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    Hardrive keeps cycling and alt tabbing out of games when it does.

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by Valera84, Jul 29, 2014.

  1. Valera84

    Valera84 Notebook Enthusiast

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    title pretty much says it all, every once in a while the hardrive spins for a split second and when it does it alt tabs you out of any running programs. Obviously not tolerable if you're playing in tournaments :( Anyone have any idea as to anything specific. It started when they came in to replace the video card due to overheating and updated a ton of unnecessary software/drivers. Really would like to avoid a reformat :(
     
    Valera84, Jul 29, 2014
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  2. MickyD1234

    MickyD1234 Notebook Prophet

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    Hmm, I wonder if the card is doing a partial reset? MS in their infinite wisdom introduced the ability for the OS to reset a part of the video sub-system if a problem is detected. Before this a reset would invariable cause a switch to the desktop with an error about the driver being restarted.

    This new code does mean that games will often continue after a partial reset but of course there is the time this takes while you can't game. Just to make it worse these errors (or resets) are not logged so it's difficult to tell.

    What I do is overclock my GPU and game. Once I get a problem that might be a partial TDR I check the clock speed. If it is back to default a reset has occurred.

    No fix though, just a drag trying to track it down.

    MS doc re this new code for any prop-heads reading :p : TDR changes in Windows 8 (Windows Drivers) win 7 has been updated to comply... :
     
    MickyD1234, Jul 30, 2014
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