How to Overclock the Alienware 18 and Haswell CPU (or actually have it run full stock Turbo Speed)

Edit: thread title has been updated because the BIOS and EC issues apply to all Alienware 18 systems, not just those with a 4930MX CPU. This subject has been discussed in numerous threads for the Alienware 18. Here are some links to other threads as a cross-reference:

• http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...7-4900mq-isnt-overclocked-factory-how-do.html
• Really strange CPU low clock speed behavior - Alienware 18 4900MQ
• http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ienware-18-please-promote-ideastorm-asap.html
• http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-cannot-overclock-my-alienware-18-4-3ghz.html

This issue keeps resurfacing because Alienware has not released a BIOS update to fix issues with Haswell CPU performance. None of them will operate at the stock default advertised clock speeds because the power settings are not correct. Those advertised with a factory overclock are likewise incapable of functioning at the advertised overclock speed without some custom tweaking to make up for the incorrect stock BIOS settings.

I flashed A03 and stayed up late playing with a lot of settings and I think I have something that everyone with a 4930MX can use for a stable 4.3GHz overclock while we are waiting for Alienware to fix the problems with the BIOS and fan tables. These settings should allow the CPU to dynamically draw power and I hope it will account for variances between processors. The dynamic settings seem to use less voltage and it seems to help keep the temps in check better than manually setting the voltage. If you have a 4700MQ, 4800MQ or 4900MQ these settings probably will not work because those processors have locked TDP and other functional limitations. You can adapt the settings as necessary for the best result possible. It will not be 4.3GHz because they are not capable of running at that speed.

Prerequisites:

.​

• Alienware 18 BIOS A03 (so core current limit can be adjusted with XTU)
• Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) version 4.2.0.8
• Cool work environment (because the fan tables are messed up)

If you are used to a Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge Extreme CPU, this will still be a disappointment, but I think it is the best we can do under the circumstances. My results are in a very cool room (approximately 68°F) so you may have to drop the multipliers if you are not in a cool work environment. I believe the power settings will work the same for lower multipliers. Set your Processor Cache Ratio to match your multipliers. If you look at the multiplier high/low range with CPU-Z, the maximum value should match your Processor Cache Ratio. (You need to close and relaunch CPU-Z to see it change.) Doing this helps prevent power throttling.

Set your BIOS to match this screen and then set XTU to match the settings shown in the screen shot below.

click images to enlarge full screen in a new browser window​

If you can keep the beast cool, it is capable of achieving far more performance with more aggressive voltage settings... you'll need AC cooling for 4.6GHz since the fans rarely ever kick in. Here is what a 4.6GHz wPrime 32M run looks like with A03.

​

​

---

Edit: Adding this information for easy reference.

A friendly reminder that we need to let Alienware know much we would appreciate having a fix for the BIOS and EC fan table issues. Please take action using the following links. Your voice is more likely to be heard in a Dell Community Forum or Dell IdeaStorm thread. Thanks in advance for taking action, especially if you have not already done so. If you promote something at IdeaStorm, please also include comments about why you feel the idea needs to be implemented.

Alienware 18 CPU Throttling | Dell Community Alienware Club
^^^please share your story here and ask when a fix will be released for the BIOS and fan tables

Alienware 18, 4930MX Overclocked up to 4.3GHz only reaching to 3.9 GHz | Dell Community Alienware Club
^^^please share your story here and ask when a fix will be released for the BIOS and fan tables in this thread as well

Dell IdeaStorm | Alienware: Enhanced / Customizable Fan Control
^^^this has 67 votes, no action has been taken to fix the problem, but it got archived for some reason, so please vote and comment this up again

Dell IdeaStorm | bigger power supply or dual psu for high end 18s please (18x-18
^^^without this, there is no point in buying one with top specs unless you are merely a gamer that is happy with stock performance

Dell IdeaStorm | Unlock the Bios on the new Alienware 18s ~and~ IdeaStorm Petition: Unlocked BIOS for the 4930MX
^^^this is "Enthusiast 101" - they need to either remove the restrictions so we can unlock and flash it for ourselves, or provide it to us already unlocked

Dell IdeaStorm | Desktop CPU's in AW 18
^^^the "Throttle King" (4930MX) ain't good enough for a true enthusiast - they need to think about moving in this direction because this is what many of us want in an Alienware 18

Edit 1/24/2014 - See this post for useful information.

Edit 12/30/2014 - For a truly amazing CPU cooling solution, see this post.
​

 

Oh this is nice, will definietly try when I get the new laptop

We usually have around 72°F at home more or less, so should be able to handle it.

 

you put AW18 mobo in your m18x chassis?

 

No, I still have my fantastic M18xR2. This is an Alienware 18. They are made completely different and the parts are not interchangeable.

 

I will try this tonight when I get home, thanks so much Brother Fox

 

Awesome tutorial, this will help meanwhile we get everything set on our side. Sorry about the huge wait.

 

Fox, thanks for the thread.

I did everything you suggested and the results are even worse. I don't even have to run the benchmark for the system to shut down now. Just any application will do and the system just shuts down, not even BSOD.

This is really frustrating now. It reminds me a bit of the search for the needle in the haystack...

I would be curious to know if I am the only one with this problem, or do you guys out there have similar problems while toying around with XTU....

 

Trying lower it to a lower multiplier, say 42x or even 41x. Setting a higher multiplier could potentially make it perform worse, because of how hot the Haswell runs. Key is to make it run as close to full speed as much as possible. I have gotten 937 in XTU benchmark running at 4.1GHz before.

Unfortunately with the rising thermal density on Haswell, it gets a bit tricky. And you have to remember each CPU has a slightly different thermal ceiling due to slightly different performance and efficiency, and that's due to statistical variation of transistors.

 

nice tut,

while we wait for Mr. Porras to kick so butt and get us proper bios

 

And this is with the 4930MX? If so, how odd that it just shuts down like that. I wonder if something else is wrong. It should not do that. I haven't done anything out of the ordinary with this one. If you have an MQ CPU, these settings will not work. The settings are well beyond the power limits of of the 4700/4800/4900 MQ processors.

 

I did the same to me. It would shut down even upon starting Intel XTU. I set the BIOS as suggested but lowered to 4.2. Then, uninstalled and reinstalled XTU, then set all as suggested, aside from lowering the clocks to 4.1 because of the insane temps. At least now it doesn't shut down like.

Thanks a lot Brother Fox. I try to keep room temp around 70 (can't stand it higher). Using the settings above, with a 4.1 overclock, I see temps like 61C ~ 81C idle, and 84C ~ 94C under load (played Metro LL for half an hour). They seem to high, I might have to settle for either a 4.2 with some throttle and decent temps as I had it before, or a 4.0 on all cores, but no room for anything more unless I want to stress the CPU with those temps. I'm feeling a bit disheartened.

 

What sort of volts is it actually pushing through?

 

Haswell runs hot. Don't feel sad. With room temp of 80-90F, I can keep it at 4.1GHz stable. Beyond that it seems that I am going away from the sweet spot, and won't be stable unless I pump in a lot of voltage.

Plus, the fan doesn't really kick in until the CPU is too hot. Then it kicks in hard, and when it gets colder it slows down. Then the CPU gets hot, and it kicks in hard again. Sort of like a repeating pulsating behavior.

Your load temp in game seems to be very slightly higher than mine, but should be fine.

I will let you guys know once I get my mobo replaced, in less than 1 hour the Dell guy will come. The ETA from Dell is very accurate.

Me faith in Dell has been restored, but I will only say hail Dell if they fix the BIOS before 2014.

 

The voltage shows in the video and screen shot in the opening post. It is lower than normal voltage settings (which is too high by default) and that why is strikes me as odd that it works so great for me and causes severe overheating for the two that have tried. Hopefully that will not discourage others from trying. It is as easy as two mouse clicks to go back to defaults in XTU.

 

Eh... I'm locking up and shutting down as soon as I start a stress test. I went with 42 multi and temps seemed in check, but I dunno. Thanks anyways brother fox.

 

That's what happened too me, Brother Fox. I loaded the suggested BIOS settings, rebooted, and opened XTU. Set the values verbatim as per your screenshot (even tried with importing your profile) the notebook shut down immediately when I clicked apply. I had to uninstall XTU and reinstall it. That way I was able to import the profile and use the settings.

 

So, the settings worked after you uninstalled and reinstalled XTU? After reinstalling XTU and importing my profile these settings are working good for you? I'm glad if that is the case, but that is strange.

I have never seen an example of such inconsistent behavior among Alienware laptops of the same model with the same CPU. It is very puzzling... it should be that 1+1 equals 2, but that does not seem to be the case universally.

Haswell processors are the hottest-running I have ever seen from Intel. Including the AW 18, I am using 4 machines with Haswell and all 4 run much hotter than Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge. All of them have throttling issues. From what I can see, this is true with mobile and desktop Haswell processors. If I were building a new desktop, there is no way I would be going with a Haswell CPU. I guess even Intel has a blunder now and then, but I am surprised that Haswell isn't a better product.

Haswell is very voltage-sensitive and the default voltage is way too much. If you run ThrottleStop or wPrime benchmarks and look at the voltage, it is always under 1.2V under load unless you are overclocking beyond 4.3GHz. At idle the voltage goes up, under load it goes down. I am not having issues with lockups or shutting down using lower voltage with the 18. I do have issues with shutdowns under load when the 780M SLI is also under load (like gaming or benching). But simply benching the CPU without the GPUs I do not experience that.

 

I did try and warn people past 4.1ghz the heat output skyrockets like no cpu before it.

 

Yes, after several attempts only after uninstalling and reinstalling XTU the computer didn't experience shutdown s. However, I haven't dared going to 4.3 because at 4.1 I'm already seeing crazy hot temps. Same settings as you showed. I wish the fans would do their job as they should, but you're right when you say that, aside from the fan issue, Haswell runs way too hot. They should call this CPU Intel (hot) AsHell.

 

I can run the 18 easily at 4.3GHz without AC in a cool environment, but I have to drop it to about 4.1 or so in a room any warmer than 70°F.

This is silly because my M18xR2 runs at 4.3GHz 24/7 with c-states disabled and never overheats.

 

You know, this is making me think there is more going on here than we know. Mr. Fox is right this isn't making sense. There is no reason for this not to have worked as it has worked for MR. Fox, and honestly the 4.3GHZ is not extreme really. When I tried late last night, my bios reset all the overclocking settings after installing XTU, I am not sure if that was the cause, or if there was something else at play. I will try again tonight, but if it still doesn't work I am seriously going to start to wonder if there is some technical reason for this laptops to be gimped.

 

^^^Exactly^^^

It makes no sense at all. I flashed the same A03 BIOS and with allowance for some minor variances in results there should not be a remarkable difference between these machines. Settings that work fine for one 18 should not be cause crashing, freezing, BSOD, etc on others with the same specs. Temps are a different story, since the condition of the thermal material and environment come into play. Everyone should be able to run 4.3GHz with same power settings even if the machine gets too hot for normal use for it to be left at that speed.

 

Well setting it to OC LVL 2 bricked my mobo again, and that's after the replacement mobo was in. I think one would be better off setting the multipliers and the rest of the stuff yourself, ie follow what's in this picture: http://i.imgur.com/S4b0vsR.jpg, by setting the Extreme Edition Core Ratio Limit to 'disabled'.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/732084-aw-18-freezing-crashing.html
Alienware 18, Random Lockups - Alienware Forum - Alienware Club - Dell Community

 

Brother Fox,

I can say at stock under 100% load I am not going over 68C, so I am inclined to say that temps are not the cause of this. They could be, and without further testing I can not say for sure, but it is looking to be a deeper issue than we might of thought.

 

The Haswell CPU downclocks without high temps if the wrong power settings are used. The is why Core Current Limit being set at 32.000A by default is a bad thing. If you use XTU and set Core Current Limit to 112.000A (not possible before BIOS A03) this should help at any CPU clock speed... stock or overclocked. Processor Current Limit is also too low by default at 55.000A, but you can raise that with XTU. The higher the core multiplier ratio the more Processor Current Limit you need. At stock 90.000A is probably enough for the 4930MX. At 4.3GHz you need about 135.000A. You can test this with ThrottleStop or wPrime 1024M benchmarks (32M is too short). Start the benchmark and while it is running use XTU to increase the Processor Current Limit until the CPU clock speed goes up to where it is supposed to be.

The default voltage is too high. If you notice in ThrottleStop or CPU-Z when the CPU is under load it is not using 1.2V. It is like 1.09v to 1.18v even at 4.3GHz. Using more voltage than necessary creates heat issues and it also causes the CPU core speed to drop. I do not know why some folks got a BSOD with 1.175V for Core Voltage, but in the opening post I show to use "Default" (which turns off Adaptive mode) and an offset and that actually works OK for me. However, temps are lower for me when I manually set 1.175V with an offset with Adaptive mode and I do not see any freezes or BSOD. Why others do is a mystery.

For those reading this that have an MQ processor, 112.000A for Core Current Limit should still be your default as well. The other settings might be too high and may cause your system to freeze or turn off. If it does, for example with Processor Current Limit, try something more than 55.000A but conservative... maybe 95.000A... as a starting point and work up or down until you find the setting that is stable, but high enough to keep the core clock speed from dropping under load.

 

You are right, it's not about high temps. If I leave everything at stock I see very low idle temps and under heavy load (let's say Crysis 3) I may see a pick in the 70C~ now and then. Even if temps are high I never experienced thermal shutdowns. Notebook only BOSD or reboots if I drop voltage.

And that's what makes me wonder why the moment I lower the voltage to anything below 1.2V and hit apply I get BSOD or shutdowns, even with 4.1 overclock, which isn't very taxing for the machine, really. I'm sure that I need a slightly different combination of values. I need to tinker more with XTU.

 

I know, right... doesn't do that to me at all, and I cannot understand how that can be with two system with the same hardware configuration. It's very bizarre.

 

Well, you're about the same as mine. 1.18V at 4.1GHz, anything less I got BSOD. Anything higher than 4.2GHz, and I will need a lot more voltage, close to 1.3V.

We need to be able to set all those settings in the BIOS, without having the risk of bricking the mobo.

 

I don't need 1.3V until I hit like a 4.5-4.6GHz overclock.

Here is some other information that is fitting for the 4930MX overclocking topic. Regarding the dual AC adapter mod... I know many have been anxiously waiting for me to report on this.

There is nothing wrong with the dual AC adapter mod as it relates to the AW18. I did a lot more testing and it works for the AW18, but provides no benefit. By "working", I mean the AW18 works perfectly with it connected. It identifies it as a 330W AC adapter and functions flawlessly. By "no benefit", I mean that the AW18 turns off at the same point regardless of whether I have the single or the dual AC adapter connected. If I heavily overclock the CPU and GPU, and/or if I over-volt the 780Ms higher than 1.025V to try to get killer benchmark scores like the M18xR2 the AW18 turns itself off. This happens at the same load point without tripping the AC adapter circuit breakers on the dual AC adapter mod. It also shuts itself off without tripping the single AC adapter circuit breaker most of the time.

There must be some sort of power regulator or current protection added to the system that turns it off once a certain power demand threshold is reached. That, or the motherboard circuitry is not as robust as the M18xR1/R2 and it is unable to handle the same power demands. I have no idea which is true, but having the system power itself down is certainly going to be an impediment for number chasers trying to beat the M18xR2 with a new AW18.

This could be something specific to this AW18. I am hoping that Northstar* is able to use his dual AC adapter with the AW18 successfully, which will tell us whether or not it is a universal problem or something specific or wonky with this AW18.

 

You will blow for blow get more heat per mhz than ivy especially above 4ghz so it will be normal to get lower clocks.

 

Well I for one am just about fed up. I have spent the past two hours trying to get this machine somewhat stable at 4GHZ using these settings and the advice in this thread. I am begging to think that the hardware just isn't capable to achieve these clocks. The worst part is I am just outside of my 21 day return policy. I have plenty of warranty, but after the two previous failed machines I really do not want anyone to open this up and start mucking around the inside. I am seriously doubting that a bios update will fix the issues with this CPU/ MB. I am very happy that Brother Fox is having such great luck with his machine though and hopefully the others in the thread get their kinks worked out.

 

Ok, speaking of oddities, read what happened to me. Tonight, after so many BOSDs and shutdowns, I was finally able to set XTU to keep 4.2 on all cores and see decent temps.

@Brother Fox: before reading the following keep in mind that we are both using Intel XTU 4.2.0.8.

Today, I noticed that upon importing your profile Core Current Limit and Processor Current Limit would... switch their values--one showed the other one's supposed value. What I mean is that Processor Current Limit would set its value at 120.000A (instead of 135.000A), and Core Current Limit would show 135.000A (instead of 120.000A). As well, it would Enable both Integrated VR Faults and Efficiency Mode. At first I thought that I was overlooking something or switched them myself as a mistake. I reset all to default, rebooted, and imported the profile and bam! Core values switched again. I tried and re-tried several times and that's what happened every time. Whenever I set the values manually and I hit apply the Core values would switch and invert... I thought, what the hell? I had to uninstall and reinstall XTU again, and this time I set the values manually (not like yesterday where importing the profile was the first thing I did), and now they are sticking. I am also seeing far better temperatures. At this moment, I have a 4.2 OC, and idle temps range between 58 and 68. If I import the profile, same clock, voltages and all, values switch and at idle I see a lowest temp of 70C. Isn't this super weird?

I don't think that there's anything wrong with Brother Fox's profile. I believe that for some reason my installation of XTU got somewhat corrupted and it doesn't accept imported profiles anymore. Before re-installing XTU I saved a different profile, exported, rebooted, changed values, applied, and finally imported the profile I saved and... bam! Core values inverted once more and again higher temps.

So, I don't know if others might be experiencing the same or similar issue. I wouldn't have noticed this discrepancy between values if I hadn't taken a screenshot of my XTU and compared to Mr. Fox's screen in the opening post, which show the optimal values for this level of overclock (4.2/4.3). My advice to those who are experiencing high crazy temps at idle with modest overclock, BSODs, and shutdown is to uninstall and reinstall XTU and insert the values manually (after setting 4.2 and all the other values as showed by Brother Fox). Maybe I'm talking to soon and will experience shutdowns again, but so far so good. I played Metro LL for a while and temps ranged between 74 and 87, which is totally normal considered the situation (although still high because of the funky fan-table). At least it's nothing like before. Now I will wait, keep using it with this overclock and see what happens.

By the way, I totally agree with all that's been said above about this Has(not)well Intel CPU.

 

went to start a game after doing all kinds of benches, all satisfied and whatnot, with the exact setup..

made an odd zzzzeeewwwwppp ! noise and went dead.

However, after an hour of stressing and such I hit 100,000 MIPS and 51,000MB/s memory without passing 71 degree's celcius. So its not temps that killed it.

 

Could there be an issue with quality control of the individual components of the mobo?....if that were the case...it may explain why the settings don't work consistently from machine to machine..

 

Yup, that's what happens to me, too, if I lower Core voltage below 1.200V: zzzzerrrrrrph, blue screen, and dead.

 

I will receive my mainboard replacement next Tuesday. According to the Dell tech support guy, he talked to a level 2 tech support guy, and he told me that the new AW 18 has only single BIOS, but the M18x has dual BIOS, so one can recover it easily. Not sure how much of it is true.

I have told them to bring down a 4700MQ is possible. I'd like to test out if changing a CPU to a 4700MQ will indeed reset the BIOS for those who have the 4900MQ and 4930MX. That's what Mr. Onyoto found out.

Alienware 18 Teardown

Unfortunately, I didn't get any further information regarding a way to reset the BIOS on the AW18. And I asked clearly, for a way to reset the BIOS on the AW 18. There was no followup whatsoever, I felt like I was hushed along. The only thing I got was an email saying the ETA. Clearly, there's some problems that Dell doesn't want to let us know.

 

Glad to hear that my settings are working for you by entering them manually... excellent news. I will delete the profile since importing it is not working well on a different machine. Using my screen shots to set things manually and saving your own profile is probably the better approach anyhow.

 

Hello all

I have a 4900mq QS in my 18", which replace the original 4700mq. I OC only with XTU usual.
This morning i want to OC with the same settings Mr.Fox have posted in fist page, just 3.8GHz (for beginning) on all cores instead of 4.3GHz, not extreme series :/ And set the power / turbo time at max.

After reboot, i had a black screen, with keyboard back light and led ok Not possible to restart it...

I put the 4700mq and magic, boot ok After reset the bios in performance options, i reassemble the 4900mq and boot ok. I do that two times, the first i put the 4700mq the pc boot but i haven't reset the bios before reassemble the 4900mq and the screen stay black...

Two users on P4G french forum (4700 and 4900mq CPU) had motherboard switched for that problem. Switch CPU to another seems to operate. If it could help anyone

 

Thanks for telling us this useful information. Another user also had the same problem, and had to put in the 4700MQ to reset the BIOS.

Mr. Onyoto explained the steps here. He has both AW 17 and the 18, and one has 4900MQ and another has 4930MX CPU.
Alienware 18 Teardown

I am actually waiting for a mainboard replacement too, and this is the second time it happens. Sadly I don't have the 4700MQ around to reset the BIOS. This is not the first time the problem with OC on CPU causing the computer to not POST. There have been quite a few cases here.

I am sure Alienware reps frequent the threads here. Hopefully they take note.

 

Well, that's a lot better than having to replace the motherboard. But, man... having to swap CPUs to reset the BIOS is a little bit crazy. There needs to be a way of doing this that does not involve disassembly. Pulling the bottom cover is not a big deal, but I cannot see all customers having the will or skill to do this.

Thanks for posting cyoo33.

 

I received a reply from Susan Thomas and basically she said nothing new. Whoever posted about her being absolutely useless when it come to getting things done was right on. I am sooooooooooooooooooooo sorry I got a replacement for my R2,especially this 12 lb. paperweight. I put mine on ebay 2 days ago. I have had it!

 

Also, not everyone wants to have a 4700MQ around at home just for resetting the BIOS. I don't mind opening up the chassis, nor pulling the whole thing apart.

I just wish there could be some sort of button for dual BIOS. Or a flip/toggle switch, like those on the newer GPUs that have dual BIOS. It wouldn't cost Dell much adding one or two more components onto the mainboard, and I am sure it's not that tough of a work to change the layout of the mainboard to accommodate for one extra flip/toggle switch.

 

@ Rafix and Mr. Fox

Hi Rafix,

I followed your instructions and it seems to have done the trick:

All these messed menus in the BIOS and XTU, I had exactly the same experiences as you, as well as the items in XTU switching from left to right.

It seems that re-installing it and then adding the values manually is the best workaround. Once there are problems, it seems that re-installing is the only way it will work.

I included a screenshot of my settings and my benchmark score. It is actually the first time, the system went through the benchmark test. There was some serious heating though, between 80%-100%, and some CPU throttling as well, up to 35%, so please check this out guys and let me know if all is ok like this.



Also, the post from cyoo33 from France with the machine going dead has me a bit worried. Can this happen to me as well ?

 

Hi Omadon. I'm glad that did the trick. Isn't that so weird what we went through to make this work(-ish)? For the record, I saw the menus switching from left to right as well--XTU was totally messed up.

Anyways, it's good news that at least now you can keep a 4.1 OC on all cores. I keep mine the same, and if I try anything higher temps skyrocket. I tried the benchmark too (got a meek 842 though) and ran it for 5 minutes. I didn't see any excessive throttling and temps ranged between 74C and mid 80's. When you ran the benchmark you saw the CPU Throttling tab signaling up to 35% or that's something you gathered when you saw the CPU frequency drop from 4.10Ghz to maybe 3.81 or 3.71? I believe that's normal as this benchmark stresses the CPU in a different manner from the way wPrime or TS do. Do you see the same level of throttling when you run the CPU stress test in XTU?

EDIT:

I think I understand why you're seeing higher temps. I compared our settings on hwbot.org and realized that you might still have Processor Integrated VR Faults and VR Efficiency mode Enable. Make sure you disable them, and you should see your temps drop, just like I saw happening on mine.

 

Those faults and efficency settings are new for Haswell? Or is it on ivy too

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk 2

 

Ivybridge do not have integrated voltage regulator (VR), hence those settings are only on Haswell CPU.

 

That is a good score Omadon. Glad you got it sorted.

I agree with the information rafix73 posted.

 

If I'm correct, it is because of Intel Watchdog Timer.

Watchdog timer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
what is Intel WatchDog Timer - [H]ard|Forum

 

Hi all,

I found a trick to change the "power settings" and "turbo time" in the bios without blocking !

I will try to express myself without making mistakes, it's ok for 4700/4800/4900, can't test with 4930Xm but should work...

When i active the menu "Overclocking feature", i change the "Long Duration PWR Limit" to its maximum (99W for non extreme), "Long Duration Time Window" to 56s (after i increase in XTU), the same for "Short Duration Power Limit"...

Once these adjustments have been made i just disable the menu "Overclocking feature", F10 for save and tadam !! Under XTU i see the power at 99 Watt
Strange no ?

This method seems to be safe, for adjust the Power to the max, the coefficients, time max and core/processor current limit can be change under XTU without problems.

I can run Cinebench @4GHz, no throttle how you can see.


855 points at XTU bench @4GHz
ratatouill`s XTU score: 855 marks with a Core i7 4900MQ

 

okay, can the WDT be uninstalled, and how does it always get installed to begin with ?

Hey fox, thanks for letting us know, the dual psu MOD WILL BE FINE TO USE might as well be using it now, hehe

Ive had like a few people ask me in PMs if it was safe to use, and I had to admit, I refused to be the first to use it. ( new machine , but DELL did not give me warranty with it, odd I know)

mine barely has a heat sink, BUT I threw on a TEC that will convert the heat into 12 volts, to turn on a small fan (like a small chipset fan /w sink), to cool it, hahah, so the rectifier technically cools itself. always fun