kh90123

Max of 1.1V should be safe. You don't really need to overvolt it until you're going beyond 980MHz on the core. Going beyond that and you might need to increase the voltage, 1 step at a time.

There was one guy who said that he ran 1V for 1050MHz on his Sager, and that was amazing.

I got the CPU fan here: Dell Alienware M18x R2 Cooling Fan DP/N: J77H4, 0J77H4, DC28000BHF0

There's no guarantee that it will work for the 17. You need to make sure the mount fits. It's exactly the same in the 18 and the M18x. The only thing was that the cable wasn't long enough. It was 2cm short, so I had to get someone to cut it and lengthen it.

HWiNFO64 does not work for GPU fan yet.

If I am not mistaken, Haswell mobile chipset HM87 only accepts 1.35V RAM. CPU-Z actually shows them at 1.28V, even lower voltage.

Hehe, you have a 4930MX CPU? It overheats? Yeah same here.

Default voltage is a bit too high. Sometime ago I was using 1.10V @ 4GHz, now I am running 1.11V (which shows up as 1.1089V) since there was WHEA BSOD (due to core voltage too low). I have repaste quite a few times, and I even changed the CPU fan, from the current fan which says 5.5cfm, to the M18x R2 11cfm fan. Actually using HWiNFO64 to spin up the fans to max RPM, they blow about the same amount of air (no scientific test, just feeling it), although the 11cfm fan spins at max RPM of 4300RPM vs the 4200RPM of the stock CPU fan.

I also put some washers on the CPU bracket behind the mainboard to increase the heatplate pressure. Now at 4GHz (3990MHz in ThrottleStop), max temp I observed was about 92C in Cinebench R11.5 and wPrime 1024M test. And that's with forced max CPU fan RPM.

I think 1.13V-1.14V is stable for 4.1Ghz, and 1.15V should be good for 4.2GHz, but even at 4.1 the CPU gets too hot. Ambient is around 20-25C here.

I benched this some time ago. Haven't been doing much of it lately, until Dell fixes the BIOS. The 4930MX is hot, which makes it somewhat hard to work with. I have tried repasting many times, perhaps now I need to consider lapping the copper heatplate on the CPU. Or I have to get some 2133MHz 1.35V SODIMM. Those are rather expensive though.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4930MX,Alienware unknown

Oddly, I was waiting for tech to come over and replace motherboard, and I kept playing with the computer over the weekend, hitting the power button and such over and over.. whatever, 2 days later, the system POSTed again, from being bricked.

I didn't in the end have anything replaced, DELL suggested keeping what I have as is, instead.

Do you remember what you have done specifically that could have revived the system? What did you do before it started to boot again?

The variables are stored in the flash memory, so removing the coin cell battery won't work. Either you load the defaults in the bios or use the recovery method.

I received a mainboard replacement and the system worked briefly. But when I tried to enable OC by setting it to OC LVL 2, it bricked the system again, and now it's stuck with no POST.

What other methods could I try?

I tried holding down END while connecting the ac adapter, and I could hear all 3 fans spin up to their maximum RPM. I presume this is the recovery mode, but it doesn't recognize any USB device that I plugged in.

Is there any other way to reset the BIOS, apart from using a 4700MQ CPU? I have tried to take out the CMOS battery, and short out the CMOS jumper on the motherboard (two tiny copper contacts), and didn't work.

Just out of interest, what CPU do you have and have you overclocked it in BIOS?

Have you changed the RAM from the stuff already supplied in the system?

The reason I ask is on my AW18 and AW17 both will show the same behaviour with either a i7-4930MX or i7-4900MQ plugged in if I select one of the overclocking options. I believe this is because it is trying to set the memory to XMP mode. The same thing happens on A00, A02 and A03 BIOS.

Even if I put "normal" memory in it wont boot. (I have upgraded the system with Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1866)

The fix is to put in an i7-4700MQ and this will make the system beep continuously, it can then be powered off and then powered on. After 30 seconds the backlight will come on and then the system will boot as normal. If you already have one of the CPUs, this fix probably wont work for you. (I'm not sure if it will work for the i7-4800MQ either)

I have to go into BIOS, reset to defaults (F9), save (F10) and then reboot again.

Go into BIOS a second time (F2) and then you can disable overclocking support in the performance option (under advanced)

You can replace the CPU with one of the faster ones that support OC options, this means you need, once again go into the BIOS and make sure overclocking options are switched off. (The BIOS auto detects the CPU and normally the OC options come back on)

For overclocking I use Intel XTU, even when the BIOS is set to no OC, it can still change the CPU parameters to allow overclocking.

I put some teardown instructions here:

http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m18x-aw-18/4922-alienware-18-teardown.html

No I do not have other DDR3L RAM around to test. Unfortunately not that many people use DDR3L around here, so it might take a while to find one.

I have contacted Dell and after they order the part from other region eventually I will need to go down to Singapore for the technician to replace the mobo. I have asked so that the technician bring some new RAMs, so I guess eventually I will know if it's the mainboard or the RAM. I brought it to a computer repair shop, and although they don't have any DDR3L SODIMM handy, they told me that it's likely that the mainboard has problems.

It seems too much of a coincidence that the system fail to POST straight after disabling RAPID. Unless another user of AW 18 that also has the 840 EVO shows us that disabling RAPID wouldn't cause any problem, we can't tell for sure. For what's worth, doing that might actually brick the person's system too. Seems like only Mr. Cloudfire has the AW 18 and EVO, maybe I should ask him.

That is expected behavior. It is doing precisely what it should do. If you shut down the system now and try to start it normally are you back in business or still having the same malfunction symptoms?

Question... before attempting to update your SSD firmware, had you been successful in disabling and re-enabling RAPID once or more times before, or was this your first attempt to do that?

I have never disabled RAPID, and I have only enabled it once, right after installing it. And I have never updated the firmware on the Samsung EVO. I updated the firmware on the Samsung 840 Pro once, and it went smoothly without problem.

Perhaps our fellow Norway friend could help me out. But if he bricks his system disabling RAPID then I'd feel really bad.

Do you have a Samsung 840 EVO?

I'm not really familiar with rapid, but if I'm not mistaken it is a caching feature that relies solely software i.e. it has nothing whatsoever to do with the firmware of the system. Therefore I think you just got very unlucky and got some kind of defect on the motherboard just when trying to reboot. At the moment that's the only logical explanation for me.

Are no POST error codes showing up? E.g. flashing caps/num/scroll LEDs or similar? Or beeps?

You can try to reset the firmware variables of the system, but I kinda doubt it will help, for the reasons stated above. If you want to try it any way: Remove the battery and AC adapter, perform a power drain, hold the END key and then plug in the AC adapter, the system should start. This load the default firmware settings, though I'm not 100% sure whether this is implemented in the new AWs, but I'd really expect so. Also it might be a different key than END, not sure...

RAPID uses system RAM to cache, so that might have corrupted/fried the RAM somehow. If I remove all the RAMs, it would beep twice, and from here: My Alienware Computer is not showing image and is beeping (No POST Beep Codes Table) | Dell US, it suggests "No RAM detected".

So far no matter what I do, the screen is blank.

I have tried holding down END while plugging in the ac adapter. Now the power light on the laptop is blinking rapidly, and all 3 fans spin up to what seems to be the maximum RPM. The display is still blank though. It has been going on a while like this, is this the expected behavior?

I was checking up the SSD status in Samsung Magician, and it said that I have a firmware update for the 1TB Samsung 840 EVO. So I tried to update, but since RAPID is enabled I have to disable it and restart the system.

Upon restart the system would not boot anymore. The 3 fans would spin for a few seconds before stopping. The Alienware lighting is still on, but the screen has no display. If I leave it on like that for a few moments, I could feel there's still heat coming near where the heatsinks are, especially from the CPU heatsink, suggesting that the components are alright, but the fans are spinning. To me, this points to some mobo damage. EDIT: After a while the CPU fan started spinning, but still no display.

I have tried several methods. I have tried removing all the SSDs, I have also tried booting with only 1 RAM stick. I have also tried to remove the CMOS battery. None of these works.

Not only does it not POST, it also doesn't respond to Ctrl + Alt + Del. Without or without the CMOS battery connected, it exhibits the same behavior (with only 1 RAM stick), ie the fans spin up, then stop. The AW lighting comes on, but the screen is blank. There's heat coming off the heatsinks if I leave it in this state long enough.

Any suggestion? I currently have no other DDR3 SODIMM to test, so it could be the 4 RAM sticks that were fried. I suspect this because Samsung RAPID uses 1 GB of system memory. It could also be something wrong with the BIOS, or something else was fried on the mobo.

It locked on the desktop non K Haswell. Not sure about laptop.

Is there a way to lock the 4700mq in turbo mode so it may run higher than 2.4Ghz at all times?

I don't see much point of getting the 4800MQ or 4900MQ. Stick with 4700MQ, or get the 4930MX. Go big or go home. The performance increment is negligible. In fact, at stock clock, and stock BIOS, the 4700MQ will probably bench better than the 4800/4900MQ.

4700MQ and 4800MQ won't hit 4.0GHz, since the multiplier are locked. The most you can get from 4800MQ is 3.9GHz. I didn't check on the 4700MQ. Went from 4700MQ to 4800MQ to 4930MX.

How do you install a chip to unlock the BIOS?

Hi guys. I saw this today.

Windows 8 banned by world’s top benchmarking and overclocking site | ExtremeTech

I installed the one from Synaptics before, and it worked for me. But yeah, you need to install a driver so that all the Fn key works. The trackpad on the Y500 is not very good, then again, the trackpad on the Alienware is just cutting it barely. No one makes touchpad as good as the glass touchpad on Macbooks. Those just feel like an extension of your fingers, rather than feeling like a touchpad.

I just set a new 3dmark record although It did not save to my account because I did not delete my previous one and I did not pay for the pro version; and for some reason it was submitted twice. Anyway here is the link.

NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3630QM Processor,LENOVO INVALID

Wooh finally someone broke my record. What clock and what voltages are you running?

I am selling my Y500 soon so I won't be oc'ing on it anymore, if not I will really try to break that score.

Nice, that's pretty awesome. With my 650M SLI my highest is P5228, currently sitting at #3 on the list for 650M systems. Clocks were 1260/2250 @ 1.137 V. Not practical for everyday usage because the GPU's will get up to 97-98 C and start throttling, so I use it just for benching. At my everday clocks of 1120/2250 temperatures are 20 C lower. It's crazy how much extra heat is generated when you bump up the voltage.

Is your Y500 the replaced Y500? What happened to the one with problems?

I'll see that I can come up with some easy things to test. I'll send you an email when I get the chance.

Hey let me know if I could help test out the unlocked BIOS too, as long as it won't break the comp

UPDATE:

Now I know why it gets hot. I disabled SLI ( stupid of me ).

TEMPS now.

CPU : 86C

GPU0 : 77C

GPU1: 61C

CLOCKS: 1100/2500 1.1V

VERY HAPPY WITH RESULT

You can do 1200 on the core easily. VRAM is good up to 2800. As for mods it depends on how extreme you want to bring it. You can put washers behind the heatsink screws to increase pressure. You can repaste the with good thermal paste. Anything that doesn't cake up is good enough. I used MX-2 for the Y500 when I repasted it some time ago. Now I use the Shin Etsu X23-7783D for my new laptop. They are not that different to be honest.

You can also replace the stock thermal pads with some of the better thermal pads. I just randomly bought Koolance thermal pad because it has high thermal conductivity over some cheaper pads. 1mm pads might be a bit too thick (which was what I used), so 0.7mm might be good. Now to think of it I should get some Fujipoly thermal pad.

And if you can find a heatsink for $2 on Ebay, tear out the heatpipe without bending it, and bend it slowly using hammer/plyer with some heat applied, there's not much space but on the main heatsink it's possible to squeeze in another pipe. It's a lot of work but it works somewhat, at least for me.

The limits of the Y500 is about P5000+ in 3Dmark11, I once reached P5396 but that's not really stable for all games. Recently I ran it again, I'd say P5200 is about as good as it will reach, while still being stable.

Hi, Thank you for the fantastic mods I've upgraded to 2.02 and downgraded to Win7

Since the Windows license thing is baked into our BIOS's, can I just use a Windows 8 pro iso to install on my laptop or will I need to revert anything to stock? Logic tells me I don't but I wanted to get a quick confirmation. Sorry if this has been asked before.

When you install Windows 8, the first thing they ask you to do is to type in the product key, before the installation even starts.

Does anyone have the modded inf for the GTX 780M for Dell? I have tried a few but those doesn't work.

Or could anyone tell me what 3 lines to add to the inf file. I can do it myself.

I am trying to revert to 320.19 from 326.19 to see the difference in benchmark.

EDIT: Nevermind thanks, I fixed it. The easiest way is to copy the inf file using the 326.19 driver into the DIsplay.Driver folder of 320.19. They put the hardware ID in the inf file called nvdmn.inf. There are quite a few inf files and some of them include all of the older GPU, like 8800 GTX.

Hi all I hope someone can give me a pointer or two about my overclock on the new AW 18. As of now, the highest 3Dmark11 I could reach is about this: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M video card benchmark result - Intel® Core i7-4800MQ CPU @ 2.70GHz,Alienware Alienware 18

Right now I have a +160/150 on both GPU, with power target 146% and temp target 92C. Temp is quite high already, max was 87C on the main GPU and 84C on the second GPU. Perhaps I could run it at slightly lower voltage now that I have raised the power target.

I can't believe you complain about performance in DOTA 2 of all games with the Y500, especially considering how high you overclock. The metal above the left side vent does get extremely hot under load but fortunately it has never been a problem for me as my hand never wanders there. You could probably keep the GPU at stock and turn off ThrottleStop, which would solve the heat issue, and still get well over 60 FPS in DOTA 2. Also many large mSATA SSD's are identical in price and performance to their 2.5" counterparts (e.g. Plextor M5M, Crucial M4 & M500).

But to each their own I guess. Enjoy that briefcase, er I mean laptop, and don't hurt yourself when carrying it around.

It's still hot. I hope Lenovo would modify the BIOS to have a more aggressive fan profile for the main heatsink. Crucial M4 256GB cost 200. If I add 100 to that, I can get the Samsung 840 500GB. On BHphotovideo, the msata M500 240GB cost 227.50. The regular M500 240GB cost 199.99. That's a difference of more than 10%.

Ideally to go all out I'd want to get the Crucial M500 960GB but it's seriously out of stock everywhere. I'm not sure if I can persuade a relative of my friend who's an engineer at Micron to get me one. It's not the performance that I dislike, it's the heat. I keep the CPU at 2.4GHz now when I play Dota 2. Otherwise it gets unbearable. On the other hand, on some other games where I can use the SLI GPU, it's not as hot even if I force ThrottleStop.

750m SLI with the flash error can try this.

It works now thanks.