Alienware M18xR2

Hello Imprezme!

Have you tried to uninstall the video card driver and install it again?

would you mind leading me the steps thru this and ill give it a try, thanks !

Sure, on this article you will find instructions on how to install the discrete video card driver and on this other you will find some more troubleshooting steps that might help you to fix the problem.

Ok so i uninstalled my drivers and when it comes to installing the intel graphics driver it failed...when i click to launch the software and i click install, it then proceeds to say fail

Are you downloading the drivers from support.dell.com? 

Does it let you install the discrete video card driver? 

yeah im downloading the drivers from dell, it lets me DL the drivers but not install them.  I can uninstall the Nvidia drivers and install them as well just not the intel

When you open the device manager do you see an exclamation mark under display adapters?

Ok so i uninstalled my drivers and when it comes to installing the intel graphics driver it failed...when i click to launch the software and i click install, it then proceeds to say fail

Doing this will not change your in-game performance running discrete graphics because the integrated GPU is disabled. So, I would not burn any calories on that right now. If you sometimes run on battery and want the 4 to 5 hours of battery life on the Intel integrated graphics then you will probably want to press FN+F7 to update that driver, but you can address that later on if your primary reason for posting is poor performance.

A few questions to be sure we are on the same page, and so we can determine if there is actually a problem.

1. Are you sure you are running on discrete graphics? If there is any question, launch GPU-Z or open Device Manager and see what is showing under Display Adapter. If you see an Intel HD Graphics adapter, press FN+F7, confirm your intent to switch to discrete graphics and reboot. You cannot do any meaningful gaming using the Intel HD Graphics. It's too weak to be of any value.
2. Are you connected to AC power? If you are attempting to game on battery, that won't work. The battery cannot provide the power the graphics cards require. Connect to AC power and your system may resume the performance you are expecting if there is not something else wrong.
3. What Windows Power Profile is your system set to? Choose "High performance" from the icon in the system tray if it is set to "Power saver" or "Balanced" and this will help.

If you are already on "High performance" and connected to AC, and running your discrete graphics (AMD or NVIDIA) then my next suspect issue would be high temperatures are causing your video cards to throttle to avoid burning up. What are your in-game temperatures? If you have not recently done so, remove the bottom cover. Simply take the battery out, remove 4 screws and slide the cover off. Remove the screws from the three fans and lift them out of their mounting pockets to expose the heat sink radiators. You can leave the wires connected. Use a vacuum cleaner or compressed air to remove all of the dust and lint from the fans and heat sink radiator fins. Be sure to hold the fan blades so the fans to not rev up to high speeds, as this can damage the fans. More details can be found here: Cleaning Dust and Lint from Heat Sinks and Fans to Restore Performance

Overheating due to dust and lint clogging the cooling components is one of the primary causes of degraded performance on desktop and laptop computers. This needs to be done periodically. Doing this cleaning at 90-day intervals is good unless you live in an environment with a lot of dust, smoke or pet dander. Shorter cleaning intervals may be appropriate under those conditions.

If all of the above suggestion don't resolve your performance issues, let us know and we can explore other possibilities. Be sure to monitor your temps during gaming if the problem persists, as you may still have a situation that needs attention (such as replacing thermal paste if cleaning things up is not enough). You can monitor temperatures with a number of different utilities.

You can watch your temperatures in realtime using RivaTuner Statistic Server and HWiNFO64. Details on this are posted here: 

HOW TO: Monitoring CPU and GPU Temperatures In-Game/In-Benchmark with On-Screen Display

The best way to monitor in-game CPU and GPU temperatures is to use RivaTuner Statistic Server and HWiNFO64. The latest version (6.0.0.6228) is bundled with MSI Afterburner 3.0.0 Beta 18 [ Download Here ] and provides 64-bit game support (i.e. Battlefield 4).   More detailed explanation on how to do this can be found here:   HOW TO: Monitoring CPU and GPU Temperatures In-Game/In-Benchmark with On-Screen Display   You can customize it to show what you want, and the end result will provide an on-screen display of information such as this:    click to enlarge image in a new browser window

well the 580/680 were known for temps being high also for issues with the improper installation of the thermal paste(not removing the plastic cover)   and yes if to much dust is in the cooling fin it causes it to heat up.... less heat removal = thermal throttling  and  throttles the speed of  the  video card..  I went with ATI 7970's due to the known issues with NVidia and  heat and the price vs performace was not worth the extra...  I average around 65C on both video and 70 ish on cpu  ambient temp 22-23C  but I clean my fans  avery 2-3 weeks  and  I say they are dusty ...

Thats good to know, thanks man!

Hey fox, i just want to thank you for replying to all my post! it is very appreciated.

I am currently running two 680m SLI cards on the M18x, And yes i am running on discrete graphics, Yes the AC power is connected because i have the battery out at the moment and it is also on highpower.  I am not sure about my in game temps as i have to look into that.  

Do you really think that dust can cause a drop in FPS  of 100? I mean i do hear the fans kick on very often 

Did you go all the way, remove the fans and clean out the heat sink radiators, too? If not, you really need to do that because they'll undoubtedly be very dirty if you saw a lot of dust from simply removing the bottom cover.

Alright so i did as you told and removed the panel, and wow there was a huge amount of dust build up in the back.  I cleaned it all off, hopefully that resolves the issue.  Ill run some of the tests and see where my temps are at.  Thank you again fox!

Hey fox, i just want to thank you for replying to all my post! it is very appreciated.   I am currently running two 680m SLI cards on the M18x, And yes i am running on discrete graphics, Yes the AC power is connected because i have the battery out at the moment and it is also on highpower.  I am not sure about my in game temps as i have to look into that.     Do you really think that dust can cause a drop in FPS  of 100? I mean i do hear the fans kick on very often

Sure thing, bud. Glad to help.Your 680M SLI set up is one of the best mobile high performance graphics cards there is, and it overclocks like a real banshee with excellent temperatures as long as everything is clean and you have good thermal paste. I have never had any overheating issues with 680M or 780M video cards, but any of them will collapse with high temperatures if the heat sinks and fans get stuffed with dust and lint.

And, yes... absolutely, high CPU or GPU temps will cause very severe performance degradation exactly like what you are experiencing. The processors have built-in thermal protection and they will slow down their clock speeds to a crawl if they get too hot. If they get extremely hot (beyond performance degradation) the system will shut down to avoid damage. Depending on how the vBIOS is configured, GPU performance begins to degrade in the neighborhood of 85°C. Some around 80°C and some closer to 90°C, but as a general rule you want to keep your video card temps at 80°C or less as much as possible. A good maximum target for CPU is 90°C, which is a typical throttle point for most Intel CPU without BIOS tweaking to override the throttle point.

yeah i did, i unscrewed the 3 fans in the back and pulled them all out.  good amount of dust in there and i just cleaned it right up.  would you think i would need to reapply the thermal paste?