Question about stealth mode

I just got the machine today, clicked on stealth mode and i heard the fans go low and the monito brightness went down then I click stealth mode again and nothing happened. I can manualy adjust the brightness but the fanspeed stayed low... does this function actualy work?

 

well i suppose you can check in the power settings, and by monitoring your clock speeds.

 

Well to understand if it works, you have to understand what it does. As per the Alienware Frequently Asked Questions database, Stealth Mode is described as the following:

In an effort to save power, Stealth Mode also limits the speed at which the fans run.

There are a few ways to check if Stealth Mode is working properly. One way to check is through observation (Does the fans lower? When opening certain programs, does it feel like it's loading slower?). Because both the CPU and the GPU downclock (to save energy), programs may load slower as a result of enabling Stealth Mode. If I can recall correctly, you can also check by opening up AlienFusion and checking from there. It should say if Stealth Mode is enabled.

Now let me ask you, what did you originally expect Stealth Mode to do?

 

I expected it to have the ability to come off stealth mode, not just go into stealth mode. I am sure I am not the only one who excpects this from this feature. If I have a volume knob I expect it go turn the volume up as well as turn the volume down, its kind of what I expect, stealth mode is not coming off stealth mode, just going into. Maybe I didnt read the manual, maybe this machine doesnt turn off either, it just turns on.

Ok that ends the response to your smartguy reply with a spartguy reply of my own.

 

noone is giving you a smartguy reply, he was just answering your question and you should appreciate at least that. and your lucky your stealth mode even works...

 

You should be able to disable stealth mode by pressing the stealth mode button once more.

If you want to gauge if you're out of stealth mode, you can run a game (after enabling then disabling stealth mode) and see if the fans kick in after like 3-4 minutes or so after playing the game. If it doesn't, then you could be having an issue with it. If there is an issue, then I can walk you through isolating the issue from there.

Edit: Sorry, that response earlier was my fault for not reading your original post carefully enough. When I read "does this function actually work", I immediately jumped to the conclusion that you were asking if Stealth Mode in general worked, not if it was able to get out of stealth mode. Bad habit of skimming posts I suppose and I sincerely apologize for that.

 

You can only go into Stealth mode by pressing the stealth mode button. To turn it off press the stealth mode button again, and this turns off the light too.
By default, your system should not be running in the stealth mode. Stealth mode is used when you wish to save power when you go portable by cutting down the GPU clocks and CPU clocks. Basically what Oceanus said earlier. Another way to tell is by going into Command Center , Alien Fusion, and the picture on the left will say whether you are in stealth mode or not. Check out my screenshot below.

 

Thank you my problem was that when I went back from stealth mode the monitor brightness didnt come back to the regular mode brithness... I had to do it manualy, which made me thing maybe what other stuff didnt come back to normal but I played call of duty 4 on battery life a bit ago and it worked fine so Im pretty sure its not in stealth mode now

 

Yeah, that's normal. It doesn't automatically adjust the brightness after you come out of stealth mode, unfortunately.

 

yeah, I know what you mean. I also wished that the brightness would go back to normal when I switched backed to normal mode. But, oh well...

 

There's a problem I've noticed with stealth mode. If you're running the discrete graphics with stealth mode on, it often starts to overheat. The problem with stealthmode is that it limits the fan speed, but if you're running the 8800m GTX for example, it'll still heat up and your fans won't be able to cool it enough.

 

Yeah. That's one generalization I've been able to make as well-- though you'd have to be doing something intensive under stealth mode for a decent amount of time before it'll reach abnormally high temperatures. It won't necessarily cause the 8800m GTX to overheat off the bat by enabling stealth mode-- it'll just produce a tad bit more heat as a result of limited fan speeds.

I've been under stealth mode for just about an hour now and I've only reached up to 64-65c. Now granted, I haven't been doing anything intensive but if I wanted my GPU to overheat, playing a game or rendering videos under stealth mode would most likely get it fairly hot and perhaps get the GPU to reach threshold temperatures.

I'd say it's relatively safe to use stealth mode when you're not doing anything too intensive. Word processing (or anything from office of the sort), surfing the web, listening to music and doing something that doesn't push or utilize the GPU to its full extent will constitute safe activities under stealth mode.

 

I'm constantly outputting hdmi, which requires the 8800m gtx. That was enough to slowly raise my gpu temperature to 80C before I decided that was enough and turned off stealth mode.

 

Ah, no wonder. Stealth mode should be fine when you're not outputting HDMI.