AW M15x Throttling Issue Investigation - Stock clocks and overclocked.

who would have thought WoW is a good test for stressing out hardware. it's normally bashed for its ageing engine

i still love it though.

yeh with the a03 the only time i found it throttle was the furmark + prime95 test.

but with the a06 it was throttling everywhere. at least with it more noticable it is harder for dell to dismiss.

 

Well in my opinion it is better then usual as it also has a large tax on the cpu not just the gpu. However for me even with A03 it still throttles in wow, just much less. With my config it seems most things throttle.
Also a downside to A03 is the sound prob, which seems it could be related.

 

G'day team,

Recently bought Supreme Commander 2 and immediately noticed some serious lagging. Rolled all the visual detail down to medium but I was still getting lagging at times.

So after a bit of light reading (took me all afternoon to wade through the 140+ pages in this thread) I downloaded and ran Furmark 1.8.2, GPU-Z 0.4.3, HWMonitor, RealTemp 3.50 and ThrottleStop 2.0. Seems I too was getting some throttlling with a stock (haven't even tried/not interested in OC'ing) system prior to activating ThrottleStop. I've now made a bunch of elevated shortcuts so the above programs load when the laptop boots into Windows 7. So thanks all for doing the hard work!

I'm using the stock 186.47 nVidia drivers and nVidia control panel shows that PhysX is enabled. However, the bottom line of GPU-Z Ver 0.4.3 shows that my nVidia GTX 260M card has Cuda enabled but not PhysX, is this normal? Also, my FurMark scores are only ever between 1400 - 1500, which seems low compared to other online results???

And to think three weeks ago when placing the order I specifically asked if Dell Australia would be selling the M15x with ATI 5850 within the next month and they said no... but checking online last night I see they are now selling the M15x with the ATI 5850 card!

 

Hmmm, installed nVidia driver Ver 197.16 and GPU-Z 0.4.3 now reports PhysX is enabled. Also Furmark score increased to 2000... this benchmarking at 1920x1080 pixels.

 

The first SupCom + Forged Alliance kicks SupCom 2's butt for the record

 

There is little doubt your laptop has fallen victim to the throttling monster.
Better start the complaints to TechSupport if you don't want to put up with OC'ing your system.
I've been trying for 2 months now, and the outlook is still grim.
But I guess Australian tech support will be closer to the UK's in efficiency as opposed to the french.
While you wait, Riva-Tuner works, I haven't found throttlestop to be necessary.
Still surprising you are getting this issue with the 820qm...

 

See if Dell will allow you to "Downgrade" to a 5850m. Apparently on the site it's less then the 260m so maybe it they won't hassle you much.

 

Yep, just emailed them. But in saying that, after loading nVidia ver 197.16 drivers I've just finished playing SC2 for an hour with all video details set to high (had Throttle Stop running) and didn't notice any significant screen lag. So I re-ran FurMark (with Throttle Stop disabled) and I didn't see any throttling with GPU-Z. How strange???

 

still get the 5850m as you have the ability to still do that.

 

is it possible to switch the gtx 260m to a 5850m without cost???

 

you get your system replaced with a 5850m in the place of the gtx 260m

 

seriously?? then people who have problems with their GTX260m does not call dell to have it replaced? from what I've heard the performance increase is substantial

 

yea but they won't do this unless your still in the 21 replacement stage after the delivery date.

 

ah! okok and how much cost the card if you want to buy?

 

more than you would think pal but im waiting a while before i buy it from dell as its a good upgrade from the 260m imho. (Love ATI, HATE nvidia(not really hate just i like ATI so much more))

 

jajajaja i understand, i want to get an ati card, and i know the easiest mode is to buy babihemi 5870, but im scared about the issues

 

if scared of the issues get the ati from dell but its around 380 that last time i heard anything about the price. best is to contact dell directly and get a quote on a 5850m for a M15X and go from there. if the price is too much pm babyhemi

 

totally agree, but at the moment im saving money xD

 

LoL AW support sent me and exchange and guess what ??? It throttles as expected but now once again proving to them that this for sure is a prob.
Nothing new rly. However working with two Dell reps from here and one Manager at AW that has admitted that this is a defect. Hopefully this will lead somewhere.

 

well hope it gets you something in return maybe a perfectly working machine also downgrade your system to the 5850 and the throttling should go away it uses less watts by about 24 which is quite a bit

 

I personally want nVidia but thats just meh.

However I would encourage everyone to contact erawneila or that chris dell guy from the Touchpad polling thread. They seem to be a bit active in communicating this stuff to engineers at Dell. Right now I have 3 people say they are looking in to this. Sounds like we are on the right track. However after this amount of time much of my warranty is gone LOL

 

Hey guys. I think i'm experiencing throttling in my Alienware M15x.

I have the i7 720QM 1.6Ghz, Nvidia 260m, 4GB ram, Windows 7 64.

I play Battlefield Bad Company 2 or GTA 4 for like 10-15 on medium settings at 60-40 FPS and then it drops massively to 10-25 FPS for no reason. Does that sound like throttling?

If it does, is the fix on the first page going to help me. I'm not sure if it's specific to another cpu or gpu combination.

Any help or advice is appreciated as i've been experiencing this problem since i bought it in Jan and i'm not really educated massively in rivatuners and stuff, but i'm confident i can handle following the instructions.

Thanks!

 

if you need to do video or photo editing keep the 260 if not get the 5850 less chance of it throttling as it uses less power than the nvidia card.

 

run gpu-z in the break ground when playing games, if you see the gpu down clocking then it throttling. but bfbc is pretty demanding sometimes, in a massive fire fight the fps will drop.

 

It's not even in firefights. It just drops to a completely choppy framerate for the entire session i have. I think it is throttling. 148 pages dedicated to the system i have, it must be.

I downloaded Riva tuner to do the fix on page 1, but i can't get it to recognise my drivers. It just says none detected. Any ideas why? Does Riva tuner have a delay on recognising newly released drivers?

Thanks

 

Ok, well i've forced it to recognise my drivers (257.21) for my 260m. But it wont let me enable driver level hardware overclocking. It says Reboot or Detect and whatever i click it just does the same when i try again.

Any ideas? I want to sort out this throttling issue and i can't because it's giving me problem after problem.

UPDATE: After calling Dell and moaning and moaning and threatening court action etc i'm getting a call back from an agent on Monday, he might be able to help and i was told i may be able to negotiate an upgrade on the CPU. Any ideas of what i should ask for? The guy said that his duo core on his M15X is better suited... Any thoughts?

Thanks

 

you need to do a battery pull and hold the power button for 20 seconds so that the system can discharge all power in it and have a cold boot.

 

That will just turn off my laptop though. This is frustrating.

 

you need to have your laptop turned off in the first place to do a battery pull and discharge lol

sorry if i was unclear before

 

I turned it off. Done the cold reboot and opened rivatuner when i got back on. It still wont detect when i click on 'Enable Driver Level Hardware Overclocking'. I click on reboot and detect and nothing happens.

I'm never gonna get this stupid machine fixed. I think i might sell it as this i'm getting nowhere. Does Rivatuner take it's time in recognising newly released drivers and could this be why it wont detect for overclocking settings? It just refuses to let me add my own clocks.

 

Use nst or evga, Riva tuner is real buggy , well at least for me it was.

 

It's the precision tool for EVGA, right? Can i use that for my Nvidia cards and can i do the fixes that have been made on the first page using that?

Will it be pretty much the same?

Thanks

 

Well i tried to throttlestop program, and that version i was given on the first page is 2.0 but the one shown on screen is 1.75. I can't set the multiplier to 22, it only lets me go from 13 down to 7.

Rivatuner doesn't work, EVGA precision doesn't allow me to set anything, it's purely for overclocking. I want to do the fix on the first page to stop my system throttling. I don't want to overclock, i want to stabilise it.

Can anyone help me please

 

Hi Phil:

Make sure the Stealth mode is disabled.
Second, download the drivers from the dell website and install them.
I tried to use 257.21 myself with mitigating results.
Don't know whether or not you followed the GPU flashing procedure indicated in the tutorial on the 1st page but I had to carry it out in order to use Riva-tuner.
Don't go through this unless you are sure it is throttling you are experiencing although the 10-15mins at 60-40fps does lead me to think that might be the issue.
Do use GPU-Z as indicated in the background and watch the pretty red curve draw itself on your screen (whilst in-game).
If you carried out every step in the first post and are still experiencing the issue,
we have a new issue on our hands.
Start contacting Dell now if you want your issue to be adressed.
2 months on and they are still trying to exchange bits and bobs in my system.
Keep us updated.

 

Ok, are you getting any improvements then? Also, with the CPU throttlestop i am not able to actually do anything with it, it just doesn't work. I don't know why. Did you have success with the fix and stuff?

Doing OCCT tests at the moment. Will keep you updated. Thanks for the help!

 

These are the results from my OCCT CPU/GPU test over 10 minutes. Does this tell you anything conclusive? It seems to drop to 30% every 1-2 mins.

Imageshack - 2010070223h22cpu1.png
Imageshack - 2010070223h22cpu2.png
Imageshack - 2010070223h22cpu3.png
Imageshack - 2010070223h22cpu4.png
Imageshack - 2010070223h22gpu1.png

Also, i wanted to ask why i should use the Dell drivers. They are from 09/2009. Is this to use with rivatuner or to see if it stops throttling or what? And am i meant to have the GPU-Z on screen during game or can it be logged?

Thanks again

 

Well yeah this looks a lot like throttling.
Here is what to do:

Start laptop and stay on desktop.
Run GPU-Z, go to the sensors tab and select "Continue refreshing this screen while GPU-Z is running".
Take a screenshot (print-screen) to post it.
Second, run a game for 5 minutes or more until you notice lag, let it do its thing for 5 more minutes, exit the game and take a screenshot (print-screen) to post it.
This should help us get a vague idea what the issue is.
Then, run Furmark with the settings set to: Stability test- Xtreme burning mode, uncheck fullscreen, set the custom size to 1600x900, check post-processing and select 8xMSAA. Run the test for 3 minutes and take a screenshot which you may post as well.
I use the dell drivers because they are, I found, the most stable to run with Riva-Tuner.
As soon as you'll have Riva worked out, you won't need to worry about throttlestop any more, the CPU will do its thing.
Just keep an eye on temperatures time and time again after a gaming session.
Post your 3 screenshots and we'll select a course of action from there

 

Ok, i'm gonna do all that up to rivatuner. I got the dell 186.47 drivers earlier.

On startup Rivatuner says 'Cannot load rivatuner32.sys driver - Please ensure this file exists in Rivatuners folder and your user account has administrative rights'.

It also refuses to find any drivers so i've forced a driver version in the settings, it still says no supported driver for this display but i now have the half arrow option. So i go to system settings. After this when i click on Enable driver level hardware clocking, and it goes to detect or reboot, if i do either of these options it just brings me back to the same thing. I click and click on it and it just asks to reboot/detect.

Any ideas on this? I'm gonna do the other stuff now though. Did you manage to get yours sorted in any way?

Thanks for your help!!!

 

Ok, i done all that. All the 3 screenshots are here.

I put the GPU-Z ones in one picture so you can compare easily.

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/5109/2shots.png

And this is the Furmark result - I couldn't see Post Processing option so i checked Post FX, thought it may be the same thing...?

http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/4076/furmark.png

This is done with newly installed old Dell drivers.

Thanks!

 

Wow it sure ran hot on Furmark 0.0
Yeah the screenshot on GPU-Z shows throttling.
However Furmark results leave me puzzled. I would expect it to show similar variations to the ones in GPU-Z.
Clearly your GPU is running far too hot. Steep climb to melting point and then a steady decrease in temperatures as it downclocks.
Also the GPU idle temperature (61) is quite high (have you got a 6cell or 9cell battery?) and 81 degrees at load is hot!
In any case your laptop is throttling, as when the temperature on your GPU reaches 86 degrees, it downclocks (to avoid melting^^).
As for your Riva-Tuner trouble, make sure you run it as administrator the first time (then set it to execute automatically at Windows startup), make sure you change the 3 settings in the power-user section (Nvidia/Overclocking/Enableperflevelforcing=1, Overclocking/Global/Disableclocktest=1 and Maxclocklimit=300), go to settings, "enable driver level hardware overclocking", set the performance to 3D in both tabs, set your default clocks (550/1350/950), select "apply", then save this profile as "Default clocks", checkt "apply these settings at Windows startup" and then click "OK", the program will prompt you to restart and you should be on the roll.

As for mine, they were about to replace it with "another system" when they decided they'd give "fixing" another go so I am waiting for the call
Good luck!

 

I'll try and do all that. I'm still having issues with this riva tuner crap. I read that one guy said he had to flash his GPU bios to get it working... Not sure if i'm gonna risk that. If i check any box or do anything it just reverts back to the default state. It wont let me check the button that says 'Run on windows startup'. It doesn't see my drivers and it says on startup of the program 'Cannot load rivatuner32.sys driver. Please ensure that this file exists in Rivatuners folder and your user account has admin rights'.

I am the admin!!! It just doesn't work.

My battery is: Primary 6-cell 56W/HR LI-ION

Could it be the battery?

It's also quite hot at the moment in London and i've had the machine on all day... If i could keep it cooler would that help, and maybe if i negotiate another battery maybe?

Thanks for taking the time to try and help me, i really do appreciate yours and everyones time in aiding me here.

 

I'm also wondering if the fan on my GPU is broken or faulty. Any thoughts?

 

Yeah, in order!

1. 9-cell batteries enable better airflow than 6-cell ones due to their added elevation (every degree counts).
2. Flashing the video BIOS is risky if not carried out properly - if you have doubts, do not flash your 260M.
3. Temperature is hot, yes, I am in the South of France at the moment, hitting 30 degrees in the shade but the GPU doesn't go over 65 degrees under load.
4.As for the fan, if you hear it spinning (right side of the laptop), it's working.

If the fan is working and elevating the back of your laptops without blocking the 4 air inputs/outputs doesn't solve the issue, you might have a thermal paste problem which a technician from Dell (contractors) can check as you should be under warranty or they will change the GPU, fan, motherboard... they'll change everything before considering replacing it and even then, no guarantee!
Not much more I can help you out with I am afraid, not such an expert myself, just learnt the tools of the trade thanks to other dedicated members in this great community.
Good luck with your enquiries, any more questions and I will be more than glad to help

 

Well, when i spoke to them on Friday they said they have escalated my issue and an 'agent' would call me on Monday about the issues i'm having.

They said an option is to negotiatie an upgrade on certain parts so i'm gonna try asking about my processor, maybe even swapping out the card for an ATI, if possible. And get the 9 cell battery.

Hey, dreams do come true!

So you're saying under a high performance game you get 65 degrees? And you don't get much underclocking?

I can hear the fan, but perhaps it might be the pasting.

I'll see what the Dell people say.

 

I am using Riva-Tuner so I do not get any underclocking
Keep us updated.

 

Will do!

And just out of interest, i don't think it will get any hotter if i manage to do the Rivatuner fix, but if i do the fix, could it then blow out the card? The other day my machine reset because of temperature. But it was 30 degrees and it was on all day.

Ta!

 

Since I have used Riva'Tuner, I haven't seen higher temperatures, however, in your case, keep a close eye on the temps!
Your throttling is quite peculiar.

 

Just to add some info to all of this. After they sent me a replacement, out of the box I install all of the games and gfx software I have. This system has the A06 Biois. Each game throttles ...
World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft Cataclysm Beta, UT3, Unreal Engine, 3D Studio, L4D2. . . using WoW it does it a lot.

This is crazy!

 

Hey Deex why not ask them to give you an ATI card ? unless your partial to Nvidia which i would not be at this point atleast in this machine, the ATI card has 0 throttling period even overclocked ....

 

So how would you rate the 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5850. I mean, comparing it to how the 260M 'SHOULD' perform.

I've seen some info on it and it seems as good.