A05 BIOS out

Improves fan noise according to Dell. Just installed properly in a minute and will report on any changes.

For all you confused people, just download the BIOS from Dell's site (choose download via browser not the Dell downloader) and then double-click the EXE you downloaded. It's a good idea to disconnect all peripherals except the wall charger from your laptop when upgrading and just let it do its thing.

 

Improve fan noise.

Only thing it does according to site, still on A01 at present. Dont think anything really of interest has cropped up in any updates.

Not bothered about the Laptop on battery, has there been anything else worthwhile?

 

Wow! Just installed it and it makes a big difference to the noise of the machine!

Before there seemed to be 3 steps, medium, loud, very loud. And I found it hit loud really quickly when playing a game moving up to very loud (excuse scientific terms . regularily if an intense game such as BFBC2 etc. Also it would to a higher rpm then slow down at each step which was very annoying.

Now it gradually increases in noise as the temps creep up. Because it is more gradual it is much more comfortable. Also when playing less intense games it doesnt get as noisy.

I am so pleased as the fan was the one thing that annoyed me about this machine and I had to use HWinfo to lock the speed all the time

 

Sounds awesome. Maybe now I will be able to game in the living room while the wife is watching TV again!

 

i tried downloading it from dells website but the folder doesn't contain any files...

 

ok so i updated.. and my fan doesnt even turn off at all now! before at idle my laptop was silent.. now the fan is constantly on at low

 

Direct link in case someone needs it:
https://support.dell.com/support/do...ateid=-1&formatid=-1&source=rss&fileid=470581

 

This is what happened to mine too. I upgraded from A01. I can't say I mind it, but I prefer it being completely silent. Half the time it is almost close to being completely silent, but if you put your ear against the laptop, you can hear the fan a little bit. It's not terrible. If this fixed the fan problem, then I'm happy.

 

OK this is pretty good, the fan is much quieter when it's on when I am doing normal browsing and stuff. Pretty happy.

 

I would much more prefer the fan running at very low speed than silent for a while and the fan revs up to medium.

 

hello,
i have some trouble with my M14x ,when removing alimentation cable the pc shuts down ,i've read that an update of the bios could solve this problem,so i've updated my pc's bios from AO1 to AO5 the updates fine but i still have the battery problem when i remove the cable it indicates plugged but not in charge ,any ideas to solve this x) ?
Sorry for my english
Edit : Problem solved after unplug and replug the battery

 

I'm sorry if this has been talked about.. but does anyone have easy step by step instructions as to how to download or do the BIOS AO5 thing? I just traded this laptop for my old m11x r1 by an awesome dell Rep.

 

Temps after playing Crysis Warhead for an hour on max with 765/1080

Fans like 40% quieter now



EDIT: UH, MIGHT I ADD. AlienFX music syncing appears like ALOT better now from A03 O_O. My lights sync up so much faster and change alot quicker. used to be synced well but moved slow. I think Im having a seizure now..

It also reminds me why i love my m14x <3

 

HOW CAN I DOWNLOAD THE DRIVERS? all i download is DellDriverDownloadManager . application but it says There are no files to download! :s

 

never mind, i was using chrome ¬¬

 

lol chrome

 

I need tutorial..
How to install Bios

 

hahaha what? i like it, ie9 meh, firefox nightly (8.0a1) and firefox 6 so so

about the bios update, a must install one ive had it for 20mins and its good, i runned mafia 2 and start blowing good around 7mins after playing

 

Use this link:

ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/bios/M14xR1A05.exe

 

Hello,
Sorry if this isn't the right place but where can I get instuctions on how to sync the lights with lets say winamp. Sry to quote as I couldn't find a way to message him.
Also is it true about the fan running 100% of the time with this Bios update even on battery?
I wonder if that will have an effect on the battery time since with Bios A4 it occasionally turns on....guess we'll have to see what folks say.
Thanks for reading...
Mark

 

I using Chrome too and I can download it, so what is your problem?

 

Just flashed A05, fired up Age of Empires online. Fans are running at much much more acceptable levels. My laptop has been transformed I LOVE this thing!

 

As soon as I was done gaming, my fans slowly went down until Im on battery now and its silent as always. For AlienFX Lighting, it depends. Itunes, you have to bring a .dll folder to the itunes plugin folder (cant explain now, but Im sure you can find a tutorial on the internet), Windows Media Player one is build in, simply play a song and right click in the middle of the album art. From there go to visualizers and hit alienfx. WinAmp I believe is a user-made plugin like itunes (itunes one comes with the computer)

 

For instruction on AlienFX in iTune follow this link: iTune AlienFX

For WinAmp, for the newer product like M14x/M18x, it is too new for support, I guess, but if you have time you can search on Google.

for the fan in the older BIOS on battery it will run at 100% only if your setting is on High Performance or you select to have active cooling in the power setting. But for me I always use the passive setting while on battery so it rarely go on 100% even gaming.

 

Thanks for your help. I finally got to see the lights work insync with the music. Thank you! Also when you mention that your fans are silent as always do you mean that they are off? I'm just reading the previous post where someone mentioned that the fan always stay on the lowest setting. Thanks again.
Mark

 

My fans stay off when idle like in A03. Just now they ramp up slowly with more steps when needed unlike previous Off/Normal/Loud/Jet taking off steps!

 

I've tested a bit now and the fan do stay quiet for quite some time. The fan then revs up to a lower speed than before. More smoothly.

Update: Much better when gaming too. Tested with Metro 2033 (aprox. 30 minutes), and the fan never went up to the very loud level as before the A05 Bios.

 

Thanks +rep

 

if only there was a way to combine a05's fan fix and a01's gaming on battery ability

 

idonno 10char

 

IS there any temperature change between previous Bios and A05?

 

There are my score with 3Dmarks 2006, stock clocks, see my specs on my sign.
http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/7108/screena05.png
and the link to the score Intel HD Graphics 3000 Mobile video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2720QM Processor,Alienware M14xR1 score: 12549 3DMarks

If I remember well the temps are the same (its with my cooler master U2) and the fans are really silent compared to the A01 or A03, the max level now like the level 2 of the bios A03 (level 1 silent, level 2 you hear fan but not really annoying, level 3 really annoying).

 

OK, updated to a05 bios.

30min call of duty modern warfare 2 multiplayer 1600x900 , high graphics , 91C max. immediately upon exiting dropped to 70's.

That's OK. Now to see what Battlefield Bad company 2 does to it

 

The bios installer only says to close background applications and to avoid rebooting/booting or hitting the power button, or to avoid plugging in/out usb or other peripherals.

You can have peripherals plugged in, as long as you don't disturb the machine.

 

I saw someone at the TechInferno forums reporting up to a 4 Celsius temperature increase (78 to 82) with A05 compared to A03. That's not bad considering how much less the noise the fan makes. If you consider overclocking the GPU, you might have to ramp up the fan though. I haven't tried the A05 with GPU the safe overclock yet (700/1000).

 

It has to be a compromise between fan noise and the ability of laptop to dissipate heat.

From what I read (I haven't tried A05) I believe Dell has tuned back the aggressiveness of the fan speed. This may sound pleasant to a user but the rate at which heat is dissipated is reduced has to be compensated.

I know that so far there is no hard figures to show the above, but common sense agrees with the logic above.

That's why I am going to stick to A01.

 

True. On the other side I wonder if the also changed the absolute max speed of the fan, representing it's highest capability to cool. If that's still the same, I don't see any problem with overclocking vs. the older bios.

 

Yeah, I don't get what you guys are talking about.

The fan seems like it still hits its top RPM, nothing has changed in that aspect.

It is just more fluid as the fan revs up, as someone stated previously. It doesn't jump from quiet, to LOUD to SUPER LOUD in those odd leaps, how its quiet, to medium, to louder, to Loud.

When I was browsing it was quiet, and as the laptop got hotter in game, the fans become loud as before, it just increases in smooth "gradient" as opposed to chunky "steps" as in A04

I will test it out more later tonight.

 

false, now the max level is lower than the older max level, even if your laptop is on fire the fan will be quieter than on A03 and A01

 

I think really what they did in laymen terms is they added more incremental speeds in which the fan revs up to, allowing lower fan speeds when playing less intense games and smoother rev ups when gaming for a long period of time

 

Exactly^^^. I mean, is there a speed fan monitoring temp where you can check the RPMs on the fan?

I know it's easy to do with a desktop, never done it with a desktop.

 

Hi,

you can check the fan rpm with "hwinfo" (beta).
it "only" updates the speed apprx. every 5 sec - but that should be OK.

So we can now gie it a check.

We need the steps where the fan change its rpm.

 

I think you guys are forgetting something that is pretty important. Don't forget to check your cpu temps, not just gpu. My gpu never went above 76 playing borderlands for 2.5 hours straight, but when i checked my CPU, i was hitting 98. I played again for the same amount of time to test it again, and i was at 99 on 3 cores. Shortly after on a third test i got a BSOD. Please check your temps to keep your computer safe. I flashed back to A01 and my temps dropped 8~13 degrees, which is a major difference.

I'm just using Hwinfo and power management features to control the fan noise. Also, A01 allows me to play games on battery, while getting 3dmark11 scores almost equal to stock plugged in.

 

I just made a comparison between A04 and A05 fan-speed-behavior.

-check this-

 

Sorry I didn't get it.
What does A1 have it's problem with the battery?

I am thinking of improving to A5 for the noise level to go down. But might think if reversing it if I don't like it. Thing is, can I revert my bios back to A1?

 

A01 does not downclock the GPU when running on battery. Due to this, the computer could randomly shutdown due to the system drawing more power than the battery can handle. Downclocking the GPU when running on battery is normal, most laptops do downclock the GPU on battery (but maybe not as much as Alienware did in A03).

As long as you let the CPU throttle, it won't reach 100 C even with A05 running at a slight lower fan speed than previous BIOS versions.

I recommend the A05 BIOS. I've been playing Deus EX: Human Revolution for at least 2 hours without any problems. The fans went both up and down in speed during the game which is a good sign of good temperature control.

 

I see. Thanks for the info
Off I go to Dell support~

 

i installed the A05 Bios and i'm very happy.

 

I'm definitely not updating once I get mine if you guys are getting temps in the 90's. I rather live with the fan noise over my system constantly over-heating

 

Yea, I don't have my computer yet, but I think that Gearsguy is right. To put it another way, think of it like this:

There was originally 3 settings, 1 was silent, 3 was very loud.

If the computer needed to be a little above medium fan speed, the medium wouldn't be strong enough, so it had to be kicked up the the loudest, which was unnecessarily loud.

Now, there are like 10 levels. If it needs to be a little over medium, a 6 would do it. Powerful enough to get the job done, but at the right noise level.