Alienware 17 R1 fan issue

[Jerryzago]

I jumped on a bargain and got a 17 R1 from the FB marketplace in a decent condition.

 

It has a I7 - 4710 and a fully functional 880m GTX. and the 60Hz screen. Also an almost dead 500GB slow HDD drive that took almost 3min to boot to windows. Lastly battery was missing, 3 keys from the keyboard are also missing and the WiFi adapter (Broadcom E200) was working at 12Mbps atr best.

 

So I went down the upgrade lane. I put an Samsung SSD I had lying around and a Western Digital Black for storage. Internal mSATA is also vacant. I put an Ultimate N6300 for WiFi and tried to benchmarked it.

 

Temparatures were too high so everything had to come off. Thermal paste was bone dry and had to be scraped from both heatsinks. Thermal pads were decent. I run diagnostics prior booting and everything were fine.

 

I went ahead and replace thermal paste for the CPU and replaced the GPU with my PNY RTX 3000. Installation is better from my M18X R2 because the two mosfets left from the core, are now covered from the 3 heatpipe of the 17 R1. 

 

Idle without fans were around 50 -55 for both CPU and GPU hotspot.

 

I run a firestrike just to have a general idea of mesurement and I got an error. I disabled the GPU scaling from the Windows settings and fired it up again. Throttling of the GPU was present and core voltage didn't exceed 0,72 Volts. Core speed reached 1800MHz and memory 1700MHz and utilization was at 99%.

 

GPUz reported Pwr and Thermal as throttling reasons (Purple and Green indicators). Temps never ecxeded 75 degrees. But I noticed the GPU fan wasn't working.  CPU fan was on full blast when needed. I installed HWinfo and manually set the fans at full blast. GPU fan wasn't revolving at all. Neither at manual setting nor when putting custom values. I dissasembled it and the fun worked when powering on the laptop and when shutting it down.

 

I am pointing out, that when GPU was working perfectly, board power was at 81Watts, Utilization was 99% and clocks were at their limit. Anyone have any idea why each fan has different control? HWinfo Compal EC reports only one fan and speed was set with EC controller turn on and off, but with no luck. GPU fan refused to work.

 

Any Ideas? 

[ÊtaPegasus]

Hi, can you post a picture of the throttling in GPU-Z? I believe you are experiancing the same issue i had (see the topic about the RTX3000 issues on Haswell Alienware).

I do believe there is some sort of conflict between the PNY RTX 3000 vBios and the system Bios of the 17R1.

As for your fan not working, did it work before you swap GPU's?

[Jerryzago]

Here is a log when I run Time Spy to get a basepoint ,where the performce is. 4000 by the way.

 

I have stydied your posts regarding the RTX in the 17 R1. Though it throttles when it reaches 80watt AND 1,06V core voltage and 1800MHz cores speed. Behavior is like back in the days when 980m SLI was throttling on M18x R2 and got solved with the throttle free procedure. 

 

I tried to flash the HP Quadro RTX 3000 bios to the PNY but with no luck. It detects is as an older version, but it fails to start programming, even though I set the Bios protection to off with the correspondig command.

 

I only tested the fan in the diagnostics, and since it has a fully working 880m GTX, I was left to believe that it works. I also didn't see it in the HWinfo tabs, not only before I intall a EC compal driver from this forum. Now I see it spins at 2000rpm at max.

 

Also it spins at boot and at shutdown. That I can verify with my eyes. I belive that the sytem that detects that fan is spinning at 2000rpm, is preventing the GPU to run constantly at 80watts. Maybe an PNY Bios interlock, that HP variant doesn't have? A bios editor and a Bios programmer could give us an answer. I have both vBios at my disposal for anyone to compare.

 

Lastly, the HP variant can be flashed with the nvflash64 app freely. I even bricked it once, flashing both bioses found at the techpowerup page. Both Nvidia and Dell vBios, brick the HP one.

 

Lastly I used the 330watt (And 660watt dual PSU) from my M18x R2, so power delivery is not an isuue here.

[Jerryzago]

Well after having a "blast" trying to flash the unlocked A14+ Bios and trying to find some settings worth my time, I did find that fan no0 (CPU) was at 100% (propably) and fan no1 (GPU) was at 75%. 55 degrees was the kickstart temp for both. 

 

Setting fan no1 to 100, finally made it revolve at 3400 rpm all the time, and probably I got a better result in firestrike. Also NO throttling AT ALL. 

 

Core speed, Memory speed and Wattage were stable at all times. Though core speed stayed at 1400MHz.

 

Temps were a bit high since Hot spot reached almost 87 degrees, but that can be improved, because due to many experiments I might need to redo thermal pads and thermal paste.

 

It looks promishing though and posibly a cultprint.

 

PNY Bios seems to be more involving in protecting the GPU itself.

 

Firestrike Results

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/114102677?

 

 

[Jerryzago]

Here is a Time Spy bechmark. No throttling, only Pwr limited

 

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/114127384?

 

Will do a repad ans see if it gets any better.

 

Also in unlocked BIOS, I have set the Video confuguration to iGFX and I can still see both GPUs in Windows and BIOS. Weird....

[Jerryzago]

After "going overboard" and placing a Clevo Backplate, covering almost the Power Supply area, the mosfets side to the Core and applying again fresh thermal paste, I don't think I can get the GPU less cooller. HWinfo doesn't have any control over the GPU fan at all, so tests were made with system fan curves.

 

Here is Firestrike with (propably) better temparatures.

 

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/114130698?

 

 

[ÊtaPegasus]

If i understand correctly what you did, when you unlocked your bios and forced the GPU fan to run at max speed, the throttling stopped ?

Could you do the experiment on the other way and try to put the stock fan curve again and see if you replicate the throttling ?

[Jerryzago]

On 7/28/2024 at 11:35 AM, ÊtaPegasus said:

If i understand correctly what you did, when you unlocked your bios and forced the GPU fan to run at max speed, the throttling stopped ?

Could you do the experiment on the other way and try to put the stock fan curve again and see if you replicate the throttling ?

I will test and see. It's just a setting in the unlocked BIOS.

 

Edit:

 

Changed the settings back. Throttling is gone. Still the secondary fan is not responding to HW info and have a mind of its own. Maybe the drivers for the HD4300 from Dell's website fixed it. Which they were the latest version available, even from the ones intel have available for download

Edited July 29 by Jerryzago

[ÊtaPegasus]

So the solution migth be the Intel HD driver ? There well May be a compatibility issue between some Intel HD driver and Nvidia driver then.

Btw, wich Nvidia driver are you using ?

I am gonna check wich one I have installed.

 

Edit :

I checked my Intel HD driver and it's the la test from Dell too...

There must be something else you did to solve throttling !?

Could you take thé time to describe exactly what you did ?

This might be the solution to the Haswell generation throttling issues, and you démonstrated it was somehow software related.

[Jerryzago]

6 hours ago, ÊtaPegasus said:

So the solution migth be the Intel HD driver ? There well May be a compatibility issue between some Intel HD driver and Nvidia driver then.

Btw, wich Nvidia driver are you using ?

I am gonna check wich one I have installed.

 

Edit :

I checked my Intel HD driver and it's the la test from Dell too...

There must be something else you did to solve throttling !?

Could you take thé time to describe exactly what you did ?

This might be the solution to the Haswell generation throttling issues, and you démonstrated it was somehow software related.

I am using the 552 driver version and the one from Dell's site for the Intel HD.

 

Going through the bios settings, I have set the Video to iGFX but I am seeing both GPUs. In Bios and also Windows this whole time!!!

 

I am not at home, but you could at least try it. I am also on full UEFI if that matters.

[Jerryzago]

After many setings and reasearch I am propably able to find out why the 17 doesn't like the PNY RTX 3000. It is unlocked BIOS setings. So I hope my notes will help those with the 40Watt limit.

 

First I have set the video settings to iGFX. It shows both GPUs in Bios and Windows and everything works as it should.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Setting iGFX and entering the PCI Express Graphic menu, you can see the next settings

 

 

Going Back and Setting SG mode, You can see some extra settings

 

 

Leaving Full dGPU PowerOff Dynamic Scheme and rebooting with SG selected, results in 8 Beeps and GPU has to be removed to post Again.

 

These are the options for that menu

 

 

Trying everithing (except the last one) everything works, but running a Firestrike, power draw drops to 40watts and Ram Clocks to 200Mhz.

 

So here is what I did.

 

Enter Bios

Set Video configuration to SG

Enter Pci Express Graphics Memu

Select Full dGPU PowerOff Dynamic Scheme

Go Back one menu

Set Video Configuration to iGFX

Save and Reboot

 

Enter BIOS again to Verify from the first menu that iGPU and dGPU is present

Enter windows and run a benchmark to verify results.

 

Here are mine. Though core voltage is below 1,0V, power draw is constant at 79watss and clocks don't clock down. Cap reason is Pwr.

 

 

 

Do try these settings and post results. Asumming that maybe Alienware 18 has the same settings, maybe this will work for that too. My m18x R2 doesn't have any of the above settings and the GPU doesn't throttle.

 

[ÊtaPegasus]

Thanks a lot for your investigations @Jerryzago!

I am willing to take the leap and buy again another RTX 3000 but first, i need to unlock my bios.

Could you describe the exact operation needed? And if it's not to much to ask, wich unlock version you are using and are you willing to share it?

 

BTW, your cpu scores are low, i can reach almost 11k with mi i7-4940mx @4,0GHz (link : https://www.3dmark.com/fs/31231794)

[Jerryzago]

20 hours ago, ÊtaPegasus said:

Thanks a lot for your investigations @Jerryzago!

I am willing to take the leap and buy again another RTX 3000 but first, i need to unlock my bios.

Could you describe the exact operation needed? And if it's not to much to ask, wich unlock version you are using and are you willing to share it?

 

BTW, your cpu scores are low, i can reach almost 11k with mi i7-4940mx @4,0GHz (link : https://www.3dmark.com/fs/31231794)

The unlock process is here in this forum. Do make a search and you will find the necessary steps and files. I used the A14+ BIOS. 

 

It was a difficult procedure, regarding I had to clear NVRAM after upgrade, and also edit BIOS beforehand to enter my Service tag (it is also explained here). Flashing was easy and since you already have a 4940mx, probably you will not have to clear NVRAM. The settings the BIOS will have, are for that CPU, and because I have a 4710MQ, it failed to post and needed to load setup defaults.

 

After getting it done, I left my Video Settings to iGFX but I could still see the Nvidia GPU both in Bios and Windows. I installed Drivers and it was working without any throttling. 

 

I was having fan control issues. HWinfo stops GPU fan from working and only operates CPU fan. I can say that now I run the stock fan curve, and keeps the GPU below 75 degrees (80 for hotspot).

 

I couldn't recreate the throttling issue, untill I found out this menu. Also setting SG mode, resulted in 8 beeps upon restart, and I don't have the 120hz display. PEG also gives 8 beeps (naturally).

 

Messing around with settings, I recreated the throttling issue by doing what I describe in my previous post. 

 

Having so low physics score is because of my stock speeds of the 4710MQ. Base clock is 2,5GHz and turbo is 3,5ish.....

 

GPU runs happy though so now that I have narrow it down, I might get an MX but the temps are my concern. My 3940MX hits 100 when clocked to 3,7 at all cores.

 

I believe that 4940MX will have the same behavior. I will take the shot in the near future though.

[ÊtaPegasus]

I've just unlocked my bios with Javers A14+ version after updating my service tag.

Even though i have a i7-4940mx, i still had to use the Nvram reset procedure to make it boot. I confirm it's a PITA on this AW17 Ranger, even more since i have 4 memory modules....

I just looked around the settings available, could you guide me through the fan tables? How am i suppose to set the fan TRIP values to obtain a more aggressive fan curve?

[Jerryzago]

16 hours ago, ÊtaPegasus said:

 

I just looked around the settings available, could you guide me through the fan tables? How am i suppose to set the fan TRIP values to obtain a more aggressive fan curve?

I am away from home, so I cannot post any images.

 

I have set the trip points a bit lower than default settings. I believe it has 47 degrees. I am not completely sure they work, but fans seem to kick at 50 degrees and previously were at 60.

 

I monitor the temps from HWinfo and RTSS while in game, but fan control from within HWinfo, makes GPU fan stop working, whatever I set as speed value.

 

Speed is 4600rpm for CPU and 3600 for GPU.

 

Do try and test them.

[Reciever]

4940mx isnt worth the trouble, silicon lottery was poor for it, 4930mx will do fine. 

 

Also if you are using Compal EC via HWInfo64 to force max fan speed then you will lose the GPU fan as a result. I got around this by cutting the control wire and just let the fan run full speed. Otherwise you can alter the fan tables with an MX chip in the unlocked sBIOS iirc. A14+ is a good choice, though there are other options too.

 

Some people install a simple on/off switch for when you want EC to control things and when you want to keep temps as low as possible.

 

If you want to get the max performance from the CPU you will likely need to look at what digits to punch into the bios for forcing max power allowance (that can be later controlled via software if desired). 

 

There is also a means to "unlock" the haswell chips to behave like an MX chip as well. I believe there is a thread on the forums for that topic.

 

For best input lag I would recommend PEG mode instead of SG. 

 

Happy trials, I had a lot of fun experimenting on my Ranger back when I had it :) 

 

Also you signature is way to large, please reduce its footprint to 8 lines.

[Jerryzago]

Thank you for the very helpful info. I will look to overclock my CPU, though there isn't much headroom left, since it reaches at 88 degrees on full Load. I used mx-4 on it and currently looking for a better solution. I want to stay away from liquid metal, as I am afraid of it.

 

The GPU with the stock fan control is quite happy. Never goes above 75 even with prolong gaming. It is an 80watt GPU oppose to the 100+ 980m that was in there.

 

Setting PEG mode with the Quadro is a no go. Results in 8 beeps. Similar situation with every GPU past Maxwell.

 

Can you remember the color of the wire. I am not keen into cutting, so I will remove it from the connector and see results?

[Aaron44126]

3 hours ago, Jerryzago said:

I used mx-4 on it and currently looking for a better solution. I want to stay away from liquid metal, as I am afraid of it.

 

PTM7950?  It comes as a "pad", not a "paste"; you cut it to fit on the chips that you want to cover.  I hear it recommended here a lot and I used it in myself in my Precision 7770, the install/application was not hard.

[Reciever]

5 hours ago, Jerryzago said:

Thank you for the very helpful info. I will look to overclock my CPU, though there isn't much headroom left, since it reaches at 88 degrees on full Load. I used mx-4 on it and currently looking for a better solution. I want to stay away from liquid metal, as I am afraid of it.

 

The GPU with the stock fan control is quite happy. Never goes above 75 even with prolong gaming. It is an 80watt GPU oppose to the 100+ 980m that was in there.

 

Setting PEG mode with the Quadro is a no go. Results in 8 beeps. Similar situation with every GPU past Maxwell.

 

Can you remember the color of the wire. I am not keen into cutting, so I will remove it from the connector and see results?

That has more to do with using lvds VS the quadro I think. Haven't tested that personally as I used the 1060 and 1070. My temps stayed at 54c with max fan speed with the 5 heatpipe heatsink from ebay. 

 

Should be the yellow wire iirc. 

 

I used liquid metal once I was done testing, otherwise I used nth1 iirc 

[ÊtaPegasus]

15 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

PTM7950?  It comes as a "pad", not a "paste"; you cut it to fit on the chips that you want to cover.  I hear it recommended here a lot and I used it in myself in my Precision 7770, the install/application was not hard.

I can confirm PTM7950 works like a charm. It keeps my i7-4940mx @4.0GHz in tue range of 85-90°C under all core load.

Mine is coming from Moddiy and seems legit.