Alienware 17 R2 stuttering

So last week dell replaced my old alienware m17x r4 witth a refurbished alienware 17 r2.

It has i7-4710 and gtx 970m running on bios a05 and the 180w psu. It came installed with windows 8.1 which i upgraded to 10.
On the weekend i sat down and started installing some games. No matter what game i try i get stuttering. I installed MSI afterburner - fps varies heavily - constant dips of 20-30fps (average fps is still between 40-60 depending on the game), gpu temperature never went above 70 and gpu usage is also pretty low and keeps varying (most of the time below 50%), gpu temperature never went above 70 and gpu usage is also pretty low and keeps varying (most of the time below 50%). Cpu temperature is also normal and cpu usage is also never 100%.

I removed my drivers and reinstalled the ones on dell website. I choose the high performance power plan and changed setting in nvidia control panel to prefer the high performance gpu. Nothing really affected the stuttering. I also ran the dell diagnostics utility and there were no errors. I am clueless what is the issue with my laptop.

The games i tested were far cry 4, dying light, battlefield 3 and dmc4:se. I tried all settings from low to ultra and resolutions od 1080p and 900p.

For the past three months i went through a lot of trouble and headache to with my old laptop and finally getting dell to agree for a replacement. Then after going through the process of replacement having the replacement laptop also having such issues feels horrible.

Please advise guys.

Edit - It seems the stuttering starts a few seconds after the game is running. If i alt-tab out then back iin the game runs fine then starts stuttering again after 10 or so seconds. Im not completely sure if this is what is happening but it sure seems that way

 

double post

 

Had similar issues before but stuttering was due to HWinfo or afterburner running in background. I suggest if your running programs in background try to stop them and observe which one causing the stutter.

 

The stuttering was there before I installed MSI. I installed it later to see the temps and fps etc

 

Have you tried the new bios a06? I used to have crash problems in some games and asked Dell for a 240w psu. Now my aw17r2 runs perfect, maybe you are experiencing cpu throttle? Psu replacement is free btw, and you can ask for 240w or 330w afaik.

 

I'll try the new bios and let you guys know if things improve. Btw from reading around i was under the impression that the 180w psu doesnt affect the performance of the 970m? Or is that incorrect?

 

Bump

I would also like to know because i've heard the same thing in regards to only affecting the 980m models.

 

970m is not impacted by throttling issues with the 180w Psu.

I would be inclined to download a Win 10 Iso for free from Microsoft and start afresh. I can only imagine that some residual software is causing the slowdown.

 

i only experienced issues with afterburner, i was dropping the speed of my gpu constantly. Now using precision x. But you say the stuttering was already there before it. In that case update every possible driver after uninstalling the old ones.