Alienware 15 R1 CPU ISSUE *WARNING*

First off i would like to express myself, i feel so sad buying this throttling laptop, i had previous gen alienwares, those things had less issues then current ones,

i purchased my Alienware 15 R1 back in August 2015, the time when skylake launched, they denied skylake it exist in india, yes im from bangalore, india, so after using my lapotp for one month, it was overheating upto 98c, and keep throttling so bad no matter how cold my room temps were, so i called the support team told them im not satisfied with the cpu performance, ive went through many forums, saying free upgrade to skylake on alienware models, but in india they keep denying it, so i told them get me a same 4720hq model, so i had to wait for another 1month, yes freaking 1month, due to some internal communication issues between dell tech team and regional team, so i recived my second laptop on november.. i quite dint have time to check on intense gaming performance, so i was just using it for months, when i got free time i again started hardcore gaming, then i realized it was throttling back to 2.6ghz on max load no matter the temps, so i called them again told them the issue, they denied that this issue exist, so i asked them for a replacement board and heatsink, which actually was thier suggestion, first i got a 240w adapter, then a heatsink with refurb mobo, guess what after changing it went worse, month of Jan, it throttles way beyond 1ghz, yeah to 800mhz on a gaming laptop, ive recorded vidoes of diff games with diff settings, with all monitoring INFO including temps, VID, fps, etc.. even after seeeig all those things they were not clear whats the issue, i told them when cpu throttles to such low speed (a.k.a not working according to intel specification 3.4ghz on all core load) which causes GPU utilization to come below and causes frame rate loss, after weeks of explaining them, finally i told them let me meet them in personal in DELL bangalore HO, which is located near my house, where the service center, tech team sits, i went there to show live demo of the issue, yes like a sales person just to make sure these technicians/level 2 team understands whats the issue, hard to believe in front of me those two guys NAVEENG/DEEPAK tech team guys told me sir i couldnt see any issue here, at that time BO3 framerates from 70FPS to 34FPS, and cpu clock speeds were 800mhz, they couldnt see, i was so annoyed by the tech team, so i told them take all my recording info show this to ur higher team and come back to me in few days, first i requested them a upgrade because this issue mite exist on R1 models, they denied to give me R2, even i was willing to pay some extra cash for new model, FYI i have a 4720HQ with GTX 980M, i asked them a replacement R1 again, they denied, how could they, even though issues on their laptops, so atlast after contacting all forums members i tried to give a go for another refurb mobo, and yes today i recieved it, after 10mins of gaming, back to 800mhz with tons of stutters for 3mins, then back to 2.6ghz, not 3.4, and this is what the tech team wrote to me, as if im the mentally sick person whose saying the cpu throttles, where no one else sees, i feel sad for myself..

FIRST EMAIL

Naveen

Check and do the needful Vignesh

We shall have the motherboard sent to you again, but all the part will be reconditioned as per T&C. If you feel that if you are facing issue after MB replacement, I shall get this done.

If issue stands unresolved as per your expectations for high gaming/high software; you have to figure out a way for it on your own.

For us even now, system is absolutely working fine & we are doing this for your satisfaction

( really my satisfaction ?? so that means im blaberring the whole time guys,am i ? thats what these people meant)



SECOND EMAIL

As per the update, Regional team has informed us that there is no option for any upgrade of CPU. However, we did not find any issue which were explained by you. At this point in time, system is working as designed. If the game needs more CPU, probably you have to go for an upgrade. (Yeah why not )


Nothing much we can do here.


Best,


Deepak D

Senior Technical Analyst, L2-Workstation Team

Dell | Operations – Pro-Support

links ive shared with them





http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/official-alienware-15-r1-r2-benchmark-thread.770319/page-20

and i have all the proof on my email..



last hope if someone from NA Alienware teams sees what im facing, as a loyal customer im not giving up. and any forum members who can help me record their R2 skylake cpu speed when gaming..

 

Difficult situation. I had 2 R1's and both did not have these problems. But I remember another user reporting on the same problem as well.

 

Yours is GTX 970m, thats the difference, may be its the poor design on 980m board, bad VRMs, Power Phase controllers.. god knows whats going on, can u post a video with cpu speed on screen, u can use HWINFO alongside msiafterburner to get stats, some gameplay footage proof from other user might help my case, thanks

 

I have the A15/R1/970M. Mines too would randomly throttle to just under 800mhz, however it was sporadic, and would sometimes even happen during a word document. What I did notice was that removing the AC power supply from the laptop, then reinserting it would immediately address the issue.

I called Dell, and after some correspondence and the usual reinstall windows advice, they sent a tech who installed a new mobo, AC adaptor and connection from the mobo to the AC adapter.

It hasn't throttled like that since.

 

It's really weird to see that happening if you have the 240W adapter already. It has got to be related to heat. Have you checked the temperatures while you're gaming? Are they over 95c?

You could as well try to roll back to BIOS A00. Many users have had a great gaming experience with that one.

 

first of i would like to thank you for replying, im finally happy to see a representative from alienware responding, and FYI, no it never above 95c, which i believe is thermal throttle point, recent mobo temps were around 86c max, ive noticed it many times, you can see the attached video above, the temperatures were 73-77 for 2.6ghz, and when it had 3.4 the max was 89c, GPU max of 68c, Yes ive tried with A00 to A06 al the way, seems the early fan kick in on Bios A00 doesnt help CPU throttle at any point, my friend who purchased skylake 6700HQ after few months, his CPU clocks never even goes down below 3.3ghz, and ive tried every single solution available by myself and with help of forum members, nothing helps, mr.porra could you please help me, im a loyal alienware fan from 2010, those DELL tech team believes that 800mhz is normal speed, and they blame me of choosing this model, at some point i was depressed even after i told, shared, even visited their office just to show them.. all my hopes on u bro..

 

wow downthrotling to 800 mhz and they called it normal????
undervolt using xtu utility?
or maybe using throtlestop and set multiplier to something like 30/31x?

 

I'm truly sorry about the issues that you have experiences so far. However, my hands are tied since your machine isn't in the US or Canada (those are the regions that I work for). I could only try to escalate the issue internally to the Social Media team in India to try to get a different solution and wait for the best. They have their own policies and limitations and I can't promise that they'll do what I ask.

Besides that, I'd remove the service tag and contact details. It's not a good idea to have them in public.

Either you try to escalate it with the phone team or you let me escalate it internally. In both situations, I wouldn't be able to send any service dispatches myself unfortunately.

 

i understand that, im sorry for posting those tags and numbers, i was really down with this issues, my bad.. yeah i think its better if u could forward the msg to them and ill wait for a solution, even now ive check bios A00 just for what u have said.. attached the screenshot of XTU and HWINFO

http://imgur.com/2XckbG6

http://imgur.com/okbTd8n

 

No need to sorry buddy. I'll escalate it. Mind to send me the same info via PM?

 

im trying to send a pm, but im not able to find pm option, i only see start a conversation with u, what all info do you need bro, i can attach those files as well..

 

That's the one. Start a conversation.

 

alright ive started a conversation.. whatever u need regarding this issue, ill give info..

 

I hope you'll get an update well I've just bought an AW 15 R1 as well online in the US website but it comes with the GTX970m so ever since I've seen your video my concern is if will it happen to me as well regarding about the issues of thermal throttling. Although I've ordered the unit on February 8 and it was delayed and it's supposedly to be delivered by tomorrow (Feb 21, 2016) although I doubt that they'll be able to deliver it on time due to missing parts by which they would not disclose when I've called about a week ago. I've tried calling a couple of times and they told me that they're missing in parts for the AW 15 R1 since they had a sale starting February 7. 2-3 days ago they had a sale for the AW 15 R2 by which I'm concerned if it will affect the first batch of the AW 15 R1 that's still lacking in parts. I've already placed my order and I'm just waiting for it to be delivered.

Although please do update us regarding about your issues hopefully I wouldn't be in the same boat as yours once I get my AW15 R1 unit :/

 

dude, please get urself a R2, the prices are same, 6700hq performs way better than 4720hq, and new R2 got ddr4 ram, USB type c port, but with one downfall, display brightness is weaker on R2, 220 nits comparing R1 300nits, Yeah i wil update you, im waiting for update from alienware L-Porras. ill update you guys..

 

+VICKY GAMEBOY Well what I got was the AW15 R1:
-4th gen i7-4710HQ
-GTX970m
-16gb ram
-128gb m.2 sata ssd + 1tb hd
So I'm not sure if will it be also affected from what you're experiencing now with the thermal throttling.

 

i heard 4710hq combo with gtx 970m performs little better compared 4720hq with gtx 980m, and FYI its not thermal throttling, my cpu never touched 95c at any point, its just the power phase issue, somehow i think motherboard power delivery system fails on 980m sets, only few runs better, this is my 3rd mobo, all behaves same, some throtles to 2.3, and some to 800mhz, so im in no luck with refurbished mobo, hopefully i get a good answer from alienware US team, because indian tech team denies that problem exist on my system even after i showed them all recorded proof, they considered that as normal, i mean that 800mhz clock speed, they behaved like im out of my mind and telling something out of the world, hmmm, well i have nothing much to say, just wait and see..

 

I can't cancel my order and it's already the 21st of february which is supposedly the estimated date of delivery for my AW15 R1. I've signed the waiver for delays so I can't seem to cancel my order although I'll try to call tomorrow which is a monday to ask if it's still possible to cancel it and order the AW15 R2 with the skylake processor.

 

Most R1's are just fine. Dont worry too much. Plenty of happy users out there.

 

Yes most R1 with GTX 970m runs bettter, but thats not the point, i was suggesting him to get a newgen instead of old series, but seeing that he already have ordered and cannot return, so he got no choice but to accept it, wouldnt make much of a difference, but again once u get the bad system, its always pain in the ass.. the reason why im suggesting users to get R2 is becuz of 6700HQ Z170 series chipsets, and a better future proof DDR4, TYPE-c, i dont have any objection on him going for R1..

 

Well the R2 deal was an extra 100$ for the skylake and I didn't even expect it to be on sale last week and when I saw it I was concerned because I just signed the waiver due to the delay for the R1. Although I'll try to see if I could convince them to switch, I wouldn't mind not having the SSD and the 16gb ram either way I have an extra 8gb stick lying around but it's at 1600mhz. Will call tomorrow morning and talk to the sales reps if it's possible for me to cancel and order the R2 if not I'll just stick with the R1 if they're able to resupply the missing parts for it.

 

good luck with that, hope you get a better system with no issues, for me ill have to wait till i get any replies from alienware team, basically my laptop is uselss now, even on cs go its throttling.. so im just using it for posting forums and watching videos, FML..

 

@VICKYGAMEBOY Read... http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...s-gone-backwards.781343/page-18#post-10206124

 

seems like hybrid bios is causing all sorts of trouble, atleast the revision version solved the throttling issues, unlike mine, 90wh battery, only 2-3 hours of average use, no wonder, with such power delivery profile on mobo..holy cow the heatsink on Asus G752, no wonder the cpu never breached 70c..

 

You installed the wrong drivers and probably have your power profile running at 100% max cpu usage and 100% of minimum usage.

I got 7 hours out of the previous version and while I used the wrong power profile drivers it went to 4 to 5 hours. It wouldnt surprise me if this also causes your throttling issues. It has nothing to do with the 980M. The power draw of the 980M is just a little higher than the 970M.

DId you do a fresh install? Installed the proper drivers?

Only under full load the 180watt powersupply was insufficient and thus draining the battery. The throttling issues is something totally different and the wrong drivers caused for a lot of users to see a current limit throttle out of the blue.

It sucks though they cant give you proper support in India.

 

Nope, im more of a OS tester, to be honest, ive fresh installed 20 times on the same machine, with diff driver setup, intel thermal dynamic platform drivers, Intel Management Interface, Bios Revisions, Chipset Drivers, believe me or not, all of them throttled, so def not related to drivers, its more of a hardware level thing/bios... yeah it sucks they dont admit that 800mhz cpu speed is wrong, they are writing me mail after mail saying, "as per the design your system is running perfect".. when i saw those things i have no words to express.. lets see.. i have to wait , only hope is alienware US/canada team..

 

That is strange then. because the 800mhz is ofcourse not normal. ALso those motherbaords are probably refurbs as well. Probably returned for the same reason.

 

Whatever power profiles you put in windows power plan. The processor shouldn't Trottle whatever. There are plenty of similar cases with Aw Echo models. Just look at core vid voltage. Varying vid from 1.050 to up to 1.4V . This means only one thing ... Lots of bad binned processors aka much BGA garbage from Intel. Dellienware has not taken this into account when they have developed Bios/Ec and power settings. QC from DELLIENWARE is terrible. When up to 1 of 10 experience this heavy throttle problems(I showed this in an image in an other thread) is this catastrophic. Not only Intel to blame for this tragedy... DELLINWARE throw out this junk without QC.

 

There is nowhere proof that 1 out of 10 have these issues with these cpu's.

 

I think Dell got a load of processor of a bad lot. Along with a rotten bios / Ec was this catastrophic. + PSU Gate and you'll see what this led to. Never experienced anything like this. And of course that Dells tech team mean maximum processor performance on an 4 core i7 is perfectly normal at massive 0.8Ghz in full gaming/work load. Remember we haven't seen all problems that not knowledgeable laptop owners experience. Not all know what's normal processor behavior in maximum work load.

 

I dont think the dell support team in for example the US or europe will say 800mhz is perfectly normal. My personal experience with techsupport is actually really good. Next to that they fixed my problems with extreme care in holland.

 

This may be so. But the problem exists in all its glory that you see. It should not be so. Have only a word to say... It is tragic for those who experience it. Paying a lot of money for newest tech and gets in return low end performance. More like the performance as in an 5-6 year old low power Acer laptop. And Acer have changed policy and rect Aw now. Who would know this 1 or 2 years ago. Times change.

 

@ rineh its not about US/canada or india or malaysia.. its about the cpu which is having issue, even a guy who owns asus have throttling issue, for some reason after asus updated bios, he doesnt have throttle.. yeah insane VID 1.2v to make it usable, the reason why indian tech support dont have any knowledge is becuz of less consumer.. 1 in 100 buys alienware.. very simple answer. but again, for that reason customers cant give up what they have paid..

 

reduce the multiplier using intel xtu to this :

in my i7 4710hq i found that this is the max frequency that it can hold without power limit throttling

 

so for my 4720hq it should be 33,32,31,31, but its kinda weird why they specified 3.4ghz, but again i dont think its gonna help, because even after 2mins it goes to 2.6ghz, which is playalble, then after few mins it goes way back to 800mhz, i disabled turbo icc max, and reduced voltage to 1v but still it did throttle, trust me bro ive tried everything, i use to oc my older models using PLL method.. but this R1 is kinda the nightmare for me..

 

Your 4720BGA shall have Turbo Boost up to 3.4 GHz (for 4 active cores), 3.5 GHz (for 2 active cores) and 3.6 GHz (for 1 active core). The i7-4720HQ is clocked exactly 100 MHz higher than 4710BGA...
Not acceptable with something under Intel's own specification on this garbage.

 

Yeah ikr, i felt like a raging person infront of those dell tech team, atleast 3.4 is what i should get, man im still waiting for reply from alienware L-porras, he asked me to send the same info on PM, i did start a conversation, attachd few jpegs and video link along with my service tag.. but ill wait, he needs to contact social media team in india. papusan btw where are u from bro..

 

Near the North Pole as under my Avatar . Longest north in Scandinavia aka Norway.

 

hehe, i cant believe, i already have a best friend whose a norweigan, who lives in Bergen, hmm good to meet another person.. btw i just tested with 3.2 downclock, it still throtled back to 2.6ghz within 2mins of madmax gaming, which is not even cpu intensive, do u think thermals reaching 92c wil throttle to 2.6 ghz.. i thot throttle point was 95c on dell, intels one around 97c

 

Yeah. The power settings in bios is normally crippled by DELLINWARE. Try a better thermal paste. I still will advise you to use Throttlestop. Take a trip into Throttlestop guide and ask @unclewebb for help. You can make a log of the power draw into Throttlestop and he can debugging for you.

 

I tried throttlestop 8.0 from uncleweb signature, for some reason i get EDP and Power Limit on Limit Reasons Box after few mins of gaming, and also thermal throttle when core loads reaches 75% usage, attaching screenshot

 

@VICKYGAMEBOY
I'm from India as well, with the exact same config except 16 GB ram and a 512 GB SSD.
From my experiences with Alienware, they don't do replacements these days. They'll replace every part if you want, but won't replace the system.
Reg performance, I'm on bios A06 and I have zero throttling. I have the system overclocked to the limit with XTU and the only performance limit reason is power at around 46.8W.
And, no they won't really offer us the sixth gen processors as well, as you have to change the chassis ( There are minor differences in the motherboard screw locations).
So just keep replacing till you get a good board.
I'll attach an image for temp reference

Temps sometimes reach 88 or 89 but always drop down to 70s to mid 80s once the fans speed up.
I suggest you do a repaste.

 

thanks for the info, but again i know the chasis design is different due to type c and some screw location, thats not the case, could you please record a video of any gaming without cpu throttling, i just want them to see as well, whats ur max temp, i live in bangalore i have no luck with my refurb mobo, all behaves the same, and finally they decided to put a conclusion that im bluffing with them, u know im not, they denied to send me another refurb mobo again, scrub tech people, doesnt even understand whats throttling..

 

I have an exam for tomorrow.
I'll contact you tomo.
Drop your number by pm maybe?
I'll help you out if I can

 

Sure will do..

 

I'm on my phone now. Not easy to reply on small devices with my old eyes, HaHa
I think you should tagged @Dufus the author for limited reason and @unclewebb in the Throttlestop guide. They will surely try to help. They will debugging the log file if you check this in Throttlestop main page and use you laptop in gaming. Try it. Also use better thermal paste like ICD, Grizzly Kryonaut or Gelid Extreme. Tear down video in this forum and manual is on the web. Also try max fan speed in Hwinfo fan control during testing. You could also lower your high voltage. Nearly 1.190v is for +4Ghz.

 

i was using AS5, im gna give MX4 a try, i have one left, ill def give a try to IC diamond when i get no response from alienware team or dell, i dint go through the teardown post, i figured out by myself, experiece with m14x and m11x, yeah this one was quite messy interms of plastics.. use dot method ?? or spread. last 2 times i tried dot method but im seeing so much gaps and less paste on cpu..

 

You wouldn't get much gain with Mx4. More similar as As5. Don't use the dot method on processor. When I used ordinary paste, I always use the thin line method. Rather use a better paste if you want to try new paste. ICD is a harder paste so put the paste in a plastic bag and then in a cup with hot water. Why not try Grizzly Kryonaut? A very soft paste and easy to apply. This is now maybe the best standard paste on the market. Give it a shot.

 

ill see, it took me few hours to apply and reassemble my laptop, just fresh installed windows 10, idles are bit lower, 54c compared to 58 previous, but really insane VID for 3.4ghz 2-10% load voltages arround 1.150, il have to wait for replacement or just try tweaks and play league of legends atleast, pretty much waste of money.

 

@Papusan just finished installing fresh copy of windows 10, i dont think its related to temperatures, after MX4 the temps were pretty good attached the screenshot of temps, GPU barely touched 65c, CPU was good average 75c Max 90c, but not even close to thermal point, but again when it came to benchmark / gaming, 5mins of gaming it goes as usual to 2.6 then 2.0, 1.6,1.2. and it stays like that for another 2-3 mins, then get back to 2600mhz, so i dont think so its related to thermal throttling, now rest is upto alienware support to help me out.. @Alienware-L_Porras