AW M15x Throttling Issue Investigation - Stock clocks and overclocked.

[electrosoft]

Yeah, if the performance correlated to the severe dips, you would see your fps dive very drastically.

But Prime95/Furmark put a hurting on the 920/260M on a different level than games and most apps.

I mean, will you encounter "real world," scenarios that stress your system on the level of running Prime95/OCCT/Furmark in some type of simultaneous tandem out there? Probably not.

But there are some variations in clock speeds even running WoW unless GPU-Z is suspect which I'm wondering.

[chrisb808]

That's what I'm starting to wonder...its "display" doesn't update like it should, and, during the actual graphics test, GPU-z didn't log, the readings I'm seeing are post test completion. Strange.

I am curious though. According to the Inspiron forum, the ones also experiencing this issue, supposedly they found a fix and it is the power supply. Seems there system comes with a 90W brick and they are testing with a 130w brick and no longer have the throttling problem. I wonder, If my M1730 brick would work. It is 230w vice the 150w provided. I'm a little weary to try it though.

[electrosoft]

Well, luckily Joker has one on the way so we'll know fairly soon. If the PSU resolves the issue, you can bet I will be howling to Dell about it.

[Maxamilus]

If you read that Inspiron thread a little more carefully, the 130w brick doesn't solve it completely. A few of the more power hungry systems there still experience throttling.

[CitizenPanda]

Originally Posted by chrisb808

Just did a simple test with DoW II graphics test, everything maxed, no AA, with GPU-z logging, and there was indeed throttling.

However, I timed the GPU-Z with the game launch, menu option, selecting test.... noting via stopwatch when said events occured.

At launch the card remained at 200 clock
During the intro movie, it peaked at 550 clock
Once at the option menu, it dropped to 200 clock
During the actual demo, it reached 550 clock and remained there throughout. The fans reached speed, temps reached around 62C.

Upon quitting the game, the clocks returned to 200 and temps reached a balmy 51C within 3 mins.

I know this isn't as conclusive as the Prime95/Furmark testing, but this game does stress CPU/GPU to an extent. If anything, this shows that there might not be any clocking issues during realworld gaming.

No, what you're describing is Powermizer doing it's job properly. You don't need max GPU acceleration to watch an CGI movie from the game.

Throttling is different. During a 3D render, the card should remain at max clocks at all times - period. Throttling is when you are playing Crysis and the clocks go down for some reason.

[Smeggit]

Got similar results on mine, I'm still using stock drivers. I tried exiting GPUz and relaunching it but on restart it had fluctuations from the word go.

Used P95 and Furmark with the settings as you described:

[tehpud]

not sure if ya'll saw this but maybe this is the update you are looking for?

http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/03/d...-of-what-ails/

It says that this should fix Alienwares throttling too. I am not a tech guy so don't flame me if i'm wrong. However, if the power brick being upgraded fixes it then all hell is going to Dell.

[tehpud]

okay sorry! its not for M15x...they just state that the hear the problem now.

[battousai10k]

ya there was a similar post on the Dell blog about throttling. It relates to the business laptops, but it might be extended later on to the M15x, since this issue seems to be gaining momentum. Here's the link:

http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/d...hrottling.aspx

[CitizenPanda]

By the way Joker, what is the best route to contact Dell/Alienware customer service?

My computer is still in production, and I don't want it to ship until this issue gets resolved. If it is indeed a BIOS problem, I'm probably canceling my order as this is a pretty major defect.