M15 R2 thermal issue nightmare never ends

Question

As most of the Alienware fans know, the m15 r2 model comes with a horrible thermal design. Someone has claimed that Alienware just designed this model to push the CPU to its limit. However, if you go reddit just type m15 r2 you can find tons of users complain about the thermal throttling of this model. I always think those people are the minority and I am just fine with i7 9750H reach above 100c all the time. Unfortunately, I became those minority two-week ago… Recently, I found out that my CPU will drop to 0.8Ghz during game play. I am not sure if it’s the thermal throttling but, with 0.8Ghz, you can’t do anything with this laptop. I tried to update the bios driver etc. (Whatever I could update) and I cleaned install the system. I also tried different power modes in power management or AWCC. It just didn’t work. I also clean the fan dust BTW. People say that I should have undervolted the cpu. But both XTU and throttle stop grey out the undervolted option. I am not even sure if it’s due to the thermal issue. Another interesting thing is that, when CPU drops to 0.8 Ghz during gameplay, if I go ahead to AWCC and switch, let’s say, from performance mode to balance mode, Ops, CPU frequency goes up again. 3 mins gameplay later, frequency just drop again to 0.8Ghz. I think I may be the only one who suffers from this issue, not until I find someone who shares the exact same issue as me in the dell community. In her post, she mentioned that she had the exact same issue. She explained that this issue is probably due to the motherboard failure caused by the thermal design which is just horrible. And she got this issue after around two years usage, me the same… I just wonder that, with this horrible thermal design, many m15 r2 users may face this issue sooner and later. I call dell and explain everything, all they told me is 'Sir, your laptop is not under warranty'. IMAO, the model doom to have issue within around two-year usage and now you told me not under warranty??? If you have any idea or any suggestions, please tell me, I am really sad that I don’t want to spend thousands of dollars to purchase some shxt that gonna die within only two-year usage. And I just love this laptop so much, the design the feeling, really don’t want to throw it away : (((((( Please help me. (Forgive any grammar issue, I am not a native speaker : ) I attach a photo which shows the CPU frequency drop during gaming play. Frequency goes up again because I switch to other mode in AWCC as I mentioned above, and later it just drops again : (

crimsom · Answer

Hi @MatthewChen233 thanks for the opening post dialogue, most of which is an unknown for your Alienware m15 R2. Dell BIOS updates impose Intel CPU security updates that disables overclocking, etc. features.

Changing the settings on AWCC to get m15 R2 working again, suggests that this is seemingly a problem. We know that the AWCC application does not fully uninstall and that Revo Uninstaller Free, advanced scan mode is good at installing, and then removing all the AWCC left over files, so that AWCC update can be installed, as if for the first time.

Please visit Warranty and Service Extension - Dell Community to see your m15 R2's Dell warranty status.

Please run Reliability Monitor and wait for event timeline to load. How to use Windows Reliability Monitor to identify software issues | Dell US Please look to see if there are any red critical events being reported and share result. Thank you.

[This user does not work for Dell and volunteers their free time. Please remember to say thank you by clicking on Kudos as this user's only reward.]

MatthewChen233 · Answer

Thank you for your reply crimsom.

My laptop is out of warranty. I also checked the Reliability Monitor, nothing unusual happen at all. I clean installed the whole system, so I don't think it's a AWCC issue. But switch different mode in AWCC did solve this issue for couple mins. Again, thank you for all your advice. I am hopeless now, strongly suspect that the bad thermal design dameage the motherboard like the other post in this community mentioned

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