M17x DPC Latency

Agreed. I myself posted several times about how awesome the M17x was. Of course, this was prior to the Windows 7 launch! At the same time, when you see entire threads devoted to something that seems to be a systemic issue, with dozens of people posting about problems with both the product and the service, that should be enough to make people look elsewhere. Would you buy a Toyota after they announced the recall but before they announced a fix for it?

In any case, a report of my experiences with the ATi - so far no major issues at all. No stuttering. DPC RARELY hits red spikes at idle. Perhaps I'm not challenging the computer enough. What can I download to test out the laptop? Vantage?

Edit - attached a SS of DPC. First minute is me typing this post; the other minute is idle.

 

Yes, but this forum, while nice, can never compare to mainstream goliaths like CNN and BBC. If CNN did one piece on the issues with this laptop, people would not bother getting themselves confused on this forum.

Furthermore, the scale and implications of this issue die in light of the Toyota fiasco. Dell did not do a recall, and people were not in danger.

More importantly, even now, when you search for review on this machine, it is only the 'recent posts' that highlight the issue. I hate saying this, but up until December, this system had no issues that were exposed by our internet mainstream outlets. And that. . . is too recent.

On the whole, expecting people to skim through this entire forum and get the 'right idea' is unreasonable. We're trying to get the message out there, but in doing what we have done in the past, and then contradicting ourselves now, people are getting mixed signals, which is no good.

 

hi all,

Sorry to intrude but i have been contemplating buying a M17x for the past week of someone local selling it for £2200 brand new (details listed below)

Intel® Core 2 Extreme Quad Core QX9300 2.53GHz,1066MHz FSB,12MB L2 Cache
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit- English
17-inch WUXGA 1920 x 1200 Beyond HD 1200p
4096MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM
500GB Free Fall Sensor (7200 RPM)
SLI Dual 1GB GDDR3 nVidia GeForce GTX 280M
Internal Blu-Ray RW (Blu-Ray, DVD, CD Read & WRITE)
Wireless: European Dell Wireless 1510 (802.11n) Half Mini Card
Wireless: European Dell Bluetooth 370 Card
3 Years Next Business Day service + 3 years Accidental Damage

i have been reading lots of posts on this and have got mixed reviews but the one that worries me most is the nvidia problems with gliching in games and such.

any one had any experence with this and do u think the deal is worth it?

it was a replacement on a previous laptop and is in brand new condition.

thanks for your help

 

I like the Blu-Ray RW and the accidental coverage.

 

Depends. If you do pick it up and it does stutter (very likely), you'll be posting in here quite often. You can try to get Dell to switch out your video cards to ATi's, but that is very hit-or-miss. The other option is to install video drivers that turn off Powermizer, which means higher temperatures and a shorter lifespan for your card.

In addition, the person selling the laptop MUST TRANSFER OWNERSHIP to you. Once that person says they have, call Dell to confirm that you are now owner and that the warranties are all transferred to you. This will save you a ton of grief later on down the line.

 

yes thanks for the heads up, he said he will fill out the warrenty form online with me but the last thing i want is a laptop that is going to give me major driver problems.

is switching them out or turning off powermizer the only options, is it not something that nvidia will bring drivers out for 1 day?

iv just read soooo many problems with this laptop its beginning to look like i may not buy.

 

. . .Zath, you've got me a little worried here. Are you sure/certain that the original owner must initiate the transfer? What if he--the buyer--initiates the transfer using the service tag and online form?

 

If you decide to pass on the offer, would you then mind giving me the contact information to this deal?

 

Don't buy this laptop, it's a roulette, you can find yourself fighting with a lot of issue, and for the price, i don't think it's worth it.

Personally i don't have any stuttering in Vista, but not being able to go to win7 is a major issue for me.

 

Dell keeps saying they are working on a fix. We've heard:
- Bios
- nVidia drivers
- wait a week
- wait a month

Either way, Bios A03 was supposed to be "THE" fix. It didn't fix everyone's problems. So if you don't want to try to switch out the cards or mess with drivers, you get to wait.

Now what you can do to ensure you know exactly what you're getting into - have the seller run dcplat.exe - google it if you don't have it or the seller can't find it. Have the person run it at idle for 2 minutes (maximize the window) and then e-mail you a screenshot. If you see red spikes going off the charts, that's the latency problem we've been talking about. See attachment for an example of what MY system looked like prior to nvidia cards.

Remember bpat? I am pretty sure he had tons of issues because of the ownership transfer not going through properly - the service tag was switched over but the warranty was not. So before he could even fix his 1730, he needed to prove his ownership. I think there were one or two M17x guys here who are having similar issues because they bought theirs second-hand.

 

you got the point man. this is called consumption mania. we ve learned our lesson. they will learn it too.

 

I had the same problem, mate.

That had nothing to do with ownership transfer of either the warranty or the service tag. Bpat was the official owner; he received replacement parts and laptops in his name, but under the title of the original company that purchased the laptop. So the warranty was his to keep, but the problem got complicated because he needed a refund, and that's where Dell's finance department take charge of matters.

The issue there was of a refund, which only allows for the original invoice funds to go back into the account of the first owner, regardless of product ownershup status at the time. In order to avoid this, one must get a written consent letter from the original buyer, authorising Dell to transfer the money into another individual's (second owner) account.

 

So if they offered you a fully maxed M17x-R2, right now. . . would you take it and hail it as a solution? What if that one comes with its own brand and stream of issues?

 

you forget i have the M17X R1 maxed out. whats the deal with the R2? anyway in the case i didnt if they offered it to me for free i would take it for testing. For money? ok if it was 300 dollars.

and dave9826 be careful those that sell their M17X are even tech maniac and want the latest - they have really stressed it on benchmarks (we have many in here ) or having more serious issues. I would sell it too if i had such a big problem.

eidt: Kade you mean now that i have the M17X R1. now that i know that even on stock speed it shows flickering (i thought it was only when overclocked ) no i wouldnt change it. Even in this case as i told to naghead its easier to fix flickering than faulty motherboard except if flickering is due to power supply. i wonder how people that sent back their R2 machines think that this will be fixed if they just rebuild them.

 

yea thats what im most worried about ... altho he has the papers from his last laptop showing this was a replacement only a few weeks ago.... think im gonna pass, not sure what its worth or wether it is a good deal but i cant risk it. gonna have a look what else is on the market for 2k AW is out of the picture for that rice

thanks for your help all!

 

Update!
"Update, 2/12: After participating in a conference call with the internal key players regarding this issue, I'd like to invite those who are still seeing this problem to message me personally with their service tag and case information, as well as a description of what you've done with support to try to resolve this issue since it began. I'd like to get that information into one place so we can expedite a resolution for those affected"
from John_B.

The question is - how to PM him on their site???

 

So you're passing? Okay. Do you mind giving me the details to this deal? I know I asked earlier, but perhaps you missed the post.

Cheers.

Well then, I think that would be a lesson for us all to learn. It's not too thrilling to hear of people eager to accept movement to another Dell machine with its own brand of issues. It's not a solution when you're trading one set of problems for another set of problems, regardless of difference in problem-intensity. Such an attitude only detracts from the problem as we continue the trend and cycle into the next faulty generation of machines. If Dell 'learn' their lesson, then we'd get a proper fix to the current problem. If Dell, despite learning their lesson, cannot offer a fix, then they'd offer a replacement without its own inherent issues. If we learn a lesson from all this, then we would not accept half-fixes or glitchy replacements, attempt to break out of this cycle by not perpetuating the trend any further.

 

lol yea let me message him do u have an email he can contact u on?

 

. . .yeah. Sure. But, I'd rather not post that e-mail on here, y'know? You're not able to accept PM messages?

 

so 2 months for this... he is going to solve personally and for each one seperately the issues, replacing parts with faulty ones and whatever... the moment of truth came.

if someone is willing to go on with this story go on and tell us what we know already.

 

no bloody idea how to pm him. i just pressed add friend and there was a place to put some messages so i just used that. not sure if he will read it though. dont see how else to do it

 

Did the same

 

Strange thing though, his update came shortly after I added a comment on his post mentioning a class action and lawsuits coming against Dell (and the post was removed).

 

LOL! maybe that woke them up.

 

Can't find how to PM either, perhaps it shows up when he accepts the friend request.

 

he replied, saying received and asked for my service tag despite already putting it in the friend request message. so maybe he doesnt read/cant see the request messages.

add him as friend first then start a conversation with him

 

Well i called tech support today as they never called me back as promised.Gave the guy a detailed account of what i have done in relation to my issues with my M17x.So been asked to email him with my details of what i have personally done to solve this.He then told me that they would probably take it a way to repair,i then asked him how can it be fixed?.He informed me that they have fixed this before.Will be sending John B my details if accepted as friend.

 

I had a similar issue using another dell laptop, here the steps I used that helped.

Go into bios and set HD controller to "ATA mode" (other two modes still causes it), and then do a clean install of the OS, plus all normal drivers (minus intel matrix stuff) and now I have no pops anymore. Note changing this in bios will cause your current OS to bluescreen.

 

Just emailed my tech rep (costa rica) after I saw John B's post there; quite annoying considering they already know everything about that...

They should just face it: Any NVidia componant inside the M17X is a piece of crap, would it be the graphic cards, chipset, drivers, motherboard; everything has been botched conceived and built, and because Dell/AW did not put more serious efforts testing them pre-production, well, we end-up with bricks instead of the most powerful ... what is it again ? Ah yes:

the most costly & heavy paperweight of the world !!! ​

Don't get me wrong, wish I could say something nice to them, but, simply put, they sadly just don't deserve any !

Let's just hope some of the engeneers both @ Dell, AW, and NVidia shall be able to figure out their very own little botched part of the job and be able to bring us complete and fully acceptable resolution.

 

Wasn't that. The threat has been made/deleted on that thread at least twice since dec.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. But there are literally hundreds of simlarly well intentioned suggestions in these threads. None of then work.

Not only that, but some of the smartest people on this board ( trust me, that's a complement) can not solve the issue.

 

Since I also mentioned there my business relationship with Dell and the high chance of steering clear of that company on our next IT hardware refresh (200k+ loss for Dell), there was and is a reason for them to worry.
They also phoned me promptly, but the issue is still unresolved. If I used the business account it would be different.
Anyway, I hope that helped speeding up the process....

 

Guess we'll never be happy until there's no more NVidia inside our lappies... (while every manufacturer may market a flickering screen, exploding batteries, and so on...)...

geee...

 

Guys,

Dell-JohnB just posted the following in the Dell blogs:

 

2 pages back #1266
But it won't hurt to re-post it a few more times so that people won't miss it.
The discussion is already in its heat, so join the club

 

1) So once more i come true. NO FIX! search a few posts before when i told you that.

2) I really would like to see your -fixed notebooks- after the 5 days repair...

3) I dont know if they still want to gain more time but there are still months left to june or july.

 

I see what prompted Dell to come to life:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/12/still-no-fix-in-sight-for-alienware-m17x-stuttering-audio-issue/

Apparently the bad PR firestorm is now beginning.

I really feel sorry for Dell-JohnB... He's taking so much heat from angry users when he isn't directly responsible for any of this and is actually trying to do his part to help.

 

Nice, very nice

John-B is doing best, why doesn't he tell us exactly what happened in the meeting? Does it imply, there won't be any coming software/BIOS fix? What NVidian concluded from this?

It seems John is hiding something too

To be honest, I really love these NVidia 280M

 

Ok, i guess im an idiot, how the heck do you PM on the dell blogs?

 

I also feel bad for JohnB... He is in front of the firing squad. It is a shame really, on paper, these machines are amazing! The reality is far different. I wish mine worked as advertised, but starting with the m1730 and now the m17x, I now no longer have the job I bought this for. Too many delays and setbacks lost me the client. For what I was doing, I needed the portability, a desktop just wouldn't do.

 

His request doesn't add up. He is asking the end-user to provide info that they could easily query from their tech support database and present in a report to anyone who needed it.
Also noticed this morning that I can no longer access a history of my support request.

 

Well DUH... That would be an immediate career ending decision.

I do respect Dell-JohnB. He appears to be trying his best to assist when other factions within their organization aren't. Not many folks would make an attempt to do that.

 

Translation to me - they have no freaking clue what to do now. They can stretch this out for months - "we haven't gotten enough data from other users to determine a good fix."

 

Click his hyperlinked name under his picture.

Add him as friend.

When he accepts you'll be able to pm him.

 

Be patient. It will take a while for him to get toyours.

 

John-B is the one supposed to directly contact us via the forum. One should be there even if it was John or Peter or whatever. Its his job. He is not responsible for the issues and noone blames him, i dont think he feels bad (because he has nothing to do with the issues) and he is directed by above. Representing the whole Dell is a big responsibility.

As if he is hiding something i knew this would happen. No news during the last two months are bad news by themselves. You dont have to be said something special. In addition Nvidias thread never replied to users issues. In addition John-B ask you again to describe the issues just like if he is a newbie and they are playing with us. How many times have we described our issues? There may be special issues for each one but the major ones are the same for all of us who posted on Dell thread. The first post of John-B described the issues. What else have you to describe?

Is there anybody in here who believes that every single notebook will be fixed? I guess John has hundrends of pm already until now. He should work every night and day for the next three months to get them all sorted .lool


Last but not least John-B refers to all service tags of all the world or only the US ones? because when i tried techniqal support of US and my service tag it told me that it was purchased from an other country which is the case (UK) or are we supposed to send the notebooks to US to be fixed?

whatever i dont know if you understand the chaos and the dead end that Dell has come to.

 

Cheers - followed instructions and he responded

I told him about my Absolute Maximum recorded by DPClat of 3.25 billion - which is nearly 55 Minutes

His reply was
Thats a BIIIG number :-(

 

did he say something to you you didnt know already? well for your case they may give you a motherboard with better latency but not stutter free. thats my clue. Sorry guys i dont want you to give up hope as i did.

 

All has seemed fine since i swapped for the ATI's about 2 weeks ago. Spikes only about 4k normally with the occasional 8 or 9k here and there. No stuttering with online games or video. Just noticed though as i brought the machine out of sleep i got a huge spike of 2,342,332,421...System is still unstable wish they would release these updates already.

 

and so...

Is that gonna help anyone in any way ?

By all means, they (Dell, AW & NVidia) are already fully awared of the issue, but most likely, not how to resolve it.

This being said, it's obvious they're trying to buy time, not that they want to get over the first year's warranty period and get rid of us, but most likely, BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO CLUE HOW TO RESOLVE THE ISSUE, thus, us, fuss and rust in the bus of the toss... (yes, that is scary, indeed...)

Thanks to engadget, they decided to get closer to their customers by asking them to simili-participate in the process of resolution; however, afraid this is again just a fake to calm us down because they feel the heat rising; what can we actually tell them that:

1. They don't already know;
2. Might help them (really help) to resolve the issue.

Seriously...

Your thoughts are as good as mine, if not better...