Alienware 17xR2 Woes

Hi all,

I just got an Alienware 17x a few days ago. I bought Crysis and was very excited to finally have a computer that could play the game at descent settings. Well, that soon changed.

Prior to getting the computer, I checked the benchmarks and they said I could play the game in High Settings with no problems, with my current configuration (see the end of this post for system specs).

Anyways, I installed and tried to play the game and it was very very very choppy (even in the menu screen) at High Settings. I don't know what the FPS was, but it had to be like 10! I hit the "Detect settings automatically" and it gave me all medium settings. So, fussing and pouting, I put it on medium but to no avail..still very very choppy.

My next step was to update the drivers. So, I went to the NVIDIA site and downloaded the new driver. After that, I loaded it back up, hoping there was a change. There was, it was running great. No choppyness at all in the menu like before. So, all excited once again, I went to start the game. The game loads, I click the button to advance after it loads my game and a black screen comes up with nothing happening. I let it sit there for at least 4-5 mins and still nothing. The only way I can get out of the game is doing a ctrl, alt, delete and going back to the desktop. An error message saying something around Crysis has stopped working, blah blah popped up.

So, I figured it was the driver update I did. I then uninstalled the new driver I just downloaded (which was version 260.99) thus reverting back to the old drivers (197.52). And now its back to where it was before, slow/choppy as heck.

So what do I do, is this a problem others have had?

I've also had the battery problem others have been having, so I am going to work on that one also.

Thanks for the help in advance.

SYSTEM SPECS:
Alienware M17xR2
CPU: Intel i7 740QM 1.73ghz (boost to 2.93ghz)
Video Cards: SLI Nvidia Geforce GTX 285M
HDD: 640 GB 7200 RPM
Operating System: Windows 7 64 Bit Home Premium
6 GB of DDR3 RAM

 

I think that you need to patch the game.. Me to had alot of problems with this game. Good luck

 

The game is updated and still the same problems arise.

 

Trek,

You probably know this already, but "on policy" I must suggest you verify that you have flashed the latest system BIOS (which is A09), any new video BIOS (I have ATI, you have nVidia, so I'm not sure what you need) and such updates first. My new Alien did not have as many updates as I had expected it would, so yours might be similar.

 

flash latest BIOS, uninstall what you have, boot into safe mode, run driver sweeper, reboot, install latest drivers on dell's site, download GPU flash utility, flash GPUs, you'll be good

 

I will try that guys, thanks a lot! I will let you know how it goes. Probably won't get around to it until tomorrow.

 

Maximos - What is GPU Flash Utility...I couldn't find it.

 

Be sure you do your homework before using tools like this. It is very easy for an inexperienced user to make a mistake and end up with a huge problem (meaning, you will have to fix it on your own as AW will not support this). Be careful!

 

All you do is run the utility, use either a CD or a flash drive under 2GB, reboot and hit F12, select your media of choice, and wait until you get confirmation that it's complete. not very complicated IMO.

 

Ahhh - well the Dell VBIOS update, yes, then its a no-brainer.

I was under the impression you were talking about a utility to alter/flash new clocks, etc.

 

No vBIOS update for the 285's I thought?

 

For my desktop I had to run Crysis under Vista (servicepack2) and as admin for it to run properly. If you haven't already done so, it's worth a shot with the nvidia drivers.

 

OH! I didn't look at your specs! My fault, that isn't applicable.

 

Ok. Heres what I did and the game still doesn't work...

I updated the Bios to the latest version - A9.

The then updated to the latest Video Card driver from Dells site - 8.17.12.6099

That still didn't work. So, I tried running the game as an admin, in Windows Vista SP 2, 1, no service pack - still the same problem...

Anyone have any ideas what I can try to do next? Is there a site where I can get older video card drivers because nvidia doesn't have them on their site (at least I couldn't find older ones for the 285M ones)?

 

Should I update anything else from the driver dell site? There is a bunch of things listed there ranging from Audio ones to Intel -Driver to Input Device Drivers to Chipset Drivers...?

 

The AMD - BIOS (from Dell site) is only applicable to ATI cards IMO, in the site itself it says (applies to Mobility Radeon HD5870).

I would suggest the following

1. try other games, and see wither they crash / freeze the same way or not
2. clean uninstall all your GPU drivers and install the latest one from dell to ensure maximum compatibility
3. if after this the same thing happened (crash with all games you play) try to upload the latest dump file from C:\Windows\LiveKernal\WATCHDOG\XXXXXX.dmp
and start a new thread and attach it so someone can check what went wrong when the freeze happened and advice.

good luck

 

As far as I know there isn't a vbios update for the 285's so don't worry about that.

Couple of things to check. Like Irkan said, try a different game and see if it's working. If they are working then it could be Crysis, so try a reinstall of the game. If not it could just be bad cards/sli cable. Contact dell and get them replaced.

I personally have run Crysis with pretty close to your setup (4gb Ram and 640 Raid 0 - I had a 740qm originally) at max settings at ~35 fps.

 

Just a stupid question Trek, but are you SURE you have SLI enabled? Also, is your Vista version x64 or x86? Your sig says you have Windows 7 x64, so I'm assuming you are doing a bunch of fresh installs?

And for older video drivers you need to go to laptopvideo2go (google it)

 

rsgeiger:

he hasn't been installing different OS. he's been running it in compatibility mode, which makes the program think its vista or xp even though its windows 7.

 

You guys realize he has nvidia gpu...There is no need to flash your gpu that is only for the 5870's.

Just update the bios and and clean install your gpu drivers and you should be good to go. Also make sure you aren't in stealth mode and have SLI enabled

 

I did all that and it still didn't work.

So I then (I don't know what made me do this) turned off the Anti Alasing and now the game works (but I run the game on Medium settings. Someone said before that they had a similar setup and ran on all high settings at a fps of 35..I am about 25 on medium...does that mean there is something wrong?

But now I have another problem, the laptop locks up and I have to do a hard boot because ctl/alt/delete doesn't work. And this happens only when I am browsing the internet (not playing a game). One time, it gave me this blue screen error message - "A clock interrupt was not received on a secondary processor within the allocated time interval"

Now, I know that has to deal with a video card problem right? So the question is, is it a bad video card? Should I take one of the video cards out and swap them to test which one is making the computer lock up? The drivers are updated, bios updated..etc.

Or should I just call dell tech support, complain and try to get a new system with free upgrades???

 

RH Trek,

I have an article at home about a guy who was having these issues. He either disabled / enabled a setting in the BIOS and it fixed his freezing. I will have to look when I get home and see what it was, I will post it.

 

Thanks, I'll look for it.

 

Trek,

I don't know what I did with that link, but I remember they were going into the bios and disabling the power management of the processors. I forget what exactly it was called, but it stopped the pc from being able to turn off processors as a power saving feature. It shouldn't be that hard to find, ACPI or something like that. I know that is a bit vague, but I can't seem to find it again....

 

RH,

I found that document, here you go.

M17x Crashing in Games? Notebook Critic

 

I just got the M17x with 285 SLI, crysis ran choppy at first, so all I did was download the 260.99 driver from nvidia, then enabled SLI. Make sure Vsync is off, and you should be running this on all high settings with AA cranked and getting 30-50 fps.

No need to do all that bios stuff, I have same system as you, except 8 gigs of ram and i7 740.

Oh, also I did download the latest patches thorugh Gamespy for Crysis as well, I am assuming that helped too. Game looks fly!

 

Thanks guys, I appreciate it!

Ok, I have to make sure Vsync is off. I know AA is off because the game wouldn't even start with that being on for some reason. Maybe that is why I am only getting 23-25 fps and hiccups. I did download the patches too but they didn't help much...is Crysis buggy for you??

As I just posted on another thread, I am going to try those new drivers when I get home today to see if they help.

EDIT - Vsync was off, AA off...85 % of the settings are at medium - I get an FPS of an AVG of 23 with a low point of 1 (thats when it freezes for a second then jumps back up to 23). I did a trial and put all settings on high, vsync off and AA up to max and it ran at an avg of 16-18...

 

Dude it sounds like you have been though all the motions and round the houses trying to fix this. My advice would be a fresh install of the entire system (since its new) and then run Win 7 (not compatability mode). Follow this guide
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/541378-full-nuclear-option-wipe-rebuild-your-m17x-r2-full-detailed-description.html#post6978195
If its still not running properly then contact AW support

 

Ah, tell me about it! But, the system seems to be working fine right now (knock on wood), just crysis is a bit buggy and has an FPS of lower than I expected... Other games do run fine though.

I don't think I want to go in that direction just yet. The drivers I downloaded before have been working good with no blue screens/lockups since I installed (I had the verde 260.99 ones before) so I am kind of hesitant to install the 1/4/11 ones right now as I don't want to F anything up. I never did a fresh install and not sure how much that will help considering I was having issues with the machine 2 days out of the box...Thanks for you info, I will keep that in the back of my mind if anything else arises.