate fix. The TouchPad works beautifully now! Should have know it was too good to be true. Fix one thing, break something else.

 

Lowpro
have you enabled "adaptive power management" in nvidia control panel (in case you have 260)?
it makes GPU to reduce speed to a minimum causing my notebook to be silent in idle.

 

guys am hearing alot of people saying dell driver is better than nvidia driver but ive got proves and sent screenshots in the previous pages that nvidia drvers giving more fps than dell driver could some one explain to me if am wrong?

 

When I use to have the GTX 260m I always use nvidia driver. They performed way better when compare to dell driver.

 

Dell drivers are recommended because they helped with the throttling and not because of fps.

 

Also they are specifically altered for the card as often OEMS change the card from the reference design. Example would be the 260m is actually referenced as a 75w card, The M15x is a 65w. So if you end up with probs with nvidia drivers try the Dell ones.
This info was confirmed by two engineers.

 

I just put on some new thermal paste (Antec Formula 5, they were out of Arctic Silver ) and it lowered my temps a few degrees in Furmark. Running Furmark for about 15 minutes will get me to about 95C, which is HOT, but just under the amount that would make it throttle down due to the heat. So, no throttling whatsoever. Under normal gaming I haven't seen it go above 84C. This is OC'd to 680/1100/1600 btw.

Oh, and cleaning out the fans helps A LOT. My radiator had a sheet of lint on it like what you'd find in your clothes dryer