AW M15x Throttling Issue Investigation - Stock clocks and overclocked.

My throttling has gotten worse since I bought my G35 headset. I guess the extra power being sucked up by them is drawing power away from the GPU. This sucks

If I ask for a 5850, will they just send me the card? I don't want to deal with the hassle of a technician. Plus, considering all the horror stories I've heard, I trust my own skills better than theirs I don't want to end up with a mountain of thermal paste in my machine.

How does the 5850 compare to the 260 and the 5870?

 

Funny you should mention this.. I just got done showing Dell some tests I did with furmark.. One was no USB devices used at all.. 2nd was using my MX518 mouse and a USB hard drive. The results clearly showed a power prob as the throttling got worse when the USB stuff was plugged in.


So with that said, Dell finally admitted to this 100% ... I am in constant contact with 2 engineers. One of which is working with this closely and will continue to do so till it is fixed they say. So now its a waiting game ....

 

Dell is going to saddle you guys with half baked fixes so they don't have to own up and give out proper power supplies and a true bios fix. Plus they don't want customers nagging for 5850m replacements. Totally lame on their part and they should not have designed such a poor machine to start with.

 

you said it joker

 

It sucks, because this laptop is extremely well designed otherwise.

 

yea. I'd honestly just give up on the 260m. Its not worth the wait. i Waited 5 months for a fix, and never got one. So if i were you id call and insist on a 5850m till you get one.

 

The post that says it all

 

I wouldnt give up just yet... as I mentioned its being worked on... I have some communications going on that most prolly dont have. However I cannot give any more details regarding this just yet as I gave my word. However I assure you all things seem to be making progress.

 

Unless you signed an NDA, there's nothing really to hide unless Dell plans on more compromises. If they were intent on truly fixing it they'd be candid about it and convey that info. to everyone. I've dealt with Dell so often (and met their AW engineers) and I have zero faith in them fully fixing this issue for the M15x.

 

How likely do you think it is that Dell would replace a 260M with a 5850 if you were able to repeat the issue? Only asking because you've said you dealt with Dell a lot

 

People have already gotten 5850s (or in J's case 5870) so they will do it but it takes a lot of work.

 

Well its not about an NDA, I just gave my word and because of my situation regarding this I am choosing not to speak about this quite yet. This is to protect my involvement with them, with that said I assure you there is some progress. You would prolly do the same thing at this point. To me my information serves no good untill I have solid proof of some changes being made. As soon as I am given the green light to speak in detail on here I will for sure.
I do not know how close you were working with them but I have one of the engineer's personal cell numbers. Plus I have many statements in writing, IMO that would be a dumb move if there were not real progress or at least a focus.
However I do as you do have some doubts as we all should since this has taken so long to even see the light of day, but I think I am prolly a bit more persistant then you

Getting a 5850 should be easy to talk them into. I would just call and ask to speak to a AW manager regarding the issue. If you are persistant enough it will happen no doubt. One thing you could do if you have a 920xm and a 260 would be to run furmark doing 4 tests. One on A03, test with two USB devices in (ie Hard drive and nice mouse) then test with out the USB devices. Then run the same tests with A05. If you show those screenies to a AW rep there is no way he could deny it. Then point out that there were 5850s sent out to fix this. They prolly will then swap it out. I personally would do that if I liked ATI, plus I am in school for animation and all of our progs and 3D engines are optimized for nVidia.

I personally would be curious as to how someone got a 5870 from AW as they arnt even a option for this system.

 

Dell has 'fixed' the Studio models throttling problem with a BIOS update & free Higher power adaptor. Hopefully they will realise this problem occurs with the M15x and do the same (wouldn't mind a 5850 though).

Dell finally makes right, offers up-rated power adapters to close the Studio Throttlegate -- Engadget

 

Call it Dell being dumb, Call it fluke, Call it DESTINY , but Dell gave me a 5870m by accident. Crazy stuff huh?

 

They've done things like that for my civilian job (IT worker for the DoD). Our contract w/Dell states that we're supposed to get 80GB HDD's and recently they've screwed up and sent us a couple of 250GB drives.

 

Shows how organized they are! lol

 

I did some tests last week and found out something quite peculiar. I started my machine with the ac adapter plugged in and the graphics were choppy from the beginning. This means there was no time for throttling, the fps were low and gaming was awful before my M15x could suffer any stress.

So I decided to try and unplug the ac adapter and then plug it back in while I was gaming. To my surprise, after a few seconds the game (L4D2) was running flawlessly. I dunno what happened but everything was working well after I did this (played 4 hours with no issues). From this day on, before powering up my notebook, I unplug the ac adapter, power up, wait until the BIOS is bypassed and plug the ac adapter back in. When I do these things, games will run OK.

I dunno what's happening. Maybe the power brick does not provide enough energy for the M15X to work properly? It might be somehow related to the issue discussed here. Any ideas?

I have an Alienware M15X, core i7-720QM, GTX260M, 4GB 1033MHz DDR3 RAM, 320GB 7200RPM hd, Windows 7 64bit just recently formatted and 258.96 clean installed driver.

 

could be just stealth mode kick in for some reason and unplugging and replugging must of reset it. next time log it with gpu-z then you will know what exactly happened.

 

Will do.

I just started reading this topic. I tested my AW with OCCT and saw the throttling happening. Is it safe to run throttlestop to adress the issue? Or should we wait for a bios fix?

I'm sorry if those seem like dumb questions, but I'm still reading the entire topic (page 31 by now).

 

throttle stop is safe, but that is for cpu throttling. gpu throttling is fix with oc tools like riva tuner. hopefully the new bios will fix this.

you don't have to read everything, all the main info is on the first post.

 

This is the result for my gpu test under OCCT

 

That's a fine example of throttling, yes.

Run prim95 and Furmark at the same time , with Tmonitor and GPU-z open to clearly see it throttle in real-time.

Also what you said before about the low fps with the AC adapter plugged in, could be the 3d clocks didn't kick in yet and it just so happened that the time it took you to unpug and plug , it finally kicked in. I'm not saying this is what happened, but it's definately something to keep in mind, as this has happened many times to me before. Sometimes the 3d clocks wouldn't kick in at all, but thats another issue all together.

 

The majority of NBR members feel it is 'safe'. If anything happens as a result of its use, I doubt Dell will honor warranty work (and no, we are not going to entertain discussion of how they would know).

If you are not seeing an issue, 'forget about it'. wait for a fix.

 

Ok, as soon as I get home I'll run the tests.

Yeah, about the ac adapter stuff, I previously did 3 tests:

1) Plugged in all the time from the start-up = Games are choppy (probably 3D clocks didn't kick in as you said) and stay like this indefinitely, until I unplug it and plug it back.

2) Unplugged it, start-up, plugged in right after I hit the power button (less than a second after) = Games are choppy and stay like this indefinitely, until I unplug it and plug it back.

3) Unplugged it, start-up, plugged in after bios bypass = Games run OK


So, the way I see it I have two problems on my M15X: 3D clocks are not kicking in and Throttling...

 

lewz, what do you mean by bios bypass?

oh, on my system (i7 720qm, gtx260) i tested using a wattage meter, i managed to force throttling using occt with the psu on what seemed to be an average of around 120 with a peak at 135.... without using rivatuner/throttlestop it kept throttling back to around 98 watts.

funnily enough, i do the gpu test, it doesn't throttle. peaks at 125, average around 115. it seems when you get to around 130ish it will throttle back. will do more testing when i get the spare time.

now a question about the power adapter, that 150 watts, is that peak or continuous power? i'm guessing it's continuous otherwise we'd be in serious trouble right?

 

@ leWZ

hmm from what you wrote sounds like Stealth mode is on, (the speedomenter touch button). I say this because stealth mode lowers your cpu/gpu clocks to use less power when plugged in. But since it only works when on AC power, it gets disabled when on battery. And by u unpluging and plugging, sounds like you found a glitch in the program, and stealth mode turns off. ( Comand Center is REALLY REALLY glitchy).

When you have the time to try it, the first thing i would do before anythign else is install GPU-Z and click on the sensors tab, which will show youexactly what clocks your gpu is running at, and press the Stealth mode button on n off. You will see the gpu clocks change as you press it, and will help you diagnose your problem much more easily.

Here's the link:

Download GPU-Z 0.4.4 - FileHippo.com

 

I tried stealth mode on and off but it didn't solve the problem. I'm thinking powermizer might be the issue. I just installed a powermizer switch to set it off and I'll be doing some tests with it.

 

don't think the powermizer switch is a good idea. could cause more issues. but who knows. but highly not recommended.

 

What kind of issues? The default setting is to leave powermizer turned on at all times, right? (with the ac adapter plugged in and under battery use)

 

... Things are progressing

 

so any word on when the fix is coming????

 

Well the only thing I can say is the usual "when its done" However there is progress!
inap, Is the throttling happening with your 5870?

 

no problem with throttling with the 5870 at all. and thanks for keeping us posted with the progress.

 

How does that 5870 run compared? I mean performance wise. Also have you tested with WoW or Furmark by chance?

 

i ran furmark with no issues at all, it maintained its clocks perfectly. i don't play wow, so i can't say. but performance wise, judging from vantage and 06, i would say its almost double the performance of the 260. real solid gains, even 5850 is out performing the 260 big time. 5850/5870 really unleashed the beast.

 

What a feeling! (Irene Cara) it must be for those who got the 5870 working on their system.The throttling problem is similar in many ways to the iphone 4 signal issue (lack of testing and design flaw) but for significantly better customer service from Apple. Need to sue their buts if they don't offer me a solution soon. Sent a recommended letter (way things are done in France - until it is sent by post and signed off by the recipient, the case isn't official) and still no reply. Loathing...

 

How long did you let Furmark run? 5-15 mins?

 

left it on for 7-8min, turned it off because the ram temps were getting too high, hitting the high 90's but core temps were hovering around 85. but in games my ram is 80-81 maxed and core about 75-77max. its okay but getting a cooler anyways.

 

Hey all, first post.

Been reading this thread for a few days now. I too have the infamous GTX260m throttling issue on my M15x.

So I decided to call Alienware, and see what I could do.

I happen to own a small IT business in my area so I am decently computer literate. From what I could tell, even their "level 4" technician wasn't very savvy.

After a 2 hour phone conversation and Alienware "Contact" sessions, he came to the conclusion that I need my ?Processor? replaced? I have the core 720QM, and It scored a 4.6 on the Windows Assessment test, so he came to the conclusion that was causing the issue. I beg to differ, but I suppose I have to just go with it, so after they come install the new processor, it can just continue to throttle. So I can call them again and hopefully then they will swap my throttling POS 260 for a 5850.

I hate dell tech support.

 

Where could I purchase a 5870 ?

 

Those techs are general techs.. engineers at AW in the states are working on this as we speak and making progress. The 260 isnt exactly the problem. It seems the throttling is less as the 5850 is a 40nm core thus consuming less power and not triggering it. Certainly that is a solution however if you like nVidia I would stick it out

 

Guys, about ThrottleStop and Rivatuner, I read as much as I could from this topic and decided to give both programs a try.

I had throttling when making tests with furmark and while playing GTA IV LCS, so I followed Joker's instructions, used the programs and the throttling stopped. But I'd like to use those measures only when I play demanding games that will stress my M15X.

So, after knowing the throttle was gone, I restarted my machine in order to return it to the previous functioning state. This way I could surf the web and watch videos without pressing my notebook too much.

It happens that gpuz is showing me a constant performance with high GPU clocks. So, what should I do to turn RivaTuner off and let nvidia's powermizer determine which clock will prevail according to the tasks I'm performing?

 

Hey Lewz, not sure you can let Nvidia figure out the clocks, you might save different profiles within Riva-Tuner, one with high clocks for gaming and another with settings for web surfing, video-viewing... unless I missed something

 

rivatuner goes a little spastic with the latest drivers. i do exactly as nzfarmer said, and make multiple profiles.

 

So a little update on my situation.

The tech came out today and replaced the mainboard, and cpu. I knew this wasn't the issue, but they insisted it was.

Of course, after replacement, the GPU still throttles in every game I play.

So I then contacted Alienware and told them about the service done, and how the problem still persisted. The tech told me basically there was nothing he could do, they will not own up to the problem, and just give me the card I want. He said all I can do is wait it out for the BIOS update to fix the card. So how did you guys go about getting them to replace your 260 for a 5850? It seems like the people at Alienware won't budge. Who do I need to call? What number can i reach to get some justice? They are absolutely aware of the situation at least, and are working on a fix. But even when that is all said and done, I will still have an inferior card all because Alienware won't do whats right.

 

Hey, I think your argument is wrong. Its the card you have ordered, so if there is a fix there shouldnt be any problem with that. What you should be mad about (and tell them) are the following points:

1) You need to use the laptop right now and not in 2 months time. Thats the reason you have ordered it and not waited another two months.

2) You paid a premium price for premium quality and hardware. Since December (thats when I bought the machine), the 5850, 5870 and 460M came out, which all beat the 260m in performance. Its kinda pointless to pay the premium price if you can only use the technology 8 month after purchase

3) The NBD warranty promises you a solution within the next business day as long as hardware parts are available. I would accept the wait if there was no solution available, but since there is one, getting a no for an answer might be considered breaking the warranty contract. No idea if that would actually hold legally (Im not a lawyer).

4) Other members have gotten a replacement without any issues.

It seems that dell Europe is much more strict to its customer than the dell US. I tried to get a ATI for my Nvidia by calling the tech support couple of times, but kept getting rejected and the issue is still unresolved. I have now sent an email to [email protected] (as far as I know this is not a personal email address, therefore it shouldnt be against the forum rules to post it) complaining about the issue and am awaiting a reply.

 

I just wanted to chime in really quick and say that I just started noticing issues with system performance when gaming. I just recently picked up Starcraft 2 and have noticed that while I am playing (regardless of graphics settings) that I have spikes / points during Campaign mode where the video and audio freeze for a second and then resume. After reading through this thread and looking into some of the tools that have been talked about I am pretty certain I am suffering from throttling.

I made sure today to update my bios all the way to A06 and am wondering what are good next steps for trying to resolve this. With so many pages in this thread it is impossible to know if there is a fix (from Dell) or what course of action that is recommened outside of what was stated on the original post.

Any comments / suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Either you're a patient person and you wait for them to release a fix that will be included (sources I cannot verify) in A07 or you call Alienware if you are still under warranty to ask for a hardware change (5850 would take you a long way), not sure about the fix offered by Joker on the first page, although the BIOS for the GPU from the 260 to the 240 should be no different. But, seeing your specs, I wonder if it is throttling you are getting and not some other issue. Throttling systems aren't really victims to freezing but rather to a meltdown down of performance. Make sure you run GPU-Z while playing your game, take a screen-shot and post it here so our pro throttling-busters here can help you out. Throttling usually only shows up on systems equipped, in the case of the M15X, with the 260M-GTX.

 

All good points. I will try again tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day... until I get what I want. It's ironic even, I'm currently competing in the Alienware Arena / CEVO / Samsung tourney for Battlefield BC2 right now on a machine that forces me to lose my competitive edge because of my faulty hardware. Bleh.

 

You could use the throttling fix from this thread to get ur edge back.. Or you could get the 5850, I am sure you could talk them into it. Or..

There is a fix coming eventually, that is certain.. I cannot say anything else but it is for sure.