New Helios ph16-71 lineups i9 13900HX undervolting locked?

Stephenjp13
Stephenjp13 Member Posts: 5

Tinkerer
edited March 30 in Predator Laptops

I recently bought a Predator Helios ph16-71 w/ an i9 13900HX, and also learned that ACER decided to lock the undervolt in the BIOS. Like why? why would ACER lock the undervolting features on the bios when INTEL officially announced the intel HX models allow undervolting. I find it absurd because we paid our good earned money for a laptop that and we can't even use 100% of the system.

HX models run hot in general.

INTEL releases undervolting for the new I9 HX models

ACER releases a beast of a lineup in 2023 with the new Predator Helios gaming laptop. ULTIMATE, ENTHUSIAST, PERFORMANCE laptop.

but LOCKS undervolting in the bios. What a fail, good terrible job ACER.

anyone who has bought this new 2023 lineup, just think about it. You paid over 2 grand. over two thousand dollars and yet you cannot even use it to its full potential. You have locked settings you cannot even use.

I apologize if I am acting like this but I paid so much money to keep supporting ACER as I have had 3 other acers in the past. The last generations and past BIOS allowed undervolting which was perfect. The reason why I kept acers lineup because other brands didn't allow it. But now I feel like it has turned out the opposite. Today, every other brand out there like Legion, ASUS, msi ETC.. allows undervolting. What changed ACER? Why is it that we were allowed to undervolt back then but not anymore. Please consider updating the BIOS so we all are allowed to use our machines with full control of it.

Answers

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,447 Trailblazer
    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/700827/new-helios-lineups-i9-13900hx-undervolting-locked-absurd-acer-please-read

    This is a typical argument of users that want "undervolting" and all the bells and whistles for a gaming laptop, as imo the new Acer gaming laptops are powerful enough for gaming and DO NOT NEED any mods to make them perform better or cooler, as your 2K investment would strike faults and/or not perform as Acer designed these gaming laptops to be and then WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? Of course, you would blame Acer and want your laptop to be covered under warranty, so imagine how many warranties requests Acer would have. The Predator PHN16-71 and the PH16-71 are in the top gaming platforms on the market for a very reasonable price, compare the Predator range price to the same Legion, ASUS, MSI etc etc as the Acer gaming laptops are very well priced and cheaper.

    If you want a hard-core gaming platform then build a gaming desktop that can do all the mods that you want and use that platform for your undervolting or overvolting, or ram overclocking, or use cpu hydrogen cooling, put case fans everywhere like charismas tree😁 etc etc as there are many mods that you can do but its like everything else, as let's say a highly tuned Ferrari is not as reliable as a diesel daily, which is the same with computers and its true with gaming platforms. A gaming laptop no matter how its designed is NEVER EVER GOING TO BE A HARD-CORE GAMING PLATFORM that compares with a desktop, because its contained with a small space and can never ever be cooled adequately to perform like a true hard core gaming desktop. Acer stopped undervolting for a reason and that is reliability and/or potential laptop failure and reliability problems. Calm down and enjoy your great Predator gaming PH16-71 i9-13900HX / RTX4090 platform as its designed by Acer to be reliable and for you to enjoy all the wonderful games and other features that this laptop has. Good luck and hope this helps you out.

    If this answers your question and solved your query please "Click on Yes" or "Click on Like" if you find my answer useful👍

  • PaulieDeez
    PaulieDeez Member Posts: 1 New User
    edited March 29

    "Acer stopped undervolting for a reason and that is reliability and/or potential laptop failure and reliability problems. "

    This is such BS. Overclocking can be unsafe, because there's a range of normal voltages vs sui voltages where the lifespan of the chip is reduced. New intel chips, including laptop chips like to shove 1.4-1.45 volts when they boost, which can kill the chip in 3 years or less (this is WITH a good cooling solution, high temps kill it faster). Mobile chips can typically undervolt very well, by about 125mv, which knocks down the boosting voltage (with identical performance) to 1.3V, and chips will last 6-8 years at that voltage with multi hour daily use (which is reasonable to assume as someone will be daily driving a laptop for more hours than a desktop). Laptops already have worse cooling that desktops to begin with, and DISABLING UNDERVOLTING, which keeps the same performance, knocks voltage down by 0.125, power down by 20% of wattage, and temperature down by 15 degrees, is stupid and UNSAFE for the chip. I'm sorry but shilling a big corporation who wants your cpu to fry itself in 3 years so you buy a new $2000 laptop and saying they do it "for a reason" of safety, security, reliability, privacy etc (pick whatever buzz word), when they just want your money and want to get it sooner is insane.

    Yes, I know you can reduce boosting frequency to get voltage down, but that's at the cost of performance, undervolting typically either keeps the same performance and frequency, boosts performance because of increased temperature headroom, or loses a miniscule amount of performance, so it's always the superior solution.

  • John_111
    John_111 Member Posts: 1 New User

    Have you tried to cut power consumption using windows power tools? You just have to set power consumption for CPU 99% or less. I guess it's the only way to keep you beast cool. I was a fan of Acer, had their old Predator 17x, but with current issues I choose Legion 7 pro.

  • m1sterd
    m1sterd Member Posts: 21 Networker
    edited May 20

    I have been comenting on this since I furst got my Acer Predator with 13900HX and RTX4080, the laptop runs far too hot, mainly caused by the CPU, even when not on Turbo.

    There are times when I want battery life and no heat/noise, it seems that many gaming laptops that have this CPU also benefit from makers that see the value in undervolting, in my case I want to undervolt the CPU so I can get as much battery life out of the laptop with RTX4080 turned off enabling me to use it for work/software development, but then when I want to play games I can have it running at full speed but not reaching silly temperatures or fan noises. The point is, the CPU supports undervolting and Acer in their previous model I believe introduced undervolting, so why not on the predator.

    The other way to look at it is, many people have complained that the CPU runs far too hot, will Acer provide warranty fixes when its > 1 year old, I think not, and one such cause of problems can be because of excess heat, so why not let customers undervolt to cool things down a little?

    This is my first Acer laptop, and unfortunately my last because of this and the fact that just after I got the laptop it seemed to have the same issue that the previous model had where the battery would stop charging past 93% and then not power on with the batter alone, the only resolution was to replace the laptop, this fixed the battery/charging issue but ti still ran just as hot.

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