M17x DPC Latency

thanks batboy

 

ok. what fixes has dell tried for everyone. i'm trying to sum it up.

with me on tech support
on fresh vista install
a03
download all the drivers from dell's website

then i had to install win7
(with nviidia)
dell drivers
nvidia beta drivers
disabled some registry key
disabled acpi in the device manager so i cant see my battery
uninstall the storage driver
uninstall the sm bus driver
uninstall the sm driver
reinstall the dell drivers with win7.
(my internet is capped at 120KB/s max it took forever.)
last fix was ati cards which helped a ton. but there is some red spikes.

what did they try for everyone else? i mean they refused to send me a system replacement so just trying to gather info on what other techs have tried.

 

I did the so called fix and it didn't fix anything. I also have had the mainboard replaced and the Ati video cards.

This was with a couple of web pages open, movie in background



This was with a pdf file and a couple of web pages

 

oh i forgot about my replacement parts i had also. with the machine..
only original part is the lcd, chassis, ram, hdd.

 

Hopefully Dell-Bill_B will be back to shed some light on this & some information on there next step with this issue.

 

My tech wanted to go through the steps Rotsu listed way back in this thread originally. He also had me remove the battery, hold the power off for awhile, reinsert and plug back in, etc as part of the steps. He finally gave me the ATI swap which was installed about a week or so ago. We haven't tried anything else since.

 

Let me assure everyone posting here of a couple of things.
1. I will be personally watching and responding to this thread until the issue is resolved.
2. Dell is taking this issue very seriously.

Teams are working and in contact with each other working on this situation with a great degree of concern. I will keep you updated here in this thread throughout the process daily. Let me again apologize for the frustration.

 

I tried all of the above bill and it did not resolve my issue.
The script errored out since I have an SSD and havent used the nvidia storage driver in some time now....
I have also had the wireless disabled for a while as I use wired network
So no go for me. :-(

Glad my ATI replacement cards shipped today.

 

I never called tech support for the issue... what is/was the point? This is an acknowledged problem on all M17X computers. It's just a timewasting runaround to call up and have them do all the crap we already know won't work.

 

Myself after running all the updates...

Starting...


1st clock change (all I did was open www.youtube.com).


3rd clock change, missed the 2nd (wasn't doing anything in particular)

 

Dequiallo
are you happy with your machine?

i'm not so i'm calling.

 

No, I'm not happy. And I'm also not happy at how we're forced to jump through hoops in order to get satisfaction for a product that was knowingly sold to us in a broken/defective state with no fix possible.

That's not the sort of thing you fix on an as needed basis. You pull all affected units and replace them with something that works. Unless you put profit ahead of customer satisfaction, that is.

Streamline the replacement process or whatever, and eliminate the hours of useless "tech support" for a problem that they cannot fix.

 

This is indeed the issue. What else is their to believe? I mean huge companies like Toyota can and will even though they lose money on it call back cars when they turn out to be defect. But Dell? Dell keeps on telling us that the solution is close and then we realize that Dell has told people this since July I find this very disturbing

 

If Dell takes this seriously then how come we have not received a replacement? How come did Dell sell this m17x to me and other people for the last six months?

 

Many people have gotten replacements, I guess you just have to call tech support and take your chances at asking for a replacement (R2, ATI's, etc.). But I do feel like the amount of time this is taking to fix is a bit much, and if it isn't resolved soon then imo some sort of exchange system should be in order...

 

I have already twice informed Dell by mail that I want to be offered a flawless m17x system as a replacement for the defect system they have sold me and that I am entitled to this according to the national consumer law Dell is operating under. The answer was this

"Thank you for contacting Dell hardware support.

I'm sorry for inconveniences.

Regarding ATI problem we haven't experienced any problems yet.

In this case I will forward this to our testing specialists to be able get feedback.

As soon as I get any update you will be contacted.

Regarding mentioned strange sound have you you found out if noise is coming from base of system or LCD screen or HDD?

All these steps are essential to get to the final solution."

Do I need to say that the answer made me a little angry

Since this mail I have heard nothing...

 

My ATIs did fix most of the problem, but I have noticed the occasional (maybe once a day) freeze in the system. If I walk away the system will come back in about 2 minutes.

Other than that I haven't noticed stuttering.

 

bill, come on. please let the executives in dell know about this. we SHOULD BE GIVEN A CHOICE to get a replacement if you dont want to wait.

and for once please tell us the os your testing on because if its vista then you guys are really really having no clue

i know there are some people who would like to keep this machine because it has integrated graphics but there are also some like me who couldnt care less and only WANT A PROPER WORKING LAPTOP.

there is NO REASON why we should KEEP WAITING while you guys draw straws and play scissors paper stone to see what could be the cause and after SO LONG come out with a useless fix (like the one you just released). its not even a bios update. you call that a fix? almost everyone in this forum has done what your fix said a long long time ago.

i am running stock hardware, qx9300 4gbram 2x500gbhdd 4870s in xfire with a fresh win 7 home premium 64 install with all latest dell drivers from the site and some games to test and i still get

this in mw2

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sRQT0sTumhs&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sRQT0sTumhs&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='425' height="344"></embed></object>

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/c_KR4I4nE9M&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/c_KR4I4nE9M&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='425' height="344"></embed></object>


i seriously think dell feels that they can afford to lose customers like us with this amazing stunt.

6 months of waiting for a fix.

ps:i love my $7000 paperweight. it has lights that can be changed between 24 colors and it also makes a good weapon to bring into fights.

 

Indeed I agree that the Bios A03 did reduced the Red spikes, but it did not eliminate them. When I scroll a website up or down I can actually produce the red spikes with a value around 5000 us.

 

i dont have a video recorder to show him mines.

 

Despite everything I thought I would give this a go.
BUT, I get the wonderful "Your system does not meet the specifications required to run this utility"

Why is this? I have a factory install have not done any of the registry tweaks (in this particular re-install) that were posted earlier.

What is up with this??

D.

 

They will not fix the issue for you. period. But you can if you have a warranty. It's up to you what to do with it now.
If we say - they'll never fix it, - they won't.
I gave 'em (myself) a try and got the 4870s in less than 10 hrs of phone calls.
Still had problems, another 20hrs and the R2 is on the way.
It's up to you.
Do what you think is right.

 

aikimox arent you concerned about the r2 flickering and throttling issues?

itll be the same problem all over again if the new bios which is supposed to be released soon(hey sounds abit familiar doesnt it) doesnt fix the issue and they cant find a fix for it.

 

1. A03 Bios
2. Script Wont Run because the Storage Drivers were removed in earlier troubleshooting (Your system does not meet the specifications to run this utility).
3. Done



So I've patiently waited a month for a script to do something that was suggested somewhere in these very thread and didn't work.

DELL: All I did was scroll up and down in this forum with no other apps running and got this result. No Music and No Game. Someone should be fired for even putting this script out.

 

The flickering only happens:
1) With the extreme CPU - 920XM+CF - I'm not a bencher so don't really care about that processor.
2) With a certain driver combination - 9.12+modder in certain games like Crysis. BTW I have the same flickering now in addition to the latency.

The throttling is fixed. It was only present in a few games like GTA 4.
Yes, there could be other problems, but at least you won't stay with a discontinued product ->>> the last priority for AW tech support. That's the most crucial reason. But like I said before, if it's gonna be the same with R2- will steer clear of AW&Dell.

 

id like to steer really clear of dell but i cant a refund authorized so im stuck with it all the way

 

Me 2, m8. Now checking my wife's laptop (Sony Vaio). With ton's of open tabs in Firefox and IE8, scrolling and playing videos - NO RED BARS AT ALL!
A 600$ machine makes my 4k alien blush in the far corner...

 

yea.. my friend's 400 dollar netbook can do all sorts of things with no red bars while mine shows so many red bars on idle.

really is a paperweight with lights

 

Three weeks now since escalation- not a word so far

 

Bill,

I am running BIOS A03.
I ran the script.
I have uninstalled and re-installed the WLAN Driver.

Still getting spikes.

Me and my company give thousands of dollars to Dell each year. This is the first time that I'm getting a product that is flawed. From the start.

Enough is enough. For all the months wasted and still not having a fix, Dell should treat us better. That means that Dell should offer to exchange our R1 system for a R2 system.

I have an Asus coming...and if this R1 doesn't get exchanged for a R2, you guys will have lost not just a guy that bought a $4000 laptop but someone that gives you thousand of dollars per year.

So tell your VP to do the right thing or you can tell him he will not see a cent from us ever again. I will make this my mission in life.

 

On a clean install of Windows 7
1. Yes
2. Yes
3. All drivers on system are new

Still stutters. Still lags games. Still is the worst machine I've ever purchased bar none.

As I told John during the "tell me your problems" fiasco of the original DPC post, I have bought a new machine, and this one has been sitting comfortably under my bed while Dell attempts to make a fix. I would totally eBay this piece of garbage and count my losses as a lesson learned, but unlike Dell, I can not justify selling a useless system to some unsuspecting victim.

It's nice to know there are Dell people watching this thread, which is something that we've assumed for awhile now. However, please don't try to lie to make us feel better. I have a hard time believing anyone would trust that Dell is taking this issue seriously at all or is in contact with each other. Nobody at Dell seems to be on the same page with this problem when people call in, and so far we have a placebo fix that lowered the bars that weren't causing a stutter, and we have a fix that the people on this forum have been using for months. Will the next fix 3 months down the road be to disable Powermizer? I think (hope) it is pretty coincidental that last week we were to message John of what we have done to try and fix the problem, and now this week we get a fix that we have all been using. Are the good people at NBR your secret engineers or something? If they aren't, might I suggest firing all your current ones and hiring these people who seem to know more of what they are doing and can get "fixes" out much quicker.

Also, the apoligizing really can be stopped altogether. The time for that is well over. Nobody cares whose fault this is nor do we care who dropped what ball and where. Everyone now wants a fix. That works. Or a solution that the consumer is happy with. I can't speak for everyone here, but I honestly do not care about Dell's bottom line. One thing for certain however, is that if they don't do something quickly to apease the people who buy their machines, their bottom line is going to go down extremely quickly. The people who buy Alienwares aren't your grandparents who do Farmtown and Mafia Wars and try to make the difficult decision about what browser to use. We are people who know something (and in lots of cases LOTS) about computers. We fix computers. We have a clientelle. Our friends and family constantly bug us about making all their stuff work properly.

Now who do you think those people are going to recommend when ALL the people they interact with say "I need a computer, do you have any recommendations?". "Dell" will certainly not be the answer that comes out of my mouth.

It's ashame that I can't send a PM to that guy earlier who is getting the Class Action going, since I only have 3 posts with this post, and I really can't justify spamming a perfectly good forum. But you can bet Dells bottom line that I will be contacting some good old fashioned legal folk, because I have absolutely had it with Dell's ineptitude.

 

30 hours on the phone with tech support, just to get them to do the only thing that makes any difference at all? In 30 hours of phone time I will have made more than enough money to buy another damn laptop.

More power to you for being willing to go through those hoops; but we should not have to. I'll get on board with a class action lawsuit since this is not the first time Dell has pulled this crap, and if they need to get kicked around the legal system to learn some business ethics then we should give them the opportunity.

So if DELL won't step up and do the right thing, then I have the perfect object lesson in my hands here for why you should never give DELL any money. And I'll gladly show it off to everyone. I'll be discussing new computer suppliers with our purchasing department next week; everyone loves show and tell time.

Finally, can people stop insinuating that Vista does not have this problem? It does, and its not acceptable.

 

I installed A03, ran the script, and have the newest wireless drivers.

I still get ~60k microsecond latency spikes while listening to music, watching movies, and on YouTube.

 

I recently bought an SSD from ocz, installed the new drive, ran the install. the audio stutter came back, I went through all the old bug fixes and tried to disable the ACPI and set the registry...nothing did it. I had to revert to the old HDD with the old build, Im so glad i didnt erase the drive. wish i could find a way to use the ssd with OS on it but nothing worked , just going to have it as my second drive now.

 

I can confirm the ATI cards have same issues too. Not as frequent as with the 280M's but spikes and freezes are there. Was watching a youtube video yesterday and the whole laptop froze for 5 seconds whilst the sound was buzzing. (you all recognize that weird sound) So the swap from Nvidia to ATI isn't a satisfactory solution either. Push for R2 is my advice. And then encounter the Xfire stutters and push for R3. Keep demanding a working system, even if it takes you through multiple machines/configurations. You deserve a working machine. Dell can go and kiss my you know what with these so called fixes. It's called stalling, not fixing. But I am wondering why they are stalling. We won't give up complaining until it's resolved. Properly.
So Dell, if you're reading this: stop fooling around and either fix it, or replace the systems without giving users a hard time. Grow up, take the loss and go on with daily business. I am for sure not letting go until I am completely satisfied with the machine and does what it's supposed to do.

(typing on a 10yr old Dell Dimension as we speak, cause I wanted to listen to some music whilst typing. Cannot be done on the M17x)

 

I have contacted the better business Bureau and let them know that dell sold us all faulty machines and continue to sell them to unsuspecting consumers. I think every one who lives in Canada and the us should do the same here is the link. If a large number of people fill out complaints we should have some more ammo. This will also help with any class action lawsuit. If they dont make us happy this will be just another example of delleinware not caring about customer satisfaction.

http://www.bbb.org/

 

Hmmm... This is what makes me frustrated, I choose the m17x instead of a Sony Vaio as I truly believed this m17x would be the best choice due to the quality and service... Needless to say Dell has so far proven me wrong

 

Well when i was told yesterday that a fix was being released shortly & considering how long its taken with Dell/Nvidia both working on this.I thought at last .But how wrong was i to assume this. Not only was the script something that most had done manually weeks ago,but the fact that the issue is no better.For the so called experts in this field to release this to us all really are not the experts they claim to be.Now the next thing how long till the next fix?.Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

 

1. OK
2. ran it, but since I already didn't have the nvidia storage driver installed, message 'your system doesn't meet the minimum requirements'
3. Already had this version, uninstalled and installed again

result: no difference

You can add me to the list of customers for which DPC issue still exists.

 

lots-o-spikes for me still

 

id like to take part but im from singapore =(

 

so the purpose of John collecting all people's service tag after conference with 'internal players' last week was to release this funny script?

i thought dell is going to solve the case one-by-one?

 

I know this is under the belt, so I'd suggest you closing the issue through your business account. I only hinted on doing it (M17X is a personal purchase) and it made the wheels spin, though not right away and I lost all hope before that.
Also the action S. looks very likely now.

 

Bill
Now your aware how long this has went on & how widespread this issue is.
Can you assure us that the Dell execs are aware of this as it seems that someone like yourself has just got involved with this problem so i guess that top brass will have no knowledge of this.

 

Again anyone who wants to PM me their name, email and country of residence. I will transmit their info to the law firm considering a class action for the M17X R1 issues which are still not fixed after the ridiculous 2/19 fix.

 

Dell execs are aware of the situation. We are taking this issue very seriously.

I will be sending PM's to a few US-based posters on this thread to discuss an important matter. Please check your PM's and let me know at your earliest convenience.

 

what exactly is the important matter that you are only discussing with us based posters? dont people from other countries deserve to know what ever your trying to do as well?

 

I feel like it may be involving the members that have threatened/are planning a class-action against dell...

 

I think the only true fix is to swap out the MB on every unit that has this problem. Dell can then return them to whoever manufactured them and get credit towards whatever unit they design next. You guys really think Dell would take a bath on these?

At this point I won't accept anything less than an R2 replacement with some modestly bumped up specs to make up for 4 months of issues. All of us should be given an m11x or something for all the failed and false promises Dell has given us. What burns me up more is these units when most of us purchased were over three grand. Dell is now pitching them for under 1.5k. We didn't even get to enjoy our 50% depreciation for owning the latest cool thing. Way to burn your early adopters!! This is a travesty and once again another failure of customer service.

 

As much as I would like to get a replacement, I'm holding out for Dell to do the right thing FOR EVERYBODY. I've got a bit until my warranty is up, and can make sure that no Dell product passes the doors of my company until this is resolved. It's not a huge threat, I'm no Fortune 500 here, but I do have dozens of dell machines in office, and computers need replacing all the time.

It's about doing the right thing.

I don't want Dell to get away with shafting anyone. They sold us gold plated crap, and NO ONE with an M17X should have to pay the price for their shoddy engineering/qc.

A fix for everyone, regardless of the cost.. or it goes to court and some lawyers get rich and dell loses $$$ and goodwill for a damn long time.