Area-51m R2, Turbo frequency not working

Question

Hello Dell and Community, I have the following issue now. I don't think it's normal.

First: I have reinstalled Chipset drivers, AWCC and OC Controls. No changes in behaviour.

When I have chosen "No OC" in AWCC and shut down and restart the PC, right after accessing Windows the turbo frequencies of the I9-10900K are working. Task Manager, CPU-Z and Intel XTU are showing a multiplier of 49x/50x and around 5 GHz. Also AWCC confirms this. After the startup process in Windows itself (around 2 minutes) the CPU frequency falls a little bit, but is still between 4,5 and 5,0 GhZ because I am running power settings in performance mode.

Now I change the profile to OC1, OC2 or any custom OC profile and the freuquency will drop to the base frequency of 3,7 GhZ and the multiplier falls to 37x, even though it must be 50x-52x. Even switching back to "No OC" won't change anything about it. Only a restart (sometimes even a "reset defaults" in BIOS) will bring ist back up to 5 GhZ Turbo.

The only way I can prevent this scenario is changing to OC1 for example or any other OC-Profile, then I see the GHz dropping to 3,7 GhZ, then restarting the computer. Now the frequwncy ist around 3,7 Ghz in the startup process, until AWCC service has been loaded and then it hits 5 GhZ again. Turbo works again.
Now I can change between "No OC" and other OC profiles without the frequency dropping to 3,7 GhZ. Also after restart it works just fine.

But: When I shut off the computer with "No OC" profile active, the story restarts at line 1 of this post.

Can anyone help? Is this a BIOS or AWCC bug?

AG6585 · Accepted Answer

OK @DELL-Cares. I think I found it. I remembered what I did before shutting down (when everything was still working). I think this was luck because who would assume that:

I turned on the security feature Device Security->Core Isolation->Memory Integrity. After that obviously Turbo speeds after shut down with active OC profiles didn't work. I also had this feature active before resetting the PC recently.

Now I deactivated this security feature again and now OC profiles after shutdown seem to work normal again. I hope this was the problem.

If not and it comes back, I will report. But please Dell, you have to take a look at this. The security feature is optional and probably most people don't use it since it is deactivated by default, but it must be possible with your OC Controls software to use OC profiles AND the memory integrity together.

A51-06 · Answer

If you want to max out the turbo to 5ghz all the time I recommend setting the computer in high performance mode in the power options control panel and also selecting high performance in the windows task bar.

AG6585 · Answer

Thanks for your suggestion. High performance mode is on. This is not the solution.

A51-06 · Answer

Well one other thing would be that if the laptop wasn’t being plugged in properly it would either try downclocking the cpu to save wattage or to prevent it from overheating as that’s what a system should do.

A51-06 · Answer

Also forgot to mention, this isn’t a a command center or a Bios bug as it still overclocked to 5Ghz right?   It just has to load the service before it happens.

AG6585 · Answer

I have dealt with this issue for 4-5 hours. I also checked the psu plugs several times.

it is correct, that it boosts to 5 ghz. But not always. When I change the profile from “No OC” to any other profile it is stuck at base frequency forever. Only restarting or (sometimes necessary) setting bios to default works then. Also after changing back to “No OC” the frequency will not exceed 3,7 ghz until I restart the PC.

changing OC profiles in Command Center without dropping to the base frequency and with no need of a restart I get only when an OC profile (not “no OC”) is active at Windows startup/boot.

AG6585 · Answer

I can precise it a bit more now. Yesterday I had an OC profil active with 5.0GhZ. Then I shut down the computer.
This morning I booted it up and again I only had 3.7 Ghz base clock, no turbo speeds. I shut down again and booted up and still only 3.7 GhZ. Then I chose restart in Windows 10 and afterwards the 5.0 GhZ appeared right from the beginning. I shut down again and booted up. Again only 3.7 GhZ. Everything with the OC profile active.

Now I already reflashed BIOS 1.3 and reinstalled all Chipset drivers again and still nothing improved.

Shutting down the computer with "No OC" profile active is working fine. After startup I have the full 5 GhZ. But with any OC profile they only work after a restart from Windows and never after starting the computer after shut down. In my opinion this must have something to do with BIOS or AWCC. Maybe caused by latest Windows Updates?
Maybe people don't recognize that bug too much, because a 10 core CPU is still very fast even without boosting. But this behaviour is annoying.
And since it works after restarts of Windows, this is definitely a software rather than a hardware failure.

A51-06 · Answer

Go back to an older version of windows then if it’s a software related issue as that’s what I’m guessing.

AG6585 · Answer

I did the following in the last hour:Uninstall AWCC and OC Controls completely incl. Registry entries.Restartet and the GHz went just fine to about 5 GHz after startup. Also after shut down. Tried this several times.Reinstalled AWCC and restartet. The GHz of the CPU again went to 5 GHz. Shut down the PC. Turn it on again, Guess what? Still 5 GHz Core Frequency. Now, opening AWCC which results in installing OC Controls. Restart requested and made. Everything still fine after restart. Change to profile OC 1, the GHz dropped to 3.7 GHz. Restarted the PC and the GhZ went to 5.1 GhZ in startup process. But now: Shut down the PC and turn it back on, with OC 1 still active -> The PC starts again with 3.7 GhZ base clock and changing to 'No OC' or any other profile has no effect. Still 3.7 GhZ or a multiplier of 37x shown in HWInfo64.Restarting with 'No OC' turned on in AWCC resulted in 5 GhZ again after startup. But now changing to 'OC 1' immediately results in 3.7 GhZ. It's a loop.Seriously I don't want to roll back Windows, I want a solution from Dell or Intel or Microsoft, whoever's fault it is. Maybe it has something to do with the Windows Updates I recently made: A-Volute - SoftwareComponent - 1.8.3.0A-Volute - Extension - 1.5.24.0 (2) September 3, 2020—KB4571744 (OS Build 19041.488) PreviewSeptember 3, 2020-KB4570721 Cumulative Update Preview for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for Windows 10 Version 2004 Maybe somehow connected to the service: XTUOCDriverService because this one was installed by OC Controls?Maybe can tell me if I'm doing something wrong or which driver to reinstall? Otherwise I have to assume that this is a bug or incompatibility to the newest software updates in Windows.

A51-06 · Answer

You’re still on 1904 for the windows update? Have you tried updating to the 2004 edition?

AG6585 · Answer

No, 2004 is build 19041

A51-06 · Answer

My mistake, we’ll have you tried doing a clean boot?

AG6585 · Answer

I have found a solution, maybe not the best one.

after I rolled back Windows Updates and the problem persisted, I decided to do a factory reset from the recovery partition. I reinstalled everything and made all the Windows updates.

The PC now performs normally.

Even though it would be interesting to know what the problem was and how to fix it more easy in the future.

AG6585 · Answer

I don’t know what to do. The problem came back after starting the computer 30 min ago. without installing any additional drivers or software. Exactly the same behavior. Restart and shut down while holding shift key brings the correct turbo speed of an OC profile. Shutting down normally will again only bring 3.7 GHZ in most of the cases for the OC profiles. Switching to no OC or another profile will have no effect prior to restarting. Any ideas, maybe Dell?

A51-06 · Answer

Good job dude!

happy I could try to help. I understand why they would add that feature to protect the cpu from malicious attacks that could spread to the ram or anything like that by isolating that specific core.

Alienware

Area-51m R2, Turbo frequency not working

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