Bad FPS on Alienware 17 r2, Need guidance.

So, I bought my Alienware 17 in April and it has the i7-4710 processor and the 980m video card . When It was brand new with all the drivers that come with it and the 180W PSU the FPS i had while playing Heroes of the storm was like 80-100. These days it starts at 60 and drops to 40 at times ( game settings remain unchanged ) , additionally while playing the new Witcher on the optimal settings suggested from nvidia ive had a few blue screen errors (DPC Watchdog Violation).

I try to keep up with all updates on drivers , bios etc. however things only seem to be getting worse.

The main things that have changed since i bought my laptop are :
- Changed from win 8.1 to win 10
- Changed my bios from whatever my Alienware came with to A04 and then to A06 when i noticed its out.
- Ordered the 240W power supply from Dell and started using it immediately.

So my question is what's going wrong and what can I do to help my machine. How can i tell if the problem is with the CPU or the Graphics card or whatever.

 

Have you done Windows update after installing Windows 10?
Specifically look to see if KB3073930 is installed.If not, install it. Then report back with results.

 

I believe auto update is turned on and have installed some updates in the past few months, but I will check and get back to you later.

 

I would switch back to bios A00, have you checked your temps? That seems like it could be the result of throttling.

 

I could not find the update on my computer but I wasnt able to install it either.

As for A00 I was under the impression that A06 has fixed most issues and is preferable.

 

A00+240w or A06+180w.

 

I might give it try if things get worse tho i gotta say im reluctant to change the bios just like that . Heard a big "patch" is coming for win 10 that might fix things miraculously

as for CPU temps while playing are somewhere between 70 and 80 degrees which is OK i suppose.

 

Check event viewer for anything out of the norm, definetely shouldnt be getting blue screen in witcher. Also you can try to reinstall nvidia and intel graphic drivers from intel and nvidia site. If that fails try to "reset " windows 10 under settings to get it to a clean state to rule out software related issues.(backup any important data first)

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Soo, I have removed the old intel and nvidia drivers and put new ones, which fixed the blue screens.

However, what i noticed is that after some time playing the cpu speed drops from 3300-3500 (or wahtever) to 206 mhz for a second or two and then gets back to normal, while the temperatures never get above 90. any idea what might cause that and if changing the bios to A00 will make any difference?

 

Use intel XTU to stress test cpu and see if it ever drops below 3.1ghz it shouldnt. I would use latest bios and enable cpu performance mode in bios.

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