m17 R4, AWCC causes low FPS

Question

Hi, I got my brand new M17 R4 this week, it has an I7 10870H, RTX 3070, NVMe SSD. Long text ahead, if necessary, read only the bold text. I wanted to put it to test running Red Dead Redemption 2 (actually one of the main reasons for my purchase, as my old PC couldn't handle that). So I installed it and used NVIDIA's optimizer tool from Geforce Experience with my 4K monitor plugged, then went to the game and manually lowered the resolution to 1080p. I was surprised that when running the actual game or benchmarks, I couldn't get stable 40 FPS. Then I started an odyssey of more than 6 hours trying to find what was wrong, as with such a high end PC I was expecting at least some 70 FPS on 1080p ultra settings. I've tried: - Multiple 'optimum settings' articles on the internet -> lowering settings from ultra to medium and such things, it made minimal impact, I still couldn't get stable over 40 FPS - Disabling windows exploit protection -> no effect - Plugging off my monitor and using the laptop display -> no effect - Uninstalling then reinstalling the video card drivers (even though I was sure they were updated) -> This actually worked and suddenly I got 70-80 FPS! So I was excited, I finally solved it, it's was some driver issue. But when (after a while) I launched AWCC and then the game again, I was back at 20-30 unstable FPS. I figured it could be something to do with OC controls in AWCC, so I tried tweaking those. Then I enabled NVIDIA's in-game overlay so I could monitor the GPU's frequencies and temperature. It was all fine, the GPU clocking at ~1850 to ~1950, well over the standard 1650 MHz. Also the thermal profile set by AWCC was working and as soon as the game started, the fans went crazy like the PC was gonna take off, which is good, because it kept the GPU temperature below 70ºC. So, if the GPU's clock was OCd all right and everything seemed fine, how come I couldn't get those 70-80 FPS I expected? After beating my head for a few hours more, trying other monitors and such, I figured I'd just stop the AWCC service and Intel OC services on Win10 settings and VOILA! Now I'm back at 70 stable FPS! What is happening? Why is AWCC causing such low FPS? Yes, everything is updated, I made sure to uninstall it all and install it again from the filles I got from Dell's support page. Will I have to keep it disabled? How can I tweak / OC my GPU without AWCC, should I use MSI Afterburner of some 3rd party software? What happens to FX and the led settings then? Please help me! Thanks in advance João

jgdklemz · Answer

Update: I got personal messages from an attentive support representative from Dell. Apart from talking to him guiding me through basics steps like reinstalling drivers, restoring factory defaults and whatnot (all stuff I'd already tried), suddenly the problem just vanished, and now I can launch the game from AWCC and get nice and safe performance with my OC and thermal profile working as intended.

As reference for those who have the same kind of problems, I honestly have no idea what the problem was, but the steps I took before seeing a solution, in order of attempt:

1- Installing all driver updates from Dell, including the VBIOS, firmwares and such

2- Uninstalling and re-installing the whole AWCC and OC controls suite

3- Uninstalling and re-installing the NVIDIA drivers from Nvidia's website, without Geforce Experience

4- Setting the battery profile to "AC mostly" in the system BIOS. I may have tweaked something else while at it, can't remember

5- Installing Geforce Experience and setting up the performance monitoring overlay, for monitoring GPU freqs and temperature mostly

6- Killing AWCC and Intel OC services, then setting them to start manually instead of automatically, through win10 services panel

Then restarting AWCC and the computer a few times. Could be some error with the AWCC service, because when I started it again after killing it, it automatically downloaded some update, and apparently started to work properly.

Devileyes · Answer

i am having the exact same issue, im trying to run godfall in 4k and im barely getting 50 fps while people with a scar 15 on youtube are getting 70-80+ fps with my same settings.

it's extremely frustrating to be completely honest

jgdklemz · Answer

Hey, I`ve contacted you through PM. Were you at least able to get those FPS you mentioned (70-80) with AWCC disabled / Uninstalled? That was what I did. (:

Most tutorials you find online recommend the use of MSI Afterburner for overclocking and stuff, although I don`t believe that difference is due to overclocking..

Alienware

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