BigKid

This is about what I'm thinking too. 1) This bug was there for 5 years - so they are either dumb or plain lying 2) The "fix" only affects maxwell (800M and 900M series) so again - they are either dumb or lying 3) Everyone believing the story about the "bug" will also believe that the false stats released for the GTX970 have been a "comunication issue" - ha ha... 4) For mobiles they are releasing a refresh every second generation - this "refresh" is just a factory OCCed version of the previous one - this saves everyone including notebook manufactureres a LOT of time (testing etc). So my believe is that they are actually keeping potential as a reserve for the refresh (I've seen way to good OCC possible on GTX500M, GTX700M and GTX900M) My guess is they don't want us to use this potential but rather make us buy a new card every generation (maybe the move of MSI to offer GPU upgrade kits for their laptops starting with GT72 was a reaction to this plans)

100% agree with that... It's just... I'd still love to see a version for us GT72 owners with a PT of just about +20% (vs stock bios) and in return a little higher temp limit. As we are facing the EC firmware starting to throttle... So I'd like to test a vBios that tries to stay within (as much as possible extended) PT limits (PT in watts not temp). I know that it's against your conviction but I'd still love to give it a try. I think having the GPU throttle now and then to stay within it's PT (power draw/watt) is still better than to have the EC throtteling because the impact seems to be much worse... Hitting the temp target also seems to be worse because when it's too hot it will take some time until it cools down again... The PT (Watt) seems to react more quickly and help to not overheat in the first place... I also do not believe that 90 degree are more dangerous to the GT72/GTX980M as 92 and even more degree where perfectly fine for the GTX780M and GTX880M ... So with the PT beeing active (but a little extended) again I think it would be safe to upp the allowed temps a little in return... Again that's for "us" GT72 owners having the EC firmware throtteling issue...

Yeah... It was supposed to run cooler but actually... With the older Model we had the thermal bridge between CPU heatsink und GPU heatsink so the heat was transfered both ways and got transfered to both "cooling sinks" besides the fan - but we only had one fan. With the GT72 we have the thermal bridge from CPU to GPU "cooling sink" (not GPU heatsink) - but we have two fans now and the "cooling sinks" are more separated. So heat is transfered from CPU to GPU but not the other way as it was with the older model. The fans are controled individually and the CPU fan is only speeding up when the CPU is getting hot. In situations where the CPU is adding a lot of heat the new solution might be more powerful. But in standard situations it seems like it isn't really much (or even less). The lacking of optimus contributes to this so in "office use" the GT72 is even louder than the older models. The GPU fan does never spin down which is strange considering that the older models have only one fan to cool CPU and GPU and DID spin down. But that's about the 87 degree beeing Premas choice is contradicting something that I've been told (or understood - so I might be wrong). What I learned is that the 87 is a choice of Nvidia that can't easily be circumvented. *sorry for going OT -I will leave it here*

Final Update for the other MSI GT72 owners out there: I bought and connected 300Watt PSU from Dell and while it works perfectly fine the GT72 doesn't care about the +70 Watt available and still switches to hybrid mode. So I've seen several reasons for throtteling with the GT72 now: - GPU thermal (when reaching 87 degree celcius) - GPU PowerTarget (when using stock bios or bios with PT enabled) - Total power draw - AC adapter shutting off to protect itself - Total power draw - EC controler throtteling the system All but the second are also happening with Premas vbios - which is not Prema to blame ! He is doing great work with his mods... Just stating it... Side Effects: - the system seems to switch to hybrid mode at a certain point which is well below 230 watt of the default AC adapter - this means that the battery will be used to to compensate power exceeding this (unknown) limit (I estimate it beeing at somewhere around 200 Watt)

It's borderline... With the new paste job the temps are about 3-4 degree lower which is just enough so it doesn't start to throttle :-) I' using either arctic silver or notua nt-h1.

Hm ? What's strange about that ? More OC -> more power required... More speed, more heat (even at the same voltages, higher frequencies require more power...). So IF you AC adapter is too weak it will be more prominent with higher OC.

MSI GT72 with GTX980M and OC: Did another few runs and here is what I found out so far... I posted a similar post in the clevo subforum but I feel it its better to post that here... With Prema's bios and SVL7 bios at stock clocks - the total power readings of the "MSI dragon gaming center" seem to be quiet accurate (I compared them to readings of my power meter) - the power consumption with premas bios is exceeding 245 Watt - with the stock ac adapter the GT72 is constantly switching to "hybrid" power - meaning that the battery is used in addition to the AC adapter to compensate the high power demand (this can also be seen in "dragon gaming center") With SVL7s bios at stock clocks: - same story - in addition I even needed to throttle the power limit slider down to 50-65% - otherwise the GT72 throttled With OC (both bios mods) - before I redid the paste job I also saw a lot of throttling when using any OC due to overheat (exceeding 87 °C) - with SVL7's bios I needed to up the voltage slider higher than with premas mod to be able to OC (also I assume that this is due to different base lines - I didn't compare the actual resulting voltages) - overall OC seems to be possible with both but there is much more trial and error with SVL7s bios and GT72 owners seem to need to lower the PT slider A LOT - lowering the temp target does help too but gives much worse overall scores / results - the power consumption in dragon center starts to show "AC" instead of any actual value during test runs - this might indicate that it is exceeding all limits - hybrid mode is active permanently throughout all tests of 3dMark Firestrike Stock Bios - Stock Clocks: Did a few test runs with the stock bios and it seems not to exceed 210 Watt whereas the OC bios reached 245Watt (and probable more depending on what "AC" is meaning in dragon center). In respect of hybrid power I saw it only triggering once for a short time during my 3D mark runs. Stock Bios - Max OC (which isn't that much +135Mhz GPU, +600Mhz Mem, +12.5mV). Hybrid power triggered more often and also for longer periods, yet still less often as with the OC mods (even if those run at stock clocks). 220 was the highest Wattage I've seen. Question is - why does Hybrid Power trigger at all - isn't this supposed to be a 230 Watt ac adapter (19.5Vx11.8A) ? Bottom line for MSI GT72: - a stronger AC adapter might be needed - the GT72 seems to have "dell compatible" connector - I sucessfully tested a 240Watt ac adapter from dell - but it's actually shutting down a little earlier than 240 Watt (might be because its old) to protect itself compared to the MSI one , question is if the GT72 will detect the stronger power source and act accordingly - with the GT72 switching constantly to hybrid mode and thus also decharging the battery and possibly using up more recharge cycles I'm wondering if OC is a good idea for the long run at all - there doesn't seem to be much headroom in the GT72 for OC unfortunately because of the cooling solution and the ec-controler - for the GT72 we might need a "optimized throtteling" bios that does not cross healthy limits with a much lower power target

OK... Did another few runs and here is what I found With prema bios at stock clocks: - the total power readings of the "MSI dragon gaming center" seem to be quiet accurate (I compared them to readings of my power meter) - the power consumption with premas bios is exceeding 245 Watt - with the stock ac adapter the GT72 is constantly switching to "hybrid" power - meaning that the battery is used in addition to the AC adapter to compensate the high power demand (this can also be seen in "dragon gaming center") With svl7s bios at stock clocks: - same story - in addition I even needed to throttle the power limit slider down to 50-65% - otherwise I got to a point where the GT72 throttled itself (the internal EC controler) With OC (both bios mods) - before I redid the paste job I also saw a lot of throttling when using any OC due to overheat (exceeding 87 °C) - with svl7s bios I needed to up the voltage slider higher than with premas mod to be able to OC (also I assume that this is due to different base lines - I didn't compare the actual resulting voltages) - overall OC seems to be possible with both but there is much more trial and error with svl7s bios and GT72 owners seem to need to lower the PT slider A LOT - lowering the temp target does help too but gives much worse overall scores / results - the power consumption in dragon center starts to show "AC" instead of any actual value during test runs - this might indicate that it is exceeding all limits Bottom line for GT72: - a stronger AC adapter might be needed - the GT72 seems to have "dell compatible" connector - I sucessfully tested a 240Watt ac adapter from dell - but it's actually shutting down a little earlier than 240 Watt (might be because its old) to protect itself compared to the MSI one , question is if the GT72 will detect the stronger power source and act accordingly - with the GT72 switching constantly to hybrid mode and thus also decharging the battery and possibly using up more recharge cycles I'm wondering if OC is a good idea for the long run at all - there doesn't seem to be much headroom in the GT72 for OC unfortunately because of the cooling solution and the ec-controler - I will still need to check if the stock bios is requiring hyprid power as often as the modded bios (UPDATE: See update) - for the GT72 we might need a "optimized throtteling" bios that does not cross healthy limits with a much lower power target UPDATE1: Stock Bios - Stock Clocks: Did a few test runs with the stock bios and it seems not to exceed 210 Watt whereas the OC bios reached 245Watt (and probable more depending on what "AC" is meaning in dragon center). In respect of hybrid power I saw it only triggering once for a short time during my 3D mark runs. UPDATE2: Stock Bios - Max OC (which isn't that much +135Mhz GPU, +600Mhz Mem, +12.5mV). Hybrid power triggered more often and also for longer periods, yet still less often as with the OC mods (even if those run at stock clocks). 220 was the highest Wattage I've seen. Question is - why does Hybrid Power trigger at all - isn't this supposed to be a 230 Watt ac adapter (19.5Vx11.8A) ?

8400 to 8500 is what you can get without OC - so that's "fine" for a stock bios... But even with a stock Bios you should be able to OC by +135Mhz Core and 600Mhz Memory and that should give you a little boost to somewhere in the 9k range... That UEFI thing is really strange. Up to now I was convinced that this is "just" important for booting etc. - didn't expect it to influence nvflash in windows. Even more so since my GT72 is in UEFI mode too and I can still flash. I just can't understand how the ability to theoretically switch to legacy mode is influencing what is possible in UEFI mode... Is there any reason to believe that Alienware didn't just lock out the option to flash intentionally and this has more to do with Alienware and less with UEFI ? But I'm here to learn and that's what I do - next time I will remember that there are issues with certain Alienware laptops and flashing the vbios...

No... I do not... Because from all I know it does not make a difference... he needs to use the modded nvflash (mnflash) and that is a windows programm... it shouldn't and doesn't care about uefi... for all I know... He can't flash because he still is not daring to deactivate both cards at once... I'm quiet sure that's why... For the rest... For all I know there is no "both" - it's either uefi (with or without secure boot) or legacy... some can switch but no way to use both (at the same time)

I'm sorry but how do you know what "we others" have ? My GT72 is in UEFI mode, windows was installed in UEFI mode... In my opinion this does only matter if one wants to boot and flash in dos mode... Furthermore if he had actually legacy enabled like you are saying - that wouldn't be PURE uefi - that would be legacy (=bios) mode... And then I would wonder how uefi could be in the way... Which is not necessary... However I'm out of that discussion now as there is not more info I could provide...

Honestly - the gtx980m seems to be quiet a beast. I have a second ac adapter from dell I use for travelling because its smaller - its rated 240 watt - it has repeatedly shut istelf off during benchmark runs with +250 Mhz Core and +50mV today. This is telling me that this ac adapter is either defective or we should actually be careful. The GPU might be able to take this much power and it is kept cool by the heatsink - but remember that the power needs to run through traces that have been designed for less power. There certainly are tollerances but I'm left wondering how much more power an unlocked, overvolted and overclocked gtx980m is actually sucking compared to a stock one... I will need to find my power meter...

That's bad news... So they days of modding and occing on laptops might be coming to an end. Nvidia inspector is able to detect a modded bios and so would be nvidia. So for some time we might still be able use a modded bios but I assume that days will also end in the nearer future .

According to all I've read in the last weeks: You will need to disable BOTH cards or otherwise the nvidia driver won't deactivate and the modded nvflash won't be able to access (or even find) even a single one card... If you do not dare to disable both cards simultaneaously also multiple people told you that nothing bad will happen you could try by uninstalling the nvdriver, reboot and run the nvflash with NO nvidia driver running in windows. Because that is the goal of all this - the nvidia driver MUST NOT be running or nvflash won't work at all (at least that's what I got from all of this...)

Uh oh... are they preventing it "on purpose" ?