M17xR2 Bios A08 Discussion Thread

[frozenarcticguy]

I'm not happy about it, first the cutting down on the extreme cpu's and they think they can put out lame beta graphic drivers instead of fixing the bios so we can use regular ati driver.

[5150Joker]

Originally Posted by kilthro

Has anyone tested to see by how much in performance we are losing? Is it that much to make a big deal over?

With dell's latest A08 bios for the M17x-R2, you potentially lose several hundred mhz in performance because of this bios now forcing lower multipliers for turbo mode (vs. A07). It can be remedied in a way with TS but as a result of TS fighting the bios, there could potentially be stuttering in games. UncleWebb, correct me if I'm wrong, but based on how he explained it to me before, TS works by monitoring certain registry changes in Windows and then every few hundred milliseconds, it counteracts those changes. So what happens when the bios now wants to force an extreme CPU to run at a gimped speed? It will constantly try to push it down while TS fights to push it back up which in my experience usually leads to some stuttering in games/applications.

This change was completely unnecessary! We had no overheating/throttling issues with the M17x-R2, so why do this? Dell should have been enhancing the performance of this system with bios updates, not cutting it down.

Frankly I'm sick of Dell, I don't care how great their warranty is or shiny the M17x-R2 is, when you have a company actively seeking to reduce their customers enjoyment of the system and those customers having to devise workarounds, that's when it stops being fun and just ends up not being worth it, especially for the price they charge. Like I said, it's my last Dell made laptop. Hopefully that didn't sound TOO dramatic. But I'm really not happy about this change.

[ShaqDiesel]

I think this feature was suppose to be for the m15x throttle problem and engineering was to lazy to take it out of the m17x r2 bios, funny how dell fixes one thing and breaks another and leaves us forum member to become their lab rats and figure out ways around their stupid mistakes. Anyways once again..if someone can come up with a perfect fix for this please share, and if not, can someone pm me and send me bios A07 or whatever was the best previously.

[5150Joker]

Originally Posted by ShaqDiesel

I think this feature was suppose to be for the m15x throttle problem and engineering was to lazy to take it out of the m17x r2 bios, funny how dell fixes one thing and breaks another and leaves us forum member to become their lab rats and figure out ways around their stupid mistakes. Anyways once again..if someone can come up with a perfect fix for this please share, and if not, can someone pm me and send me bios A07 or whatever was the best previously.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't an accident. They're purposely crippling the system so people don't call in asking why their 920xm equipped M17x has very loud fans. So their solution was to gimp it's performance so the CPU draws less power thus produces less heat therefore you have lower fan noise. Instead they should have devised a more robust cooling solution but that's not Dell's way. Whatever it takes to save a penny is their philosophy, screw what the customer may want! Charge a $1000+ extra for a CPU that is marginalized, what a deceptive tactic.

[stamatisx]

They improved the touchpad performance and they messed up with the CPU, I don't get it either. I didn't update to the A08 BIOS and I am not going to since I always use an external mouse and my CPU performance and temperatures are more than fine.

Instead they could do something about the low SSD performance. Brian how is your testing with those SSDs that you mentioned going btw?

[Vommidor]

I tried updating the bios earlier today and it decided to freeze on block 40... so now it won't boot. Any advice? :/

[unclewebb]

Here's the new math that 5150Joker is not overly impressed by.

The old bios used to let the 920XM run all 4 cores fully loaded with a turbo multiplier of 24. The 940XM used to use 25 when all 4 cores were fully loaded.

The new bios has reduced that to 17 for the 920XM and down to 18 for the 940XM. That's a hell of a performance hit.

17/24 = 0.708 = 29.2% decrease in full load performance
18/25 = 0.720 = 28.0% decrease in full load performance

Why didn't Dell clearly state this in the bios release notes? If you are trying to do some 3D rendering and you switch to this new and improved bios then you are going to go ballistic.

The changes by the bios are made directly to registers within the CPU and not to the registry itself. ThrottleStop has to constantly monitor those registers and when the bios changes them to throttle the CPU, ThrottleStop has to change them back as quickly as possible. I can waste CPU cycles and crank up the frequency that ThrottleStop monitors and tries to change these registers but it's a losing battle. Ultimately what the bios wants runs at a higher priority level than user software runs at so ThrottleStop is not 100% effective. It's a band-aid solution at best.

This problem needs to be fixed by Dell. I thought last December when the first version of ThrottleStop was released that Dell would clean up this throttling stuff in a month or two or three but it just goes on and on. Yesterday they announced that running Furmark isn't a good idea on their under designed laptops which prepared them for today's announcement of the throttling fix. Now they quietly reduce power consumption by reducing the maximum turbo multiplier when the Extreme CPUs are fully loaded.

Dell needs to hire some enthusiasts to get their top of the line gaming notebooks back on track. Reducing performance by almost 30% to solve a problem is a cop out. If it needs better cooling, improve the cooling. If it needs more power, ship it with a higher rated power adapter. Users buy gaming laptops to play games on and to bench on. They don't appreciate Dell playing games with them and Dell treating them like they are idiots. It took less than 1 day for users to see right through this latest bios and the negative impact it has on the Extreme CPUs.

Vommidor: You're screwed. You might as well call Dell and tell them to come and get it. When a bios update goes bad you are left with an expensive brick.

[5150Joker]

Originally Posted by Vommidor

I tried updating the bios earlier today and it decided to freeze on block 40... so now it won't boot. Any advice? :/

There are ways to do flash recovery on a Phoenix bios but for the life of me I can't find the link. It's been posted before but to be honest, your best bet is to call Dell and ask them to replace your motherboard, it's toast.

[kqmaverick]

Glad i read all this before i decided to update BIOS. Im sticking with A07 and my multipliers at 24X thank you very much dell.

[Vommidor]

ahh well thanks guys, good thing it's the weekend and my homework was printed out. lol /sigh