DELL M18X A03 BIOS THROTTLE REMOVAL GTX580M SLI

[barcode]

Does anyone want to try renaming the executables to either furmark or that game? Since on amd kombustor doesn't runxfire but if you rename it furmark it will. Atleast I read that. Also some cards throttle furmark but if you rename it it doesn't. Could this be the case? Could NVIDIA just have programmed something like that in the drivers?

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Hey hey i've already tried this, Furmark doent even run correctly at everything stock, its like the nvidia drivers knows its been renamed and therefore make furmark run terrible unstable, it feels like the program is faulty and something is wrong with it (how strange) but soon as you rename it back to normal everything is normal again runs perfect

I think to stop the cards from throttling when too much voltage is applied someone needs to mod the bios.
We can bump/lower the voltage all we want its not gonna make any difference. The card sets itself to a safe mode when the pc boots, so it can always boot.
There are 2 tables one for performance the other for voltage.
This table needs to be hidden on boot to stop the cards from throttling and your desired voltage to be used on boot.

This goes for the AMD 6990m users, you cant get any higher clocks as your volts are fixed and can not be adjusted for further performance. Instead Nvidia have decided to decrease performance when pushed.

I'm calling it a day here for now, More than happy with the current standard performance and 18% overclock.

[0x29a]

Okay, let's flash my cards then and see how new voltage levels influence performance, that is, if the cards get more space for OCing/lowering loads.

[mw86]

Okay, let's flash my cards then and see how new voltage levels influence performance, that is, if the cards get more space for OCing/lowering loads.

Barcode is right. Thanks for testing that barcode. i meant change the name of that game but furmark didn't work so probably not SkyStalker. Also 0x29 doing your test will be good to determine if on anything other than furmark or the game previously mentioned that the voltage of .92 and derived overclock from it can help lower load in some games which previously may have used 100% of the graphics cards. So good idea 0x29. You'll need a game that barely reaches 100% and 99% you usage on stock volt and speed then compare on .92v and the overclock. Having no GT580m as an outsider perspective... I would just run the .92v and find a way to lower the load in Stalker so it don't throttle and utilize that stable 724mhz at that speed.

Barcode... yes its impossible to vbios vmod a 6970m or 6990m that's why he manually adjusted the VRM with a voltmeter etc attached to see the voltage reading. Only once in windows it did like you said reverted to safe speeds which as like a 400 core and 900vram. But this was at 1.2v which could be to high for anycard. When raised lower it wouldn't stay at the volts... It dropped to stock... But the volts stayed at 1.2 once he raised it up to that. So Nvidia and AMD have been implementing hardware level protections probably. So you guys with the 580M should be all set since you can raise the volts from stock unlike latest AMD. Ahmed and Barcode are correct that the vmod is well enough and if Stalker and Furmark is the only thing that throttles the issue seems unimportant unless your set on playing Stalker your self.

Goodwork and discoveries have been made here. There is probably nothing else to explore.

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Barcode actually if furmark runs like crap with it renamed it probably just means when the driver knows its furmark it handles it with care and when renamed it doesn't know its furmark and literally draws too much power and resources that the driver normally would manage differently having known it was furmark. Since furmark can cripple desktop gpus that's probably why... Amd and Nvidia without doubt run their cards different when furmark is loaded. AMD cards may handle that same way with furmark renamed. I have Grid... Runs terrible for some reason but renamed to Dirt2 or Need For Speed Shift helps it run fine. These companies are building guidelines for these cards profiles... Like Amd Crossfire Profile. I've used Nvidia before... But don't know what their for of this is. I remember you can set per app profiles... Not saying anything in there would fix throttle but if we knew what exactly caused Skystalker to throttle you possible could make a work around in a per app profile. Forget Furmark every video company knows it pushes their cards more than games. Guys help here... just discuss some more... there's no immediate fix... But we could find a work around. No one plays furmark its not a game so who cares. But Skystalker is... what if we determined a certain type of graphic feature is causing the issue in that game? Load has been said to be related to the throttle and temps were ruled out... So why does throttle happen on .92v and not as often .87? Like its been said if speeds are higher load should go down from its previous level. So why is it still throttling is the load just still too high? I dont have the 580M and i dont understand this.

[0x29a]

Barcode actually if furmark runs like crap with it renamed it probably just means when the driver knows its furmark it handles it with care and when renamed it doesn't know its furmark and literally draws too much power and resources that the driver normally would manage differently having known it was furmark.

Not necessarily. The programming responsible for engaging the throttle may be set to react when particular conditions are met.

IMO this is the case with 580m throttling. If the cards work on full load (meaning 100% usage and highest possible voltage) for x seconds the throttle kicks in. (The STALKER test points at 90 seconds, more or less).

Note this is exactly the case with EVGA OC Scanner. If I run regular tests, it's all good, but neither of my two cards work under 100% load for a longer period. If only I switch to OC Scanner's "heavy load" settings, the primary card quickly hits 100% GPU use and continuously high energy consumption -> the throttle kicks in.

This is the case with STALKER CS. Sometimes the game puts sustained high stress on the card, e.g. during game world sunrises, and the throttle kicks in.

Furmark, as a 'burn' application, works in the same way. It puts the highest possible stress on a card and this is what triggers throttle. Naturally, there prolly are programming shortcuts identifying benchmarking applications and automatically downclocking the cards if execution of one of them is detected, e.g. 3dmark vantage.

I honestly believe that at least partially, if not completely, 580m throttle is load-related.

That's why increasing possible voltage may bear fruits.

edit: see post below

[mw86]

No problem sorry everyone. I read the posts but think I missed the points, I understand now. Okay so seems like you have the reason why its throttling. I think I got confused because we had so many discussions on temp throttling and load and I got mixed somewhere between it. Continue on... having no 580M makes me not helpful for this anyway. I'll just follow the thread instead. I wanted to help but now I realize there's nothing I can bring to the table about this. Again sorry 0x29... i'll keep focused.

[0x29a]

But Skystalker is... what if we determined a certain type of graphic feature is causing the issue in that game? Load has been said to be related to the throttle and temps were ruled out... So why does throttle happen on .92v and not as often .87? Like its been said if speeds are higher load should go down from its previous level. So why is it still throttling is the load just still too high? I dont have the 580M and i dont understand this.

STALKER is very badly optimized. Prolly neither voltage nor clocks matter. I bet STALKER tries to allocate too much of resources, that's why it hits the throttle sometimes. As I said, the game runs at 120-130FPS, yet it keeps on putting high stress on the cards. it's like it's power hungry without any limit.

Note that voltage changes are generally accompanied with higher clocks -> cards work faster. There is some relation there. One sets higher voltage so the card uses more energy and can run higher clocks. If you push the card too high, it will start to run at sustained full load and the throttle will kick in. it's like you give it more space to work and then fill this space with more demand (higher clocks need more energy to run).

The point is to overclock the card just a bit, 15-20% sounds okay, along with rising the voltage level. This should give the card, so to say, more space to work. If you run an application on stock clocks that is so demanding the cards work at full load, and then you apply higher voltage and higher clocks and run the same application, the demand for resources should remain the same, while cards' resources will be richer. The card then, supposedly, will not run at full load anymore, but, say at 80% load. Are you following me here? This is kinda tricky to explain in writing.

This is why STALKER is an exception. Its demand for resources keeps on constantly, increasingly rising along with available resources -> very bad optimization. So it's like STALKER just needed 1/3 of a cake not to be hungry anymore, yet nevertheless kept on eating the whole cake, way beyond its needs.

Note that I run STALKER at overlocked clocks but stock voltage, so basically the card had to work heavier because of that -> load increased since STALKER consumed all resources anyway -> (load-related) throttle kicking in sooner/more often.

[mw86]

But Skystalker is... what if we determined a certain type of graphic feature is causing the issue in that game? Load has been said to be related to the throttle and temps were ruled out... So why does throttle happen on .92v and not as often .87? Like its been said if speeds are higher load should go down from its previous level. So why is it still throttling is the load just still too high? I dont have the 580M and i dont understand this.

STALKER is very badly optimized. Prolly neither voltage nor clocks matter. I bet STALKER tries to allocate too much of resources, that's why it hits the throttle sometimes. As I said, the game runs at 120-130FPS, yet it keeps on putting high stress on the cards. it's like it's power hungry without any limit.

Note that voltage changes are generally accompanied with higher clocks -> cards work faster. There is some relation there. One sets higher voltage so the card uses more energy and can run higher clocks. If you push the card too high, it will start to run at sustained full load and the throttle will kick in. it's like you give it more space to work and then fill this space with more demand (higher clocks need more energy to run).

The point is to overclock the card just a bit, 15-20% sounds okay, along with rising the voltage level. This should give the card, so to say, more space to work. If you run an application on stock clocks that is so demanding the cards work at full load, and then you apply higher voltage and higher clocks and run the same application, the demand for resources should remain the same, while cards' resources will be richer. The card then, supposedly, will not run at full load anymore, but, say at 80% load. Are you following me here? This is kinda tricky to explain in writing.

This is why STALKER is an exception. Its demand for resources keeps on constantly, increasingly rising along with available resources -> very bad optimization. So it's like STALKER just needed 1/3 of a cake not to be hungry anymore, yet nevertheless kept on eating the whole cake, way beyond its needs.

Note that I run STALKER at overlocked clocks but stock voltage, so basically the card had to work heavier because of that -> load increased since STALKER consumed all resources anyway -> (load-related) throttle kicking in sooner/more often.

Yeah I follow and understand... that why I asked that question... thanks you answered it very clearly. So my only thought from that then is could you use VSync on to stop the resource hungry Stalker? If the FPS is limited is there still as much resources used? There shouldn't be right? Unless its because its loading way too much into the vram etc like extra textures being cached.

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On another note I posted these guides here. I am no good at writing guides but there needed to be atleast some material on it. There are some threads at NBR. I simply wrote it to share the bios and show what its potential is. I said I was going to write one so the link is here. Thanks everyone here who has been involved with this bios, its unlocking and also testing. I asked Ahmed permission to post it before I finished it and now it seems to big so I'll just provide the links.

I asked that people donate for all the hard work...

I hope these meet your guys approval... I'm not good at guides, and I'm just trying to spread the word.

Guide on modifying registers and talk of various options in the unlocked bios.
http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m...iting.html

Basic tips for higher benchmark scores
http://forum.techinferno.com/off-topic/1...marks.html

BIOS files provided here (compliments of Barcode at NBR and here) Thanks Barcode people at T|I appreciate it.
http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m...-mods.html

All of us at T|I appreciate the hard work that has gone into unleashing the M18x. Thank You.

[littleone562]

Maybe we should try undervolt and see if help?

[barcode]

Maybe we should try undervolt and see if help?

Hey Ahmed and crew~, looks like the M17X users still have their throttle on 580m
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienwar...een-3.html

Apparently nvidia said its in there drivers called dynamic clock management Development is in progress to have clock management on by default but with a control panel option to override it. (yeah right! Dont hold your breath, its nvidia here)

So out of all this, it seems to be driver related

[mw86]

Which makes sense. Thanks Barcode. So will someone try the modded desktop drivers since that shouldn't exist in the desktop driver coding? Desktop 580,590 are world record cards right now... So I ddoubt that dynamic clock management is afflicting desktop gpu's... Wish I had a 580m to try it.