Graphical Issues with my M17X R3

I've purchased the M17X R3 about a month ago, and it's been working fine for me until last week, where I started to play Black Ops via Steam and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Final Fantasy X via PCSX2. With Black Ops, fps-wise it would start to lag and my guy would point to the ground and sky at random times like im lagging. For my Playstation 2 emulator, my fps just drops randomly at times, not at certain points in the game, which REALLY pisses me off. Another thing that pisses me off is my Aero theme disabling and enabling, and 5 minutes later the BSOD pops up. It's happened in that order 5 times in 2 days, and almost 15 times total in 1 month... :\

My Alienware's specs are as follows:

Intel Core i7 2720QM 2.2GHz (3.3GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz (4DIMMS)
2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6970M
1.5TB Raid 0 (2x 750GB 7,200RPM)

So, I called up dell since I had nothing to do today cause all my classes were finished with by the afternoon, and the idiot over the phone decided to get on my laptop via Assist Program and waste my time by downloading 3dMark06 instead of 11.... Anywho, I scanned it for fun until the 3dMark11 finished downloading, and all I got back was:





My friend was telling me it could be an internal program with the hard disk or video card (a loose screw maybe, according to him.)

Can anyone help me out with this difficult problem?

 

No one has a solution for this? :\

 

I can tell you that is extremely low, I have a 2720 and 6970 and I'm getting 19,414 in 3D Mark06.

You might want to have your video card replaced if you can.

 

ah, so it is an internal issue eh? i'd like to put my word on that, but i awnt to hear other's opinions as well, but your opinion counts as well, so thanks remedy!

 

I had the guy on the line (outsource) tell me its not an internal problem, now i gotta call AW support again and yell at em.

 

Since it was working before and it doesn't now, the only way to isolate the problem is for you to restore back to factory and see if the problem occurs without any software or patches that have been added in the last few weeks.

I wouldn't touch the hardware until you try this because the last thing you want is to have your computer taken apart for a software or driver issue...

 

I have downloaded nothing besides AIM and Pidgin.IM. I highly doubt its any software that's making my video card go wacko. but here's what i'll do. I'll reboot my laptop and just do a straight benchmark from there. If it scores low again i'll just call up Dell and ask for a technician to come to my apartment and find out if there are any loose screws or anything like that in my laptop.

 

Based on your low 3Dmarks06 score alone, i would suspect your on the IGP (on chip graphics) rather than the 6970.

To check this, right click on the desktop and select "Configure Switchable Graphics" from the menu. Then look at the section "Switchable graphics Status". In the field it should show by default 'High-performance GPU'.

If it shows "power-saving GPU" you know your using IGP graphics, not the discreet 6970.

 

very good possibility...

 

I've been on High Performence GPU the whole time. I will do another benchmark test again and post results again to see if there's a difference.

 

I did another benchmark test and High Performance was on on both tests (even in my 1st post) so here they are:

 

Check ATI powerplay settings and make sure your battery profile is on either Balanced or High Performance.

 

as ive said earlier dude, it's been on high performance already...



wow, so after doing the test, i try to play GTA: SA on my PCSX2 and I get FPS speeds of 15 FPS. This is nice. Must be a physical video card itself right.......

 

No need to be snarky. I said to check power play settings. Power play is in the ATI control panel.

Also download GPU-Z and verify your card is running at 680 MHZ when gaming.

One last thing. Hit function F6 until your display is on "Computer Only". There's a duplicate display mode that halves your performance even if you don't have another display attached.

 

Sorry, I didn't mean to be snarky. But anyways, i'm frustrated because its been going on for a week now, and everyday i have to deal with this.

 

For GPU-Z, go to the sensors tab, click the checkbox for "Continue refreshing..."

Then where it says GPU Core Clock, verify that its reading 680 when you're gaming; it will drop when you're not gaming or if the card is refusing to get out of the lower power state (it does this sometimes, ATI drivers are eh).

At least this way we'll know everything is supposed to be running at high speed and it'll rule-out software issues.

 

I just got off the phone with AW support, they're sending me a new laptop with better specs free of charge, and i gotta ship this one back.

 

How did you get an upgrade on specs?

 

the indian told me i should ship my laptop back to AW so they can figure out what to do with the video card, blue screen , etc. and i nreturn, he said they'll ship me a better laptop with better specs (he said i can't go any lower specs wise, and since i have a 1.5TB space, best video card offered, i can prob. get a blu-ray player or 3d for free. who knows? he said they'll call me on wednesday).

 

Lol, nice. Now I kinda hope there's something wrong with my laptop when it gets here............then again waiting 6 weeks for my m17x is killing me.

 

I'm not getting my hopes up, its outsourcing support we're talking about here. I have 0.1% trust on them.

 

Some of what you are saying makes no sense...

Specifically, "1.5TB space, best video card offered" you can't have the best video card offered and 3D, the best card officially is the ATI, the 3D card is the 460M, which wouldn't be any better than the 6990 or whatever ATI's model is.

 

i was tired when i posted it so whatever came to mind i said. but most of you get what i mean if you can unscramble my words. He pretty much said i'd get a better laptop with only higher specs, they can't be lower than my current laptop.

 

I'll probably call dell and just get a guy to come over here and check the video card.

Also, i know its a dumb question, but would completely reformatting do anything?

 

I think you should try a factory restore before sending it in. If you send it in, they will probably do a factory restore anyway...

 

I'll do that. First I gotta back up my stuff first xD

 

Can anyone confirm is doing a factory restore will have any affect on video card affects?

 

It depends if the driver installed right now is messed up. You can try it.

 

I gotta back up 1TB worth of stuff, ill restore probably tomorrow and see what happens.

 

Subscribed cuz I'm getting that notebook-cursor thingy again. See my pic in my picasa page...

 

Hey dookie man, What happened?

 

Iono. I clicked on a youtube link, and when the yt video loaded up, my cursor turned from the regular white arrow into that notebook pic. Please view it on my picasa page.

Then, like last time, in order to fix it I had to hit Fn+F7, and use the notepad-cursor to navigate to Yes, and then to Change to change to the igp. This is always happening when I'm on the gpu btw. When I switch to the igp, it goes away, and I'm able to switch back to the gpu again, and it's normal. No idea why this is happening. It happened at random last time, and this time it was when I loaded up the yt page.

 

Huh, Thats weird. Have you tried changing your mouse cursor? And see if it still happens.

 

Regardless, this shouldn't EVER be happening, right??? Dunno if it's a soft or hardware thing.

 

Yes. But sometimes theres a bug thats causing this. You said that this happened when you where in youtube right? Have you updated your adobe flash player?

 

Last updated 3/12/2011. Everything else stock. This never happens on my dinodesktop...

 

Hope this wouldn't happen to our replacement R3's.

 

Me too. Dunno what's the cause of it. And also still don't know when my replacement is coming...when's yours?

 

No idea. They did not give me any way to know whats the status of my laptop.

 

Not even an order #?

 

The one they listed on the email was the old one. When i enter it at the dell site, it just gives me information about my old laptop.

 

Call customer care. They're supposed to give you a new order number for the replacement computer.

 

Will do that. Thanks!