The Beast Returns - Alienware m18 - i9 13980HK 24c/RTX 4090 Mobile

[Popcan]

3 hours ago, MogRules said:

Interesting.  I will try the power limits again, the last time I tried changing that was when I hit the black screen reboot issue and had to rest the BIOS. 

I did see someone on Reddit claiming that the stock Dell image scores better then a fresh Windows install.  Not sure why that would ever be, but that's what they are claiming.  I did blow away the stock image about 10 minutes after I opened the box, and well before I did any tests, so I can't confirm.  I don't entirely feel like re-installing the Dell OS ATM either, although I did get it onto a flash drive.  

The weird part about maxing the fans is when I do it greys out the OC menu in the BIOS, so I don't know if those settings are holding once CC seems to overwrite everything.  I will have to do some more testing. 

 

 Still sounds like your bios is a little wacked out to me.

 

I ended up repasting also last night.  Used thermal grizzly kryonaut I had left over from another project.

Not a fan of this element 31 stuff. They just took paste and mixed liquid metal in it. what a mess.

I used 91% iso to clean up the residue. No issues, temps are the same.  the biggest change is the gap between my hot cores and cool ones increased. hot cores are the same and cool cores are cooler... 

 

After reassembly the bios half reset itself, like it would when I had AWCC installed. My first test was 29000 and after that dropped to 2200ish mhz and I was still hitting 100c... getting 26000-28000 on r23.

 

It defaulted my power setting to quite...   Reset it back to ultra and loaded custom defaults.

 

Hitting about 500 more points and r23 than before 30500ish at 15 tcc.  played with  undervolt some more and got it to settle at 31500. raised tcc to 12 because with 15 it was hitting 90c anyway. getting 31600 now.

best score I managed was 33800 at 0tcc.   100c is still to hot for me.

[MogRules]

2 hours ago, Popcan said:

 Still sounds like your bios is a little wacked out to me.

 

I ended up repasting also last night.  Used thermal grizzly kryonaut I had left over from another project.

Not a fan of this element 31 stuff. They just took paste and mixed liquid metal in it. what a mess.

I used 91% iso to clean up the residue. No issues, temps are the same.  the biggest change is the gap between my hot cores and cool ones increased. hot cores are the same and cool cores are cooler... 

 

After reassembly the bios half reset itself, like it would when I had AWCC installed. My first test was 29000 and after that dropped to 2200ish mhz and I was still hitting 100c... getting 26000-28000 on r23.

 

It defaulted my power setting to quite...   Reset it back to ultra and loaded custom defaults.

 

Hitting about 500 more points and r23 than before 30500ish at 15 tcc.  played with  undervolt some more and got it to settle at 31500. raised tcc to 12 because with 15 it was hitting 90c anyway. getting 31600 now.

best score I managed was 33800 at 0tcc.   100c is still to hot for me.

I agree.  I just pulled the following, and I don't even know what I changed to pull and extra 2k from my top score previous. 



 

[Popcan]

51 minutes ago, MogRules said:

I agree.  I just pulled the following, and I don't even know what I changed to pull and extra 2k from my top score previous. 



 

That's a much better score!    are you hitting 100c with that?

[MogRules]

1 hour ago, Popcan said:

That's a much better score!    are you hitting 100c with that?

Yep, unfortunately, but it's holding at 172w consistently now.  It bounces around, but it def does hit 100c.   Strangely enough it's not changing my Firestrike scores though. 

[ssj92]

Damn none of y'all took any pics of the disassembly process? lol 

 

What did you use to disassemble, is the service manual available?

 

I'm getting a 2nd batch of ptm7950 phase change pads so I will open mine up Saturday 

 

EDIT: Looked at the service manual. Looks like the motherboard comes out without having to remove palm rest/display assembly. Shouldn't be too bad then 

 

[Maxware79]

You gotta give it to Dell and their Service Manuals. They are usually very well done and make teardowns pretty simple. 

[aldarxt]

7 hours ago, Maxware79 said:

You gotta give it to Dell and their Service Manuals. They are usually very well done and make teardowns pretty simple. 

I just flipped through the service manual! Am very impressed with it! Looks like Dell has made the M18 to be taken apart more easily. I love the dirty fan on page 27 HAHAHA, that laptop was not from a "clean room" environment, a real world test machine. I see lots of screws, different sizes, but the picture guide was a great move for the home technician. The manual has sparked more interest in the M18 than the actual machine specs

[MogRules]

10 hours ago, ssj92 said:

Damn none of y'all took any pics of the disassembly process? lol 

 

You know....I finished putting it back together and thought to myself...why the hell didn't I document this lol.  All I have is pics of my heatsink and die, which clearly shows an air bubble or something in mine, which is why I was stuck at like 114w on Cinebench, I literally never passed that until I repasted. 

 

10 hours ago, ssj92 said:

What did you use to disassemble, is the service manual available?

 

That's what I used, but honestly I pretty much just skimmed that and then winged it.  If you have any experience working in laptops and organize your parts then it's really not that bad.  I want to see someone's temps with a more traditional paste still, but I don't feel like pulling mine apart again right now.  I have like 3 different brands of the good stuff just waiting haha. 

[MogRules]

On 4/9/2023 at 11:54 AM, Popcan said:

 Still sounds like your bios is a little wacked out to me.

 

I ended up repasting also last night.  Used thermal grizzly kryonaut I had left over from another project.

Not a fan of this element 31 stuff. They just took paste and mixed liquid metal in it. what a mess.

I used 91% iso to clean up the residue. No issues, temps are the same.  the biggest change is the gap between my hot cores and cool ones increased. hot cores are the same and cool cores are cooler... 

 

After reassembly the bios half reset itself, like it would when I had AWCC installed. My first test was 29000 and after that dropped to 2200ish mhz and I was still hitting 100c... getting 26000-28000 on r23.

 

It defaulted my power setting to quite...   Reset it back to ultra and loaded custom defaults.

 

Hitting about 500 more points and r23 than before 30500ish at 15 tcc.  played with  undervolt some more and got it to settle at 31500. raised tcc to 12 because with 15 it was hitting 90c anyway. getting 31600 now.

best score I managed was 33800 at 0tcc.   100c is still to hot for me.

If you don't use TCC are you hitting 100c instantly? Mine does, does not matter at all if there is LM in there or not, 170w is just to much for this chassis to keep under control on that CPU. 

 

 

[Popcan]

22 hours ago, ssj92 said:

Damn none of y'all took any pics of the disassembly process? lol 

 

What did you use to disassemble, is the service manual available?

 

I'm getting a 2nd batch of ptm7950 phase change pads so I will open mine up Saturday 

 

EDIT: Looked at the service manual. Looks like the motherboard comes out without having to remove palm rest/display assembly. Shouldn't be too bad then 

 

Haha my bad! It didn't cross my mind. I did take a picture of my board though lol...    Its pretty straight forward. None of the fans had to come out but I did remove the screws on the big fans.  The only issue I had was getting the heat sync(sink?)  back on. One side of the screws look like they stick up more and I kept thinking they were cross threading. 

there are only 3 or 4 different types of screws. I personally take it a part in sections and just keep the screws isolated from section to section.   I kind of don't mind how dell put this thing together.  I do think they could have done a better job with how the bottom panel attaches. those 45 degree screws in the front corners never want to go in for me...

 

For anyone attempting this remember what @MogRules noted about the first boot after reassembly. It takes a good while for it to turn back on.  Just enough time for you to think you broke your laptop. lol

 

If someone really wants it, I will tear it apart again and either take a video and/or take photos.

 

11 hours ago, MogRules said:

If you don't use TCC are you hitting 100c instantly? Mine does, does not matter at all if there is LM in there or not, 170w is just to much for this chassis to keep under control on that CPU. 

 

 

Same here, If I don't have the TCC cranked it will shoot up to 100c immediately, for anything.  I have been playing around with it a bunch and went back to 15 TCC it still will hit 90 regularly and even 100 once in a while.  13th gen just run hot from what I have seen and read. Jays 2 cents had a video up with a 17in msi (i think) with 13900hx and a 4090. instantly he was hitting 100c on that as well. At least it appeared that way on the video.

 

I 100% agree 170w is too much.  On a cool system I will jump up to 186w and sit there for no more than 5 seconds then jump down to 170ish and then before a single pass of r23 ill be held at 135w.   I have actually tried setting 145w as short max and 130w long max in bios and it doesn't change anything for me.  I wonder how the AMD chips will hold up.

 

 

I have been doing a lot of stress testing to see what this machine can handle and it is VERY picky about how I adjust the bios. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong but I can change the same setting back and forth (ex: voltage, max turbo etc) in the bios and seeming randomly my laptop will get stuck at 798-2200mhz upon a reboot. 

 

I have started just saving my custom settings resetting the bios and then loading my custom settings again. That usually fixes it.  Like I have said before with AWCC it has actually stopped my pc from booting multiple times and I have had to do the power button bios reset.

After deleting AWCC I have since reinstalled (to get rgb and fan control back) but I have disabled AWCC XTU services and disabled windows from being able to edit the bios.  This has fixed my crazy self adjusting bios issues.

 

Waiting on my 5600mhz kit to show up still. hopefully Saturday. 

[Popcan]

Here is what a about an hour of halo infinite maxed settings, capped at 120fps, looks like on the cpu. undervolted 150 (im honestly not convinced that its actually doing undervolting) custom fan curve (pretty much just maxed fans.)

 

edit: this is with 15 TCC  85c max

[ssj92]

My PTM7950 is delayed until Monday...I still have some left over but it might only cover 1 component. May have to use the PTM7958 paste on gpu and ptm7950 pad on cpu...

 

I'm going to try this today. You will get a whole youtube video uploaded hopefully by tomorrow if I don't kill the laptop LOL

[MogRules]

On 4/13/2023 at 9:59 PM, Popcan said:

Here is what a about an hour of halo infinite maxed settings, capped at 120fps, looks like on the cpu. undervolted 150 (im honestly not convinced that its actually doing undervolting) custom fan curve (pretty much just maxed fans.)

 

edit: this is with 15 TCC  85c max

Have to love how even with TCC Offset on 15 it still wants to jump well past that 🤪.  My M15R5 locked at 15 would never go more then 1 or 2 c over. 

 

[MogRules]

Just tried a repaste using traditional paste, Noctua NT-H2 to be precise, and it looks like I lost performance.  So traditional paste is not likely going to be the way to go here.  Will probably move it back to LM later on. 

[ssj92]

12 hours ago, MogRules said:

Just tried a repaste using traditional paste, Noctua NT-H2 to be precise, and it looks like I lost performance.  So traditional paste is not likely going to be the way to go here.  Will probably move it back to LM later on. 

Have you tried ptm7950?

[i.bakar]

On 4/21/2023 at 9:15 PM, MogRules said:

Just tried a repaste using traditional paste, Noctua NT-H2 to be precise, and it looks like I lost performance.  So traditional paste is not likely going to be the way to go here.  Will probably move it back to LM later on. 

i havent try Noctua NT-H2 before so i cant comment of its thermal conductivity ,, however i tried quite a few including ( Kryonaut, arctic MX-4, arctic silver5, IC diamond and KPX)  tested on mobile CPUs and desktop CPUs.  the best of them for me was KPX first then ic diamond...  ic diamond is hard to come by ,, maybe try KPX and see 

[MogRules]

On 4/22/2023 at 1:58 PM, i.bakar said:

i havent try Noctua NT-H2 before so i cant comment of its thermal conductivity ,, however i tried quite a few including ( Kryonaut, arctic MX-4, arctic silver5, IC diamond and KPX)  tested on mobile CPUs and desktop CPUs.  the best of them for me was KPX first then ic diamond...  ic diamond is hard to come by ,, maybe try KPX and see 

I actually have IC Diamond, it's been my go to for years, but I have already gone back to Conductonaut, so I am going to leave that alone until my Honeywell phase change pads show up. 

[Rengsey R. H. Jr.]

Alienware just released the top end Ryzen 7945HX CPU for the M18. 

[Popcan]

2 hours ago, Rengsey R. H. Jr. said:

Alienware just released the top end Ryzen 7945HX CPU for the M18. 

 From the limited tests I have seen so far of similar speced machines, the 7945HX get way better battery performance, better thermals and is neck and neck with the 13900HX in performance, if not a little better.. Depending on workload of course.

[win32asmguy]

On 4/25/2023 at 6:09 PM, Rengsey R. H. Jr. said:

Alienware just released the top end Ryzen 7945HX CPU for the M18. 

 

Today they added the 13980HX + 4090 option as well.

[electrosoft]

1 hour ago, win32asmguy said:

 

Today they added the 13980HX + 4090 option as well.

 

Pretty quick shipping too by Dell standards.

 

Only thing is you can only pair it to the 4090 unlike Asus which will let you spec down to a 4050 with the 13980HX. Great for someone who needs the CPU and big screen but doesn't need all that GPU....6GB of VRAM on a 2560x1600 display is cringy though.

 

Dell pricing is much MUCH better 3349 vs 3899 for the 4090 and that is before finding any type of Dell discount on top of that.

 

Same spec'd AMD variant is ~$100 cheaper (!).....

 

I'd love to see the performance and thermals of the AMD version, top end, same chassis head to head.

 

 

[Rengsey R. H. Jr.]

28 minutes ago, electrosoft said:

 

Pretty quick shipping too by Dell standards.

 

Only thing is you can only pair it to the 4090 unlike Asus which will let you spec down to a 4050 with the 13980HX. Great for someone who needs the CPU and big screen but doesn't need all that GPU....6GB of VRAM on a 2560x1600 display is cringy though.

 

Dell pricing is much MUCH better 3349 vs 3899 for the 4090 and that is before finding any type of Dell discount on top of that.

 

Same spec'd AMD variant is ~$100 cheaper (!).....

 

I'd love to see the performance and thermals of the AMD version, top end, same chassis head to head.

 

 

Already canceled my AMD spec unit this morning lol.

[electrosoft]

3 minutes ago, Rengsey R. H. Jr. said:

Already canceled my AMD spec unit this morning lol.

 

lol, any particular reason? 🙂

 

 

[Rengsey R. H. Jr.]

43 minutes ago, electrosoft said:

 

lol, any particular reason? 🙂

 

 

No thunderbolt for egpu down the road. 

[ssj92]

9 hours ago, Rengsey R. H. Jr. said:

No thunderbolt for egpu down the road. 

Get the i9 13980HX & 4090 version. Still got the 15% coupon right? lol