M17x DPC Latency

yes the cpu reading ones only? lool

 

I don't understand the question

 

i mean that all red spikes with A02 are not only due to the cpu reading issues of A02 bios. A03 Bios proved that the red spikes of the A02 were not all due to the cpu reading which was fixed.

 

oh, yeah I see your point. That's correct.

 

So now on my check support call history it has a new case. the notes say "care red flag?" the status of the case is open and working. IMO they are not working on crap.

 

ok those huge 999000 spikes appear even more often now on high performance! and inside games! i never had problems with games with the ATIs till now! it becomes better ...

 

That means they have a contract out on you watch your back maybe something to do with your warranty i am not sure

 

Indeed from the very first day the issues where there, and I am currently trying to install A03 and re-install the win 7. Time is flying and I am waiting for my win 7 back up to finish

 

Don't jump to conclusions. This could very well be a 'Tech Support/Customer Care Red Flag' since this is a hot issue. The case is open so obviously something is happening or being looked at. The "?" may indicate the rep who entered the service call/case# has escalated it for review to determine how to proceed.

My advice, if you are concerned with it, contact tech support and just ask them what it means.

 

Tanks batboy appreciate the fast response.

 

Yeah, don't stress on it until you speak with Dell. There is no reason why they cannot or should not explain it to you. If you hit a wall, ask for the rep's supervisor. Be polite

 

So, do you experience stuttering or lock ups when this 999000 spike occurs? And if yes could you describe it? Like the sound is chopping, or the screen flickers, any sudden drop on FPS...

 

Pretty high score

 

i had a 2million spike once, that i caught anyway with DPC checker. my computer locked up for a few seconds and made the horrible audio stutter. now everything is green with the ATI cards

 

Quick question guys. I'm on Vista and getting the constant 4000/5000 spikes on idle. I didn't upgrade to A03, I was waiting for you guys to test it, who unlike me, actually know what you're talking about!

If I upgrade to A03 now how do I combat this problem with powermizer and the heavy fan use? Is this just related to the nVidia driver version?
I'm currently using 195.52 WHQL. Can't use the Dox drivers because I'm running the system through an HDMI monitor and I get bad flicker.

Thanks.

 

the whole system stucks for one second but not 10 sec stutter. it may be the battery. i will get it out and try again

 

brad, try updating to A03 and check it again.

 

Those spikes do not cause stuttering. Nevertheless you could upgrade to A03 to eliminate them. BatBoy is on Vista and including me when I had them, he doesn't experience any stuttering (BatBoy correct me if I am wrong here)
The problem with the powermizer is mostly affecting win 7. If you still want to disable powermizer without using the Dox drivers there is a registry work around in this forum.

 

I am really confused here. So you have (or had) a 10 sec stutter??? What is that exactly?

 

A03 took my latency down quite a bit. There would still be times in-game that I'd get the nasty drop in frame rate accompanied by the audio slow down.

Getting rid of the QX9300 finally solved all of the issues. I see a couple of you are running them. You can easily sell the quad, buy a T9900 or X9100, and still have money left over.

 

So the care red flag status just tells any tech that pulls up my service tag that the they have to route my call to the manager that called me yesterday.the same one who told me I had to wait for a fix. The tech I spoke with today said that only this manager can OK anything that has to do with my problem.

 

its just like i tell you. the whole system stucks (whatever it means) for one second (one second stutter if i can call it stutter) with the ATIs when those huge red spikes occur. Thus its still there without the battery but not so frequent. its enough to select high performance.

I had 10sec stutter when i had nvidias.

well if this is not power issues then what is it stamatis? i personally exclude the case of driver confliction. the game is just running and the drivers are always there. those huge red spikes are not reproducable and are just power issues....

 

Those who got R2 replacement - did you get to choose what hardware it came with, or did they decide that for you? Also, are you able to keep your current M17x until the R2 arrives, or do you have to ship it back prior to shipment of the R2?

 

Well I have waited and watched for some time on this issue. It has gotten to the point I am tired of the latency issue and the slow response on resolving it.

I just called tech. Got a nice knowledgeable person on the other end.. explained everything that I have done ect.

Without hesitation he explained the two options wait longer or swap to ATI. I told him I would like to take a shot at the ATI cards. He even mentioned that since i am currently on win 7 it wont 100% resolve it but it will be better. lol.. Its interesting that he is honest and is somewhat aware of the issue... Dont get that much..

I also requested that the cards are sent directly to me and not the on site technician so I can make sure the cards are replaced properly.. He had no issues doing that.

So i am crossing my fingers to see if this helps me out.. I really wanted to stay with NVidia but they have left me no choice but to try the swap..


Overall it was a really good interaction.. thumbs up!!!!

 

this is actually very honest and i would appreciate such replies. Thus it shows that they know that ATIs dont absolutely fix the issues on win7. Are you in US?

I think Dell always sends the replaced parts to you and then the technician comes right? at least this is what always happened with me.

Good luck with ATIs but be sure red spikes can be reproduced under certain occasions. At least you wont have stutter and audio crackling.


Also did anyone noticed that the sound is crackling during windows startup? this doesnt seem to happen on batttery.

 

No they go to the onsite tech contracted out to do the job. Yes I am in the US.

he told me before hand if i had it sent to tech it was one biz day turnaround and if directly to me 2-3 biz day.. I am ok with that.

 

First of all in order to confirm that there is an actual problem (hardware or software) we need to have symptoms that are specifically described, defined and reproducible. So we need to have at least two identical laptops (preferably more) with the exact same software installed. Then we need to follow the exact same procedure on both of them and to be able to reproduce the same symptoms (if any) on both of them.

The best way to eliminate software conflicts is to format the disk, install windows and check the latency by playing a couple of videos and mp3 files or any other method to detect anomalies. After that we continue with the recommended from Dell order to install the drivers. One driver at a time.

After we finish with the driver installation and the checks, we continue with the extra software like the command center. Check again the latency by trying a couple of videos, etc, etc.

This has to be done on both laptops and it has to reproduce identical results. If results vary on those two laptops we need a third one, identical to the other two. If two of them reproduce the same results (lets say no latency) but the latency is existent only on the other one, then there is something wrong with this specific one laptop. On the other hand, if two of the three laptops appear to have latency issues, i.e audio stuttering, lock ups, etc, etc, then we can say that something is wrong generally.

In order to be specific we need to confirm if the problem occurred due to the hardware of due to the software and in that case, before or after a specific driver or program. (on win 7, latency occurs for instance when we install the Nvidia display drivers and not when we install the chipset drivers)

As you can see this procedure takes time and requires many variables to be exactly the same(initial conditions). Many people in this thread do actually have the same hardware but very few (or none) do actually have the exact same software configuration. That's why the results vary.

DPC latency checker is a tool to measure the delay caused by conflicts within the kernel and nothing more. My belief is that the problem is software oriented since users of this forum under different Operating Systems (like Vista or Linux) do not experience stuttering which excludes the hardware part and leaves only the software.

*EDIT*
I know that many people hope for an R2 replacement and won't be very pleased with what I write. For this reason only I wish I am wrong.

 

You don't get to choose the hardware, they offer you a system, equal or better. And yes, you can arrange for your old system to be picked up after your new one has been delivered. Talk to your rep about it.

 

So the replacement dept. called to check on the status of me sending back my 1730 I told him It was in the boxing stage.

 

the right speakers leds replaced. its seperate from the speakers just to let you know. and its a pain to replace. here is a pic

http://i48.tinypic.com/212bxvb.jpg

 

Funny thing though, they don't even let you upgrade the new system for an additional cost, very strange. They offered me an extra 2GB of RAM (+200$ according to the Dell Canada website), so I wanted to change it back to 4GB and upgrade the CPU instead, was even willing to pay extra - no way. That's another policy of theirs, and I simply don't have enough time to escalate it to the CEO level again...

 

What was the CPU in your R1 system ?

 

So the ATI cards did not fix the issue then on your R1.

 

Hi, guys.

I am very sorry we have not engaged you on this thread. That's my fault. My job is to make public responders aware of where they need to talk to our customers, and I missed this thread. NBR is a priority site for me, so I really dropped the ball here. Again, very sorry for coming late to the party.

Now, down to brass tacks. We have a fix coming. John is going to post the details on Direct2Dell today. It will be a new post, and not an update to the existing post we've had up since November.

In preparation for the fix, you will need to be running BIOS A03 (who's not already, right?) and have the latest web posted Dell WLAN driver installed. The other piece amounts to changing the mass storage controller driver to the native Windows driver. We have a script in place to make the necessary registry changes to make that happen.

Some of the information I have is still Dell-confidential at this point, but fire away with your questions. I will be very frank about what I can say, and let you know when I can't. Going to lunch now. Back in a few.

 

I think the biggest question, is why did this have to be found out by us, the customers, and not Dell?

It was not hard at all to notice....

 

I can give a specific answer to your question, but I'm not sure if there is any way to give a satisfactory answer. Bottom line: we dropped the ball, and there's absolutely no excuse. I have a part in that, and I apologize. I was engaged by John the week before last when he approached me about challenges he was having getting this pushed through to resolution. At that point, I notified my VP, and wrote an executive summary. From that point on, things really accelerated. So, it's on me for the undue delay. I should have been pinging John more for updates instead of allowing it to get to the point he felt he had to approach me.
EDIT: But I guess you're more asking how it even got out the door that way. Well, it's incumbent upon engineering to catch these problems before they ship, so the initial fault lies squarely there. Anything past the point we first saw the issue in the social media space falls to me.

 

Thanks for the update Bill! Great to hear we'll be seeing more info on this longstanding issue. Look forward to the update!

Folks, I want to take a moment and remind everyone Bill is here to assist/answer q's (where possible). Please keep this in mind when posting. In other words, keep it clean and remember the forum rules when posting

Thanks.

 

I guess my ? Bill are those of us with the NVIDIA GPUs going to have to be swapped to ATI's for a proper fix with this issue ?

 

Trust me, I am extremely happy to see Dell being so engaged in the solution here.

I have been rather happy with their customer support so far.

 

Just checked the Dell driver site and theres some new software on there, including new chipset drivers. . its under system utilities "Alienware Alienware OS Customiztion 2.0"

 

P8700. 520M is still a stronger CPU, but it's a real pity to have the built-in IGP in it and not being able to use it because of the chipset restrictions.

They reduced it by 80%, but I still had occasional (very rare) spikes above 30k and system lock-ups associated with them.
And since I'm using the machine for business mostly, had to deal with the situation after having the lappie freeze during a presentation...
So no more nice battery life in exchange for an RGB LED screen. Dunno if it's a good deal, m8...

 

I had a pm from John B earlier & he said that the issue has nothing to do with the gpu's from there findings.

 

Absolutely not. The few posts I've had time to thumb through here confirm what the engineers are telling us about the ATI's not being a solution. We have absolutely found the source of the biggest latency spikes that remain after updating to A03 and the Dell WLAN, and we should have a downloadable script very, very soon. I think John may even link to it in the blog post.

 

Good news! Let's see if the new fix does the trick.

They should have accepted this long time ago.
Alas, it always takes a certain critical mass to get the results.

 

Bill,

What does the new "Alienware Alienware OS Customiztion 2.0" on the drivers site fix?

 

Well thats good if its true.. I would say that you should cooperate with nvidia for the nvidia chipset as well.

Stamatis it seems that the nvidia chipset driver 15.51 that i had installed caused the 999000 huge spikes. i uninstalled all nvidia chipset driver stuff and just installed the needed drivers from using have disk. Of course the rest red spikes until 6000 are always there and reproduced by certain occasions. Thats for Dell people.

At last i come true about the motherboard issues.

As for the fix its Utility to restore Windows 7 native storage drivers. So actually a confirmation of nvidia crap driver.

 

Well, some of us have replaced the Dell WLAN with Intel 5300 AGN (to fix the abysmal connectivity with the Dell Wireless 1510 card, especially on the 5GHz band) and still get the stuttering and DPC spikes.
Also, we get bad DPC latency when gaming in Windowed mode on Nvidia cards which doesn't happen on ATI cards.
I really hope this new fix of yours will fix all the issues, but I think the only real fix is to upgrade to an R2.

 

yes I already tossed the Dell WLAN and gone with the intel 5300

 

which intel model did you use? just the 5300 half height card?

 

is this any way better than dell 1520?

I tried the restore win7 default driver -fix-. red spikes remain under the occasions i described before. What is this supposed to fix exactly? this was a -fix- for many of us for months now. we could do that by ourselves through selecting the default win7 driver in device manager.