M18x BIOS A05 released - Discuss here....

M18x BIOS A05
Download Type: BIOS
File Format: Hard-Drive
File Size: 3MB

Fixes & Enhancements
Improve AMD graphics fan algorithm to fix system shutdown issue.


Download / Release Page Link:
Direct Download - http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER00181378M/2/M18xR1_A05_W32_X64_ZPE.exe or,
ftp://ftp.dell.com/FOLDER00181378M/2/M18xR1_A05_W32_X64_ZPE.exe


Funky release page - http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/usgen1/DriverDetails/DriverFileFormats?DriverId=K0XYF

Updated AMD Driver Release from Dell is here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ver-p06-8-902-released-dell-discuss-here.html


---------------------------------------------------------

Issues? Post away...

 

Thank you Dell. And ahead of the late December early January time frame. Hope it works for all 6990m users.


Someone brave test this bios for sli nvidia 580m users? Wonder if it reports fans speeds to system better on nvidia too.

 

You took the #2!! This thread was locked few mins ago. Its my 99,999th post!!

Well , so far so good for me , waiting the A05 to be unlocked by bar-code team.

 

nuroo, you can easily test it yourself. If you note any issues, just flash back to A04.

The changes implemented in A05 should not have any impact on NV GPUs as they only apply to AMD GPUs.

Give it a try. Shouldn't pose an issue.

 

I have updated. Ran a few benchmarks and played Alice for an hour and it seems very good so far.

 

I'm gonna chill on A03 until someone brave can report back positive results. I wanna know if they fixed DPC Latency with Nvidia reference drivers............

 

of course your right batboy. I was just being overly cautious. But even you use the words

But i'll accept your call out and report back later tonight

 

The new A05 has fixed all my issues with over heating. I no longer have to boot into Bios to insure the fans spin up. It is working perfect just like it should of right out of the box. my fans start spinning at 62 and then ramp up from there as needed. Real happy!

 

Am I the only one who can't get the link to work?

 

apple, try this one:

ftp://ftp.dell.com/FOLDER00181378M/2/M18xR1_A05_W32_X64_ZPE.exe

 

Incredible. Fans work as they should. Gpu temp hasn't gone over 70. Thx for the link BatBoy.

 

Um.. one question. Why isn't the Canadian website not updated?

 

Cool guys,

I'm gonna give this a shot. Even though I don't have the thermal or fan issue I'd like to see if it improves anything else or makes my M18x more stable.
Thanks for the dl links BatBoy!

I'm sure hoping to hear from the mass users out there that were having thermal and fan issues post here with Brilliant results after installing system BIOS A05.

EDIT: Okay just installed. Everything good so far.

Cheers.

 

Great and I JUST installed the custom A04 firmware, now I need to wait for a custom A05...

 

works fine for me

 

Dell-Bill_B, this driver is working perfectly fine on my system with 580M SLI, and seems to be for Axiofevil35 as well. It has caused no adverse effects that I can see. Also, no visible improvements to be perfectly honest. So, fellow 580M SLI owners... knock yourself out. Nothing to fear and nothing to be gained that I can see.

I am super- excited about the success of this fix for our comrades with malfunctioning 6990M CrossFire. The responsiveness of Dell/Alienware to the needs and concerns of M18x owners since the beginning of the year has been nothing short of phenomenal...

• OSD/Aero Bug... FIXED
• Team Green Conference Call... WOW!
• 580M SLI Throttling... FIXED (well, almost**)
• Team Red Conference Call... WOW AGAIN!
• 6990M CrossFire Fan and Overheating Issues... FIXED
• Dell AMD Graphics Driver Update... DONE

​

I hope that the head of Dell Product Group Marketing has seen what a dynamite job you are doing of representing Dell/Alienware and building confidence in the brand. You are most definitely appreciated in this community, sir.

Also, please let Mr. Bruno know how much we appreciate his hard work and quick resolution of this issue. The next time I am in Austin on business, I hope I have an opportunity take both of you to Rudy's for a big helping of that mouthwatering extra-moist BBQ brisket as a small token of appreciation on behalf of all of us. Time permitting, we can go to Taco Cabana to get some Carne Guisada for dessert.

_____________________________________
**580M Throttling - apply the Dell vBIOS update, then go here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-throttle-fix-no-vbios-flashing-required.html to find a safe and easy fix for the throttling issue.

 

Fox any improvements in temps for the 580Ms even slightly?

 

Great work Bill_B (Dell)!! A05 has been working like a charm for the last 4 hours. GPU temps max out at 70 deg C Thank you also for your help on the video drivers.

 

I was still working on my post when you inquired about this. Please refresh your browser and you'll see my answer above.

I ran a 3DMark11 bench test and got an identical score. Haven't done any other testing yet, but there does not seem to be any benefit for 580M SLI. Will know more when I kick into gaming mode this weekend.

I was hoping A05 would help with DPC latency, but it did not. Maybe this can be the next thing to be resolved. I'm going to start pecking away at finding the cause of that issue so we can get it fixed.

 

Great work Dell-Bill B.

Just an observation.

Before System BIOS A05;
I'm not sure if it is just the hot whether or just coincidence. However since installing the new system BIOS A05 i have noticed that both GPU fans are on and running regularly now. Instead of last time where the CPU would run at 2000rpm and the primary left GPU would run at 1800rpm.
The right and 2nd GPU fan would stay completely off until a game or something GPU intensive was activated.

After updating to System BIOS A05;
Atm while typing this the rpms read 2000 CPU and both GPU fans are running at 1800rpm.

Cheers.

 

Been running A05 on my M18x/6990 CFX without hiccup since the release yesterday. Only comments:

1. went back into the BIOS-update tool after patching to take a screen shot. All fans came on. Exited the BIOS-update program but one fan remained at take-off RPMs. Restart sorted it out.
2. the 2nd GPU fan seems to be running all the time, and is thereby more active, ie running alongside GPU fan 1 and not waiting until is's hot. Ie it's fine

Job well done to all involved

 

Hey Yeti575,

Yup I noticed the exact same thing about GPU 2's FAN being more active now. It seems to be running all the time along with GPU 1's fan now.

Cheers.

 

No prob

Just come through a near all-nighter playing Skyrim. GPU Temperatures never went above 71.5. Fans were running steady yet never noisily. Been logging with GPU-Z since I got the machine two weeks ago. I need to get Excel installed so I analyse temperatures

1. Before Mobo replacement
2. After Mobo replacement and before A05
3. After A05 update

Back to gaming

 

I was lucky enough not to have the thermal issue with my 6990's, so I'm hesitant to fix something is not broken. Are there any other gains to this bios? I'll all about updating to the latest and greatest, but the system is working flawlessly right now.

 

I updated mine with no issues, and it seems like no changes to the system what so ever.

 

Updated mine as well. The system seems to be running cooler.

 

anyone have a link on how to update bios easily and safely? thanks in advance.

 

oncdoc - download M18xR1_A05_W32_X64_ZPE.exe to your desktop from one of the links BatBoy provided in the opening posted. Double-click it, click OK and let it run. Reboot when done. No more instruction is needed... couldn't be any easier.

 

Updated mine from A03 with no issues, seems like no changes to the system.

 

The only M18x owners that are likely to see a change are those that were having issues with fans malfunctioning, overheating and thermal shutdown. For those folks, it seems that A05 has fixed the problem and for that we are very grateful.

 

Wow awesome work dell This is exactly why dell is the best. I have a quick question I have bios A00 is there anyway to back up this one before I upgrade to A05 Thanks

 

so this bios makes the 2nd gpu fan to be constantly running even with it should normally be turned off when not in sli mode? if so i suspect that this bios increases the noise polution of the system and i will not be installing this since i do not recal experiencing any thermal issues or shut downs on this machine at any one point.

i really do not want a louder system during idle or light activity.

 

I'm the same as you ARGH,

During light usage and idling moments I don't want the noise pollution either. The M18x does this really well when during light usage and idling. Very limited fan noise pollution.

I have noticed that the 2nd GPU fan seems to be much more active however during less usage I have seen that the 2nd fan does indeed turn off again.
It just seems that it is much more active now though after the update to A05.

During initial cold boot the 2nd GPU fan remains off for a certain period however it then starts to run a few minutes from there on in.
If you aren't experiencing any thermal issues then yeh there is no need to update to A05.

Cheers.

 

I do not get any extra noise with the A05. the gpu fans idle down to where I can't even hear them when surfing the net. So much so I keep checking that they are still working..high end gaming notebook no fan noise. That just seems wrong..lol My m18x is very quite more so than my m17x R2.

 

Hey there Alenwolf,

I totally agree. The M18x's cooling system is awesome. with the fans running at 1800rpm to 2000rpm they are doing a great job and are pretty darn quiet too.
My M17x R2 is soo noisy under load and it gets really annoying when the CPU fan revs up every single time even under the slightest bit of load. We can only start to hear the fans on the M18x when we start up a game.
It's brilliant.

Cheers.

 

Well, thought I would flash this for obvious reasons and everything seems fine right now. More or less.

Spoiler

The above is more or less right after bios flash, nothing open with just a few minutes of monitoring.

Primary went up to 65c before kicking in, I certainly noticed that upon rebooting after the flash, I had no system fans come on...I left it idle at desktop and then the primary kicked in. Not much activity from the secondary but I will monitor this.

Temps hitting 73c+ on gpu sensor #3 on the primary is somewhat concerning at idle, I will see how she goes under a bit of load.

 

Did The bios flash yesterday and the new AMD Dell driver the day before. Also seeing a max temp of 72c on primary number 3 after a bit of webbrowsing. Ran 3D mark 11 yesterday with a max 84 on primary # 3. Thought my 3dmark 11 was lowish 6265 with xfire 6990 and 2720 cpu.
Great job by the Dell/Alienware guys by the way on solving the problems with the 6990 systems!!

 

Just been playing Crysis 2 for a while and both cards show a max "main" temp of 70-71c, the #3 on the primary maxed out at 84c. Secondary temps were more "in line" with #3 being only 6c more as opposed to 13-14c for primary.

Not that much different to what they were before the flash - I just dont like the fact that there is such a large spread of temps for the primary

 

Hey Stevie, just 5 minutes ago did the same , ended up with pretty much same temps as you, main card 74, 2 card 72, # 3 on main 84, # 3 on 2 card 78.5. Been seeing these temps since I have this beast. Thank you for all your efforts by the way. Learning a lot from this forum! Repped

 

Thanks for the rep! - NBR is a great place to keep up with news, advice and anything Alienware related - I'm still learning too, but it's fun!

 

mr fox, thanks will try. cheers !

 

Hello everyone,

I got my M18 1 month ago, and quickly suffer shutdowns due to overheating. I live in france, and there is only few M18 running, so the technicians from Dell were surprised by this problem, and were unable to explain it. By the way, after a change of motherboard, I'm running a system with the A00 BIOS. So far, I've not met any overheating problems, but my system is still quite hot.

Do you think it would be safer to upgrade to the A05 BIOS ? I tried to get it from Dell, but the link is broken.

Thanks for your reply !

 

It fixes Thermal shutdown

It won't hurt to update though.

 

Hi, can someone confirm the MD5 of this file, I downloaded and the download was interrupted and I resumed again. The download link is blocked at work so cannot download it again, in short can someone post the MD5

 

Here you go... 36BBE14576757394F4A34DFB4601D4D3

 

Am I the only one that has noticed?

One minor thing this BIOS update fixed for me that was a real annoyance was NUMLOCK... it's default is now ON at boot instead of OFF. That's a reason for me to update all by itself, since there is no place in the BIOS to set that up. I always have numbers in my passwords, so even though it is minor, it's awesome not having to manually set NUMLOCK every time I start Windows.

 

That's enough to make me update too, that was driving me nuts as I have numbers in my password too.

 

Omg that totally drives me nuts with the m17xr2! This is great news.

 

I have installed the A05 and I still feel that my cards get too hot. I don’t remember my original system with the same 6990 configuration getting so hot. The new system only stays in the mid to upper 60’s temp wise when stressed but this seems pretty hot, enough where the bezel over the keyboard is warm/hot to the touch. I also never feel air blowing out of the right side. I played Skyrim for a few hours and it doesn’t shut down but I feel that the temps are not so great. When I crank Speedfan up the temps never go over mid 40s and the bezel stays nice and cool. I can feel air from all regions in the back. It is loud but at least I know it’s not doing damage. In any event I am glad that my 580’s are still pending.

 

mid to upper 60's when stressed is extremely good temps.