Alienware 15: 180w PSU not enough for 980m?

I already have it and I wanted to find someone to help test the premise not to mention see if Dell can help corroborate. I have no clue how to test it myself. Why not add something to the conversation?

People always cry wolf on PSUs. I'd wait til you get it and mess with it. 

You never said you had one just that you purchased it. Maybe point that out. If you can't tell a difference why is it an issue? Telling you people overstate the amount of power they need on PSUs IS adding to the convo. It's telling you not to worry about it for the simple fact that people overstate their needs. The post you linked offers 0 evidence or proof to back up the claim.

Actually, there could be a slight throttle problem on the 15/17 R2 with a GTX 980m GPU and the 180w PSU. That may not be the correct thread for showing why, but this thread does show that a 240w PSU is better for the 980m the m295x.

At stock, yes, the 180w PSU is enough for the 980m, but either the PSU runs too hot or the CPU or GPU throttle. From what the benchmark scores posted in the thread, it's the CPU that will throttle. I didn't really read that the GPU will be as bad (it may not be noticeable). However, the last post in that thread did say that a wattage increase did almost nothing to the Clevo laptops (ones that ship with 180w PSUs). 

I rather not deal with a burning PSU, but if Alienware sees fit to so keep the components running at stock, then the data shows that they're not doing much wrong. Or they could be.

Thanks for the constructive response, Game7A1. I've been looking for source information to corroborate the evidence surrounding the throttling and as a person who just purchased and received my 15, I was a bit worried. I'll keep monitoring threads about it. I'm not sure if the overheating thing is related to stock usage or not. I would imagine that if the GPU is the item being throttled then that says the PSU and the excessive heat generated is, technically, too much for it to handle then the AW15 could have been designed far better to allow for the spec they came up with. CTopher84...THIS is the kind of constructive help I was looking for. Circumstances of my post be damned, I was looking for help regarding the thread's postulation and you were not all that helpful, let alone a good model for the community. Thanks for the thoughts, Game7A1.

As a long time Alienware owner I would suggest that it is important to keep in mind that this happens with most newly released gaming laptops. You can find this kind of information on almost any gaming computer. This kind of thing is almost always ironed out with updates that dell releases through their support page.

Also lets do some math,

CPU (47W) + GPU(100W) + typical 2.5" HDD (3.5W) + HM87 MoBo (2.7W) + UHD Screen (3.5W) + 2x laptop RAM (4W) + anything else (maybe 9W total, probably less)

47+100+3.5+2.7+3.5+4+9= 169.7W total of 180W supplied by PSU

Also, these are manufacturers averages under full stress. At least what I found, I tried to estimate high. Not typical scenarios. Typically it will be lower.

Search manufacturers

Intel ark i7-4710hq

Intel ark HM87 mobile mobo

UHD screen 15.6 replacement, find one similar specs as Alienware 15

2.5" 5400rpm HDD power consumption

notebookcheck GTX 980m

Low power ddr3L module 8GB x2

Estimating power of two high power USB 3.0 on a laptop to power anything else (keyboard, speakers, WiFi, etc..) left over (2x4.5W). I imagine it would be less. You can look up a low power mouse, keyboard, and speakers and their power consumption to compare.

I'm going to guess that its a few bios updates should fix any throttling and heat problems. Hope this is somewhat helpful for you.

Here's the back of the PSU that shipped w/ my Alienware 15. Whether or not this is enough I have no idea. I don't see any slowdown w/ a 980m.

47+100+3.5+2.7+3.5+4+9= 169.7W total of 180W supplied by PSU

i think there is only a remote possibility of reaching the GPU's TDP limit of ~100W.

It is known that the low clock speed of the basic i7 CPU in the AW15 bottlenecks a GTX980 GPU...so if the GPU can't perform to it's maximum performance level, how likely is it that it can actually hit 100W?

Everyone should benchmark their laptop with a 180W supply then with a 240W supply.

The issue is there is a nice video by Mr.Fox on youtube showing that the AW17R2 with 980m draws far more than 180W.

www.youtube.com/watch

another video for that problem www.youtube.com/watch

I'm pretty sure you're correct. I just got a Alienware 15. Has the i7-4710, 15.6inch 3840 x 2160 UHD , GTX980m, 16GB Ram, 256GB SSD, 500GB SSD.

In normal conditions it powers up just fine. When I play games with Ultra settings, the battery charge level will sometimes lower to 90-95% and then says it's charging but wont charge till I get off the game. 

Lucky for me I work in IT and our company has business dell everything. We have several extra powersupplies laying around so I "borrowed" one 240watt. I also have a kill a watt, so when I get home I'm gonna start testing. 

One thing that many people don't take into account where power supplies are concerned that is VERY important. Even though it's 180watt power supply, doesn't mean it can actually function at that wattage. All power supplies have a efficiency level. The average power supplies efficiency rating is 80%. So for example if you have a 180watt power supply that is 80% efficient, in theory it can only operate at  144watts. This is normal and appears to be not very well known. 

Besides that I will test and get back to ya'll. 

On a side note. Do any of you, with the Alienware 15 and a 980m, have crashing issues with the game Shadow of Mordor? I am and was curious if it's just me or if others also have that issue.

I have the 17R2 with 980m and 4980hq CPU.

I have tested with a wattage meter. It will only maintain a draw up to 180w watts regardless of power supply connected. I have both the 240w and 180w supplies and BIOS a04

It will very briefly consume over 200w when I first fire up a game with the 240w supply but after a few seconds it settles back to 170-180w by throttling the CPU and disabling its Turbo boost temporarily, to keep within the power limit of 180w.

my benchmarks with the 17 r2 with 980m on 3dmark 11 basic edition

180w & a00 bios:

Graphics- 12489 Physics- 7634 Combined- 5937

240w & a00 bios:

Graphics- 12365 Physics- 7514 Combined- 7456

180w & a05 bios:

Graphics- 12232 Physics- 7434 Combined- 7377

240w & a05 bios:

Graphics- 12220 Physics- 7434 Combined- 7516

just ordered my new alienware 15 with the 980m gpu. i was told by a dell representative that the 180w should work fine with the a05 bios installed with the only downsight being that it may draw some extra power from the battery if required which is not too much of a big deal to me. if its too bad i might just get a 240w psu. what i need to know is if upgrading to the a05 is not gonna be detrimental to the laptop. ive heard that the temps are extremely high(even though ive heard dell saying its because it is the internal chipset temp). so are the temps actually same for the a00/1/2/3/4/5 bios? also are there any other downsights?