Alienware M17x (dell r1?)

Hi All,
My Dell alienware m17x for the last few months has had a huge stuttering problem as soon as I try to play games, so bad you can't actually play anything. (basically stutters bad for a few seconds, then ok for a few seconds, then back to stutter)
Well today i made a very strange discovery. If I unplug the power supply while running a game the problem instantly stops, and I can at last play games (well until the battery goes flat)

I've now tried this many times with the same result. power plugged in- cannot play games, power supply out - can play just fine

so my question is, is this because my power supply has become weak? therefore cannot try and charge the battery and power the machine at the same time? Is it a combination of power supply and battery?
Or something else? Anyone else come across this problem before? Oh one other thing every few moments when the charger is plugged in it flashes on the screen between the battery icon, and the AC power icon?

could there be something else wrong with the machine other than charger/battery? Some kind of power management thats not working correctly? I've tried playing with all the power settings I can find,
but nothing makes any difference other than the actual removal of the power supply??

Regards..

Koki

 

Well, Dell chargers do require a "handshake", if you like, from the machine to recognize the fact it's a Dell charger. The fact that your machine does recognize it but keeps intermittently flashing between battery and AC icons could (to me, anyway) indcate that the connection between the jack of the charger and the charging port on the machine is possibly faulty/loose/doesn't hold the jack as it should.

Have you tried just holding the cable and jiggling it about a bit to see if you can get a constant supply of AC juice when plugged in? - if you can, and you are able to get proper steady current to your machine, see if you can run a game or something - just to test it out.....

 

Hi there, Thanks for the reply, I did try what you mentioned, however didn't really make any difference.
Although after I thought, maybe it's not likely to be that, as if I let my battery run low then plug the power supply back in, it will charge awy without any flicking between Ac power and battery power until it reaches 100% thats when it's starts to do this. so I don't think can be a bad connection?
any other thoughts?

Koki

 

Try updating the BIOS to the latest version available @DELL.com

 

Hi Thanks for the reply, Although I have had problems gaming for a while (which is now cured by unplugging the power supply) the switching between Ac power and battery power has only been happening since running the latest bios. It may have been doing this previously, however it has only flashed up on the screen as doing this since the bios update? any more thoughts?

Regards..

Koki

 

Hi all,

for those of you that are interested, after months and months of suffering not being able to game, I've finally figured out for sure that the power supply is the route of all my problems.

I borrowed an M18x 330w power suppply plugged it in, no more gaming problems!

The only problem now is, that the computer detects an incorrect power supply. Is there a way to stop this? the setting in the bios doesn't seem to do anything?

Koki

 

You could try clearing the CMOS - Unplug the AC adapter and battery from the computer and then press and hold down the power button for 10-15 seconds and then release the power button, plug in the AC adapter and battery and then try to start the computer and check if you are getting the same error message. If you are still under warranty, I'd probably advise that you get the correct PSU from Dell if the problem persists.

 

I don't think there is anything you can about that because Alienware are very specific about the power supplies they want you to use . If you are going to buy a new power supply I would say go for a Delta PSU because the Flextronics are supposed to be a little less reliable .

 

Hi, I also have a M17x R1 (Win7x64, dual 260m sli (running nvidia drivers 314.07), QX9300) and am encountering a problem at the moment that could be similar. Did you ever find a fix for your problem above?

I have an issue where during games (any gpu intensive programs) the power switches off between ac and battery and then back on again a few secs later...in doing so voltage drop (from 1v to 0.9v) across the gpu's it seems and this causes massive random slow downs. Where the screen darkens and frame rates plummet. Does this sound like your problem? I have no solution atm and am searching for one but I think it is something to do with the adaptive power management bs that nvidia has introduced.