15 R4, poor performance

Question

I got an Alienware 15 R4 in June 2019 running a GTX 1060. For the past few months, I've been having gradually degrading gaming performance. I started noticing it about 6 months ago when I would get random FPS drops in Rainbow Six Siege, almost as if this all started when my warranty expired. Now, Rainbow Six Siege doesn't even go above a certain FPS in the main menu on the lowest settings to the point that it's completely unplayable; games that can easily run on a 9xx series GPU like Civilizations V lags 100% of the time and never maintains 60FPS or above. I tried tweaking the settings on my NVIDIA Control Panel as recommended elsewhere and using a high power setting for my power plan, but nothing has made a difference. I also did a full reformat sometime in the past months and, if anything, it made the laptop's performance worse. Would appreciate any help.

A51-06 · Accepted Answer

I'm having a thought that maybe its thermal throttling. repaste the GPU and CPU and connect the 240w adapter that came with the system. Thats also strange on how it places a 1060 below an intel GPU.

crimsom · Answer

Hi @Mitsuya welcome to this user to user discussion forum. This is not Dell Support.

When playing power hungry games, laptop ac adapter power is supplemented by battery power. From your description, It seems that the battery useful power is getting lower with use and age. Please create Windows 10 Battery report. The final section of the battery report gives battery life estimates at full charge, compared to the designed capacity. This area gives a clear outlook of how well battery life is holding up over time.

Mitsuya · Answer

I got the updated drivers an hour before posting this

Gelbuilding · Answer

Make sure all your drivers are up to date.

When windows update your operating system be sure to have problems.

I have noticed this every time windows updates.

After doing to the Dell support page and update their version of windows i.e. from Dell you will notice a considerable stabilization of your system.

Always look at updating the driver when available.

Mitsuya · Answer

@crimsom sorry, am I not meant to post my query here? I noticed other users had similar questions in the past, though none of their solutions works.

The battery report indicates that my battery is operating at ~97.5% capacity. I can't see how this could be an issue.

UserBenchmark places my GPU at a 3% bench, which leads me to think that my GPU is fried. For reference, the Intel GPU benches at 5.61%.

crimsom · Answer

Hi @Mitsuya  guess that you are referring to the first line of my post. This is an English forum that is not specific to the USA. There are many international visitors, some of whom think this is an official Dell Support webpage, when it is just a user to user discussion forum. Please do not take offence. Please keep using the free discussion forums that Dell has provided.

Mitsuya · Answer

@crimsom you have caused no offence. That was a genuine question on whether I was not supposed to post this or posting in the wrong section etc. Sorry if I came off differently

Mitsuya · Answer

@Alienware Area-51 ALX 2006 Yeah it seems to be thermal throttling. I ran the benchmark again after shutting down the laptop for a half-hour and it performed as expected. Operating temperatures while gaming are between 89-92C, not sure if that's high but I'll check out the thermal pasting. Thanks!

A51-06 · Answer

No problem.

Alienware

15 R4, poor performance

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