At a loss, very odd issue.

I’ll start from the beginning.

Well it was a bright and cheerful morning in the mountains around Sydney.
It was Saturday and the girl friend was away for the weekend, everything was silent and I had just gone through the painful time between Battlefield 3 Beta and the BF3release.
As I sit with a cup of coffee I fire up battlefield 3 for the 1st time. Still blearily eyed from having woken up just moments before.
It was a new battlefield game! I was excited, joyful and happy. As I was going through the process of logging in to the game I silently thinking. Would be clocking up enough hours of flight time to qualify for a real world flight licence? I hope so.
Everything was going smooth. I logged in fine, fired up battlelog and jump headlong into a multiplayer game where my only thought was that at some time today, I will need to hop into my Mini and head to the store as my corn chip supply was drastically low for someone intended to get bed sores this weekend….

I hit the ground, my feet feel dusty in my combat boots, I look to the sky and follow a dog fight reach its conclusion in the sun. I squint. Secretly pleased that a virtual sun can make me squint like the real one.
I smile and take a step. …2 seconds later I see the result… Take another step... I realise that I am lagging, bad. I wish I could sit down and take a swig from my canteen on my side to regain my stamina or if you will my FPS, but instead I press ESC and change the settings that I had in the beta….

In the beta I had issues… It auto detects as ultra at the highest res, which in my head the alpha male side instantly thinks “that’s right!” while nodding with a grin.
But game play was too slow to enjoy. If I dialled settings to low, the frame rate would increase to buttery smooth rates but to my eye it looks identical.
My beta male in my head says “who cares if it says low, it looks the same as high to me” which the alpha mate agrees and chalks it down to it being in beta and is steadfast in knowing that in the full release it will the same but will say “ultra” but look the same.
It is also the same alpha who thinks there should be an option after ultra that says “Are you mad? You are going to kill us all!” followed by a warning screen noting that I will need a Mr Fusion to power my laptop and make sure that the laptop is running at 85MPH in order to play.

So I set my settings and I start playing, the frame rate isn’t what I had in the beta in fact just by looking its got to be around 20fps with dips that have to be around the 4FPS mark … never mind I can update drivers later, for now I just want to have a little play to see what it’s like before I start tweaking and getting this running nicely.

About 30 minutes into the game, with the moustache I am growing for charity (movember) matted with corn chips and coffee. My lap starts to get nice and toasty when something odd happens.
The screen dims, frame rate drops to about 1 frame every 2 seconds. I’ve seen this before, I’ve must of bumped the power cable. As I fish around the back I think for the 100th time that I really should get around to gluing my own magnets on I realise that its not unplugged, but there is a new problem… The blue power light on the cable was off…

ACT II – That’s odd.

I check the power cord, to see that it wasn’t kicked out by the dog (although to the power packs advantage it is about the same size and weight as the dog), I check the power point is on.
Hmmm everything is fine. The power point might have issues… I’ll have to call an electrician on Monday. In the mean time I move it to another power plug. I turn it on, I get a blue light and its back to game!
10 minutes later, same thing… ok maybe I will try this on the stupid expensive power strip that came with the TV and try, again 10 minutes later, no blue light.

After considering my options I decided to call Dell on Monday to RMA the power supply. 16 hours later after my phone call, I had a new power pack in my hands.
So when I get home from work, and I plug in my new power pack and I open a battlefield 3 game…. However 30 minutes into the game… no blue light on the new power pack… its almost like the power pack is being tripped by something else.
Is it because a high load?
Is there something wrong with the drivers?
Is the bios up to date?
Is karma it because I claimed an item on tax that I lost the receipt for?

So, its down to this, *sigh* so I starting the long process of troubleshooting.
I open up HWINFO , CPUZ, GPUZ and the usual monitoring suspects and start up a game of Team Fortress 2 in windowed mode, while in the background the TV is showing Americans dubbing Japanese men, all in the sake to find out who will take the crown in the form of the coveted Iron Chef.

I chose TF2 to help me determine if it was the game that was tripping the supply or something else when an interesting thing happened.
It took almost 10 minutes to load a level, but it looks like the game is playing. Very slowly but it is around the 40FPS mark and looking kind of stable.
I keep playing in the sake to get a decent baseline of the current performance attributes, and to get a pumpkin head!

But eventually it dawns on me, TF2 isn’t tripping the power supply, and the usual sound of fans howling is all but gone. I check with my hands and turn the volume down. The fans are not really working.
They are on, but it’s not really pushing much air.
If it’s not pushing air then it’s not hot.
If it’s not hot then it’s not working to its max.
If it’s not working to its max, then something is going on other than BF3.


Act III - “Soylent green is the theme ingredient”

So I look at the stats and it doesn’t look good. It looks like the 2nd GPU doesn’t work in TF2. So I disable crossfire and started TF2 again.
It was quicker to load, with slightly higher frames 50-60FPFS but its only on 1 card..

I sit there and think.
I have replaced the power supply. Everything is updated. Why would one card fail?
Would the power supply issues cause a burnout? But if that’s the case why would it keep working?
I need more data.

So I fireup Furmark, and lo and behold my baby’s fans kick in, just like a Supercharged Mini Cooper S doing highway speeds in 2nd gear. (wonderful sound for future reference)
The unmistakeable fan whine starts and it throws me for a loop.
If the cards are on, and running just fine, and actually running somewhat well. Why do I have issues in game?

So I decide it’s a Driver issue for a lack creativity which is why I fail when doing interruptive dance I decide to upgrade my drivers to mobility CAT 11.10.
I do the uninstall, F8, driver clean hussle, followed by the CC cleaner and delete AppData folder waltz
And in short my attempt was not effective.
I attempt to use the CAP3 profile and did the foxtrot with all 11.10 and three 11.10 Previews
My attempt was not effective.
I try rolling back to 11.8 with the hopes that I won’t be here all day playing around, and I hope that I can find some time to make a really good soylent green broth with lamb and onions as per the TV tells me to.
But alas it was not effective.

So at a loss for either hardware, software, driver issues, and beginning to feel like perhaps soylent green is actually people.
I enter my queries, doubts, issues, thoughts, misgivings, hopes, despairs into the window that contains sum of all human information.
Google.
And I was feeling lucky!.


ACT IV – Mate, I know that’s not the TV in the background.


So after reading and reading and reading.
I read so much that I started reading things on my phone just to ‘look’ at something different.
My eyes were sore and my supply of junk food is depleted. If I don’t resolve this quickly I might suicide on my girlfriends disturbing food selection.
Already images of me dead, covered lentil beans and celery with a mocking M17x nearby start to form in my head.

I called a few buddies but they could only give me half-hearted, distracted, condolences in-between softly muted explosions in the background.
In between half contained expressions of glee and a blow by blow account how he sniped some n00b from 500 meters away it left me wanting.
But they were no help. As was the internet, and as was anyone else that could help.
I simply do not know the cause of the issue. So I cannot attempt to fix.

So I put on CAT 11.9 and hoped for the best.
My reasoning was that it worked fine in the beta.


ACT V – Anyone? Anyone? Buler? Buler?

So it is up to you community
I was hoping that someone could help.
I have had a few minor issues in the past with my M17x-R2 but most of these issues could be solved with a forum search here.
But after having my laptop now for a year and a half, I have come across an issue that I am slightly at a loss where to go next and I was hoping that someone could point me in the right direction.
Because I am unsure which direction is the right one. Because I don’t know what the issue is.

So let’s get the main details out of the way.

Alienware M17x R2.
Intel I7 720
4GB Ram @ 1333
Dual ATI 4870’s in crossfire
2x 500GB Drives in Raid 0.
LED Screen.

Windows 7 Pro with SP1 Installed.
Stealth Mode is off (which I could remove it all together actually)

The machine is not overclocked (however I do run throttlestop)
The machine also has A10 Bios, and all of the updates (from dell) for all components except the video card. Which is running 11.9 without any CAP profile.
The machine has not had any VBIOS changes either i.e its stock.
Power profiles are at max.
The machine is used basically only for games. Other than having a few other random apps instead (e.g winzip or the like)
It pretty much only has steam and origin installed.

BF3 is the only game tripping the power supply.
All other games looks like crossfire isn’t working.
I did the ALT-TAB trick and it kind of worked for TF2 but then give it 5 minutes and it would settle back down to slow frames.
The trick doesn’t work for BF3.

I think my cards are fine, and I think the power supply is ok too.
I even took my machine into work.
Plugged it in to my brand new UPS in my data center (yeah I’m a sysadmin) and tried it on 100% pure power conditioned sweetness but alas no luck.

The only option I have before getting dell techs out which I really don’t want (my local tech is better suited running a seedy pawn shop) , is to wipe the machine, but I am not sure If that is even a valid fix for an unknown problem.
Has anyone experience something similar?


Anyone? Buler?

 

In your situation, here is what I would do. Games and settings are sometimes relative. If you can, post a Vantage or 3DMark '11 run on default performance settings. Also, what are your temperatures looking like? What is your AC adapter rated at? Also, do you have any type of metering device to see how much wattage you are using? Like a Kill-a-watt or something?

Use HWInfo to make sure you're hitting 100% GPU usage as well as hitting your rated GPU clocks. One of these things will give a clue as to what is going on.

 

I will be back to see if I can help when the stats are up, but I have to say, I felt like I was reading a short story for a few minutes =^_^= love it!

 

Man, that was art. Probably the best story I have read in the last few years. I don't have any experience with this and can't offer you any help sorry, but I just have to give you props for your awesome little short story.

 

Sorry for the delay, there was these guys who were up to no good, Startin making trouble in my neighborhood I got in one little fight and my mom got scared She said 'You're movin' with your auntie and uncle in Bel Air'



So these were my settings.

Smooth vision AA = Application Settings
Smooth Vision AF = Application Settings
Catalyst A.I = Disabled
Mipmap Detail level = Performance
Wait for Vertical Refresh = Always Off
Tripple Buffering = Off

Crossfire = Enabled

PowerPlay = On

Both Profiles are set to Maximum Performance


Throttle stop v3.40 - set to game.



3Dmark11 doesnt work as the 4870's are directx 10.1 (and wont run)
So 3Dmark06 it is, I am using Build 1.2.0 Antivirus disabled. with no open programs other than HWINfo64 and GPUZ. It was the standard run. e.g open the program and wack benchmark .

and the score is!....





So I had decided to probe deeper to get you guys some more data.

So I also did another furmark with some screenshots.
It was the basic 720p benchmark.

So this was the reading for video card one and you can see the spike where the test ran (before and after as well)





This is video card 2, bit of a change.




And just for giggles GPU Shark Results.
I suppose the most important part is the last line.








Now on the surface it looks like i have an issue with a single GPU failing on me.
Cool, RMA no worries. But what is getting to me is that yesterday when i was bashing my head against the wall, it looked like the 2nd GPU was working. The issue today is that it looks like the 2nd GPU is DOA.

Although I am unsure if this will explain my power supply resetting super happy fun times.

So what I also done since the post, was do something for me quite scary. Not listening to your partner telling you she is late scary. But its up there.
I pulled a part my machine. *gasp* Shock! say it isnt so! but yes I did.
Mainly to do 2 things.

One I wanted to make sure that the crossfire was connected. Since I travel around with this and I'm in an out of hotels more than a pro outside a coal mine on pay day, I figure that it could come loose and wanted to check.
It had not.
2nd thing was to make sure everything was on the up and up, just eyeball the lot and then reseat the cards.

I would love it to be fixed but alas it does not appear to be so.

So my new found friends. Where should the next step be? RMA with dell or attempt an OS wipe. Although I am not sure what that would acheive.

Also thanks for the feedback on the short shorty lol, to be honest I wasnt trying that hard but I figure you guys are going to the effort of helping me out I might as well illict a laugh.
And besides I hate when I go to other forums and you have to tease every bit of information out of someone who just wants to rant about an issue. It makes for a nice change

 

Those GPU-z screen shots don't tell me anything. Click each of the little boxes (where the numbers are) twice. You will see small green text come up in there. You want it to maintain your maximum reading (little green text will say 'MAX'). If your GPUs aren't hitting 3D clocks, or they aren't getting very hot, then they aren't working as hard as they should be. That would cause a performance issue.

Your scores are too low. Does the main screen of GPU-z say that CrossFire is enabled? Your score is even low for a single card. I say to troubleshoot a bit more before you call Dell. The folks in this forum are much more informed than those Dell techs are.

 

You have Catalyst A.I. on disabled. It needs to be on at least standard to run Crossfire. I'm not sure how that ties into the BF3 issue, but you need to have Catalyst AI on to run Crossfire.