Latitude 15 3000 - Gaming system for $780? Too good to be true?

I updated to A05 on mine, it had A03 on it. I was very sick when it arrived and then only had enough time to transfer all my stuff to get my school work done on it. So far it's been an okay experience...having issues with VGA drivers. What's everyone here running? I tried the newer beta's, seems to cause an issue when going to and resuming from sleep.

I do miss Asus's shortcut to turn the screen off...that was very handy.

This lappy seems snappier aside from the HDD...which is slooooooow. I can't afford to replace it yet so I'll just stick with it. But everything else aside from VGA issues seems pretty good. Temps are a touch high, but I think a reseat with some MX-4 and I'll be okay.

 

Fixed my VGA issues. Unfortunately it took older drivers to do so.

Before doing anything below, uninstall AMD then Intel GPU drivers.

Install DELL Intel GPU drivers...ones that install without the Intel console. DO NOT INSTALL DELL AMD GPU DRIVERS.
I also installed other Dell specific drivers for audio, lan, chipset, etc.
Again, NOT Dell AMD GPU drivers.
Restart.
Go to Windows Update or Device Manager > HD8850M > Find newer drivers. Should be WDDM 1.3. I had sleep/resume issues even with Dell drivers, and was worse with 13.12's and 14.03b's. The latter two provided better gaming performance, but at the cost of instability and issues. Not worth it to me.

The Dell drivers were better for stability with Sleep/Power issues 90% of the time. But gaming performance was non-existent.

This Windows WDDM 1.3 driver does the trick..totally stable, and decent gaming performance. It's a happy medium. Maybe this is old news but I did a lot of searching on Dell models with the same issues and GPU/issues that I was experiencing...various solutions that might or might not work I don't now if this will work for anyone else...but if someone's looking it's something else worth trying.

Oh, and for some improved stablity with 13.12 just not consistent, disable the AMD External Events Utility service in Services.msc. I did not do that with the Windows drivers.

I plan on trying newer drivers again when I have time...I ran out of time and patience. This is my solution that just works.

 

Hey Everyone,

The video review is finished! Let me know what you think, it took forever for me to edit the footage and my hat goes off to all of those folks who do video editing professionally because this took a very long time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMYpdVn-ih4

 

What kind of issues did you have with your graphics card? Graphics cards are usually pretty easy to troubleshoot if it is actually hardware it either works or it doesn't.

One other thing you can try besides reinstalling drivers is booting into a linux disk. From what I understand Ubuntu is fully supported on this laptop with the exception of some sleep functions.

 

How is it handling the audio equipment?

 

Running Windows 8.1. Dell Intel + AMD drivers, = stable, but crappy performance in games that I tried (SupCom2, SW: Empire at War, SupCom, SC2).

If I run with 13.12 whql's, I get great gaming performance but the system loses screen functionality when closing the lid, putting the unit to sleep...have to cold boot. If it does make it to sleep mode, it will lock up and reboot anyways. I've tried various Intel drivers to no avail too..I realize both gotta be installed at the same time for best results.

If I use the Dell Intel + Windows WDDM 1.3 I get decent gaming performance in MOST games (so far except for SW: Empire at War..which loses out big time...no matter the settings), and I also get stable sleep/resume functionality.

I haven't had to fight a laptop GPU setup nearly as much as this unit. I've fixed and sold a lot of computers over the decades, and I've seen some units that just won't accept different drivers. Many of them Dell's. But I've read of others using drivers other than Dell's with this unit. What drivers are you running? Are you running Linux or Windows? I'm running Windows 8.1 because that's what it came with, I need the unit for school and all my data is transferred so I don't have time to wipe it out...I need it primarily for that...gaming is second.

I also want gaming abilities...and most of my games are not supported in Linux yet...so if I go linux it will be a secondary OS. I do like Ubuntu once tweaked right to my likings.

The biggest issue I have is I either get gaming performance or sleep/resume stability. I'm tempted to just set the laptop to shut down or maybe hibernate when the lid is closed and see how that works out...I do like Win8's sleep mode...resumes so fast and uses so little battery in hybrid mode. I went for days last week between a charge...and i used it for videos, light gaming, notes, paper revisions, programming, web browsing, etc.

Researching this issue, seems it's pretty wide-spread across many Dell models. Maybe the Dell AMD drivers will provide good performance in other games I have but am not playing yet...I am an RTS and RTT guy though...so when those don't play right...it's frustrating.

I'm gonna go check your review out, thanks for continuing to post in this thread. I will continue to share my findings here and on Gaminglaptopjunky's forums as well.

 

It handles Pro Tools and a Digidesign (now called Avid) Mbox 2 flawlessly. Latency remains non-existent and the audio signal sounds neutral without any hum. Admittedly, I'm sure that I haven't really tested the lappy so far with its audio recording performance. I've only hooked up a single audio interface with 2 mics attached, so it prolly won't stress the lappy that much. I'm sure that if it were hooked up to 16 mics and was set to record them all simultaneously, then we'd have pretty good stress test.

This lappy is using AMD Catalyst Version 13.10. Windows 7.

I bring it in and out of sleep several times a day. I have not witnessed any problems with the drivers when cold-resuming and firing up games like Dishonored, Dungeon Defenders, Sanctum 2, and Mass Effect Trilogy. I guess the only game that has slowed this lappy down a lil was Metro - it needs to run at 1600 by 900 to be played without hiccup.

Windows 8 is something that I'm hesitating to upgrade to. I'm pretty comfortable with Windows 7 and its sleep/standby/resume features. I don't know if using Windows 8 will present some problems for this lappy, but I kinda like it the way it is right now.

 

Good to know that Windows 7 and at least one version of AMD drivers work.

Have you tried newer drivers than 13.10? If so, what was your results? If not, any particular reason/experience/issue?

Are those AMD whql or Dell drivers?

What version of drivers for your Intel GPU? Dell or Intel whql?

I will say my performance on both the Intel GPU (handles SW Empire at War because the AMD drivers don't play nice with it) and AMD GPU with their direct whql drivers is super good compared to the Dell's. I've set my options to never sleep/hibernate and to shut down. It's annoying and I'll need to make sure I save/close more often. But, Win8 cold boots fast, even from this hdd, and is snappy. Plus in a couple days the new 8.1.1(or something like that) patch comes out...hoping that brings some resolutions. Beyond that I really like Win 8...I use a Start Menu program...makes a world of difference..and for me Win8 is so much snappier all the way around. I also really like Win 7 tho...always have... 8 took some time to grow on me.

I will say my Asus K55N works much nicer with WIn 8/8.1. But is no competition for this Dell lappy! Thanks again for your response. Cheers!

 

Sorry, the most recent graphics drivers this lappy uses is from 13.10 Beta 2. Should be around October or November. And I agree - the Dell drivers were pretty bad. I noticed graphics performance nearly doubled when using beta drivers from AMD.

As for the Intel drivers - seems like this one's using 9.18.10.3234 which came installed direct from Dell Business Enterprise. Intel's newest drivers are numbered 10.18.10.3496 now though.

One side note - I don't know what the difference is between Win 8 Sleep/Hibernate and Win 7 Sleep/Hibernate. I do know that whenever I set windows to sleep upon closing the screen, it never really works. It just hangs there after closing the screen with the electricity current running. After opening the screen, the screen will show black. This has been the case for me when using both Win Vista and Win 7. Maybe I'm not using it right.

However this is NOT the case if I use the Sleep option within Window's Start Menu - it goes to sleep quickly and resumes immediately. It works as it should with this method. I assume that this is what you mean when putting the lappy to Sleep/Hibernate, right? Either way, I do hope the new Win 8.1.1 patch solves your problem in some way.

 

Interesting. Thanks for your reply.

So there are some issues even in 7 with sleep/resume.

I'll look into trying 13.10 b2's...I had some issues trying to install the older Dell-based Intel GPU drivers after running DDU to clean the drivers. Looking into that. I've tried modded for switchable graphics drivers with no luck.

At this point I have my laptop set to shut down instead of sleep. The trade-off for performance vs sleep stability...at this point is performance. Will report back.