Why is my Alienware 15 CPU throttling to 800 mhz?

I just downloaded XTU and I was monitoring my cpu while running Witcher 3. My CPU would stay around 2 ghz and it would drop to 800 mhz for a min or so and go back up to around 2 ghz. Throughout the entire game play, my cpu never hit 3.5 ghz. Very very disappointed with this and I dont know if I should just keep this laptop or return it for something else.

My laptop came with A02 and I installed A00 over it. I turned off GA overclock from Bios and my laptop is equipped with 4710 and 980m. Everything is on max performance under battery setting. Also using 240w flextronics charger.

 

The problem is Crippled hybrid bios and Hq aka BGA processor.

 

Mine also throttles down during Witcher 3 but it doesn't make the slightest difference to the games framerate.

I have locked the clocks to 2.8ghz using windows power profiles and the framerate is exactly the same as when it is throttling down so I guess Witcher 3 is not very CPU dependent.

 

so there is no solution to this problem? i thought a02 was the hybrid bios not a00.

so yours also throttle down to 800 mhz? when this happen, my fps will drop from 60 to 40-50.

 

Hybrid bios or bios A00 from Dell is crippled. Dell know about the Trottle problem but don't want or can't fix the problem.

 

Actually no it wasn't 800mhz. It was around 1.6 - 2.0ghz

Try uninstalling Intel thermal framework from your program list and see if that is the culprit. I removed mine a long time ago due to heavy throttling.

Worth a try if anything.

 

Im on 17 R2
never tried on witcher 3 but mine Thermal throttle on GTA V every 2 minutes and CPU will drop to 0.80GHZ
i end up requested Dell for exchange after trying everything

 

So did the new replacement fix your issue?

 

Exchange unit Shipped on Tuesday
Waiting Arrival, cant wait to test it

 

@Alienware-L_Porras any suggestion on what I should do? Is my laptop defective?

 

i doubt a replacement unit will fix anything since it's all in the BIOS and the BIOS itself is crippled.

 

I spoke to many people running GTA V in my case dont have the same issue i does
my friend running Lower spec of 17 R2 with maxed settings and he dont have this issue
When the CPU drop to 0.80 Ghz the fps drop from 120 - 20 ingame
and everything start laggy and stutter

How this will be a bios issue when other 17R2 is working fine?

I've tested this on A00, A02 & A04 same issue

Below is the screenshot of the throttle, Mine in this case is Thermal Throttle
Im on 240 PSU

 

It is already proven that there is a problem with some Hq processors vs all bios versions and trottling in new Aw laptops. This is far out in the priority list for Dell. I read somewhere that this issue comes at bottom of the list of priorities done by Dell in bios. BGA aka Hq processors is not exactly the smartest choice in the new Aw laptops. Info about Hq processors...

 

now what i wonder is running same game why my friend AW doesnt do that

 

I sold my 17 R2 four weeks ago.
It turned out that even with 240W PSU and BIOS A00 the CPU clock went down to 0.8 Ghz every time the GPU and CPU were stressed simultaneously.

 

is there a thread where people complaint alot about cpu going down to 0.80Ghz
if replacement laptop does the same whats the point for Alienware 17 on Gaming then

 

The new Aw models from Dell are crippled. Have never ever seen so many problems before with a "high end" laptop like this.

 

You or other should make a problem tread for both Aw15 and 17R2. Maybe better for Aw reps to help if they have 1 tread for this problem for both Aw laptop models. Make the problem tread sticky

 

There's already a thread about this in the Dell Commnunity forum, and a a BIOS update to address this problem will be releasing soon. ETA is unknown, though, but the tech team does know about the issue and are working on it.

 

already have one but not much help and 17r2 lag issue

 

I really hope that this new bios will release within my return period. Anyway, is there a proper way to downgrade my bios from A02 to A00? or can I just download A00 bios from Dell support page and run it? Thanks

 

What I bolded is pretty much the gist of what you need to do. Just make sure the laptop is plugged in and you don't have any programs running (like a browser or Office or any monitoring tools, etc.).

 

I'm having the same issue in Witcher 3. CPU is thermal throttling every few minutes down to 1.6GHz as shown in XTU and I notice some stutter. Frames are dropping to 20's down from 45-50.

Temps are not bad though, CPU stays at 72°C and GPU at 66°C.

I have the i7-4710 and 970M running BIOS A00.

I'll check some other games tonight.

@thunderbirds did the replacement solve the issue or is it still present?

I bought mine from best buy and I have only 3 days left to return it, I don't know what to do!

 

On my Alienware 15 with an i7-4710HQ and GTX 980M running A00, I also experience the occasional frame rate drop when playing the Witcher 3, from about 35 FPS to 15. Restarting the game does not work, but restarting the whole computer solves the problem until it happens again. Not sure whether the issue gets caused by CPU throttling, but I will look at the charts later today.

 

Just received today downloading gta v

 

I confirm my clock speed shoots down to 800 Mhz. Strange to say, but the quad-core CPU ends up bottlenecking the GPU. I will experiment workarounds and post later with my findings.

 

I wonder what solution dell with come up with, anyone called tech support and troubleshoot ? What do they say

 

I wonder if this has anything to do with this reported throttling bug after resuming from sleep: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-15-cpu-throttling-bug.775393/

I do play games after my laptop wakes from sleep, I wonder if that's it?

Although I played Witcher 3 today after a fresh boot and I was still getting some thermal throttling, 3-10%, but clock speeds remained over 2.3GHz and I didn't get any FPS drops!

I hope this gets resolved soon, I don't want to have to return my laptop, I really like it!

 

Until we get a BIOS that stops the throttling, your best bet is to use Throttlestop. From what I have tested so far, it does work. I wouldn't hold my breath for Dell to bless us with a BIOS that does what we want....unfortunately.

Top that off with hwinfo64 full fan speed and I think the more demanding games won't drop FPS. Yes, it's an extra step we have to take but having the mobility of the laptop is nice.

The 980M is a beast for a mobile GPU. It's no joke.

I almost sent this thing back to Dell but I talked myself in to keeping it and doing the work around. To each his own I guess.

 

can you tell me how you use throttlestop to stop this non sense?

thanks

 

This is the only settings I have done in throttlestop. After copying these settings, click the lower right button"turn on" then benchmark or whatever. I suggest using Open Hardware Monitor to check your CPU performance.

 

You can probably run 4.2-4.3ghz with that high core voltage.

 

I think you have found the root of the problem Papusan. This is the second HQ processor that I have noticed that has insanely high VID voltage. For comparison, check out this 4700MQ running at almost the exact same speed.



A difference of 0.17 volts is insane. When a CPU core needs excessively high voltage to be stable, that is usually a pretty good sign that the core is junk or is of very low quality. It is looking like Intel sold their good cores from the wafer as MQ CPUs and the lesser ones were sold as HQ. That is the source of the excessive heat, throttling and poor performance.

Is anyone under volting these things? I was trying to help one user under volt his HQ but he disappeared. He needed an offset voltage of about -100 mV and could have used more but I think he was running into light load BSOD problems when he tried to go beyond that. You need under volting, the best thermal paste money can buy and increasing the fan speed with HWiNFO would be a good idea too.

Dell's decision to lower the thermal throttling temperature from the Intel recommended 100C to 97C is also not helping this issue.

ThrottleStop 8.00 can help with some of these problems but if a CPU reaches the thermal throttling temperature, there is nothing ThrottleStop can do about that. If your CPU is getting too hot and it needs to throttle, it will throttle to protect itself from damage no matter how you have ThrottleStop setup. That's a good thing.

The high multipliers that are available to a 4720HQ are nice to have in theory but for these cores they might be useless. At the end of the day you have to control the maximum core temperature. You might be forced to use ThrottleStop to run these CPUs at less than their rated speed. Dropping the maximum speed will help reduce the VID and amount of heat these CPUs put out. Sometimes Intel significantly ramps up the VID just to get the last couple of multipliers stable.

 

There was someone at the Dell community forums who suggested the same thing (he also undervolted his 17 R2's processor). However, he did have to reduce his max turbo by 0.5 GHz for all cores (making the fastest speed 3.0 GHz) and had to have a laptop cooler.
It doesn't fully solve the problem, but it's a start.

 

undervolt makes my temp +10 now idle around 60-65

 

this is on the first unit, still downloading GTA V on my replacement unit, not gonna undervolt that one

 

From reading your posts about that first one, it looks as if the heat problem was straight from the factory. It would be interesting to see if they got full coverage on the die with the thermal paste or it's wonky.

 

I have suspected this for a while now about the poorly binned chips being re-purposed as crippled BGA parts. It is specious for reasonably knowledgeable consumers to expect a low-TDP BGA CPU to deliver top-notch performance. It is tragic as well, since tossing the chip and replacing it with a good one is not an option.

It's also interesting that Alienware stock BIOS settings apply an excessive amount of voltage, and a woefully inadequate power (amps/watts) settings, which causes performance deficiencies, malfunction and thermal issues. Using a third party utility (like ThrottleStop, XTU or a combination of both,) to get them to behave as expected within stock specifications is required. You would think they would want them to function well out of the box.

It is certainly possible the TIM was not correctly applied at the factory. We have seen examples of this before, so it would not be unheard of. Unless something has recently changed with BIOS settings, overheating is going to be an issue with perfect TIM application because the settings are all jacked up and the voltage is crazy high. Maybe they are doing that because Haswell chip binning quality is extremely inconsistent and some of the extra-crappy chips require an excessive amount of voltage to function with stability even though the "average" CPU does not.

 

You can see some have better chip and better results and some have worse with extreme throttling. Many of these chips are poorly binned. Intel and Dell too blame on this fiasco. If these Aw laptop owners get a processor that Trottle heavily, returning the laptop to Dell once you have tested and get poorly benchmark results. This is not acceptable. All should do that.

 

1.2v stock for a 4720HQ? WTF?
This is what my stock 4800MQ at 3.5GHz with a -50mV undervolt looks like (and should be giving the same performance as you). I was running TSBench to show full load (on adaptive voltage) for this:


If I were you, and that replacement dell keeps causing issues, I would get a refund on it and get a different laptop. I can't see anything about your situation as NEARLY being "acceptable".

 

1st unit HDD ticking sound and screen bleed = Requested exchange
2nd Unit Thermal Throttle and extreme Heat = Requested exchange
3rd unit just received yesterday gonna test it today (the 3rd unit is really hard to get the replacement as i had to escalate and spent tons of hours with rude agents to finally get it)

 

You should return the laptop, take your money and kiss Dell goodbye... An good advice. Get you an other laptop or a desktop.

 

tried but they dont want to refund, i ordered on March

 

Ok. Check that everything is ok. If not request a new one. Good luck.

 

You should keep returning until it works perfectly, and at each time inform them that you're going to keep asking for new models of their obviously-broken model until they either give you a golden machine or a refund.

Then after pissing them off enough for a refund (because golden AW15s don't exist ) you buy a clevo

 

I'm using 17

 

tested new unit so far no throttle like previous one
CPU temp max 75 average 70 idle is 48-55

 

3 hours gaming on exchange unit no FPS drop smooth
on bios A00

 

Was your exchange given the new 4720HQ?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

My original order was 4980 and I got 4980