AW M15x Throttling Issue Investigation - Stock clocks and overclocked.

Yup you can though for stability nothing beats using actual games. Vantage is also pretty decent for stability testing.

 

hey joker, did yo get my PM? im really confused

 

Thing is, most of my games don't crap out when testing these clocks and when i test it out in Furmark my vid card drivers crash. *shrugs*

I'll stick with my current clocks of 675/1625/1100 They've been stable while running furmark but reach up to about 89-90c =x

 

yea right now mine hits about 70% gpu load when playing BC2 at 900p high .. furmark does great when I let it run for an hour.. temps hitting right below 90c.. gonna just let it run like this and when the new ati cars come out I'll upgrade and overclock that as wel

 

A bit on the off topic side but... Does anyone with an M15x have a 280m on it? If so, does it throttle just the same? I would think if it is a bios issue it doesn't matter what card is in it, correct?

I was somewhat thinking about swapping the 260m out for a 280m. Thing is i don't know exactly how much i can get away with before i void my warranty (4 years =x)

 

ok dudes I might have the definitive fix for the iphone sync issue .. today my dad received his new 16GB 3GS, he has a new i7 acer laptop with PM55 chipset...

As I expected he was bombarded with the usual errors and unable to sync.. Finally got it to work, I'm seeing if I can post the neccesary files without having it include any personal info from my own iphone..

OPPSSS ment to post this in owners lounge, sorry

 

I would wait for the new ati cards to come out, the 280 will maybe give you 10% increase, thats it.. I believe someone noted that with the 240 it didnt throtlle as it uses less watts..

 

Hey I was wondering when running the throttlestop, the section where it said multiplier. How many is it suppose to be? Mine go up to 14 that it. Thank!!

 

For an i7-820, the default multiplier is 13. A ThrottleStop setting of 14 tells your CPU to use the default multiplier of 13 and the extra +1 tells the CPU to give you as much turbo boost as it possibly can based on load. The less load and the less cores in the active state, the more turbo boost you will receive on the remaining core or cores that are awake. Setting it any higher doesn't make any difference which is why it prevents you from going beyond 14.

 

Hi uncle, first off thanks a lot for TS it has made my gaming experience a lot better with this laptop. However just now when I restarted my computer I'm getting this error when I try to start the program: "Could not open WinRing0.dll". Should I just reinstall it? Also, would the default multiplier for my 720 be the same as an i7-820? Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Redownloaded TS and it still cannot open the file. Uh oh?
EDIT2: Another restart and it's back to normal. Weird. Still wondering if I should set the multiplier to 13 or leave it unchecked though.

 

The i7-720 has a default multiplier of 12 so the maximum ThrottleStop setting is 13 for one of those.

Sometimes the WinRing0 driver has trouble opening up and I have no idea why. I didn't write that driver. I know Kaspersky antivirus can block its use. Some other third party utilities, some of which also use WinRing0 might cause problems.

If you get something figured out let me know. I'm assuming that ThrottleStop and the WinRing0 stuff are all in the original folder and sitting somewhere convenient like on your Desktop and that you have Administrator privileges.

 

Yep you assumed correctly cause it is sitting right there haha. First time it has ever happened to me but another restart and the program is working again. Regardless thanks for the quick reply!

 

For maximum performance, if you are using ThrottleStop then you might as well leave the Set Multiplier box checked and you might as well set it to your maximum which is 13.

Run a single thread of Super PI mod and you will see that your multiplier should go a lot higher than that on the core / thread that is running the benchmark.

 

koo thank Unclewebb!!

 

òkay, a quick story for everyone. I took my m15x on an abroad trip 2 days ago, flying on a 747.

I plugged my m15x to my seat's power supply, turned on TS, riva tuner, with overclock of 675, started up COD MW 2 and...................

The row in front of me, my row, and the row behind me......we all lost power!!!

apparently my m15x tripped an electrical breaker responsible for our seats power outlets!!!

one of the co-pilots had to go down to the avionics room, and trip the breaker back to ON.....

Yeah, kindda funny story.....and scary too, I bet if you plug the m17x that will take out the engines too......crap!

It's a true story, unless your 85 watt 9 cell battery is fully charged....you can forget about using your m15x or m17x on the plane, since we can't plug them in airplane outlets...or else we'll be tripping electrical breakers.

 

Was that with stealth mode on? Would be a bit ironic if stealth (which annoys the hell out of most) does not even work as intended

 

I knew ThrottleStop was powerful stuff but I had no idea it could bring a 747 to its knees.

Now not only do I have to worry about Dell hunting me down but now I'll also have to worry about the US government looking for me too. When they find out about this they might add me to their terrorist watch list. I could use a winter holiday to a warm place but I was hoping for somewhere other than Guantanamo Bay.

 

With my M15x, I got sometimes troubles with WinRing0. But never with my SXPS 1645.

Today I looked and the Alien OSD use WinRing0 for start. Maybe a bug between OSD and ThrottleStop ?

 

My opinion is that it is a WinRing0 or Windows bug. When two programs try to open up the WinRing0 library, one program can get blocked. I've tried to change my code 101 different ways and to add some delay to give the library a chance to open, etc., etc. but I was not able to solve this problem.

You could try upgrading the WinRing0 driver that Alien OSD is using if it is using an older version.

Good news. On the XPS 1645 thread Dell plans to look into the throttling issues more seriously and plans to offer a higher powered adapter to help with the problem. Maybe they will also decide to take the M15x a little more seriously.

 

Maybe, although the power adapter didn't solve much from the first post by Joker...

Either way we'll just have to wait and see. =/

 

Hey Unclewebb I noticed that when i run the throttlestop, it only increase performance when I open it after the game is open. If I open it before the game is open then nothing will happen. You know why is that?

 

It shouldn't make any difference when you start ThrottleStop. You need to post some testing with FPS rates or a ThrottleStop log or two. There might be something going on here that I don't know about but ThrottleStop is a simple program that should work the same either way.

 

Without ThrottleStop, the M15x throttling arrived at ~145w for me
With TS + Rivatuner : my kill-a-watt displays 172 watts on Furmark + Prime95.
I think, it's the same problem that the Studio XPS 1645. Dell makes a throttling for not exced the 150w of the AC. Just my sense

My opinion : Dell can't win ~30w with only the throttling of the CPU (in the SXPS 1645, the throttling of the CPU saves only 20w) and they decided to throttle the CPU AND the GPU for win ~30w.

 

out of topic- but do u think its worth buyin an alienware m15x now or should i just go for something else? thanks.

 

How do you copy picture from your computer screen?

 

fn+print screen button to take a screen shot than open up photoshop and press ctrl v to paste.

 

What's the power on the M17x power adapter?
I'm assuming it's a lot stronger than the 150w of the M15x so...

If that wasn't able to solve the problem what kind of power supply would you need, if that's the case?

 

Hi all;

Now here's a problem worth resolving. My system equipped with a 720qm ran well but I was craving for the extra grunt of the 920xm. An offer I couldn't refuse showed up, as they do, and I replaced the 720 by the 920. No issues during the operation, the system booted fine and asked to be restarted, which I obliged and I have been amazed by the performance of this processor.
However, my M15X is mainly used for gaming and in every game I have installed (Mass effect 2 or MW2), the game will run at a steady frame rate of 40+ before the screen flashes black for a fraction of a second and the fps drops to 15-25 fps during 10-20 seconds. This process continues at regular intervals. Cpu load seems well distributed and it isn't at 100% at any time.
Any possible explanations?

Kindest regards.

Specs= M15X - 920xm - 260M gtx - 4GB DDR3 - Blu-ray - OCZ 60GB SSD.

 

The 920 uses a lot more power.. do you have the bigger battery? I don't know if you'd need a bigger ac adapter too?

I'm having a problem today that seems rather odd. Woke up this morning, turned my computer on, opened Riva Tuner to apply my overclock settings (just using 550/1350/950 default) and noticed it was back to 383/767/301... What the $%^&? After trying to set the clocks back they would always revert back to those numbers. After that I decided to restart and my video driver stopped working (186.81) and so I reinstalled the video driver but now I still cannot apply the riva tuner settings. Can anyone please help?

EDIT1: Tried using the 195.62 driver as well, but whenever I click apply and exit the OC tab it reverts back down to those clocks. Urgh

 

Had that issue with the 720 actually and never solved it. for the first 1 or 2 runs, all would go well and then huge loss of fps, dues to underclocking. ANd about the 920 I didn't think dell would supply their systems with three different voltage AC adapters for the three cpu variants. But then you might be right, I'll keep looking.

 

On the same subject.....when I use RivaTuner, whenever I restart my M15x it reverts back to 383/767/301. Every time I boot I have to adjust the clocks back to stock (550/1350/950), because the default RivaTuner settings are underclocked. Is there anyway to make the default Rivatuner clocks the factory defaults?

 

Is this some basic mode the discrete video goes into when not tapped for full 3d? I noticed the same thing with the monitoring tool under Rivatuner... soon as I started a game the clocks shoot right up.

 

What you're describing sounds like powermizer. Which downclocks when the extra power isn't needed. It seemlessly jumps the clocks back up as soon as the application becomes resource intensive. The only time I've seen powermizer active on mine is when I was running the 195.xx drivers. With the 186.xx I never see it down clock for powermizer. My issue is more of a convenience thing, I just don't want to have to open up rivatuner and keep setting the clocks back to stock. Rivatuner automatically defaults to clocks that are less than factory, I'm just wondering if there is a way to change this.

 

I did everything in the first post to update bios and use ThrottleStop but now when I restarted I cant open ThrottleStop it says could not open WinRing0.dll any ideas?

 

Hey corrupt05 what is your 3dmark06 score?

 

anand00x: The WinRing0 problem can be an issue with another program on your computer that also uses the same driver. It might be a version conflict. Have a look at some of the other utility programs you use and see which ones are using WinRing0. I use it for ThrottleStop and RealTemp but I have no problem with either of those programs or even running multiple instances of each program.

 

I have my current GPU clocks on riva tuner set to:

547 Core Clock
1345 Shader clock
945 Memory Clock

What is the safest max settings I can take these to?

Is it ok to run at these clocks all day I have it run along with throttle stop right at startup?

 

anand: use your arrows keys to put it to 550/950/1350.

Everyone else: If I open the overlock tab and set the clocks then hit apply then clocks seem to stay at the settings i put em at. if i close the oc window they revert back. ???

 

Really. When I open up Rivatuner I change the clocks, hit apply, then ok, and it stays at the clocks I selected. I can't remember,but there might be a step that you missed when setting up rivatuner. Maybe Joker will respond, he's the guru on this one.

 

should be able to close it and it'll stay until you restart. then you gotta restart rivatuner and reenable those settings.

 

Has there been any replies from that Dell guy regarding all of this thread? I havent been on there in sometime.

 

Hey Joker which folder are you talking about when you said, "Locate the directory you extracted the Win98 files."? When i extract the file there is a bunch of folder. I don't know which one. Thank!!

 

So is this problem is totally solved by throttle stop?

 

ThrottleStop is a band aid and you'll still need to run RivaTuner as well. All ThrottleStop can do is react after your computer has slowed down. It's good but it's up to Dell to fix this properly. Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen though.

 

Wow. Looks like Dell can't get anything right. I'll need some convincing to get an M11x after all this.

 

Sorry to go off topic, but i wanna ask why does my computer automatically switches on itself like a restart whenever i choose to shut down my computer. I don have a battery attached to it, and whenever it shuts down, the alienhead morphs to black and blue when the screen turns dark. Then all of a sudden, the computer boots up again. Does rivatuner cause this ?

 

Do you have a external keyboard or moues hook up to your laptop?

 

I've been having this problem for a while, it actually seems to be related to the Nvidia drivers. Other people have had some luck using different drivers but the only times mine would shut down properly was when I had the Nvidia drivers uninstalled. I put in a new hard drive recently and on a clan install it was shutting down properly for a week but now it's starting to reboot again.

Until a fix is found I suggest pulling the power plug before hitting the power button, for some reason this works (and yes, I have checked power management settings).

 

had this same problem, i just update my nvidia driver to 195.62 and it solved it.