M17x DPC Latency

So I just got my r1 what should I be looking for? I went to You tube watched videos without issue. Played music Without problem. Haven't installed any games yet.

 

I have no idea what is taking Gateway so long to get back in the game. An i5 6860FX replacement with 5850 or 5770 would be so awesome. I'd grab one in a heartbeat.

That's a nice upgrade! Good c/s to make sure you are happy I guess.

Me too. I'll miss hybrid SLI. I would prefer a fix this week - then I would cancel the 4870s.

I live in Canada and always get India or Costa Rica. The folks in Costa Rica seem to have better knowledge of the problem.

 

lol i dont want it back.. i want a refund!

 

ok, so I tried again and got the same guy! I apologized because I was in a bad mood (kids ,dinner) and didn't have time to deal with it earlier (a call back the next day) since I am booked the entire day and my return window was evaporating (outlet, great deal). He gave me ATI replacements and kudos to him. He's not guaranteeing a fix, Nvidia is supposed to have a driver fix soon for the chipset but I'm hopeful!

 

I've got onboard disabled with the 4870 installed... pretending the 9400 doesn't even exist. Wonder if that's why some ATI users are still having stuttering issues, onboard is still enabled?

I'm not missing hybrid at all... I could barely play Dragon Age on 1680x1050, details on high, AA off... tech verified this, drivers were installed correctly, but Dragon Age was running like a slide-show. Had the same results with the 260M with and without onboard...

Now with single 4870, I'm playing Dragon age in 1920x1200, full details, smooth as butter.

 

just talked to the tech in charge of my case. he agreed to send me atis

i told him there were people who have atis having stutters as well but he claims actually the a03 bios solved everything even for the nvidia cards

he said he tried out himself and it was fine. audio stuttering is caused by some codec or roxio program.

i told him that i am willing to try the atis out and if they still have the problem, escalate and give me an r2.

he says that it wouldnt solve the problem cos what if the r2 has such a problem as well(design flaw) and i request for an r3/something else newer.. i was like -.-

if dell has sold a product that is defective, shouldnt it jolly well take care of it and replace/recall the faulty products if they cant find a proper fix?

 

I'll be upset if the 4870 cards do not fix the stutter.

My 280m cards work very well.

 

my gtx280s work very well too.. if there wasnt this stuttering problem, i wouldnt swap the 280s for 4870s even if they were free.. i like physx + digital vibrance. well not so much about vibrance now that ive found out atis can do it too and its called saturation

hope it all works out though..

 

I too dont want to switch to ATIs, no offense. ATI cards are good, but they have way more issues with CrossFire than Nvidia's SLI. Nvidia is better when it comes to dual GPUs at least.

I really hope they can fix it, i dont want to go back to Vista.

 

Dell just offered to replace my R1 with another R1 of exactly the same config with dual 260M's I should have it in a couple weeks. They said they now have a way to fix the stuttering issues and it will arrive to me with all drivers installed correctly as well as the bios lol and they said and I quote "it will arrive to you with NO issues" lol. I doubt this replacement will make a difference, and if it doesn't I'll call customer service and see what they can do because this is my last attempt at a tech support resolution.

 

Things tend to change once in a while
Do not stay locked entirely on one side. You might be surprised one day and regret you didn't give it a shot.
I'll join either camp if there's enough reasons at that very moment (better drivers for my OS, features that I need/like, etc)

 

No offense but they are the culprit here. The GPU's mixed with this chipset are whats causing the issues. Its very sad considering they make the chipset...

CrossfireX works just as good or better in the M17x. I emplore you to try and read review before being so biased, the ATI cards are CLEARLY much better performers and the drivers don't give you issues

 

My thoughts exactly.... I'll switch sides to whoever currently has the better performing hardware and better driver support at the time. The DPC issue being caused by nVidia in this case made me happily switch sides.

 

Oh i know, ATI has always been better than Nvidia. My desktop is running with Radeon 3850 X2 in crossfire which is an amazing machine. But I know this for a fact and from experience that all of ATI's issues with graphics is in their crossfire technology in which Nvidia has been better with their SLI tech. And this is not coming from benchmarks side, this is actual real world gaming tests and issues.

They must have gotten better, and i have to say that Nvidia has fallen far down the hole in the recent years with all their issues. Not to go off topic but i really hope this can be fixed and not force us to switch to ATI...

 

And the tech will arrive soon and replace the above parts. Wich i told them. Won't solve the problem. But i'm now able to use the customer-rights laws here against Dell for a refund or replacement. Acording the these laws - Dell has the possibility to fix the problem twice before accepting a refund och total replacement. This is the second visit from Dell to fix this.

But i honestly don't understand Dell, doing like this must be more costly than just replacing the computer....

 

I am in the same boat, although for other reasons.

Based on the M17X performance, the faster quad cores, like your QX9300 overclocked, would really make an ATi Xfire solution fly. Perhaps even more than Nvidia's dual 280m in SLi. But having that said, I would like a proper fix for the Nvidia users, because some of us are just comfortable in the 'green zone' so to speak. I myself care about the real-world performance, the an 280s are great, provided that people don't experience all the audio issues and stutters. There's very few of us at the moment who are free of such problems.

 

just got the switch to ati and the dpc latency is gone i get massive stutters in games.

 

Wait, you get massive stutters with ATI's? That would be a first.

 

Actually, Nickbarbs posted of having stability issues. Not sure if he encountered stutters - need to clarify what issues he experienced after the switch.

 

here is my 3dmark06 score to prove it.

 

Doesn't look like the drivers are working properly at all. Uninstall all your GPU drivers (perhaps consider a driver sweep of ATI and Nvidia GPU drivers) and then redo it, that is FAR too low. Also possible you have a dud card but more inclined to believe its drivers not working properly.

 

i did a fresh install right after i got home because of the fact that i had nvidia cards in there in the first place.

one of my fans are on full blast and after spending 4 hours last night on the phone with a tech he concluided(which i knew even before i called) that the middle cord on the gpu fan isn't connected were it is not being controled and running at full blast. so they are sending a fan (another service repair again.)to change that.

my card that is running at full blast is 10 degrees lower then the other card.(33c vs 45c)) and everything reads right.

however i'm running vantage as we speak and i think i see artifacting.

 

Well your 06 scores were far too low, and if you're seeing artifacting then they've sent you broken cards.

 

the temperature difference shows that the game didnt work in crossfire. but it can be the fan of one of the ATIs but you say its the middle fan which is for the cpu. finally there can be soemthing wrong with the ATIs you got.

SO finally its the middle fan doesnt work? so the cpu overheats and all the others follow?
crap i am waiting for the ATIs tomorrow. they should be here today.

 

Hello peoples

Well i just got my M17x back from repair from Dell UK. It went back for all the reasons stated in this thread. I had told them i had enough off formatting my laptop all the time. So they took it in and replaced one graphics card and sent it back to me, it only took 5 days. I knew even before i turned it on that it wouldn't be fixed. Turned it on, ran furmark.. still stutters once fans get upto full speed, tried vantage, still stuttering, played CMR Dirt, still stuttering in SLi mode.

Phoned dell with in an hour of recieving my laptop, told them that this was the last straw! Blah Blah, the service tech asked me if i wouldn't mind being put on hold while he spoke to his supervisor. Came back after a few,,, and said they have discussed the situation and if i was to send it back in for repair it would not fix the problem. So he said there were a few options here, they could upgrade me to the M17x R2 or we could talk about a refund. I said i would gladly take the M17x R2 please!! I asked him about configuration, he said i would get the same value machine as i had ordered. I told him that i want to make sure i have the \highest processor option and obviously the Crossfire ATI's. I told him i would be even prepaired to pay the extra for the Higher processor.

So thats me happy!! The whole process should take around 2-3 weeks.

Cheers guys for all your posts and comments this is a grear forum!!
P.S. I have had this M17x for around 6 months now. So don't give up trying, best thing is to let them take your lappy in and try to fix it.

 

dondadah88,

One of your cards has to be defective... I'm hitting right at 11000 in Vantage. The 4870s should blow that number away in '06.

 

Same here, and no stuttering in games.
Either drivers or one of the cards....

 

my secondary card is at max. at idle right now.(34c vs 45c)

 

yes reinstall your os to permantly get rid of the nvidia 260/280 in your registry.

 

I saw what seemed like artifacts during new calico with the 4870s but it is very consistent and not behaving like artifacts normally would so I think it is just a difference in the way the ATI cards are processing the image

 

ok i see what you mean.

 

thx I will do that and hopefully I will have a fully functional notebook

 

I just uninstalled and driver sweeped the nvidia video drivers, did not do any reinstall

 

Niceeee, i gotta try and get my R1 exchanged for an R2

 

is it possible to buy the intel motherboard later as an upgrade?

i cant complete vantage benchmark on my M17X. it stucks at loading of one test.. thus stuttering of the GTX280s appear on it as well as fps drops. win7 x64

 

Fyi, Dell replaced the following today, harddrive, gfx-card /Nvidia and the sidepanel. Didn't to anything to fix the situation other than that my m17x is almost brand new, the only part not replaced is the cpu

But the good news is that Dell has decided to escalate this and hopefully i'll have a replacement (m17x-r2) or a refund.

Wouldn't that have been the first thing to do, won't you say ?

 

Driver 'optimizations' to produce misleading becnhmark scores maybe?

 

ok i finally managed to run vantage. here is my score with GTX280 sli. So are the 4870s really faster?

 

I don't think that is the case lewdvig

 

Not bad, but I think you could do better if you had an even further tuned-up system.

Edit: And yes, 4870s score over 1000 more in the GPU department. Running stock.

 

ok i just run those benchmmarks just to compare tomorrow with the coming 4870s on my system at this cpu speed (3.04 ghz), my gpus are not overclocked at all. i can see on benchmark threads that the top is 14044 with crossfire and actually all the top 5 scores are with crossfire. i am nearly at the sixth position maybe.

 

I had the record for the GTX 280m's and currently for the 4870s, the 4870s are just more powerful

no way around it, they are better (unless you have to have physx or cuda)

 

Man I am tired of dealing with this laptop...these phone calls are going nowhere

 

people have gotten refunds long after purchasing, if it is that frustrating for you maybe you should try that

 

I don't even consider the 280m GTX signficantly more powerful than the 260m, or even the 9800m GTX. Sadly for me, benchmark numbers have rarely translated to much when it has come down to the tough gritty moments of gaming.

That is correct. You can escalate your case to the point where you can demand a refund. Be very careful, though, because if you bought this machine from a reseller or you're a second owner, then you will have to acquire a written consent/authorisation letter from the first owner who bought the laptop from Dell.

 

I have tried...they wont let me

 

then you are not trying hard enough

 

apparently.

 

it will take many calls and a lot of complaining, and frequently request to be escalated

but with diligence you should get it

be sure to mention that their new bios failed to resolve the problems