Does anyone have an AW 15 that doesn't Thermal Throttle ?

I'm getting mixed reports. Is there anyone out there with an AW 15 that doesn't Thermal Throttle on the CPU when the GPU is being taxed?

I'm not talking about power limit throttling which is a different issue.

I have the i7 & 970M and CPU thermal throttles @ 70°C when playing demanding games like the Witcher 3.

I just want to know if there are people out there with the 15 that can game without any thermal throttling? Never mind power limit throttling?

 

Mine doesnt.

 

Awesome, I just wanted to know if it was possible.

Do you play Witcher 3 or GTA V?

Can your CPU stay locked at 3.3GHz on all 4 cores when the GPU is being used?

 

Me too,

I play all sort of games at either High or Very High setting. Such as GTA 5 at High setting, Battlefield 4 at Ultra setting just to name a few. For locking the clockspeed, I'm not sure if it's possible but on my machine, most of the time, the CPU will stay mostly at 3.3Ghz until you idle at the pause menu or minimize the game, though I guess that possibly because I set the power option to High Performance.

Though I've also seen quite many report on the Witcher 3 problem, I guess this may be because of the game itself, since it is working fine on other game, however I cant confirm this since I dont have the Witcher 3.

 

Cheers, mine is not looking too healthy:

This is after about an hour playing Witcher 3 tonight;

 

mine also doesn't have thermal throttling...but have sometimes power limit throttling...
what is this power limit throttling?

 

my previous unit has thermal throttle on GTA V not sure about witcher 3
but new unit dont have thermal throttle but has power limit throttle although i didnt notice any performance drop in game

 

I've been trying to figure this out myself, here's my simplified version.

Power limit throttling happens when the CPU is trying to use more power than the thermal design power (TDP) allows. Power to the CPU, be it voltage or current or clock speed, is throttled to keep the CPU within its TDP limits.

This TDP is configurable however and it looks like the TDP for the CPU in the AW 15/17 is set lower when the GPU is being used.

This is a design choice and I think this is what most people in here are complaining about when they are talking about throttling. Especially those with the 980M.

Thermal throttling is where clock speed is reduced on the CPU due to it overheating or getting too hot basically. Usually this should be around 95°C.

This can be because the cooling system is underpowered or it can be because of poor installation of thermal paste or indicative of some sort of fault.

For me this is happening at around 70°C and shows what looks like faulty installation of the heatsink//thermal paste or some actual fault.

I'm requesting a replacement for this issue.

I would be not be worried about power limit throttling myself as long as it didn't affect gaming.

This thermal throttling is a different story and is causing terrible frame rate drops and stuttering.

 

Same in my case, The temp is normal but thermal throttle was affecting
the replacement unit does not have this issue

 

Yeah cheers, I hope they sort me out without too much hassle!

 

Rofl, they are sending me out a 240W adapter to see if that fixes my thermal throttling issue, and I have the 970M!!

 

your temp during gaming average on 80?

 

Yeah around 70 to 80°C

 

The Trottle gate continues for the new Aw laptops. How can Dell technicians accept both thermal and power throttling down to 2.8GHz or lower when TDP is only 32-35w and the processor is not more than 70 up to 85 degrees Celsius when both CPU and GPU are full load??? Is it true that a Aw high end laptop shall not run 2 benchmark tests simultaneously? This is the worst crap I've ever heard of a technician. A computer is designed for multi tasking so it should not be such that you only can run 1 software. LoL
An Intel processor i7-4xxxhq should not be limited to 32-36w tdp under hard use. It is designed for 47W TDP which is Intel's own specification for this processor. Dell engineers have limited the processor to to max 36W when CPU and GPU are under hard use in bios. This is a big shame for such a high end gaming laptop.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...2-owners-lounge.770314/page-137#post-10033013

 

I have had no throttling whatsoever with my machine (i7 4720 and 980m). Using a 180w PSU, I don't have a 240W to compare it to - but under load in games, the temp never exceeds 80C either on the CPU or on the GPU and my CPU stays at a constant 3.33ish GHz.

EDIT: I suspect the throttling occurs because thermal paste is applied badly or some other issue is causing the internals to heat more than they're supposed to. I'd put it down to crappy build during the build process, not necessarily bad design overall. It seems like the temperatures other people have seen while under load are a good 10 or 15 degrees C hotter than what I've seen.

 

I think this is just my machine. I have come to the conclusion I am alone with the 35w - 2.8ghz throttle issue when gpu is under load.
I have spoken with a few people on various forums and nobody else with this machine and spec can replicate this issue.
I will be phoning dell CS tomorrow to see what they can do for me

 

Greetings, what's the name of the software you are using guys to see those temps and throttling? I mean the screens you have posted.

 

I believe it's intel xtu.

 

So the throttling is primarily when you're running two stress test programs? Are you seeing the throttling when doing normal tasks and gaming?

 

Yeah cheers that's sounds right to me, I don't believe it's a design flaw, but you can have a defect from the assembly process.

I've started the warranty process with Dell and they have sent me out a 240W adapter to test.
I should get it today, but I don't believe it's going to solve my thermal throttling issue.

I will test it though and see where to go from there.

 

Yep, that's Intel XTU.

 

I get thermal throttling on the CPU while gaming. Temps usually stay between 70 - 80°C, never go over 82°C. Yet I see thermal throttling on the CPU of up to 40% and I get FPS drops and stuttering while gaming.

I'm having it looked at under warranty, so will hopefully have the issue resolved soon!

 

I think depending on your gaming settings temp plays a big part
i have GTA V everything maxed out without MSAA temp never go more than 77
but with MSAA enabled temp shoots 95 and it stay for a second then back to 80's
i wonder how accurate the temperature sensors are