Ripsaw

None so far. We need a Vbios mod, which no one has cracked for pascal cards yet. There isn't a Vbios for an mxm 1060 that exceeds 80W. I don't think you can flash any other Vbios on it either.

Okay. FS test done. Looking at the last two tests that ran (Physics and Combined) matched your results almost perfectly. I guess you launched EGVA before the physics test ran right? Take a look at my screenshot on the right hand side of the graphs where the two tests happened. I got an overall score of 9.3K in firestrike. All hardware and fan settings were on default settings. For an apples to apples comparison, I'm not convinced that you have a power supply issue from these results. Those power limit spikes are for the GPU only, where the 80W limit is reached. When this happens, GPU boost automatically adjusts clocks to stay within 80W. It oscillates a little as with any control system but that is no where near enough to cause any frame drops. (For some reason EVGA won't log the framerate for me. Sorry!). I've done a little overclocking on the GPU after. I can reach just over 10K in FS. Comparing it to current gtx 1060 laptops with i7 6700 and 7700 with similar clocks, I'd say that both of our setups are capable of competing with new 1060 powered laptops. http://www.3dmark.com/search?_ga=2.81616535.141054231.1496849796-1121285817.1496849796#/?mode=basic&url=/proxycon/ajax/search/gpuname/fs/P/NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (Notebook)&gpuName=NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (Notebook) Again, at this point, I can't see a power supply issue here. Elder scrolls online as a game is CPU bound to one core and I wouldn't say it's very graphically demanding for a gtx 1060. Maybe this explains the low GPU usage in that game? Official system requirements only ask for a 560ti as "recommended". A gtx 1060 has at least double the performance of that so it doesn't need to run full tilt. In regards to your CPU overclocking, I too tried to overclock my i7 3820QM and found benchmarking results to be lower with passmark. A modded BIOS could unlock power settings for the CPU that might remedy this. I can't really help you with that as I have not modded my BIOS.

I'm going to install EVGA to see if my readouts are the same with FS.

Makes sense. a 100W card and a 55W CPU (more for a short time) + screen, keyboard lights, sound, etc. BTW, what did you use to measure your power draw?

Looks like that is the power draw of the system, including the CPU. Look at the Furmark benchmark for the Aspire VN7 and compare to the witcher 3 one (Furmark is less CPU intensive). If the gtx 1060 really draws 135W, then we would see thermal throttling on our systems and high temps (m17x r4 is designed to cool 100W cards). Hwinfo shows a power draw of up to 80W. I'm on a 240W power supply with no problems just for reference

Before buying a new Power supply, is there any way you can measure the power draw from the wall? I'm a little sceptical when a 45 watt CPU and an 80 watt in combination with other hardware could draw over 240 watts. A link here reviews the m17x r4 with a 45 watt CPU and a 100 watt GPU at release. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Alienware-M17x-R4-Notebook-Review.75292.0.html A maximum peak of 166 watts was recorded, leaving plenty of head room for the CPU turbo mode, overclocking and charging the battery and other peripherals. Even with a 120 Hz screen, lots of USB powered devices plugged in and overclocking shouldn't exceed 240 watts. Anyway have a go at finding software or hardware that can measure the power draw from the power supply, just in case.

What you are seeing is the GPU reaching its power limit. Using HWinfo or equivalent, can you find out what the peak power draw is? If it's in the realm of 80W then that's normal. All mobile gtx 1060s are limited to 80W. Until someone mods the bios or finds a hardware mod to bypass this, this is the best you can get. You can overclock it to 2000 MHz, but in reality the power limit reduces the core clock under load (more than stock still!). Heaven benchmark shows a frame rate gain when overclocked, even though it's drawing the same power. You can try this for yourself if you want. I got +150 MHz on the core and +94 MHz on the memory without artifacting.

No TDP lock?! Is that on the GPU or CPU? I have a 1060 installed on my laptop (non gsync mxm) and I am limited to 80W on the card. I get a graphics score of around 13K compared to your 15.8K. Did you flash a certain Vbios or something? What wizardry did you do?

I had an 8 beep issue with the old card if I fully screwed the card into the mxm slot. I fixed it with a few thermal pads underneath the card to put the gpu at a slight angle. Does your old card work with the 120Hz screen?

I'm on that version now Same procedure as all other versions. I have updated the first post for installation instructions for future reference.

Correct. I don't know why there are two variants of the heatsinks. Good luck!

I have a query about the thermal options. Are the fan settings for the CPU only? I installed this modded bios in the hope I can reduce my GPU fan speed without forcing the CPU fan speed down too. My GPU sits at 66c, were the GPU fan goes full throttle (installed a new 80W GPU). What do the options for TC1, TC2 and TSP do? I have used HWinfo to control the fans but it can only control both fans at once.

That's the same as mine. The protrusion on the top centre of the heat sink is the one that could get in the way. If it does, remove any thermal pads. You can use a dab of thermal paste if you really want to. If it still causes problems in contacting the GPU die, you will need to sand the protrusion down (I was lazy and bent the heatsink very slightly to add a thermal pad on that spot. No thermal performance issues at all!)

It depends on what heatsink you have. The one that came with my m17x r4 had a copper corner segment. I didn't need to modify my heatsink as this "tacked on" corner piece rose higher than a completely grey heatsink and gave me a slight height difference which cleared the R.22 resistor. I'm guessing the completely grey coloured heatsink does not. See Zoldago's picture of the GPU heatsink below. If it has a copper [brown] corner piece [right of the red square] then you won't need to do any trimming

Both. The new pascal card don't support LVDS. That's a card limitation. DELL could not of foreseen this, then again they made two connectors for two screen options. I don't know if that was a hardware limitation with the 3D screens, but DELL also did not expect people to install cards beyond the 7xx series (as of course they wanted to push the new Laptop models).