M17X R2 - Video Stutter (Not DPC Latency?)

I recently recieved my M17X R2 in late October. Since then I've been plagued with the same issue with no fix that I can find. Hopefully there is a fix out there or someone has found a solution to this issue that I have over looked. I'm currently running i720Q| 6GB mem | Single 5870 HD ATI | 150w Power Supply. Generally all I use my system for is gaming and listening to music.

The problem is this, when opening any video game it runs smoothly, fluctuating from 40-62fps. These are online games mind you which require constent internet connectivity. If I alt/tab out of a game, open youtube for example and listen to a song then tab back I start getting stuttering and jerking as my game is trying to render. My FPS dont drop but it's more as if the CPU is trying to play catch up... doesn't make any sense really it's just a single tiny song the over head isn't that much.

Now at first I thought ok, its a core issue to where the 1-2(3) cores are getting over worked while the others are sitting there parked i.e running the OS on 1-2(3) and also processing the song in the background while also trying to process the video game I am playing. So I forced my game to run on seperate cores entirely, no dice. I have updated the video card firmware along with the corresponding A09 BIOS firmware. Problem persisted before and after the firmware updates. Along with that I've updated all the drivers listed on Dell's support page.

My next thought was, ok... maybe it's an issue with the WLAN card/Ethernet card. As stated above i've updated all the drivers already and I've tried both my wireless connections and plugged directly into my router via ethernet cable. No dice.

I've since bypassed the Respawn (original factory image) and used the OS install DVD that came with it. Mind you the system runs better because it isn't running all that extra "pretty" alienware stuff in the background, however, the problem persists again after updating all the drivers etc. Oh, I've downloaded the DPC Latency application and watched this through all my steps listed above and not once did the DPC Latency (known) issue present it self. Mind you I have 3 other laptops and 2 other workstations running on the same connections, OS Platform etc and they do not have this issue.

Thanks all, Merry Christmas.

 

What game might it be? My first thought is network lag, maybe you should download the song and see if it still stutters playing from your hard drive?

 

One of the games is WoW. I can have all my boxes on my router at the same time all running WoW, playing Youtube in the background and this is the only system with the issue.

You know how Youtube will buffer the song and you can see it downloading... even after the fact just leaving the window open without playing the song, fully downloaded will cause the same issue. Maybe some kind foreground/background CPU issue?

*I do apologize if this problem seems small compared to other peoples issues, I just feel after we spend so much money on these systems that we should be able to at least run a couple programs smoothly. Cheers!

 

Happens to me if I try to watch a youtube video while playing WoW.

I know it's impossible to watch both, but sometimes I fly for few minutes, then I alt tab to watch something. I barely ever do it though.

 

Well that makes me feel better someone else has the issue, you know because misery loves company and all... but any ideas on what could be causing the problem though?

 

Try downloading the video ( KeepVid: Download and save any video from Youtube, Dailymotion, Metacafe, iFilm and more!) and play it from your hard drive, that will narrow it down.

 

Thanks! Lol... I can't reproduce it now, it works fine.

EDIT: Just reproduced it. Yes, it happens as well when you download the video.

 

and once WOW starts the stutter/jerking, if you close the WOW game and restart it, does this stop the stutter/jerking?

 

Chris, for me when I tried this the problem persisted. What about you unreal25? Grrr... so frustrating.

 

I wonder if this has anything to do with it?

Alienware M17x laptop said to be suffering from power-related GPU issues -- Engadget

 

Maybe, question is what can DELL do for us if that is the case? I mean I'm already using an R2 best they could do is issue me another R2. Let's hope that isn't the case...