ScottRTL

Hey, so I went to support.dell and changed to all related drivers and chose "chipset", then I downloaded:

Intel Dynamic Platform & Thermal Framework Driver

and

Intel Management Engine Interface Driver

The first one tells me my system is not compatible and the second one says I already have a newer version of the driver installed on my system... Here is what I see in XTU (I took your profile Mr. Fox and used it, everything updated except the "Turbo Boost Power Time Window" which is grayed out and cannot be changed as you can see below:

http://i.imgur.com/hFTn4an.jpg

I have the i7-4800MQ but the "Turbo Boost Power time Window" option is greyed out, yet I have seen other peoples XTU profiles running alienware systems that have been able to mofify this, what am I missing?

Thanks

Hi Everyone, I just joined the forum and I have done several hours of reading, and searching, I am just trying to get a cohesive guide to everything I need to do here, so I am sorry if I am asking questions that have been asked/answered before, but I tried...

Basically I have been out of the OC scene for a while, but I just bought an Alienware 17 (I always wanted an Alienware, but by the time I could afford one, I felt that they dropped in quality, so I held off until the A17)

So, I have an Alienware 17/780m 32 Gigs of RAM:

I have been slightly disappointed with my experience so far, and it may just be a mix of the odd default configuration and my own ignorance. So please bare with me.

It seems my OB Video is always active, even when I set the 780m to be the default video card for anything, if I run a benchmark, it says my video is Intel HD 4800 or whatever... Is this normal? If I press Function F5, it just says it will change and require a reboot, but the Intel HD 4800 is still active after the reboot. The only way I have found to force the 780m to be active was to uninstall the Intel 4800 driver completely (disabling the device doesn't work)

I tried to update to the newest NVidea drivers, but it won't let me, I have heard installing the new beta drivers resolves this, but when I did that, I lost the ability to change my contrast via the function button, is that normal? (rolling back the driver fixed that).

I understand the concept of flashing custom VBIOS to unlock previously locked abilities but I have a few questions related to that.

1.) Should I be flashing the firmware from: http://forum.techinferno.com/general-notebook-discussions/1847-nvidia-kepler-vbios-mods-overclocking-editions-modified-clocks-voltage-tweaks.html that is for 700m series? or is there something specific to Alienware 17?

2.) Once that is done via http://forum.techinferno.com/general-notebook-discussions/2166-%5Bguide%5D-nvidia-vbios-flashing.html, what application is preferred to change my values? NVInspector? or EVGA PrecisionX? Do they have different abilities or pros and cons?

3.) Are there guides for NVinspector/EVGA/XTU that can provide me with some values (temps, voltages/fan speeds, profiles) that are tested and not too crazy, to limit my chances of ending up with a burnt brick?

4.) Can upgrading the firmware on the 780m mess with the BIOS/vBIOS? Or are these completely different entities that have no compatibility issues...?

Thanks, and again I tried, I am sorry if I appear to be an ignorant newb...(and the long post) It is just a lot of information, and quite intimidating to start.

Your CPU performance is completely destroying your overall benchmark result. This will even have an adverse effect on your GPU performance.

Install XTU and drop core voltage to 1.165v, leave it set to Adaptive mode. Set your long and short turbo power limits to 100 each, increase the turbo time window to at least 256 and set Processor Current Limit to 90 and see if your 4700MQ improves. (Don't try to change Core Current Limit. That will not work at all, and it will also force a reboot.) If this helps, tinker more with XTU settings to fine tune the performance. Also, go into the BIOS and make sure the overclocking features are enabled. Set your core multipliers as high as the BIOS will let you for each core.

As a general rule, is this the best way to config my Alienware 17 for daily use? do you have any tips?

Thanks

With the 780m vbios posted here P10000 graphics score in 3dm11 is totally doable. However 180W are simply not sufficient. I'm not sure how far you can push the card in your system before running into performance issues, only way to find out is by trying.

Thanks so much, I was afraid this Alienware 17 wouldn't be all I was hoping for.