Couple of issues I need some help with...

So my 18 bricked again. This time I can't reset bios. When I turn it on, it shuts down 30 seconds later. Nothing will make it beep except removing CPU.

The other issue... My M18xr2 is running like crap. I installed 780m sli with latest unlocked vbios using latest nvidia drivers and such. All drivers up to date. In heaven benchmark 2.1 I'm getting measly 1.5k score. Before with my 680m sli stock vbios was 3.5k. CPU is the 3840qm oc to 4.0 GHz. Seems like the cpu is throttling itself way too much. Started after I installed Intel xtu and ran it once. Removed it already and have fresh windows install. Still crap now. I think some settings may be pooched thanks to xtu. Also, what's the most a 3840qm can run at with an unlocked bios?

Any ideas?

 

Are the 780M cards out of your new 18, or did you purchase them as an aftermarket upgrade for the M18xR2?

Try something besides Heaven. Try Fire Strike or 3DMark11. If you were running Heaven 4.0 that 1.5K score would be exactly what should be expected. I don't Heaven 2.1 so I don't know about that. I know 680M scores about that high with Heaven 1.0.

Remember that you're drawing a lot more power with 780M SLI. See if using ThrottleStop helps. Also, set your CPU to stock speed and see if the benchmark score improves.

 

I pulled em out of the 18. Well the 2.1 Is what I used before so I'm used to it. My fps is averaging 70 instead of 100 + with the 680ms.

 

Are you comparing stock or overclocked performance? This can throw a wildcard into the mix. 780M scales better than 680M does with overclocking. Both overclock extremely well, but 780M surpasses 680M in most thing. I found 680M did a fantastic job with Heaven 1.0 and 4.0. Comparing stock versus stock, there are some things the 680M does better at than 780M. Heaven 2.1 may be an example of that, so I would not rely on just one performance test when comparing GPU performance. There are even isolated examples where stock 7970M CF or 580M SLI can out on top depending on what benchmark is being run. (This is because GCN and Fermi compute performance is better than Kepler.)

 

About the Alienware 18, I would like to send it to our depot. Can you send me your service tag and address on a PM? I'll create the order for you if the system is still in warranty.

 

Its already going there. I have the label already. Just didn't want to send it out for a month.

@Mr Fox, I tried stock and oc. For oc, this is what I had. 100/500 couple times and 200/540.

 

Question... I have been looking at the heat sinks on the M18xR1/R2 and comparing them to those on the Alienware 18. The GPU heat sinks look very similar and may be interchangeable. Where you able to drop the assembled 780M cards with the 18 heat sinks into the M18x chassis, or did you have to swap out the heat sinks? It would be great to know if you were able to do this. It would be awesome to have an interchange in the GPU heat sinks between the M18xR1/R2/18, especially for those that decide they want to use an AMD R9 M290X GPU in the 18 at some point. They would be able to use 7970M heat sinks from the R2 if they fit the 18 chassis correctly.

The CPU heat sinks will not interchange because the retaining screw pattern for Haswell is dimensionally different than Sandy/Ivy Bridge.

There is probably a simple explanation for what you are experiencing, but I am not sure what is taking place based on the limited detail available. Did you completely uninstall the NVIDIA drivers with DDU or DriverFusion/DriverSweeper before dropping inthe 780M cards? If you are using the same driver installation from a previous NVIDIA GPU that will create some issues.

 

The 18 GPU heatsinks were a couple MM bigger than the R2's. Aside from that identical. I didn't even need to put on the thermal film covering the other components. It was a DIRECT fit. Only needed to clean the R2's heat sinks and repaste.
It was a fresh windows install on my SSD. The GPU issue seemed to have fixed itself. When it's over clocked I don't hit 80deg either. Only thing that kills my speed is the CPU throttling. No idea why XTU killed my perfectly functioning OC settings but w/e. When the 18 comes back, I may just sell that and get the 3940XM for the R2 and be done with the problems. Too bad, I quite like the 18's look and feel.

 

So just to be sure I am clear, the 18 heat sinks were not able to fit in the R2 chassis? They were a bit too large to fit?

 

Yep. By approx 2-3 mm.