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deckard

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  • Birthday 01/01/1950

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  1. No, OC via the BIOS isn't known to cause hardware failures, at least so far. Everyone who OC's is doing it basically the way you showed above, by enabling the basic OC options in the BIOS then using XTU to get access to some settings that are otherwise hidden in the AW BIOS. As you noted above, you can at least get the CPU to operate at its rated turbo speed without throttling down. For advanced overclocking though, us normal users simply must have a proper BIOS from Alienware so we're all in a holding pattern until then.
  2. Sure, basically the BIOS on the AW 18, at least as of A02, has many options hidden or locked and is preventing the system from running properly at the rated turbo speeds, often throttling well BELOW in fact, which you can verify with most any CPU utility. There are workarounds available that can restore much of that lost performance but the expectation is that Dell/Alienware will eventually release a proper BIOS, such as exists with their Ivy Bridge systems.
  3. I've since learned that the current BIOS locks BCLK at 100 so we can't OC that way period (not with XTU, nothing) which is extremely lame since Haswell specifically introduced step-down clocks specifically to allow raising BCLK. It seems with the 'OC LV 1' preset in the BIOS (the only one you get with a 4900MQ) they are actually allowing a partial unlock of the core multipliers via BIOS so I guess that explains that. So with 4 cores pumping the most I can get is 4.2 GHz on each which isn't shabby and certainly something to shoot for as soon as they ever fix this locked down BIOS situation.
  4. Now I'm confused again. For Haswell, Intel confirmed that all core and turbo multipliers were disabled for non-extreme CPU's which leads me to believe only base clock tweaking is available for OC. However in the AW 18 BIOS I can change the core ratio settings for all 4 cores and see in Windows that the cores are actually hitting the higher speeds (via CPU-Z). Of course under load I throttle immediately down to 3.1 and even 2.6 GHz (laff) but I know that's a separate BIOS issue affecting everyone. Anyway the BIOS will not however let me change the base clock at all, no matter what I set it to or what ratio, it always reverts back to 100. I hope someone creates a Haswell overclock guide just for us Alienware 14/17/18 people as I can't figure out who's doing what now. So for Haswell non-extreme, will we or won't we (eventually) have access to that 'free' ~400 MHz headroom that the Ivy Bridge people enjoyed? Does Intel XTU override this BIOS stuff in software and allow changes to BCLK and the turbo multi's? I know even bothering with OC'ing right now is pointless but I'd just like to understand these concepts a bit better.
  5. Some folks want a guaranteed minimum performance which is why the 4800 and 4900 exist I suppose. My budget was maxed with a 4900 so that's as big as I could go, the 4930 would have put the price of my machine into the silly zone (instead of just the crazy zone). Also in a weird move by Intel, the 4930 actually has a couple LESS features than the non-extreme processors. I didn't realize turbo multipliers were locked on the non-extreme Haswell's, so is fiddling with base clock our only option to go higher?
  6. I've had no issues at all after flashing both cards with the TI vBIOS, everything works exactly the same as before, only betta.
  7. I stayed far away from the 4700MQ due to the dinky L3 cache but otherwise I'm sure you can overclock it just like any other non-Extreme Haswell, I think most people can get to 4 GHz at turbo without much problem, even beyond if yer hardcore. However the present BIOS for the 18 has a CPU (electrical) current flaw as noted above so I'm not even going to bother trying to OC until that's resolved. Right now I only get 3.1 GHz max on all cores due to this BIOS crap, what a joke!
  8. I have this same exact problem, very strange. I've not had much time to dink around with it but I don't think it's a bin issue, too coincidental at this point. EDIT - Ok I dinked with it just now and it seems to be working fine. When it WASN'T working fine I was definitely on 326.x beta drivers so get rid of those crappers. I'm on the most current general release 320.49 and all is well again.
  9. This is actually really handy for me since apparently my 'card 0' is what runs the internal and external screens so it never downclocks to P8 like card 1 when desktopping. Forcing P8 on it when I know I won't be gaming saves power and lowers temp 5-6C so in the long run I'm hoping that helps the card live long and prosper.
  10. Ok I've learned a bit more about how all this works but still unable to resolve things. I'm running 326.41 beta and I understand there are some overclocking issues with this version so that might be complicating things. Basically the funkiness I am seeing with card 1 is actually normal due to the expected downclocked P-state while on the desktop (it sits at P8). Card 0 however will NOT downclock, just pegged at P0 regardless and now I'm more concerned about THAT than overclocking. I tried the Nvidia Inspector Multi-Display Power Saver fix but it did not resolve the issue. So now I can't get an overclock to even APPLY plus the added problem of card 0 pegged at P0 all the time. Can any of this simply be due to the beta drivers and I should just wait it out for a newer more stable release?
  11. Posted this in a couple places already but seems like this might be the best spot for it to get some eyeballs. Anyway I flashed my new setup (in sig) using the rev2 780M vbios and all went swimmingly. However I've just noticed that one of my cards (ID 1) will not go past stock 849 on the core no matter what I do or which software program I use. The other card has no issue. Anyone seen this?
  12. I just noticed that 1 of my 780M's (ID 1) will not go past stock 850 on the core, the other (ID 0) is fine. Both patched with the TI v2 VBIOS with no issue. Any idea what that issue could be? Should I flash back to the original and try flashing the TI again?
  13. Man that post was tasty, thank you, it's no wonder the premium for the Extreme CPU's is so high. So if I got this right, with Haswell non-extreme CPU's, we shouldn't expect to get more than ~400MHz extra but even so, don't get hopeful until this current limit in the BIOS is fixed, after which XTU will be the main tool (with ThrottleStop later on), then down the road it could allow for creation of a modded BIOS to further open things up? On the GPU front, looks like Nvidia Inspector or MSI Afterburner is all I need, along with the vbios patch. What is considered a safe temp for CPU and GPU on these AW 18's? I'm probably gonna have to repaste with quality goo, seems most everyone has been very disappointed with the job Dell's minions did with the stock paste.
  14. So the core multiplier on anything but the MX/XM CPU's is locked and overclocking my CPU in that case means messing with the turbo settings and bus clocks? Is Intel XTU the best for that or is it strictly a BIOS settings thing? I see an old thread about the MX18 BIOS so I'll go read over that, seems like a lot of will still apply to the 18. That MSI utility looks awesome, so you can mess with the core and memory clocks out of the box but need a vbios patch to play with voltage? Memory will have to wait as I doubt I'll get any play out of this standard Hyundai 1600 stuff that shipped with it.
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