AW M15x Throttling Issue Investigation - Stock clocks and overclocked.

Made a video of my throttling to show dell and I hope that this will somewhat convince them (probably wont)

For anyone who is still interested, here is a video of splinter cell running on the m15 without any throttle stop. Note, the video was taken with a camera so that GPU-Z is visible and no one complains about that issue coming from fraps or any other screen capturing software

M15X throttling video

 

that video shows definite throttling nice work +rep

 

Hey Wattos is this the GTX 260M in action or the ATI 5870 with the i7 920XM combo ?

Btw the tech guy came along today and of course with the wrong GPU he brought me the 5850 and i was promised 5870 anyways he said he didnt know about that and he called dell and the guy on the phone confirmed it but he told me that this is an upgraded version of the 5850 and he said that it performs better than the 5870 i was like oh yeah... cool i dont know if he was saying the truth anyways i insisted on getting a 5870. And he agreed of course. The tech guy told me that he knew about the throttling issue and he said that they arent really doing anything about it so he told me to go with the 5850 for now and wait for the 5870 and when they have it in stock they are gonna send it to me. I was like ok change it then for now this guy took like 1 hours to change the GPU he disassembled the whole laptop apart. He took the keyboard out everything and i told him that he could reach the GPU buy the back and just removing the power button panel but he said it doesnt work like that because he opened a m17x and thats how its done So at the end he figured out that he could've dont it the way i told him, however I knew he was pretending because he was really good and carefull not to break anything he was just wasting time because he was getting paid by the hour. Btw Can someone please confirm about this upgraded 5850 does it really exist or its bs.

 

This is the 260M. Sorry for not being clear enough.

I do not know naything about an upgraded version, but the dell 5850 are really very good and perform as well as the 5870 when overclocked. They also seem to overclock to the same levels for benching

 

They took my 260 away today. I tried the Fur+Prim95 with the 5850 + i got the I7 840QM no problems anymore it runs good and i tried it with the battery only High Performance option. The 260m was throttling like crazy when i did that. I did not try plugging the AC adapter in yet too tired maybe tomorrow if i have time. But I notice that the laptop runs really bad when only on battery i mean games they dont run as smooth when you change the display settings to max resolution and effects but when i plug the ac adapter it runs perfect. I tryed Starcraft 2 and it is easy to notice.

 

well i guess your stealth mode was activated when you're unplugged.. try to turn it off and see how it performs.. well have fun with your HD5850~

 

when your unplugged, then battery doesn't have enough power to gave you full performance. you can bypass it with amd clock tools and throttle stop, but still it will throttle back alittle. also the difference between a 5870 and a 5850 is marginal, if there is a difference at all. a simple flash of the card to 5870 clocks and you won't tell the difference.

 

I like the 260 Still, I mean the 5850 is good and most consumers would be happy with it. I just for some reason notice some lack of smoothness in some games, when compared to the 260M.



on another note.....
Aparently the Dell guy here is going to update us very soon. It seems they are done doing their thang and have a fix. I hope its not just a bandaid.
w00t Finally


Stay Tuned...

 

well thats some good news, so do you if its just a bios fix or something more.

 

upgraded 5850? sounds to me like they're using 5870m's in disguise hehehe...

ITs cool to see Dell offering you a 5870m in a M15x when its "supposedly" not supposed to be offered for the M15x...

Why don't they just Make it available for the M15x anyways... they'll get to charge a higher price than the 5850m and get a bunch of suckers to go for the 5870m, not knowing that theres really no diffrence between the two... i mean im happy theyre not doing that but i'm trying to think from Dell's standpoint.

 

bios fix <.<

 

from dell's standpoint, the return rate due to failure would be too high. They basically deemed it too hot for the average user. Not many people monitor temps and even fewer still are willing to open up the laptop, replace the paste and clean out the fans. Instead they would rather call dell (usually after the card is fried, thus costing dell even more).

can u imagine the 5870 with the default paste (pad?) they have on the gpu? it would fry in seconds.

 

So basically the 260M performs better in you opinion? I didn't try playing other games on the 5850 yet imma try soon and compare and see if i find any difference i already tried the 260 it was running good when it wasn't throttling back.

Btw i was wondering whether or not i should get the new GTX 480M that is like 900$ with 2GB ram i wonder if it is compatible with the m15x it looks like a crazy GPU but dunno if it would throttle back

 

even if the bios would support the card, the power consumption of 100W is way too high. If you take the 920XM + 480M you are already at about 150W power consumption and you need to have power for other stuff. THe ac adapter would not be able to handle that. Also it is questionable whether the mobo could provide the 100W to the graphics card. FInally, Im sure that heat will also come into play.

 

Hi, I've been following this thread for a while and attempted to monitor my own system using the GPU-Z tool.

My system spec
----------------
Alienware M15x
Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium
i7 920
4GB RAM
GTX 260M

I have changed all my settings to high performance options regardless as to whether I am running from battery or AC adaptor (for the record I only power the laptop via the AC adaptor).

I ran the GPU-Z tool and noticed the stair casing effect (see attached image) I assume this to be throttling but this happened whilst I watched a movie on youtube. Is this normal behaviour? Is it fair to assume that the gfx card could potentially throttle whilst watching an online movie as it doesn't need to be running at full capacity or do I need to run this program in the background whilst playing Starcraft 2 to get a realistic impression as to whether the gfx card is really throttling when it shouldn't?

I would appreciate it if someone could explain to me why the graphics card should need to throttle at all unless the laptop is set to a low power saving mode.

Thanks in advance.

 

Hey,

For regular online watching you actually want the card to throttle back so it saves power (and the world). Look at the GPU load. its only 2%. There is no reason for the card to run at full speed. To check for that you have to a run a game which uses the Cpu and Gpu.

I promise you however that with your setup you will get throttling

 

Thanks for the quick reply Wattos!

So I'm at the mercy of Dell until they find the fault and fix the problem?

I read at the start of this thread to use RivaTuner and ThrottleStop as a short term fix, is there any risk or problems associated with using either app until Dell find a solution?

Thanks again.

 

no risk, just the inconvience of turning it on and off manually. Otherwise you will always run on full clocks which sucks more power than needed. Im still trying to get my 260m replaced for a 5850 for free

 

You've no faith that Dell will fix this issue then or do you prefer the performance of the 5850?

 

its hard not to like the performance increase.... i mean... common.. Dell's 5850's are BEAST.

Plus, the 260m has been around FOREVER and DELL only started now woking on a fix... whats the point? soon enough it won't be offered in the M15x anymore...

 

from what deex is saying a fix is coming pretty soon, is it gonna work, not sure. but performance wise the 5850 is much better. did you recently buy this laptop?

 

Can you explain why the 5850 is a better card as it's rated less than the 260m on this site
Notebookcheck: Comparison of Laptop Graphics Cards.
Although the 5850 certainly holds its own against the 260m and appears to trump certain specs, comparing the FPS on just about every game the 5850 is significantly lower than the 260m.

I bought the laptop back in October 2009 but I have 3 years warranty. Did you swap a 260m for a 5850?

 

well for gaming its a no brainer, but some people perfer the nvidia card for work and apps because of physX and cuda.

but if gaming is your main concern then 5850 is the way to go.

look at the benchmark thread if you want to see the difference between the 260m vs the 5850.

also the 5850 and 5870 are pretty much the same card. 5870 just has higher stock clocks.

some of the info in that link is wrong too.

 

the 5850 is a faster card. ask anyone who's done the swap and we'll tell you. the biggest difference will be on ultra settings when the ram craps out on the 260m, giving you "input mouse lag" (good fps but mouse input lags considerably making it very hard to aim and control) on some games. say... metro 2033 or just cause 2 (nvidia specific settings disabled for fair comparison). the gddr5 really shines in this respect maintaining not only an acceptable frame rate, but also having responsive input without noticable input delay.

i also noticed much less of a hit with FSAA disabled, on the 260m i had a habbit of disabling FSAA in games at 1920x1080. on the ati i keep it on 2x or 4x depending and it's around the same frames i was used to before the swap.

i did the manual swap from the 260m to the 5870m and until i got good thermal paste, was running it at 5850m speeds in order to manage temps. i was happy with the speed increase it had over my 260m. instantly noticable if you're a gamer.

in wow for instance i did a raid with 4xFSAA enabled and spelleffects at 200 for the lols and forgot that it was on... normally i'd notice during a raid and have to turn it off due to fps issues.
heck that could have been bad, but i didn't notice because my fps did not suffer (which it did with the 260m).

 

Yes, relative to this, I found this link that compares the performance of various Mobile GPUs, using Crysis as a Benchmark.
Laptop graphics card comparison: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870, 5850, 5730, 5650, 5470 and Nvidia GeForce GTX 480M, GTX 285M, GTX 260M, GTS 360M, GT 330M, 310M | towards the optimal laptop

Do note however that in many cases, the 480M GTX has shown 30% better performance than the 5870, as opposed to the 10% improvement shown on this web-page.

 

nice find! +rep
don't forget however that the gtx480 is impossible on the m15x due to power requirements

we have throttling issues because 260m requires 75watts (65 watts because dell undervolted)... can u imagine the gtx480 with 100watts?

 

Hey, i've also been experiencing throttle, managed to OC the 260m with rivatuner but having some issues with ThrottleStop getting it to work, ran in admin, checked the clock modulation and chipset clock mod, also with and without set multiplier which I can't seem to increase above 14 and i'm not noticing any difference via benchmarking and actual gaming. Just wondering if I am missing something realy simple, thanks.

 

a dell tech came today and replaced my second gtx260m with a third one, maybe the next week i´ll call and talk to a supervisor

 

i r in the lab

 

Dell`s lab? Steal some 5850 and give one to me

 

ask them for the pll for the M15x mobo. see if they have a master bios that will let everyone overclock, hehehehh

 

so hows that throttling fix?

 

Thanks to everyone who responded. 5850 certainly appears to be the way forward. What's the chance of getting Dell to replace my 260m if I show them the throttling occurring?

Does anyone have any advice on getting them to replace?

 

Calling and speaking to the least to a level 3 technician at Alienware. Give yourself 5 tries to ask for the card, giving them your postal and e-mail address.
When they ask, emphasize the fact you know a fair bit about computers, that you have tried the riva-tuner fix. If you're lucky, you'll speak to someone who's aware of the issue and you stress you want the new card (5850).
If after 5 calls you didn't get anywhere, here's what you do, you buy a gun... seriously, you send the closest Dell HQ a letter with an explanation of your issue and the fact you want the issue fixed ASAP. That letter has to be "recommended with arrival receipt" or whatever you call it in English, which creates a legally binding document that will provoke dell customer service into contacting you (normally under two weeks).
There, you ask for your laptop or simply the GPU to be replaced (will be free of charge in the case of the 5850).
That's how I proceeded and I got an upgrade (I had to pay for) to the M17X for it's crossfire ability, 2 hard drive slots and RGBLED screen.
So either you're lucky and get the replacement straight up or you go through the ordeal most of us went through, watching inexperienced hands take your machine apart.
I wish you the best of luck

 

Tell gerhard I said hello.

 

took me about 4 calls, 3rd time I got some woman on the phone who said they know the problem and are working on a bios.. .few days later, I called again and told em im sick and tired of this and want to speak with a supervisor right away.. got put on hold for 45mins again (not kidding).. guy got back and said it will be escalated because my case has been open the whole time in the system, told me I would expect a call in 3days which would of been wednesday...

wednesday came around and no call from dell.. called up later that day, guy pulled up my record and told me they decided to replace it with a 5850 ..

got all excited till I found out the one they gave me was partially defect(would not boot into windows with any driver)

finally got it replaced again, and extremely happy.. was deffinately worth the hassle

just be prepared to put some time and effort into this

 

4 calls only, geez thats amazing. must of have some amazing guy gaving you tips, heheheh

glad it all worked out in the end.

 

yes, not too bad huh

 

I've just got off the phone from their technical support and they told me that a new OEM driver was released 3 days ago and that I should try that and not the official nvidia driver. They also recommended uninstalling the old driver before updating it which is the opposite advice of what Nvidia recommend.

I said that I'd tried the new driver and was then told I will have to call back on Monday as there is no one there with the superiority to make a decision regarding the replacement.

 

yeah its gonna take at least a few tries, just keep hammering them with phone calls, and never wait for them to call.

 

I noticed a user mentioning a throttle fix in a BIOS update next week, is there any confirmation of this?

 

Well we know that the fix is coming out soon. And z is a good guy and I would take his word on it. But he doesn't have a 260m so its not confirmed that it is actually fixed yet. But the touchpad is confirmed to be fixed.

 

Sounds nice, I have been wondering for several months as to what was wrong with my system and now I know it must have been throttling. Have been struggling to run games such as Pro Cycling manager with decent settings... I mean, one should at least be able to play that game fluently

And since I am not really that good with computers the methods of stopping the throttling mentioned in this post does not help me much :/

 

Yeah hopefully this new bios would do the job and it only took dell a year to fix it, yeah!!!!! Lol

 

That's what we call, "quick and efficient," Dell style.

 

I hope A08 will fix throttling too..

 

Afraid I'm going to have to see it to believe it. This same story has been told since last December. Hope this time it's finally true.

 

Well at least the touchpad has been confirmed to work, can't wait to actually use the touchpad.heheh

 

Hey Inap,

What issue are you reffering to with the touchpad? the left click doesnt work on mine, even if i press the touch pad instead of the button.

Thanks

 

Hahaha, its funny you mentioned that... When I first started speaking to engineers about this throttling they tried to get me to make sure I wasnt overclocking. I told them "you cant on the m15x", they then argued and said "yes you can!" I said "noooo, you wanna bet?" ..They then checked and told me oops, they must have had a older revision bios on their system. My jaw dropped.... With that said though, I cant imagine that it would be a good thing to allow us to overclock. perhaps it would create more problems.

He is referring to the polling rate of the touchpad. It is currently around 20Hz so it moves always at a rather choppy pace. It should be fixed to 60Hz+...

Yes I would suggest using the OEM Dell drivers as they alter them to use their cards. My testing over the past few few months showed to some degree that even the throttling was triggered more when using nVidia drivers. The nvidia officials are only for reference cards, generic unaltered cards. One example of this is the fact this 260M card is normally spec'd out as a 75w card... well in the M15x its a 65w card. soooo yeah nuff said