AW15 R1 / AW17 R2 BIOS A06

hi.. has anyone got any problem downgrading bios from a06 to a00? i saw a06 bios will install update for intel ME and intel vbios.. if you downgrade will it uninstall the update or will it cause any problem?

 

I downgraded to A00 without problems, but I did brick upgrading from A00 to A06 so I had to blind flash to A06.

 

There are plenty more who experience brick under upgrading of bios with Aw15/17R2 than with previous AW17/18.

 

The Intel ME can downgraded without issues, and the vBios is the same.. It's still safe to go from A06 to any other including A00.

 

someone can explain me .... if i have less tan 70°C on my cpu, why appear power limit throttling while doing the intel Xtu test..... and until the fans started to function is over. the temps never passed above 73 :S I dont know because is different than thermal throttling... and i dont know if it reduce the performance

 

thanks lord zog.. ill try to update bios today and ill share the results later..

 

Hello I not sure what has happened but my system seems to have frozen during update but the clock is still running and keyboard is properly lit. It does say stage done.

 

guy i think ill go with a06 because they only have a slight difference between a00 fan profile. on my previous post i think the cause of that thermal problem was room temperature. i tried doing it again with same room temperature and the results was slightly the same with cpu temp but on gpu temps a06 was abit hotter. also @Mr. Fox remember me with the loud click/tick sound on reboot? when i updated on a06 it got fixed. no more loud click/tick sound. why is that? got any idea? is it from intel ME firmware updated?

 

after watching a 25mins anime using VLC and started playing dragon age inquisition for 25 minutes on high settings and temp reached to 92 celcius.. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.. and here i thought my heating problems were fixed.. sad..

 

Which BIOS? What is your room temp? Are you using a laptop cooler? Is this on your lap or on a table?

 

Re-installed DA:I, and gave it a spin on A06 with 4710HQ OC (-75mV undervolt) and 980m OC. All settings max except AA on 4K; CPU was doing fine with average 70-75'C - 80'C peak.

 

hi.. thanks for the reply.. the room temp was 21 celcius. i was using A06 and i dont have a cooler and the laptop is on a table. i just woke up and its was 5:55am here in the uk and my room temp right now is 18 celcius. 1st thing i did was open laptop run hwinfo64 and intel XTU and google chrome. after that i run DAI and observer the temp with XTU and notice that while loading the temps starts to go high and the fan will start to kick on when temps reach 80 celcius. since my laptop is still very cool and was not used here the screen shot of the temps:

 

thanks for the reply as well.. im not good with XTU because its my 1st time using it. i just thought ill try XTU because it has a graph so ill know how long will the high temps are or will it be just a spike until fan turns on. so im a newbie. my plan is to contact dell and ask them to do a repaste or change heatsink and repaste at the same time. is that a good idea?

 

Buy yourself a good paste like Ic7 or Gelid extreme before you get help from Dell technicians. Let them use that paste and not the trash from Dell.

 

thanks.. i already got gelid.. hehe

 

I've written abit about this elsewhere, regarding this:

Observing different types of throttling from XTU

Undervolting with XTU, and attaining stability

Also, great idea. Go for it!

 

wow.. thanks for this.. i was able to get in touch with dell chat support and they will be sending a dell tech agent to my house to change the heatsink and do a repaste.. do you think the heatsink replacement will be refurbished?

 

if is refurbished is really clean ... and you can keep the old one. anything to care.

 

With my current M17x R3, the processor and heatsink have never match up perfectly flat. Either the CPU and/or socket is not level, or the heat sink if not flush. No amount of thermal paste could fix this.

With that said, you just never know how flush and level your BGA processor are and it associated heat sink.

 

apparently i cannot keep the old one. so ill go for the refurbished then? ill try to ask the tech support that we will just do a repaste instead to changing it to a refurbished. also whats the best way to apply the thermal paste? pea method? line method? rice rain method? x method? or spread evenly method?
i found this: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Thermal-Paste-Application-Techniques-170/
is the x method the best based on your experience? thanks..

 

spread is the best if you can do it evenly, and when the technique service arrive read in the box with the heatsink (the label say = dear client, to reduce the ambiental impact about the disposition of parts that aren't sensible and doesnt impact he enviroment, we suggest that you can recicle it in a responsable way." sorry for my bad english i did my best , i have the same boxes because i had 2 alienwares before, and now an alienware 15.

 

if its labelled like that it means i can keep the heatsink.. cool.. thanks for the info..

 

guyz im back.. heatsink was replaced and on the box of the replacement heatsink it didnt say refurbished but it looked like it.. also the tech agent from dell which is from unisys here in the UK was no good. he was supposed to work for 2 hours and he did the job for 30mins. he was rushing. i wanted him to use my thermal paste and he said its already on the heatsink and i told him thats a thermal pad he said that its ok. when i noticed that the heatsink really looked like refurbished i asked him if we just do a repaste and not change the heatsink he started saying he is doing his job and he need to call dell for approval and blah blah blah.. so i was thinking @judal57 said that refurbished are clean so i just asked him to continue his job. he finished it straight away and tested if the laptop will turn on and it turned on.. he said that if im hesitatant about the replacement that its refurbished he asked me to go with him to the car and explained most refurbished parts has a note in the box and mine didnt. he showed me one from his car and only to find out that its in the plastic inside the box that say refurbished and i forgot if the plastic inside the box of my replacement say refurbished and he was talking about survey etc and told him if i wont have any problems youll have a good survey. LOL. and the results are: after he left i tried playing dragon age inquisition right way and still it spikes to 92 celcius. before the spike is usually from core temp #2 and now its core temp 0. after that i ran 3DMark and the results are ok max temp was 86 celcius. (ill post screenshots)
my conclusion is that i will not get a warranty from them if only i am dealing with those kind of people who just rush things and don't care about the customers wants. and i wont buy any dell laptops again. also does anyone know if ever there is a part of my laptop that breaks and i dont have any warranty is there a place to buy those parts? does anyone know? ohh by the way the best bios in my experience is A06.

 

What would you then buy? A Clevo variant? An Asus?
Most companies do not even have next business day support for parts or onsite techs. Since I'm a tech myself they usually just send me the parts overnight and I fix my own things. (unless im lazy and dont feel like it lol)
At least with Dell if an on site tech screws up enough they will just keep fixing the issue or swap your system. Most other companies require you to ship the system to who knows where then wait on it... All with a much less of a budget then Dell. So really even though Dell is being perceived as being horrible; Most other companies support and warranties are much much worse. Pick the lesser of several evils. The only real benefit of some other systems is I guess not having BGA components. However again you then have to then deal with smaller design budgets, smaller warranty budgets, and smaller support budgets. Choose wisely.

 

Has any1 tried using a vacuum cooler ? I saw someone posted in amazon it works to lower temps.

 

Lol... so it's the same old Dell-flavoured paste?

Pretty certain OEMs stock spare parts for a few years after release, so you should be able to buy them from Dell regardless, out-of-warranty.

QFT - my Asus spent days at a time being repaired, grass always seems greener elsewhere - but usually isn't.

Still, Dell has been getting too laid back these days... lemons happen, but all the heating, throttling and crashing shouldn't be left unfixed like this.

 

Choose smart. Choose a laptop (brand) that is easy to maintain and easy to replace parts yourself. Everything else is just trouble later. Then you do not need support for something as simple as replacing parts / thermal grease/clean heasink itself.

 

We have Unisys as techs here in Canada too, and I must say, I'm not surprised you were treated that way.. Here they are the EXACT same. When I had a tech here last time, I asked him to kindly leave as he had NO idea WTF he was doing..

 

sorry to hear that, but you need to understand that they are just employers ... in my case i do the re-paste by myself, i recommend you to do it too. Isn't hard to do it, you just need organization

please read the manual
http://www.dell.com/support/manuals...-us/GUID-5B8DE7B7-879F-45A4-88E0-732155904029

.. its really easy, just some things you should know before do it

1) if you have a alienware 15 dont forget to remove the screw under the ram ( if you have the 17R2, it didnt have it)
2) you nedd to remove all the screws, if you fell that you need to do force, just go back and search for other screw
3) i dont know how to say it in english .... mmmm remove the card that be in the right side of the lap ... in the 9 in 1 card reader port
4) you cant remove the board if you dont remove the display first ( take this in mind)
5) i use gloves, you can buy 2 pairs in a farmacy
6) use a clean table, and use a little bit of alcohol to remove the old thermal paste.
7) if you check the heatsink, it have numbers in each screw, you need to unescrew in order and screw in order. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.
8)when you remove all the screws under the lap, you will se a hole in the place between the two m.2 ssd place. you need to use your finger to remove the base panel pushing on this hole.
9) you dont need to remove the fans
10) take your time, its easy when you are organized.
11) spread is the best method, but you need to remind that the layer need to be thin and uniform you will be very happy if you do the things right.
12) when you go to put the palm rest panel again, put the alienware power logo cable in place. you will see that this special cable has a special place.

just dont forget to search like crazy for screws under the first panel. sorry but i speak spanish XD i am practicing english.

 

The screen / connector is almost always the weak point for most OEMs, and getting there is probably going to break the cheap bezel or something (my Asus had a nice crack, because of pressure on that plastic). After that, made it a point just to send it in for such related repairs.

With Alienwares, it's the heat issues, and tedious work getting everything disassembled thanks to how they designed it this time round. If it wasn't so laborious... DIY would be a much better solution than waiting / hoping for them to fix it.

 

1st of all thanks alot to everyone here who gave me advice and nice tips.. i didn't regret to join in this forum.. so thank you again..

@judal57 my problem now us the screws you said that has numbers are not in the right order anymore.. dells tech agents was an ahole.. so ill just review the service manual before i open the laptop.. ill open tge laptop if the temps will go very high.. as of the moment ill leave it as it is.. ill check you under volting tips later as well thanks again..

 

maybe you dont understand me XD lol. the screws of the heatsink can not be removed entirely ... like the first 2 screws in the back panel, so they have a number to ensure that the pressure of the heatsink will be equal on the entire processor and gpu and is aligned.

 

Having a problem with A06, some time the screen freezes, left fan running very loud then stop, then right fan did the same thing, after that it works well. What is this?

 

Disable/deactivate Dell support assistant

 

For what its worth, my 17 R2 with the 4980HQ has been running pretty much constantly 3.9Ghz to 4.0Ghz on bios A00 with the 240W adapter. -75mV undervolt on the dynamic CPU, -15mV on the cache, -10mV on the graphics. I will have to repaste because temps are still reaching high 80s and low 90s

 

I am on A02...is it worth upgrading to A06 and btw I have a 240W psu.

 

Yes. Or A00.

 

As a user of A06, the idle temps are terrible, I try testing and so I left idle with high performance for about 10 mins and the keyboard gets warm. Might wanna use hwinfo if u were to upgrade A06

 

screw it...I think I'm going down to A00. Thanks for the reply guys.

 

It will be interesting to see which fan profile Dell gives the rebadged Aw17R3 with the new Skylake i7-6820HK pre Overclocked to 4.1ghz .

 

my score with A06 Bios http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/8730681

 

Alienware y u sidestep the concerns of critics

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

 

Thermal paste isn't your issue

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

 

So... A06 or no? If you can't see my signature, I have a 970m with A00, 180W PSU. Surface temps are acceptable for now and fans work alright, But the sleep bug kinda bothers me sometimes and I'm wondering what the new "intel vBIOS" really does. I know my integrated graphics struggle with normal tasks like watching 60fps video at 720p on my 4k screen, I don't suppose it might improve performance?

I'm a little less familiar with BIOS releases.

 

im have 970m and 180w psu as well and i was on a00 b4 but i changed to a06.. a06 is better for me.. before you upgrade to a06 make sure to upgrade from a00 to a02 to a05 then a06.. thats what i did and didnt encounter any problems..

 

Upgrading the BIOS on this machine is hit or miss. I went from A02 to A00 and bricked. I went from A06 to A00 and no brick. I went from A00 to A02 and it bricked. A02 to A05 no brick. A05 to A06 and it bricked.

 

when you say brick can it still be fix or not? of not you used loads to new alienware laptop changing bios to bios?

 

It can be fixed with blind flash, but it is stupid that the official BIOS update utility is so unreliable.

 

i am currently new registered member here
and have had alienware 15 early for almost 8 months now
still rocking with a01
i've done some extensive benchmark and testing











i am very pleased with a01 and still using the stock thermal paste provided by manufacturer but i am tempted by vbios mod by prema and i cant save my stock vbios with a01 and wantna give a06 a shot but dunno if i will lose the greatness (lower temps) of a01 aaaaaaah

 

Hello, Do you think that I should do this ME firmware update? Because my machine isn't demonstrating any problems. Could you explain to me which kind of bug this faulty firmware can cause?
Thank you.