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    Alienware M17x R3 - Sudden FPS Drop

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by HiJackThis, Jul 26, 2012.

  1. HiJackThis

    HiJackThis Notebook Guru

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    Hello,

    I have my alienware laptop that I love very much. I use it for gaming and it always ran fine. Once or twice, I had horrible frame rates at like 20 FPS for even basic games but I figured out the problem was that the power adapter was set at minimum usage. When I set it to normal usage the frame rates restored to normal.

    Two days ago I got a sudden FPS drop and I have no idea what is causing it. I can still run the game (it is not horrible rates) but they fill unnatural, they feel a bit jumpy at times, the entire laptop feels slowed down. Even for games from 2005 or 2006. I know that something is not right but I do not know what it is. Maybe it is the power adapter acting up again but I checked it and it is at normal power usage.

    Whenever I have a problem with a computer I ask myself the question, "what was the last strange thing I saw that could be causing the problem?". Well the last thing that I remember is that I was playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein (a game from 2001). I was unable to play the game on my Radeon graphics card. When I changed it to the integrated card it ran fine. However, when I changed it back the Catalyst control center asked me "it is recommended to close all applications first". I never had this notification before and went ahead to change the graphics card. I have no idea if this is the source of the problem but that is the last thing I remember about what happened before my computer slowed down.

    I think that somehow the computer is not using its avaliable resources and operating on minimum mode. But I have no idea why or how to check this. I did some looking around on your forums and found this two threads that maybe are related to what I am saying: ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/594198-m17x-r3-6970m-poor-performance-fps.html ) and ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...xed-radeon-6990m-core-clock-stuck-100mhz.html ).

    Please note: I do not know anything about over-clocking, or even what that means, or any of these terms. If you be kind to help me can you provide more steps than usual. Thank you.
     
    HiJackThis, Jul 26, 2012
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  2. HiJackThis

    HiJackThis Notebook Guru

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    Do you have any suggestions to the kind of tests I can run on my computer to see if the hardware is working to satisfactory conditions?
     
    HiJackThis, Jul 26, 2012
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