Review of the Helios 500

mikeyjames

mankvl said:

@mikeyjames set all 3 predator sense xtu profiles to same undervolt, I noticed that when wanted to make normal - 1.6 but max -1.5. Normal was always reseted to 0 after changing from max to normal in predatorsense. 

@mankvl, Thanks, I'll give it a go and report back.

It has me baffled. No idea whether it's due to changes in PredatorSense, XTU, or some other update. 

At least the PredatorSense update has some interesting info on the new Helios 700 (PH717-71). If the included model profiles are anything to go by it will come with four different Intel CPUs - 9880HK, 8950HK, 9750H, and 8750H - with Intel XTU profiles for Normal, Boosted, Fast, & Turbo

mikeyjames

So far so good but something screwy is definitely going on. Have a look at this picture and see what's happened to the multiplier per active cores. I made a new Turbo profile, exported it, then when I import it back in the proposed multiplier has changed to 41x for any number of active cores. Weird.

Red-Sand

mikeyjames said:

Red-Sand said:

Hey brother.

Basically you just install XTU (Intel Extreme Tuning Utility) and then navigate to the folder I listed in the review and open each profile one at a time (which opens in XTU)..................................


Then just reboot your system and you're done. 👍

Hey @Red-Sand
Wasn't sure whether to start a new thread or post here and not sure if you can really help, but thought I'd have a shot.

The Normal.xtu profile I made using your advice with the turbo settings and an undervolt of 0.145 was working great until recently. It had been set and forgotten and never an issue.

A couple of weeks ago my Predator Sense got updated via a Windows  .appxbundle to version 3.0.3120.0 (the .exe reports 3.0.119.0). I only found this out by accident when PredaorSense on my Helios 500 at the office stopped working and I was trying to troubleshoot why my home laptop didn't have the issue, only to find they had different versions (still no idea why one updated and the other didn't).

I then noticed when PS updated it must have set the normal.xtu profile back to default values, so I simply swapped them for Turbo with the undervolt again with a copy I had saved. At first boot it did nothing, with XTU reporting default 'Normal' settings. I then overwrote normal.xtu with a fresh export from Intel XTU and all seemed fine.

A couple of boots later we are back to default 'Normal' again. After about three attempts to overwrite Normal.xtu and reboot the Turbo/undervolted values seemed to be sticking again.

A couple of boots later and the Turbo settings seemed to stick but the undervolt didn't (XTU reported Voltage Offset as zero). I went through the same process and once again it worked for a while then the Voltage Offset was set to zero again.

I played around and even tried playing with the Power Boost Time Window by setting it to 32 just to test if it would stick. Everything sticks - Power Max = 56.750W, Short Power Max = 75.000W, IccMax = 255.750A, and Time Window = 32 seconds -but the Voltage Offset, for some reason, always ends back at zero after the few boots.

There have been no bios updates. I have tried uninstalling PredatorSesnse and going back to the version available on the Acer download site. I have uninstalled and re-installed Intel XTU. I have even done a system restore.

There seems to be something going on that's beyond me and wondering if someone has an idea what it could be?

Thanks
Mick

Setup your XTU profile inside XTUs software how you would like the default Normal profile to be and apply.

Then uninstall XTU while XTU is open and then replace all three profiles with the ones you want without reinstalling XTU.

This will trick "XTUService" to run the profile you had set while you uninstalled XTU as the default startup profile on each boot, and also should allow the other profiles to change when you switch the power limit profiles from Predator Sense.

mikeyjames

Red-Sand said:

Setup your XTU profile inside XTUs software how you would like the default Normal profile to be and apply.

Then uninstall XTU while XTU is open and then replace all three profiles with the ones you want without reinstalling XTU.

This will trick "XTUService" to run the profile you had set while you uninstalled XTU as the default startup profile on each boot, and also should allow the other profiles to change when you switch the power limit profiles from Predator Sense.

@Red-Sand, thanks for that. At the moment my settings seem to have remained in place so I won't change anything but will try this is it comes unstuck again.

Any idea what could be doing this?

Thanks
Mick

mikeyjames

Hey @Red-Sand and @mankvl (or anyone else with more knowledge than me)

My problem with XTU profiles was permanently solved by installing an older version of Intel XTU (6.4.1.23), just in case anyone else ever has the problem.

Now for my new question, after playing around with XTU settings I have found that by disabling "Turbo Boost Short Power Max" (TBSPM) and setting "Turbo Boost Power Max" (TBPM) to 85w I never get any power limit throttling at all, ever.

One of the games I play the most is Prepar3D, a flight simulator. With extra purchases like ultra-realistic commercial jetliners, real weather updates, high definition weather scenery, and other scenery add-ons it often runs all 12 threads at 90-100% constantly. It is less strenuous on the GPU but usually around the 50% mark.

With default Acer Turbo settings with my -.148v offset The CPU runs around 75c with spikes into the high 80's. There is regular power limit throttling as I guess at times 56w isn't enough and the 28 second limit for 70w runs out of time. I initially tried increasing the time limit to 96 seconds which helped a bit but still regular power limit throttling. Short burst high temps increased by about 1c.

I then tried setting TBPM higher and disabling TBSPM altogether. My sweet spot was TBPM set to 84w.

With this new setting, I can throw anything I like at the machine and never get any throttling at all - all six cores run at 3.9Ghz permanently. Temps are pretty much the same - mostly in the mid-70s but the spikes get up to around 91- 92c for very short periods of a second or two but no thermal throttling.

For example, I can play Prepar3D for hours and no throttling at all. Cinebench 20 scores around 2900 - 3100, Cinebench 15 around 1200 - 1250 - when using XTU to monitor the Cinebench runs there is no throttling at all either.

Just wondering whether, as long as the CPU temps are fine, this is going to damage the CPU?

It is now winter here in Sydney with ambient room temps around 22-23c in the house. I understand in summer, when the ambient temps are around 30c+ with the air conditioner turned off, I will either have to dial down the CPU settings or turn on the AC, but just want to know if what I'm doing is safe?

Also, I am wondering if for questions like this if I should start a new thread? Happy to do if that would be more appropriate.

Cheers
Mick

xapim

mikeyjames said:

Hey @Red-Sand and @mankvl (or anyone else with more knowledge than me)

My problem with XTU profiles was permanently solved by installing an older version of Intel XTU (6.4.1.23), just in case anyone else ever has the problem.

Now for my new question, after playing around with XTU settings I have found that by disabling "Turbo Boost Short Power Max" (TBSPM) and setting "Turbo Boost Power Max" (TBPM) to 85w I never get any power limit throttling at all, ever.

One of the games I play the most is Prepar3D, a flight simulator. With extra purchases like ultra-realistic commercial jetliners, real weather updates, high definition weather scenery, and other scenery add-ons it often runs all 12 threads at 90-100% constantly. It is less strenuous on the GPU but usually around the 50% mark.

With default Acer Turbo settings with my -.148v offset The CPU runs around 75c with spikes into the high 80's. There is regular power limit throttling as I guess at times 56w isn't enough and the 28 second limit for 70w runs out of time. I initially tried increasing the time limit to 96 seconds which helped a bit but still regular power limit throttling. Short burst high temps increased by about 1c.

I then tried setting TBPM higher and disabling TBSPM altogether. My sweet spot was TBPM set to 84w.

With this new setting, I can throw anything I like at the machine and never get any throttling at all - all six cores run at 3.9Ghz permanently. Temps are pretty much the same - mostly in the mid-70s but the spikes get up to around 91- 92c for very short periods of a second or two but no thermal throttling.

For example, I can play Prepar3D for hours and no throttling at all. Cinebench 20 scores around 2900 - 3100, Cinebench 15 around 1200 - 1250 - when using XTU to monitor the Cinebench runs there is no throttling at all either.

Just wondering whether, as long as the CPU temps are fine, this is going to damage the CPU?

It is now winter here in Sydney with ambient room temps around 22-23c in the house. I understand in summer, when the ambient temps are around 30c+ with the air conditioner turned off, I will either have to dial down the CPU settings or turn on the AC, but just want to know if what I'm doing is safe?

Also, I am wondering if for questions like this if I should start a new thread? Happy to do if that would be more appropriate.

Cheers
Mick

mikeyjames Hi why wont you try TS instead of xtu as sometimes xtu wont work properly and the settings wont stick i tried xtu once uninstalled it swapped to TS never looked back and never had any issue you can follow the links in my signature to find out more about it if youre interested

mikeyjames

xapim said:

mikeyjames said:

Hey @Red-Sand and @mankvl (or anyone else with more knowledge than me)

My problem with XTU profiles was permanently solved by installing an older version of Intel XTU (6.4.1.23), just in case anyone else ever has the problem.

Cheers
Mick

mikeyjames Hi why wont you try TS instead of xtu as sometimes xtu wont work properly and the settings wont stick i tried xtu once uninstalled it swapped to TS never looked back and never had any issue you can follow the links in my signature to find out more about it if youre interested

Hey @xapim
To be honest, I've been too lazy to learn TS as it looks like more work than XTU, which was working great for around 12 months until some update, around a month ago, seemed to cause some problems. Since dropping back to an earlier version of XTU all seems rock solid again.

If any other issues, I will definitely give TS a go.

Cheers
Mick

xapim

mikeyjames said:

xapim said:

mikeyjames said:

Hey @Red-Sand and @mankvl (or anyone else with more knowledge than me)

My problem with XTU profiles was permanently solved by installing an older version of Intel XTU (6.4.1.23), just in case anyone else ever has the problem.

Cheers
Mick

mikeyjames Hi why wont you try TS instead of xtu as sometimes xtu wont work properly and the settings wont stick i tried xtu once uninstalled it swapped to TS never looked back and never had any issue you can follow the links in my signature to find out more about it if youre interested

Hey @xapim
To be honest, I've been too lazy to learn TS as it looks like more work than XTU, which was working great for around 12 months until some update, around a month ago, seemed to cause some problems. Since dropping back to an earlier version of XTU all seems rock solid again.

If any other issues, I will definitely give TS a go.

Cheers
Mick

Its not more work you have ready confs that @Red-Sand made for almost all cpus its just copy and paste its only more work if you want to keep tweaking it yourself to see where it takes you

nguyentuanpc

I really like Acer gaming laptops. Especially the Predator model.

Acer Predator is No. 1 in gaming laptops

--------------------------------------------
Thu mua Laptop, Thu mua Macbook

Brownyb

Hi Everyone. I'm new to gaming laptops and not real computer savvy. I have only ever used a desktop with multiple HDMI ports which makes multiple monitors easy. So I was wondering what is the best way to set up 2 extra monitors? would it be one connected to HDMI and the other connected to Display port.Thanks in advance

xapim

Brownyb said:

Hi Everyone. I'm new to gaming laptops and not real computer savvy. I have only ever used a desktop with multiple HDMI ports which makes multiple monitors easy. So I was wondering what is the best way to set up 2 extra monitors? would it be one connected to HDMI and the other connected to Display port.Thanks in advance

If you model has a DP yes thats the best way

Red-Sand

+1 to trying Throttlestop. Especially in your case @mikeyjames

The reason being is that TS offers a feature that's supposed to unlock power limits but also has a side effect if it doesn't exactly "unlock" the cap PL values.

For example: Enabling the feature on a capped PL i7-7700HQ does not allow you to use more wattage to the CPU.. but it does however lessen the wattage draw from the CPU (I have zero clue as to why).

On the i7-7700HQ running fill tilt you reach the advertised limit of 56w then it drops to 45w. However after enabling the feature I found my CPU runs full tilt but does not surpass 38-40w under any load (therefore doesn't power limit throttle).

Feel free to PM me if your interested in that route.
In fact I could design a Throttlestop folder set to the liking of yourself and upload it so it's as easy as running the exe and forgetting it.

And to answer your question (lol) as long as your temperatures are good (not throttling at 95 C) and your not feeding voltage (overvolt rather than undervolt) to your CPU, then your good to go.

sigmaphi

mine keeps shutting down because of the heat from the ssd, If i pay via ssd it will shut down but if i transfer the games to normal HDD no shut down 

Red-Sand

sigmaphi said:

mine keeps shutting down because of the heat from the ssd, If i pay via ssd it will shut down but if i transfer the games to normal HDD no shut down 

Did you happen to reinstall Windows and remove RAID 0?

I know many point out there's no benefit from having RAID installed but for gaming systems the split load helps with temperatures greatly.

sigmaphi

Red-Sand said:

sigmaphi said:

mine keeps shutting down because of the heat from the ssd, If i pay via ssd it will shut down but if i transfer the games to normal HDD no shut down 

Did you happen to reinstall Windows and remove RAID 0?

I know many point out there's no benefit from having RAID installed but for gaming systems the split load helps with temperatures greatly.

It's not on raid 0. But I have not reinstalled windows 

predator_no1

I really like Acer gaming laptops. Especially the Predator model.

Acer Predator is No. 1 in gaming laptops

--------------------------------------------
laptop gaming, laptop gaming cũ

Red-Sand

sigmaphi said:

Red-Sand said:

sigmaphi said:

mine keeps shutting down because of the heat from the ssd, If i pay via ssd it will shut down but if i transfer the games to normal HDD no shut down 

Did you happen to reinstall Windows and remove RAID 0?

I know many point out there's no benefit from having RAID installed but for gaming systems the split load helps with temperatures greatly.

It's not on raid 0. But I have not reinstalled windows 

You could grab a thermal pad (1.5mm) and cut and place on top of the M.2 to help dissipate temperatures.

Not sure if they make a passive heatsink that could fit within the chassis.

Lastly I would suggest considering reinstalling windows anyway.. as the system installs updates overtime it becomes filled with multiple updates and can cause conflicts/strange behaviour. Installing a fresh ISO of the latest builds allows for the optimized version of the build to be utilized instead of a patchwork of updates.

If you do end up going that route I'd encourage you to consider RAID 0 as it places the data you save on both drives and alternates between them when drawing data which greatly reduced temps from the shared load.

Shubhamgaonkar

Nice review 

popu898

Thanks for your review.

XdxD

@JENNISA2345, stop spamming.