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M15x unlocked bios /w hyperthreading option? Plz help!


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Hi, i just got my dads old M15x and started to play bf3 when it lagged like hell. I looked it up with both intel and EA and they said i should disable hyperthreading in the Bios.

The problem is that my BIOS doesn't have that option so i would really appreciate if someone could give me a link to an unlocked bios or something?:)

M15x i7 820qm GTX 260m

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First, welcome to Tech|Inferno!

Disabling hyperthreading won't help, you might be experiencing throttling. Try using ThrottleStop to force clock modulation at 100%. Furthermore, you may need to flash the newest bios for your M15x which can be found here: Drivers and Downloads | Dell [united States]

Lastly, be sure to use the newest mobile nVidia driver which you can get at World Leader in Visual Computing Technologies | NVIDIA

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the above suggestion from Test is good. Perhaps you can check to see if the fans internally need to be dusted out by the fans is a heatsink with fins like an airconditioner grill and they get clogged sometimes taking a can of air to it all would help that. I suggest using hwinfo to monitor what is happening during gaming and throttle stop as suggested above to prevent throttling.

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Yeah, make sure your system is on the latest BIOS revision. Also, the 260m will probably be pretty much the minimum you need to play this game. Lower the settings and / or resolution. Link to an unlocked M15x BIOS can be found in this thread: http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m15x/876-unlocked-m15x-bios.html

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Yeah, make sure your system is on the latest BIOS revision. Also, the 260m will probably be pretty much the minimum you need to play this game. Lower the settings and / or resolution. Link to an unlocked M15x BIOS can be found in this thread: http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m15x/876-unlocked-m15x-bios.html

yeah, i know that its about minimmum, but checked HWmonitor and the cpu is still underachieving. And that bios doesn't have the hyperthread option in it;)

the above suggestion from Test is good. Perhaps you can check to see if the fans internally need to be dusted out by the fans is a heatsink with fins like an airconditioner grill and they get clogged sometimes taking a can of air to it all would help that. I suggest using hwinfo to monitor what is happening during gaming and throttle stop as suggested above to prevent throttling.

Tried this but with a vacuumcleaner instead;) what does throttling mean?:o

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throttling is a technique in the simplest way put of slowing down a chip but not changing its speed as in... The chip is running 2ghz but based on a popular method of clock modulation or chip modulation these modern chips can run on one of those at a percent out of a hundred based on 6.5% intervals or so... Dell/Alienware and most other manufacturers build safety's for if a component such as the CPU gets too hot... Then Throttling is applied and as example MHz running stayed the same and the cmod was set to 62.5% which is common for an Alienware CPU to do when overheated. Other factors other than heat can come into play... Some mfg implement throttling to keep power draw down such as some of these units do just that... When run on battery the chip is set to throttle down some. Throttle is never the right word for what it is its more like a governor than a throttle and its automatic based on set conditions. We here like to use the free throttle stop program to lock cmod or chipmod at !00% therefore no throttling. Throttle stop can be downloaded in our download section also there is a link in my signature below this post. The unlocked bios should have Hyperthreading on off because last I knew even StevenX has used it on and off as he has written many-a-guide on M14x. But perhaps being an m15x maybe HT is not an option on the unlocked bios. If your temps are nearing mid 80's you could be throttling another form of throttle is more natural to the way the chip works and the preset throttle temp in bios reaching this throttle temp is not the same as the higher temp that can cause chipmod or cmod to throttle CPU. My M18x stock unlocked bios setting is 85c on CPU we can set 90c but 85c is default so this must be very similar on most other Alienware.

I forgot to mention when a CPU throttles via cmod or chipmod the CPU is running with that much of a percent less calculating power so a 2ghz CPU using 62.5% cmod will run more like just a little over 1ghz... But will still technically say 2ghz just internally its only processing 62.5% of it full capability... Sometimes this is used at times of critical overheating to basically help cool the CPU instantly since that very moment all processing ceases to process in that percent decrease.

Edited by mw86
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The M15x had some terrible throttling issues when it was first released so update to the latest bios version and make sure your heatsink and fan are clean. Re-doing the thermal paste is also a good idea.

Turn on the ThrottleStop Log File option while gaming and post your log file so we can have a look. The more data the better. You can upload it to Free File Sharing Made Simple - MediaFire and then post a link here.

There are two different types of clock modulation throttling that can be used to slow a CPU down to a crawl. When you look in the ThrottleStopLog.txt file, you should see two columns of numbers that are always at 100.0%. Any numbers below 100.0 are a sign of a problem.

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[ATTACH=CONFIG]3171[/ATTACH]

it says 100 all the time. should probably get new graphiccard^^

that shows exactly what you said but also at the same time from what it looks like this is a cross section of a throttle stop log but seemingly while you were idle. What are the ranges while playing BF3 come to think of your first post can you list how you have BF3 options configured? Bf3 can bring today's top model desktops gpu to their gnees even dual card setup or higher especially when AA and others are enabled spending on the amount of detail and resolution too... SVL7 plays BF3 on M15x perhaps he can share what settings run smooth for him. Disabling individual effects on by one and monitoring FPS can help.... AA, FXAA, Anistropic filter Shadows and more can all drop fps even faster than hi resolutions.

C0% is CPU load and while gamiing you should be seeing anywhere's from 20-100 there while gaming. Temps look fine gpu and CPU but being idle is no way to tell if your system is handling the gaming okay or not. Hyperthreading may lower heat some off but the improvement of being able to process 8 threads at once far out ways the benefits of lower heat with only 4 threads processing at once. SVL7 has shown a M15x is a beast of a portable system... Just give us a little more info and we can help get yours running how you would like.

Gpu upgrades always improve things but is absolutely a upgrade and not at all required for you to have that laptop gamie good... Your Nvidia cards should still be sufficient for BF3... Just not on Ultra and without a ton of filters on... Post processing off can help fps too. I hope I am being helpful.

Can you run the game for 10-15 min then post the log containing 10-15 min of temps,loads etc we then can tell better what's happening... Your log only has like 10 seconds in it. Throttling if it's happening will and can happen several times a second but if your only overheating on occasion it could not throttle for a few minutes till it gets warm... This is how we can hopefully see it happening... If after that there's no evidence of throttling we can look else where.... Settings, hardware etc... Comparing what fps yours is getting to like hardware and gpus can tell you too if you are running good or below what similar hardware is getting.

Edited by mw86
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  • 3 weeks later...
When using Throttlestop to monitor, do you only click the Log File box? What is the Turn On button for? I'm new to the program :x

use it turned on so it applies the settings you pick like helping it maintain highest turbo frequencies by checking the box by multiplier and having set to ON. When you select logfile on and have the program set to on it starts recording to the log file. since cpus change their speed countless times a second using regular monitoring isnt accurate. if you select "more data" throttle stop will report the stats at 8 times a second much closer to showing what is happening on your cpu... and when set like this and above the log file will also record 8 times a second to so you can reference that. if you wait hours you might have a 20mb txt log file lolz but if you just use it just for a 30 min gaming session you will be able to pinpoint problems with great accuracy but it can be a lot to go through to check. I dont mind checking through if you upload the txt document. refer to Unclewebbs advice above about checking for cmod or chipmod to show any value other than 100%...

for a Throttle Stop check Unclewebb's own guide here

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Here's my Throttlestop, just hit "Turn On," "Log File and More data" and I've been experiencing crashing/shutdowns with BF3.

sorry for the wait might of been a little since you posted your log. I went through it one my phone just now took me a little but if i was a doctor id bee saying you have a clean bill of health and a good ticker lol. From that file i divulged a max temp of 72celcius which by intel standards should be fine. I think your are on m15x what cpu and hardware? I think you are on the first gen cpus from intel so i7 940xm generation. Are you on XM or non? I divulged this other info too. No throttling from either chip modulation and none from clock modulation... plus most cpus dont throttle till about 85C not all but most. At 100% load you drop and lock down at 23X if your on first gen and default baseclock of 133mhz then you are running 3059mhz under full load with a low 72c max temp. at a time that turbo boost took advantage of low load i saw a peak of 24.51x multiplier so i guess 3259.83mhz peak during that run. What were you running during that it was a good log nothing bad happened in it though. You lock up under BF3? First under games biggest thing is be sure settings are copasetic and driver versions your on now are ones no one else has had same issues... so latest drivers. (sorry to throw a lot of suggestions just trying to cover some bases) i'd head over to the BF3 Optimization post Conkers wrote its quite good. I had recent probs on bf3 myself as in it wouldnt even launch right so it can be a lot of issues. If you think cpu is issue and that log wasnt under BF3 you could post one after running BF3 like that with Throttle Stop. You could run a bench test quick and post the log again and maybe pic of Throttlestop after (shows min and max temps for reference) also perhaps HWinfo to see GPU temps and speed while playing or for just the purpose of gpus is lightweight GPUZ which can show us in a log also what the gpu is doing also it has a graph like HWinfo too on the sensors so you can exit and see if gpus were throttling... btw Throttle Stop has a good easy access bench u can test select 8for 8threads if on i7 with hyperthreading and 4if on quadcore no hyperthreading like i5, 4 if on dual core with hyperthreading or 2 on a dual with no hyperthreading. Select the 1024m test to see if it has a prob under that sort of load. 32m isnt long enough to reveal problems. If thats what you used in the last log then disregard and we need something heavier.

Btw if your overclocking anything please elaborate on what and how its overclocked. This includes gpu... Bf3 works both...

Edited by mw86
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Wow thats a lot of info haha. Im going to need to reread it a couple of times. I am on the6970m and i7 620m with no OC but sometimes I will do 800/1000 as well as manual fan control. Thanks for that and I will update another log soon.

Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk

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