Alienware M17x mobility 5870s in Crossfire not performing well?

Note: posted this in the graphics cards forums before, but thought this forum would be more appropriate.

Hey guys i don't usually post on forums, but I'm at a dead end. I recently purchases an Alienware M17x laptop from dell with 2x5870 mobility graphics cards, 6gb of ram and i7 quad core Q [email protected]. I've seen videos and read many reviews on the 5870's in CF, and they all say that these cards are top quality and provide exceptional performance, even in demanding games like crysis (not talking about warhead btw). Now my issue is i do not think my cards are performing correctly, because in crysis, farcry and other demanding games i've tried i have been utterly dissapointed in my framerate. I expected big things, and for example in order to get above 30fps in crysis (often dropping below that) i have to run at 1680x1050, no AA, and on high settings only, ive heard of these cards playing fluently through crysis on max settings (high res etc.) What i want to ask u guys is how can i tell if my cards are performing at their max? (I have latest drivers from dell, enabled CF in ccc). Would my cpu be bottlenecking my gpus? Does 20-25 average fps sound low for well below max settings on crysis (does to me from the fps ive seen, shud be up at 40 for the settings i'm rolling)? Just fyi, i have win 7 and have checked to see that both cards are actually working, and i used a program called 'gpu-z' and it said that the temps on both cards where up around 60 degrees after playing and i get the Crossfire icon in top right corner in-game. So essentially all the signs are there that my crossfire is working, but why is it not delivering the performance of all of the benchmarks i have seen on this forums etc. I've spent over 2 weeks looking for some solution, tried it all, including format and fresh driver install. I just want any info as to why my cards are under-performing, because i'm confident they can do so much better (without OC). Finally, my theory (may be incorrect) is that the two cards are likely to be working efficiently and correctly on their own but for some reason they are not performing well together as one in crossfire. As far as i'm aware the CF cable is seated right and plugged in, or an error would come up somewhere in the ccc right? Plus Alienware should take care with that stuff i assume. Anyways any help or info at all would be appreciated heaps, if u could at the very least tell me what sort of fps u guys get with these cards on max res and settings in dx10 crysis with like 2 AA, thanks! Pretty sure on that setting config i get around 17 fps and much lower in fights.

 

One thing you may want to check that caught me on my rig when I first got it is if Stealth Mode is enabled or not, a lot of times even running on A/C power it will pull up as enabled for no reason. The utility of seeing if it is enabled or not that Dell includes isn't the best, download this and if the Alien head in the task bar is red stealth mode is enabled if it's green it's not. Make sure it's disabled and try it again.

 

Make sure Stealth is off like Dane said. Make sure your Power plan in Windows is set to Performance. Go to the Catalyst Control Center and make sure you're set to Performance on the 3D tab. Looks like you're pretty confident that CF is working, so we can rule that out. I'll run a FRAPS benchmark real quick.

 

Here's what I got in Crysis on VERY HIGH DX10 at 1920x1200 resolution with 2xAA: Avg: 29.383 - Min: 12 - Max: 44. This was during heavy combat and use of my stealth camo. Hot air comes out of both rear vents while you're playing? There's a simple solution to this, I'm sure.

 

TurbodTalon, Did you have your M17X on a notebook cooler when running your FRAPS test? Avg: 29.383-Min: 12-Max: 44 seems fair during heavy combat especially when your settings are at very high, max res, and 2xAA. However, hot air is gonna blow out from the back vents while playing regardless. There really is no solution to preventing hot air from escaping out of the back and side vents because the notebook was designed to do this.

@Failgraphics, you have to understand that the MR5870's CF are at most 20-25% improvement over the MR4870's CF, and 25-30% GTX 280M's SLI. The FPS that your experiencing are without a doubt poor and may be due to bad drivers, some CCC options that you may not have activated, and or the cards themselves may be bad, it happens. My suggestion would be to make sure that Stealth Mode is not activated, and check to see if Power Play is activated since you already activated CFX. The only other suggestion other than contacting Alienware would be to update Crysis or uninstall and re-install Crysis, I am actually experiencing some issues with the game myself as the Advanced Graphics Settings used to offer 8xQ, 16x, and 16xQ, as well as 1080p res but for some reason it is not availiable with the R2 as it was for my R1 when I had it? Try these suggestions and if it doesn't fix your issues then i would advise contacting Alienware and have them diagnose your GFX cards. I hope that this was of some help?

 

Yeah, I worded that really stupidly. I was asking if hot air was coming out the back to see if maybe he was only running on one card. If he is on only one card, he'll have very hot air coming out one side, and cool air coming out of the other. Just trying to eliminate all the simple stuff. He hasn't replied to any of our suggestions, so we don't know if anything has worked yet.

 

@ TurbodTalon,

lol!! No worries, it happens to us all man. I noticed too that he hasn't gotten back to any of us on the status of his issue? It is strange that he's having issues with his cards as his system appears to be fairly new. I too just recieved my system, however I can run Crysis fine on my system. I thought it odd that during the test, you saw dips as low as 12 fps minimum on the settings that you ran? I believe that I saw dips that low only on my R1. Have you by any chance noticed that in the advanced graphics settings that the AA only offers the highest 8x and not 16xQ?

 

I would have to say that my CPU is causing the dips in FPS. I intentionally bought this CPU knowing I was going to upgrade to 940XM ES ASAP. That will probably smooth things out. My GPUs are overclocked a bit too, so I doubt they have anything to do with it. Even with that OC, I get 4K fewer points in 3DMark'06 than you do, according to your sig. That 940 will no doubt liven things up a good bit. As for Failgraphics, he's getting decent performance on Very High in Crysis. This indicates to me that there's just something minor going on.

 

Hey again, thanks for those replies u boys are very helpful. Sorry for the late status update but this is where i stand now:

I have ensured my power saving plans are maxed out for performance and my cord is plugged in, powerplay is enabled, stealth mode is not on.

@TurbodTalon - Mate ur fps is screaming past what mine is doing on those settings atm, so i am almost sure their is something up, i would be getting nowhere near 30fps on average, more like <20. Also hot air is blowing out both cards and they are the same temp as far as i can tell. I also maxed out the ccc settings like u suggested. Done everything u suggested and still no fps increase.

But i do have one thing i forgot to add, i have the 5870 mobility drivers for my cards and i got them off the dell site not the AMD site. According to ccc the driver packaging version is 8.692.2-100203a1-095371C-Dell. I'm not sure if that's the latest version, i've read in some places that the latest version is 10.6 or something but i don't know if that's the control centre version or what.

So what driver version are u running Turbo? (I ask u because ur system is the exact same as mine, excluding ur Overclocked cards.)

@Predator4rmMars - u might be right man, they could be bad cards, but how can i tell and diagnose faults myself, they seems to be operating normally physically?

 

Oh hey i found something out just a minute ago, this is a simple solution for any1 experiencing what 'appears't to be bad performance. I was playing farcry 2 today on full ultra settings, max resolution and 2x AA in dx10, and i had "v-sync' off and the game looked choppy and as if i was getting really bad fps. I turned v-sync on and my game was smooth as silk, i was getting the kind of performance i expected when i purchased these cards. Don't know what my fps was but v-sync helped alot in making the game smooth and fluently playable.

But yeah i think my cards are probly right now, after seeing that performance in farcry 2. If u come back to my post turbo can u see if u can answer these couple questions for me:

1) On my primary card there are 3 sensors according to gpu-z program and the middle sensor (Gpu-temp #2) is always 3-4 degrees hotter than the other 2 sensors, and on my secondary card the middle sensor is pretty much the same, and often 1-2 degrees less than the other 2. Does this indicate anything such as a hotspot, or a fault or any problem. I assume it's nothing.

2) As i asked in my last post, what drivers should i be getting, the ones off the dell site (vendor specific), or the mobility one off the ATI site (reference graphics card drivers).

Cheers.

 

Please mov ethe discussion to this thread. Thanks.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...river-issues-alienware-discussion-thread.html