The M15x throttle? The final solution!

I noticed some strange thing, just look at the Physics Score and Combined Score ...

With Stealth mode ON:


And with Stealth mode OFF:

 

Anyone playing Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag?

It works very well @1080p on high settings, low HBAO, FXAA and no god rays.
Anyone attempting to run this on very high settings?

Obviously running 3Ghz on CPU. I tried to play State of Decay with CPU at stock and it severely bottlenecked the GPU. Its clear newer games need at least 3Ghz to not bottleneck 7970M.

 

Indeed the i7 920xm is powerful however games still aren't multithreaded enough to take advantage of it at the low stock clock speeds it runs at. Games still favour faster dual cores with up to 4 threads.

I am hoping with the multi core nature of the new consoles future games will take more advantage of 8 threads.

 

I have question. I have a psu from m17 r1 its 220w 20v. It doesn't have center pin in the end that connects to laptop. I know it won't charge but is it safe to run? I tried it on bf4 on ultra high and no throtteling. I don't want to do it too long until I'm sure its safe. The m15x is 19.5 volts this is 20v is that enough to harm laptop?

 

pics? details of PSU?

 

I need help. While gaming (BF4 MP for example) after some random amount of time my m15x goes to stealth mode. It looks like PSU shut downs for 0.5-1sec and screen blink in this time. After this i need to press "Stealth mode" button 1-2 times, and GPU clock's become playable for another 1-10 minutes.
Running x24-25 & 82/70 TDP/TDC with 750/1050 1.025V 6970M. It happens even with CPU running on stock clocks.

 

Failing PSU? Those 240W units are rubbish. Mine started to cause serious issues after 1 year of use.

 

Pretty happy with my latest OC. x25 multiplier on CPU and 900/1450 @ 1v on GPU.
Benchmark result below. Epic Physics scores and combined scores, proving throttling during combined test is a thing of the past

 

If you guys are getting the 330w PSU, check this out: 330 Watt power supply for Alienware M17x » imsolidstate
I quote the guy on that website: "Apparently the M18x interrogates the power supply, and when it sees it is a 330W supply pulls the ID line low to enable the higher power level. Since it is convention to leave a 1-wire bus high, any other computer is only going to get 240 watts. So ground the signal trace that you cut on the other side of the 1-wire PROM."

 

Or just yank out the centre pin

 

As far as I know the M15x doesn't interrogate the power supply properly. Not in the same way as the M17x R2 or M18x. Simply pulling the centre pin does the trick.

 

From what I understood, the 330W PSU limits itself to 240W (unlike other psu's) unless it gets the right signal on the center pin. So the m15x cannot pull more then the psu can provide. But if this is not true and all that guys guide could be bypassed by simply yanking the pin out like you did......HAHAHAHAHA!

 

We shall soon find out. I guess it is 50\50. The 330W may be different. I hoping it isn:t.

The M15x seems to send a limit out of it:s own along the centre pin. This limit is 200W. Yanking the pin out means the signal can:t reach the PSU thus no limitations. The 330W may very well be a different kettle of fish but noone seems to have had the balls to try it out on the M15x. I have invested in one to find out.

It isn:t the end of the road by any stretch. The 240W should be capable easily of 300W under heavy load and another alternative is the old 230W adaptor the M1730 used. Both should output to roughly the same. I am running the 210W now and it just about reaches it:s limits with 920xm and 7970M OCed to their utmost limits in the M15x. An extra 30-40W headroom should be adequate.

 

Anyone running a modified PSU (210w, 230w or any with centre pin removed), have you noticed the left side of the laptop where the jack plugs in gets extremely warm during gameplay (using large overclocks)?
I now have a couple of spare usb-powered fans pointing at this left side to cool it and it seems to be doing a good job. Was just slightly concerned how hot it was getting

 

It is from the CPU heatpipes. If you look you will see that the heatpipes run close to that side of the laptop.

 

I am back with lovely Alienware m15x!

So guys..what is the latest stable drivers for AMD 7970M? I tried with latest stable 13.12, latest beta 9.5 / 9.4 / 9.2 , all these drivers crash when playing Battlefield 4! , all said drivers are good with 3DMark. Any best recommendation for stable drivers guys?

Thanks.

 

Temperatures? Clockspeeds? Sounds like you are overheating?

 

Temp = max 75c , Clockspeeds = stock speed 850/1200Mhz 0.975v , no overheat issues i guess. Tried with 240w PSU (Delta) still same issues. Using Windows 8 atm. What is your current drivers?

 

Catalyst 13.9 official ones. I haven't tried BF4 though. Odd that you are crashing as those temps are not crash material! Perhaps dual boot win 7 and try the game on there?

 

hi,guys,

I've used the pa-7e 210w psu for my m15x (i7 920xm,dell gtx680m,samsung 8g,intel 80g ssd) ,

but why is it throttling all the time whether gaming or not ,

while it's fine using the original 150w psu

I'm sure i've turned off the stealth mode

thanks

:wink:

 

In my experience,to fix the throttling problems,I removed the psu center pin (pa-7e 210w) and I use my laptop without the battery.:thumbsup:
If I leave the battery inserted, the gpu clocks remain 2d.

 

Pin removal used in conjunction with a quick toggling of stealth on then off again once booted sorts 3D clocks for gaming. 100% consistent This is a method I painstakingly worked out and it has been tested out by others. .

 

I never ever ever get throttling with centre pin removed and with battery in if I do a quick stealth mode toggle

 

Allrigt ,i'll do it ! Thank you so much for the great advice.

And how can I remove the centre pin of the 210w psu? I can't find information about it......

 

Thank you so much for the great advice.

And how can I remove the centre pin of the 210w psu? I can't find any information about it......

:thumbsup:

 

Use a small pair of pliers and yank it out. Make sure it is unplugged first of course.

The pliers have to be small enough to get inside the tip without damaging anything.

On another note I just downclocked back to stock clocks (haven't had time to sort out cooling mod yet) and Crysis 2 managed to use up to 2014mb of vram! That is very nearly maximum!! On such an old game!

 

:thumbsup:It 's very nice of you !Thanks a lot!! I' ll find some tools! It's hard to find a tool like that

it's really quite strange that an old game would use that much vram ! But I think it' s a problem of Crysis 2, haha

thanks again

should i worry about the 2D/3D clock issue?

 

If I don't remove the battery,3d clock of my 5870 do not work.
Even if I do a quick stealth mode toggle.I don't know why.

 

i can't yank it off
is that possible,i try aot,but not work


seems like the pin stuck in the wire.....

 

I struggled to yank it out at first too but I found bending it a bit and effectively snapping it off worked well.

 

yeah you need to bend it a little. The 330W supply was stubborn.

 

ok,i will find some way to o it! But still now i can't find it.....haha,

 

ok! you mean the 330w psu??

 

yeah I own 150,210 and 330W.

 

I own the 150w, 210w, 230w, and 240w,

I didn't know that the pin need to be removed, so I thought they doesn't work

 

Now I have run the 3dmark11 with the 210w, 230w, and 240w psu with pins removed,

cpu and gpu in stock clock

the result is that the p score is slightly higher than it with 150w psu ,but the physics score is 200-400 lower ,so as the combined score,

and i actually feel that it run smoother with 150w than other psus,why????

and I think they all run in 3d clock

(i mean the 150w get higer physics score and combined score,and run smoother)

with svI7 's vbios

 

and thank you so much!!!!

 

It must be an anomaly. The results shouldn't differ because of that however they can change from test to test depending on what you have running in the backround etc.

 

Hi, i have your almost very same m15's specs, and i have never ever found any throttle issue.
Have you remove the battery too??

 

sorry for being daft but...how could i tell if my laptops being "throttled"?

 

Get a programme like gpu-z or hwinfo and monitor the GPU clock speeds (MHz). Throttle clock for 7970M is 450Mhz. I think throttle clock for gtx 680m is 325mhz. Just minimise while gaming and see if GPU clocks are dipping occasionally

Sent from my One S running 4.4.2

 

Just read the entire thread again.

If I understand this right, I can use another OEM 150W dell brick as long as I yank out said pin, yes? So far, no way other than uspi's mod to ensure I can both charge and game on 7970m, yes?

For reference I intend to leave the 7970m at stock, undervolted at .95 using svl's mod [expecting it today but customs are taking quite a bit!, might be pushed back to tomorrow]. Also using a 740qm at the moment, planning to grab a 920xm mid year because I found a good price. Looking to OC it at reasonable at a level where reasonable is something that my cooling and ambient temps [usually 34+C] allow.

 

Fps just drops in my case. Core clock does not change, CPU does not change, but GPU usage goes down. It's purely a power issue, the center pin removal fixes it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

You should be good with an unlimited 150W with 920xm OC plus undervolted 7970M. Keep in mind however most 7970M's cannot run stable at 0.95V stock. Mine needs 0.975V. You have to find out what your card needs.

 

I average around 180w usage while gaming with x23 multiplier and 1v 900/1450. Definitely need more than 150w PSU IMO.

Sent from my One S running 4.4.2

 

Is there a software that lets you see how much power your components draw? I'm looking further into the 920xm/7970m throttle thing and I read over at TI and here that the root cause of this issue is the power draw.

From what I understand, it's the sheer lack of power that throttles the GPU.

so it's a 150 watt brick, at 55w for the 920xm and 100w for the 7970, assuming I don't OC the 920xm at all or very slightly if any, would I run into the throttle issue?

 

Pretty much yes. However there is also a hard limit on the amount of voltage you can push through the 7970M. That would be 1.05V which happens to be stock voltage. Any higher and you will get BSOD galore. The mxm slot on the M15x is only able to drive about 100-120W maximum which isn't bad considering it was designed around the GTX 260M which is a 65-70W card.

The machine is basically designed for 75W tdp cards. 100W cards is pushing it already at stock voltage.

Anyways yes even a slight 920xm OC can cause throttle. You would do best to either mod your 150W with a switch on the data line (center pin) to be able to switch it off for gaming (throttle free but no battery charge) or buy a second adaptor 210 or 240W are probably cheapest and simply pull the pin out on it to use for gaming. The 150W you can use to charge at night. With the 920xm you will want to run it at least 3ghz across all cores. 3.2-3,3ghz is doable before you need to hard volt mod it (something I am slowly working on)

 

Duly noted. what's the multiplier equivalent of a 3ghz 920xm? Sorry, not too familiar. Also my understanding, 920xm on stock is 2ghz across all cores, yes?

I undervolted my 7970m already at 9.5v + stock clocks. she's pretty stable at that with temps hitting 81-82 when running TR with all the dx11 goodness and tress fx. I still get 40+FPS. I think that's pretty good. ALso, very hot country where I'm at. In an air conditioned room, the most TR ever hit was 76C. That being said I think I'm good on the temp end of things.


One thing I gotta ask regarding batteries and this is out of topic arleady: a year in and my battery's capacity is already down to 25wh from 85wh. Did this baby drain too fast? How do I keep this baby healthy before I replace it? I'm considering just having the cells replaced at my local shop. It's about $8-9 per cell x9 cells then grab a new 150w charger and have that modded by a pro.


EDIT: at 740qm, I shouldn't be throttling ever, right? I'm totalling 145w based on tech data and that's under the 150w soft cap.

 

Hard to say. You might be okay with the 740qm. 3ghz is 22.5x so at 23x you will be just above 3ghz. I can run mine at 24x in prime 95 full load but 25x shuts one core down. In games 25x would probably be okay. I run 27x on 1 and 2 cores.

 

Thanks guys ! Problem solved !I reboot my m15x , and everything is normal !