bradleyjb

Wow, great call! This is from a similar wprime run, up to about 72% complete. I guess Dell defaults it that high for overclockers? I haven't re-pasted yet, and probably won't bother now until I really need to. Thanks!

Ok, here it is. Glad to hear that it is more or less OK. I'll have to give this another run in the morning when it is cooler here, it is definitely warm where I am right now. Thanks for the info and tips!

Ok, finally arrived today and I just installed. However, temps aren't really that much different than before (2 pipe with IC Diamond). I get temps in the high 80s © in a room that is in the mid 70s (F) when running wPrime. I only used the Dell paste (it looked ok). Is there some sort of cure time with it? Did I install it wrong, and now need to redo it with paste? I know it is probably fine for day to day and gaming, but I was hoping to start overclocking my 2920XM beyond the Level 3 setting ...

Well, 9 days later I am still waiting on my heat sink to arrive. Has been delayed twice, and a third time is looking likely since it hasn't shipped and has an EDD of 9/28. According to the reps, they are "out of stock", but yet somehow still manage to ship new M18X R2s . . . I have re-pasted my current heat sink, and that fixed my issues at least. Is this something the Alienware reps on the board can help with, or are they mostly for pre-ordering help? Also seems like the only one on ebay now is $90 - I should have done that from the start it seems.

You're welcome. You have to check out Cheap Ass Gamer - Cheap Video Game Shopping, Video Game Sales and Video Game Deals: CAG if you haven't already . . . lots of deals, and the reps from some sites (Amazon, GMG, but not Steam) post there regularly too.

I've been thinking about this too. Was only so-so on the first, and am reading to see what changes have been made. fyi, you can get another 20% off at GMG until Tuesday with this code GMG20-AWDF9-Q1PEY.

I just ordered one. I realized today that I have been hitting in the high 90s on 3dMark11 and Vantage (using only overclock level 3) and throttling back. Rather than just repaste, I saw this note and decided to give it a try. You have to get the right rep, as the first one I got practically refused to sell it to me since I had an R1. She kept insisting on selling me the dual pipe, and then eventually the single pipe from the R2. Thanks for the info, and after I get it in later this week I'll let you know how it went.

Ok, I gave this a shot, and in general it worked very well. I have been using the MSI FD vbios with a pretty mild OC (I forget the specifics, but the 3dmark11 was 6834). With this vbios (without the fake boost) it went to 7132. I tried overclocking further (up to 1000/1150), but keeps crashing out of 3dmark11. I am running the 306.02 drivers. For now this will do, I will try a few more things over the weekend. I am fairly new to this - is 1000/1150 higher than this voltage can support? Thanks for the guide and info! +rep!