M15x and GTX 560M

As a programmer, I can with confidence say: no, not always. Config files are some times just overly verbose for legacy compatibility reasons and all these section references might not mean anything in the grand scheme of things. The documentation for it can be found on MSDN next to the MS DDK (Driver Development Kit). I haven't read it.

 

Alrite installed the 560m on my m15x 940xm just fine.
played crysis 2 on very high 1600x900, no throttleing.

However only on Deus ex with everything on high there is massive throttling every few seconds
anyone know a solution? the temps are fine max at 71. will flashing the video bios to dells A02a help?also is that safe.

 

Are you overclocking either the CPU or GPU?

 

Not at all everything is on stock, the strange thing is its only throttleing on deus ex no other game so far.. gpuz says the subvendor is dell (1028) and bios is A1, 70.26.35.00.f1 .. is it safe to upgrade this bios?

 

Well that vbios A02 update is a good thing. It served quite well the throttle dance with my 940xm 560m combo.
However not completely gone the throttling Now is more balanced, less steep fps jumps, temps less high etc.
Adviced upgrade for all 940xm users

 

Dutchesss after the bios update deus ex still throttles the card every few seconds, have you noticed this? or perhaps its some kind of a bug..

 

I am not expert in all games.. havent played deus.
Differs from game to game how the thottle behaves.

Let us have your results. Be interesting to learn from, also try various drivers this might help you also, finding the best combo for ur game

 

Tried the latest drivers from laptop2go 290.93, modded the inf and it installed fine.
Desu ex continued to throttle every 45-60 seconds, dropping framerate to 11 to 14 fps for about 9 to 11 seconds. Gpu Clocks wud also go down with temps barely touching 62.

After lowering the resolution from 900p to 720p, there was major improvement the throttle was almost completely gone. (all settings high no aliasing)
Cpu temps hit a max of 82 during these short sessions and all cores were being utilized by the game.

Turnin Dx11 of and on had no effect. other Dx 11 games eg Saints row 3d work flawlessly.

what iv read is apparently toshiba users have found some sort of bios downgrade that completely removes throttlling for their laptops with 560m..ill try to link it but doubt thats any use to us.

EDIT:WORKAROUND/Fix Conclusion (NOT A GPU ISSUE)
I found this tip
On the eidos forum Turn Down SSAO to Normal, and Set Priority from taskbar to High ( the game doesnt use memory resources properly)
Doing this solved 99% of the issue with short burst of stutter sometimes.

 

what are Ur specs?

 

My specs are Gtx 560m, 940xm, 6gb ram 1080p M15x. I upgraded from a 260m.

 

I just got a 560m graphics card, but thanks to those fat cats in D.C. I can't get a hold of that modded driver/inf file...I was just wondering if any of you guys could upload the file to mediafire or rapidshare or something that isn't under FBI investigation i.e. megaupload...

nvm I figured it out.

 

Thanks to all the great information on this thread, I got my 560 installed and everything works great! There's just one small issue: since I installed the new card, I cannot change my display brightness. The brightness hotkeys don't work, and even changing the brightness in power settings does not work. Can anyone help me out? I'm on Alienware A09 bios, Dell A02 vbios, 285.62 driver.

 

Strange. Well for what it's worth I don't have that problem with the 560M, A09 BIOS and the 285.62 drivers (so it can work!).

Please let us know if you find the issue.

 

It might be an issue with your Alienware Command Centre ... Check the dell driver page for more info.

Becareful about which version you install though. I heard there were some issues with the wrong version CC software screwing up the touch hot key hardware/firmware

 

just upgraded from 260m to 560m with the help of all of u guys and pm's from Fresknen
going to bench soon! so excited!

 

Awesome - let us hear how it works for you

 

Oh no, after 6 hours of installation, my m15x keeps on beeping and the cursor changes to the one with a cd next to the arrow everytime it beeps. does anyone know why its doing this :S

 

Best I can think of would be power drain. If that doesn't work then re-seat the card. Is it beeping while in windows and everything?

 

Yea it happened in windows and even when the cover is down(sleep mode) it stopped a while ago but i dhdnt want to risk anything so i just shut it down since i hav to go to class. Ill do a power drain and maybe check the rams later when im back. Thx btw

 

That sounds pretty strange. In particular that it stopped on it's own again. Is it possible that this wasn't related to the GPU at all? maybe something like the eject CD button being stuck or something like that

 

I've tried different versions of Command Center, and changing the brightness in power settings doesn't work, so its not just the hotkeys. Thanks though!

Since you don't have this issue, could you walk me through exactly how you did things? Did you download the 285.62 driver from dell or nvidia or laptops2go or where? Did you use the modded .inf file from laptops2go or modify it manually? Did you flash the vbios? If so, did you do that before or after installing the 285.62 driver? Thanks a lot!

 

Prior to the installation I had (unmodified) the 285.62 driver from nvidia installed. I did not uninstall this driver prioer to swapping the GPUs
1) I installed the new Eurocom Card
2) Windows boots, and does not recognize the card
3) I downloaded the nvidia driver from nvidias web page, and performed the inf modification ( link to my modded driver bundle)
4) Execute setup.exe (i.e. I use the driver installation software)
5) I choose to "perform clean installation"
6) Windows boots and everything works

I did not change the vbios on the card.

 

So after the power drain & reinserting card & ram, no beeping has arised. I just hope it stays this way lol but scores are super! although i did experience throttling when playing dota2 on max settings with 1080p (without throttle stop on). my 260m usually goes to 10-15 fps when playing on these settings and now its as smooth as 40 fps, maybe 50 if nothing goes on. temps are super cool (idle at 43, max 74) so i think i pasted it correctly. Just crossing my fingers that it wont beep again tonight

 

Well the throttling is a known issue of the m15x used with XM processors. I don't think that'll ever work 100%. Stuff like TS helps, but yea...

I hope it works now. Keep us posted! If it happens again, then try to do only the power drain, and not re-seating.

 

It worked! Thanks a lot!

 

What was the difference between your installation approach and the one I outlined? (for future reference)

 

Out of curiousity is it better to do a clean format of your hard drive when you put in the new card - just to clean up drivers and such?

 

No - just use the nVidia Installer's "perform clean installation" feature.

 

I first used the modded inf file from laptops2go. When I used the one you linked me too, it worked.

 

Alright - mine is based off the driver from nvidia.com

 

I reported earlier that My M15x 940xm with a 560m was throttling in deus ex HR at stock clocks every 2 mins. temps stable at 70.
Im having the same issue with dead island.
Anyone with similar setup willing to test these games? I would appreciate your feedback so we can find out why this is happening.

 

I see this card here-

NEW 1.5GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 560M MXM 3.0b VGA Module

Do I need to buy anything else to install this? heat sinks, paste, etc? I just need to know everything I have to buy before I order it. Thanks.

 

That's the same card I bought. You don't need a new heat sink. The one already in your computer is fine.

You will however need to get some thermal paste (I use Arctic Cooling MX-4) and some thermal pads (I used 0.5 mm ones). You can choose to just re use the pads already on the existing card if you'd like. I don't think it matters much.

 

So its been 50 hours and no beeps. yess! hope i dont jinx it by posting this. Btw i think the 1 mm thermal pads would be better since the stock pads are even thicker than that. I actually double layered the pads(dunno if thats alright lol). good luck to all of u who are converting

 

Hey guys, this is my first post but I've been using this board for reference for a while. I've read alot about upgrading the M15x graphics card and I want to upgrade mine so that I can better run SWTOR.

Here's my issue: I decided that I wanted to upgrade from my piddly gtx 260m to the 560m. However, when I went to my local computer parts place (tiger direct), they got my service tag, called up whoever they call for the part and I was told that I should consider the 460m because my laptop won't run the 560m.

From what I've read here: It seems they are wrong but I wanted to ask you guys and see what's up. I've tried searching around other threads but I would feel more confident if I had someone tell me directly, with knowledge of my computer, rather than assuming I found the correct answer through another post. So forgive me for asking the same question that's probably been asked over 9000 times.

I've got the M15x i7 920 @ 2.00 Ghz. What other info do you guys need to determine if I could run with the 560m? Does the 560m require any other special 'tweaks' to the system in order to make it work?

They said I did not have enough power. Shouldn't I be able to buy a new PSU that could handle it?

Any help would be amazing. Thanks.

 

Dutchess 64 has this covered in another post!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m15x/602655-m15x-gtx-560m.html

Good luck!

 

Okey, but you should still read this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m15x/602655-m15x-gtx-560m.html

Now, to answer your questions. The upgrade to the GTX 560m is not an official upgrade, and is on your own peril (bla bla). It works fine.

The thread I've linked has links to the ebay seller (upgradeyourlaptop) that sells these cards. The only tweak you need to do, is to do the inf mod of the (official) nvidia driver and you're all set.

As far as I know, the XM series CPUs are known to cause throttling because they pull 10W more than the QM models. People like Dutchess can elaborate on this. I run my GTX 560m together with the 740QM and I don't experience throttling in SWTOR.

That's not how laptops work (unfortunately). The m15x will never be able to take in more than 150w - it's simply the limitation of it's design. The laptop refuses to pull more more than 150w, so giving it a 300w PSU won't make a difference.

 

Dont forget with the XM CPU's yo ucan downclock them with throttlestop and not have to worry about the 10W tdp

 

Hi kurth u seem to have the same setup as me, except im useing 560m. when downclocking your xm do you only change multipliers or do you make tweaks to your tdp/acp settings in throttlestop. So far in order to play dues ex with no throttling iv had to set turbo multiplier to 15.0. Wich is about 2ghz.

 

hey guys, if any of u need an mxm 560m, i have one. from msi
this card overclocks very well. i been using it for ~4 months since the laptop came

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2630QM Processor,Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. MS-16F2 score: P11911 3DMarks

it's from msi gt683R
reason for selling : upgrading graphic card
it's in very good condition, and i can also ship abroad. PM me if interested

ps : sorry if it doesnt relate with the thread. peace

 

guyss! im kind of getting pissed of with this card, throttling wont stop, even when watching flash movies online! i tried using throttlestop with 15x multiplier on the 920xm and even down to 12x but it doesnt help. is this the card or something else because when i watch youtube for example, its like its pausing and playing every 10 seconds.

 

Doesnt sound like the card throttling to me. Do you have McAffee installed?

 

yep, check ur software before complaining here

 

..........

 

Any XM cpu /560m were never such a good combination I am afraid.. thats why I sell my 940XM today.
and personally I prefer the 560m graphics (3d) a lot.. more than just a fast cpu.
The 940 is really reallly fast btw. alike 920.. its The cpu..

M17x or M18x you have a better/different power enveloppe(150W max for M15x) which suites wel such a combi, but for M15x to oc its just 1 or the other..
You can not utilize/oc both XM & 560m from M15x at the same time..
If I OC the 940 - the 560m starts to throttle..

So.. best tests I had were with 740QM cpu. I havent heard back anything from 840QM (I just have access to 740 and 940)
but as tdp is 10W lower on 840(just as 740) this would be my favorite cpu in theory..

 

i dont have mcaffee but i do have kaspersky pure. Is that the actual problem? Sorry if i sound like im complaining dutchess63 but this didnt happen with the 260m. But yea it still throttles(freezes for like 10-30 seconds) when i play dota2 or LOL and thats still acceptable for me since i understand well abt the 920xm combo. other than that this card is superb! all in all it still is a huge upgrade for me and everyone is so jealous of my new card

 

All I can say is that I'm running the 560m with my 740QM and have no problems what so ever. Performance is suburb. God I love this.

 

hey whats the last bios for the gtx 560m ?, i have this one 70.26.29.00.06 (clevo/sager)

 

I did the dell vbios update with 560m. Mine reads now 70.26.36.00.09. See attached

 

Can't quite agree with you. I OC both 6990M and 920xm and have no temp issues. Power might be another story but with the right combination of undervolt and OC one can keep the consumption within 180-190W which is around the limit of what the M15x can draw.