AW M15x Throttling Issue Investigation - Stock clocks and overclocked.

So if I plan on purchasing the XM cpu I need to use throttlestop for it to reach it's full potential if I'm running the A08 Bios? If I'm running an earlier Bios is the issue still there?

 

you have to use it in any bios to get the maximun performance, but in a08 and earlier you willhave throtling if you have the nvidia card

 

So you are saying if you have the ati 5850 you will not have throttling? I thought that I read that some users were experiencing throttling on the ATI as well.

 

yes, but it rarely happens, the normal is that doesnt throtle

 

Awesome, hopefully that's the case. I was thinking of picking up one of the xm cpu's and after reading this thread some more, I wasn't so sure.

 

most likely you won't have any problems. throttle stop will help with all bios.

 

I am soooo confused again. The GTX 460 is available-same price as the 260. Would like a 460 + 1.86Ghz quad, but in the thread about the A08 BIOS there are still some people with the slower clocked chips + throttling...so I don't know if I should order it with a 1.73 or a dual core or what :-/

(And I've spent hours reading all these threads LOL)

 

Hi guys, i'm going to buy m15x with 5850 and 17 740qm, i'm worried by possible throttling, is the m15x still affected ? is it caused by low power or high temps ? which temps is gpu running on max stress ?

 

dont worry, with your configuration and the a08 bios your computer wont throtle

 

And I just ordered the 1.86GHz quad + GTX 460...I reaaaaaaally hope I don't have throttling

Maybe I should have gone with a 1.73, or a dual core...but I just so want a fastish quad.

 

i really think that you will not have throtling

 

thnak you mate !

Too bad offers on that configuration with 5850 ended up, anyway i can get this week the same config at nearly the same price ( 20€ more ) only the gtx460 ( probably even more brilliant than 5850 ? ), is it throttling free too ?

 

Someone with a 460 please test for throttling.

 

no the 460m is actually weaker than the 5850 for gaming, its only better for work related stuff, using cuda and phsyX. the 460m is on the lower end, hopefully a 470m or 480 version will come.

 

It's roughly equivalent to the 5870. Beats it in some things, loses in others, but anyway they're comparable parts.

A GTX 470 should always be beating a 5870, as while it's clocked somewhat slower, it's got 50% more hardware. Hmm...I guess that means it should be roughly 39% faster.

(Of course a 5850 is also pretty comparable to a 5870, but anyway...)

 

470m>5870m>5850>460m

I don't knwo why there's still debate about this... it aint that hard to understand.

 

Has anyone gotten a 470m working in a M15x yet? I'd totally upgrade from my 260m

 

haven't heard nothing about a 470m yet, but fynight said he got a 480m working with a bios tweak. but haven't seen any update on it yet.

 

len888 had his 260m changed to a 460m and worked without a bios update so a 470m should work. Would really like to know where I could get one though...

 

in here seems that gtx 460 is over 5850 in performance in most of cases, sometimes (in relation to games) over 5870 as said by Wolfpup

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

notebook check must of gotten some wierd 5850, hehehe even listed the specs wrong on the card too.

but for now i'm just gonna wait nothing we get some official M15x numbers, hopefully we get some juiced up version of the 460m, like we've gotten with the 5850 and 5870.

 

Yeah but people have to start taking these infos with a pinch of salt. No one can just plonk graphics cards one on top of each other in terms of performance as some cards will perform well in one game and terribly in another. Most people don't take overclockability into account. From what I have heard the 470m does really well overclocking and has achieved over 10800 Vantage GPU score only. That being said, the 5850 can clock to almost as high and therefore saying 460m>5850 is flawed, perhaps not false but flawed.

 

lets leave the gpu performance comparisons and notebookcheck's data for another thread... back on topic please.

thanks.

 

I used the Rivatuner fix on my m15x and now it runs like a champ. Runs Black Ops smooth (aside from a few hichups maybe from server/game issue) *My specs below*

I'm soo happy for the fix, unlike the bios update that dell released I'm sticking with my A07 thank you.

 

Yikes, my M15x just shipped! (Man Dell was generous with the lead time...they were saying December 13th ) I sooooo hope it doesn't throttle with a GTX 460 + 1.86GHz i7...

 

Well, make sure to test it out so we all know! I'm still dying to know if it throttles.

 

I got a 460m incoming ... will test

Anyone wanna buy a 5850?

 

Whoops, guess I should post this here too...is this right for testing it:

Looks like you get Furmark from:
FurMark: VGA Stress Test, Graphics Card and GPU Stability Test, Burn-in Test, OpenGL Benchmark and GPU Temperature | oZone3D.Net

And Prime95 from:
Prime95 (32bit) - 25.11 Download - EXTREME Overclocking

Does that look right? I'll basically just run both of those while running CPU and GPU Z, and then wait...how long? See if it ever downclocks either? Aaaaaand if it does, back it goes :-/

 

yes thats correct, all of the instructions and settings are one the first page.

 

Okay guys, I'm not 100% sure I'm doing this right, but I've got:

Geforce GTX 460
Core i7 1.86GHz

I've got FurMark running at 1600x900 with those two settings engaged as per the opening thing. EDIT: I guess I forgot to put that I was also running Prime95 with 8 threads during all this. Launched it first actually.

I guess I have Real Temp and GPU-Z logging.

I've been running about 5 minutes so far, and so far the CPU is holding steady at 1995MHz, the GPU at 1140MHz.

I've never run Furmark before, so I don't know what it's supposed to look ike in motion-it looks a jerky, I guess because the frame rate is only 19fps...it's smooth in it's unsmoothness if that makes sense LOL

And...GPU is up to 71c, CPUS 66c.

And...that's it I guess. I don't see any throttling! Both seem to be holding steady!

This system really isn't THAT loud at full blast by the way. I'd say it's quieter than my Asus N80nv at full blast, and it's not terrible. Maybe I'll think differently in time, but so far so good on that. I'm sort of paranoid doing this...is it hurting anything? Well, guess I'll keep running it and post back if I see anything in the logs.

 

Nice, well, unless I was supposed to do it longer than 17 minutes, and unless I was supposed to be running a THIRD program at the same time too, it seems to have no throttling.

So...nice job Dell! This thing appears to be EXACTLY what I want (well, if I'm really nit picking I'd love more USB ports, more digital video ports, USB 3.0....but that's all SUPER nit picking

EDIT: Oh, and people were right-it's not EXACTLY as I'd want it, but there's really no bloat ware at all on it (I don't keep Java on my systems, but I totally understand including it).

And...there's a disc in the box that SAYS it's an OS disc, just like Dell's always included! They claimed it didn't come with one, but...I'll see if it is what it says it is. This is looking like the right system for me (crosses fingers)

 

Right-I must have been unclear, I was running Prime95 with 8 threads and Furmark at the same time as per the first post.

Now I'm being paranoid about the system though as I noticed it has a mercury label on it (when I was changing the hard drive). It also seems like it sat a long time doing nothing with the optical drive spun down when I first started Windows setup (and sitting a long time on "Expanding Windows files"...

 

Wolfpup, set up a regular throttling test screen like the one below so we can see and understand how the M15x handles the 460m. We're all interested, but it's hard to get much out of the limited description. Give us some show and tell.

 

Darn, I should have taken a screen shot...I'm installing Windows on a different drive now.

I ran it like that except I ran Furmark at 1600x900 since that's what the first post said to do (along with 16x AA and the other two settings it said).

I was NOT running Throttlestop though-just Prime95 with 8 threads and Furmark, with logging turned on on GPU-Z and that Temp program. CPU held steady at 1995MHz, the GPU at 1140MHz through roughly 17 minutes of letting them run. Didn't pay as much attention to temps, but I think the GPU was around 73c max, CPU 67c max.

EDIT: Another vaguely annoying thing about this system...I'm running Windows update, and the fans keep slightly ramping up and down...I'd rather they just stay one notch higher...

 

Hi guys,

I just downloaded the latest ThrottleStop 2.89. What i'm concerned about is that even after i turn it on, i see the CPU speeds changing constantly, it can jump from 12++ mhz all the way to 17++mhz. Is that normal?

Thanks

 

yes it goes up and down depending on the load.

 

Cheers mate, been having really bad lag in Black Ops and i don't think its my 5850 as I've just updated it recently to A08. So i'm guessing its my CPU throttling

 

been hearing alot of people having trouble with the game, even M17x owners with cf have issues.

but log your game play. do a throttle stop log and a gpu-z log. haven't had the chance to get the game yet. so i can't say what the problem is.

also i just heard there was a new patch released that may help.

 

What hardware do you have, and what were you doing with the system? Unless you're stressing the CPU out, it's totally normal for it to jump all over the place as needed.

Core 2 jumped up and down, but in much larger and less granular increments. i7 seems to do exactly as advertised-have super fine control over clock speed so it's using less power when it doesn't need it, and can massively overclock itself under some circumstances.

 

As a follow up, I did a clean install of Win7 Ultimate on my M15x and used Throttlestop 2.89 and it wasn't locking down the CPU at all. I switched to the older 2.85 I had been using previously and it locked it down and I even gave 2.90 B6 a run and it, too, locked it down properly. For some reason 2.89 downloaded from UncleWebb's sig wasn't affecting my 940xm. I'm not sure why.

Also, without Rivatuner and the newest (260.99?) Nvidia drivers, GPU throttling was live and well as before when taxing the CPU and GPU.

Rivatuner and Throttlestop 2.90b6 are working their magic in tandem as always.

 

Hey guys I have been using my M15X for a while now without any problems. But recently i got a great deal on the intel i7 940XM and i dont know if i should go for it though. I need some advice from you because i read that some you are still having throttling issues with the i7 940XM.

My current configuration is: 6gb 1333Mhz, I7 840QM, ATI 5870, etc

So my question is the following: Do you guys think i should go for the upgrade or the combo 5870 with the i7 940XM is a bad idea and would cause throttling issues once again?

Also should i exchange my 5870 with the new Nvidia 460 ? or that is not worth doing ? Because I don't have to pay anything extra for it there was a defective part and they are willing to give me the 460 at no extra charge if i want so.

 

Simple, Keep the 5870 for gaming unless u are doing video editing or Photoshop then u use 460m GTX, how much u are offered for the 940XM? OEM or ES?

 

Personally I'd go for the 460 if it's free, otherwise keep the 5870.

 

hi guys
i just installed fallout new vegas and realised that the temps never went above 60 degrees, i ran gpuz and msi afterburner and saw that the gtx260m is throtling again with this game

 

Well its Intel® Core™ i7 940XM Quad Core Processor, 2.13GHz (3.33GHz Turbo Mode, 8M Cache the one that Dell offers i dont know if theirs is the OEM or ES but its the exact same that Dell sells on their website. But why which one is better and is either one going to cause throttling issues ?

 

OEM = original equipment manufacturer That's what you get in the stores, when you order a laptop with a 940XM or directly from Dell.

ES = engineering sample (aka QS, qualification sample) That's the series which is produced before the OEM version and it usually is sent to the computer manufacturers in advance so they can test it and build there new systems. They usually performe exactly as the OEM version or may even have some additional features unlocked. Very rarely they have some flaws which are fixed in the OEM version.
You won't get any warranty or support on a ES chip or a system with an ES chip... they're actually not meant for public sale.

If they say they offer you exactly the same as that on Dells site it should be an OEM, otherwise they're lying.

In the end they perform identically... but they shouldn't throttle, at least not since the last Bios update.

 

I am not sure this is throttling or something else...

I have a rather new M15x with a i7940xm, 460M, and BIOS A08.

Running with no load at all I noticed that the system is approximately two times too slow.
I tried playing around with multipliers, but no tools seems to give ANY result.

Also we noted that the 'Enable speedstep' option in the BIOS did lead to another great decrease (from 6 to 16 seconds runtime on a benchmark) in performance.

The only thing which seems to work is to run ThrottleStop 2.89 (didn't try any other versions), and select BD PROCHOT (also in Options.)
After that performance increase to 2.3 seconds -- where I diod expect it.

Also, AFTER running ThrottleStop BD PROCHOT a program like EVGA E-LEET does report a proper multiplier -- before it didn't make sense.

Now for some questions:
- Did anyone see this behaviour before?
- What is really going on here?
- Is there another way to fix this?
- the BD PROCHOT options seems to bypass a security temperature check. This is now not used (as system is not loaded), but when we really are going to use the system...
- ThrottleStop must be run after every reboot. We would like to have something automatic.

We do have a tight timeline -- this system shall be shipped to a customer in two weeks. And yes, we do have real-time requirements...

Cheers,

Klamer

 

You made sure that you haven't stealth mode activated?
No need for the BD PROCHOT option, AW doesn't use this throttling method.

 

Speedstep/EIST must be enabled in the BIOS and in Throttlestop (i.e., check the EIST box). Otherwise, your 940 will be limited to the LFM setting (9x in the 920XM) and will crawl.

TurboBoost must be enabled in the BIOS. Otherwise, you will be limited to the HFM setting (15x in the 920, probably 16x in the 940) and your processor's performance will be emasculated.

The BD PROCHOT setting should be unchecked and has no effect on processor function in the M15x.

Throttlestop is a wonderful tool for overclocking, but serves no purpose in your current circumstances and is more likely to be the source of problems than solutiions. Leave it alone for now.

*** Be sure that PowerPlay (found in Catalyst Control Center) is enabled and is set to Maximimize Performance when plugged in). PowerPlay being disabled is one of the most frequent causes of under-performance. PP does not affect processor performance, but has a huge effect on GPU performance and therefore on overall computer performance.

*** Be certain that Stealth Mode is disabled. It can be very easily enabled accidentally and will cripple performance.

One or more of these should fix your problem(s). Let us know about your progress.

 

It turned that Stealth Mode was the problem. Thanks for pointing that out.

So it turned out that there is a misfeature (1) to have the machine switch to a really low performance without any user confirmation.

And that there is a misfeature (2) that maintains that low performance moide without any clear feedback to the user...

Anyway, performance is now where I want it to have -- thanks again!

Klamer