M17x DPC Latency

I registered here after reading about the issues with this laptop. I just bought this laptop last month, I am currently away from home for another 6 weeks for a military school so I lack the time to call tech support. I will call them asap when I get home though.

I did the BIOS update, the drive fix, and update the wireless driver like suggested no changes. I get lots of spikes when playing a game or watching a video, temporary freezes, sound glitches, stuttering.

I have tried everything and the desktop I bought two years ago plays games better than this laptop I paid 3K for.

I am returning it as soon as I can.

 

Coder, is this your first call to dell regarding this issue? If so, they'll make you go through all the steps again since they have 'no record of you taking any steps to solve the problem'... just a heads-up since you said you had luckily done all the steps. The rep still wasted an hour and a half repeating what I had already done when I called...

 

Great and fun. Of course, that's why I'm waiting till Monday.... I may actually hold off to swap a new HD in (decent 7200rpm on Amazon right now I'm eyeing). I'll make sure to image my PC tonight, though.

 

have you guys tried running dpc latency checker in fullscreen? .... and then windowed and then fullscreen and whatsoever.

 

Did you try this?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=461247

 

I'll try and run this test with my ATI's tomorrow night after work.

As an aside though, I'm currently using the 10.3 beta drivers. I am not sure if this will affect the test, but my system in general has responded very well to them - it actually suspends correctly now, hasn't locked up since the drivers installed, and doesn't freeze when the power is unplugged Oo. The latency, however, is about the same as it was with the 9.12 drivers.

 

So claxdog, any news to speak of, considering it's now Sunday night?

 

Ok folks. Here's the deal... If you have an issue with a call center, that's fine - leave the inappropriate comments out and stay on topic. This is not a thread on call center customer service or for debating if a call center should be located outside the USA. Stay on topic - any further deviation from topic or any other violation of the forum rules will result in infractions being issued and the posts removed. There have been multiple requests from both myself and the other moderators to keep this OT.

Thanks.

 

Thanks for settling the record straight BatBoy. Let's get back on topic.

 

if you got it last month you cant get a refund, also what processor does yours have ? If it was last month shouldnt you have an r2, i thought those were free of the latency problems.

 

As far as I know they are. However, they still have R1s for sale on the website (they should really take them off with all these issues I think) and he may have bought one of those since they are usually cheaper than the R2s.

 

in my country the r1 is going off relatively dirt cheap. 3.4k for a basic core 2 duo with gtx280s in sli and 4gb 1333 ram.

if configured to my specs, its about 4.5k

I PAID 7K FOR IT LOL! and it turns out to be a paperweight.

 

? Where on the wholesale site ?

 

on dell's site itself.

try dell.com.sg

 

Yeah, so i just did the fix from the official dell posting... http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2010/02/19/update-on-dpc-latency-for-alienware-m17x-customers.aspx

Here's my new DPC when i'm playing World in Conflict.

 

lol archon..

that looks a hell load worse than the usual. are you on atis?

 

No, my sig isn't showing for some reason. dual 260s

*edit*

This "awesome" new gaming rig of mine manages a whole 20 FPS in DX9 mode for World in Conflict. Someone is getting a phone call tomorrow.

 

No news from the people who were visited by Aliens tonight?

I could make jokes about abductions and probing, but that would be too easy.

It should be an interesting week. A lot of folks who were watching from sidelines are getting involved. Hopefully people are posting on the Dell board too.

To summarize (after 4 months):

M17x with Nvidia cards is completely broken in Windows 7. Any combination of Dell or community fixes does not work. Temporary relief is possible by turning off features you paid for - but that is stupid and defeats the point of having a $4000 gaming notebook. Obtaining ATI cards in exchange for Nvidia cards ameliorates the problem a bit (but it is still there).

M17x with Nvidia cards is mostly broken in Windows Vista. A very small percentage of users has eliminated the DPC spikes and audio stutters but the cure is not reproducible. Temporary relief is possible by turning off features you paid for - but that is stupid and defeats the point of having a $4000 gaming notebook. Obtaining ATI cards in exchange for Nvidia cards ameliorates the problem a bit (but it is still there).

The only reasonable solution at this stage is to demand a replacement or refund. It will probably take you just as long to get a refund/replacement as it will to get new video cards. With the new video cards you will still have issues.

After the length of time Dell has had to work on this, and the publicity generated by three posts on the topic from Engadget, it is very fair to conclude that this issue will never be fixed. It is certainly fair as a consumer to demand satisfaction under the terms of your warranty.

As many people here can attest to, calling for technical support is a waste of time. You will embark on a long time-consuming journey that will require many phones calls, OS reinstalls, remote poking and proding from CSRs, time consuming tech visits (4-5 hours for a mobo, 2-3 hours for video cards) and maybe even a weekend visit form your local AW tech expert. This journey has no happy conclusion.

 

Yeah, I've been waiting to hear what those guys have to say about the engineers visiting.

I agree that it's interesting how quickly this issue has blown up in the past few days. I think the lackluster fix released made a lot of people hiding in the shadows extremely angry.

 

yea.. how come no word on those getting visits by the engineers? or were there no engineers showing up?

 

i would like to ask you again. scrolling large pdf files in fullscreen as fast as you can for 20-30 secs didnt cause any red spike?

have a look.

http://i47.tinypic.com/27zjcd4.jpg

as you can see i have mostly green bars in idle or when listening music. This is even like that when i play COD MW2. the first single or couple red spike in my dpc latency is due to switching windows or firefox in fullscreen something like that. the other massive red spikes are when scrolling pdf files as fast as i can. The machine seems calm but it goes crazy dont you think?

i attach my results using your method on your thread. what do you think?

 

I will review your results and tell you more in a while. One favor though, could you please post them here too so they can be concentrated and not scattered through various threads? Thanks

 

i did already. cheers.

 

I'm sure the people who were visited by the engineers had to agree that all information would be kept confidential. Otherwise, there could be dozens of rumors/misinformation floating around. Since Dell reps do monitor this thread, it'd be rather dumb of them to post anything.

Therefore, all we can hope for is a "eureka!" moment at one of the sites. Or a PM from those involved (hint, hint!)

 

Sorry I didn't update. The engineers will be here today. They had to fly some one from Austin to Miami on Sunday. They said they will be here around noon. As soon as I know something you will know something. believe me I want this resolved just as much as you do. I have been asked not to talk about who I talked to except for bill. Needless to say I was on the phone with people everyone on this forum has heard of.

 

@claxdog
What is your current M17x config?
THX

 

Its in my sig haven't made any changes get 60k to 100k red spikes.

 

Wouldn't it have been cheaper to replace the notebook with a R2 than fly people to the customer's home?

 

Not by the time they've replaced everyone's machines
When you consider this is the second or third [long] thread on the issues, there are quite a lot of people worldwide with this issue. Sending engineers internally inside the US is much cheaper if they can get away with not replacing all those machines.

 

I imagine that it would be cheaper to fly the engineers out and hopefully find a fix to this mess, than to replace everyone who complains about this with an R2. Although I'd rather have my R2

 

Not really.. It would benifit them to find a fix so that if more ppl become aware of this issue they can resolve it.. Well if there is ever a resolution to this problem..


I noticed that when using USB devices, I can make my system stutter more often.. On my g13 game pad i can use it quite heavily and get more stuttering then if I just the built in keyboard... I wonder if its the added power consumption/stress or usb use itself that causes more frequent stuttering...


*edited lol... all kinds of ppl responded with the same answer .

 

They have a large number of potential replacements pending if they can't make this work. I get the feeling desperation is setting in.

I'm waiting to see what happens today, but I am penning a letter to Dell... this was purchased on my corporate account and it's just not acceptable. They are more than welcome to send someone to my business to work on this thing, but I don't have the time or patience to get the phone tree runaround.

 

problem is, even the r2s have some issues. until they get fixed or a new model with no issues come out i foresee this cycle going on even if we get replacements

 

Till i know R2 have by far less issues than R1, the most commented over R2 is flickering but it happens with high customed machines with xfire and that stuff, AW M17x is getting near to be the "most powerfull laptop ", slow steps but solid ones i think . .

 

Hell, I'd swap this for a fully spec'd M11X and the remainder as credit on my corp. account. M11x + cheap desktop would seem to work with far less problems than one balky M17x, at least for me.

 

I'll be calling Dell this afternoon after I get off work if I don't hear anything before then. I didn't like the fact they told me they would follow up with me today or tomorrow without a case number.

 

I just got a call from Dell today. The person told me that he found it odd that I my m17x had this issue. I told him that I had done as instructed from John Dell and my Bios was the A03. Guess what in the end he told me that he was not an expert on this machine and that another person would call me tomorrow... Well I am still waiting here in Sweden/Denmark with red spikes of average 5000 us.

 

Dell just called me out of the blue to schedule a time to "fix this issue once and for all"..... I only opened one ticket with them to register that I also had this issue. Somewhat confused why they called ME to work on this or are they going to blanket call everyone who opened a ticket?

I believe he is going to attempt registry cleanup and maybe another reinstall... I really don't want to do a new install. This is my work machine!!!

 

That is what they told me, they want to have a fresh install and then I am to call them back to do the drivers, he doesn't even want any of the windows updates done. I am backing up my data now.

 

I agree. I fail to see how a reinstall is going to help this out?

Unless a BIOS, firmware, or new magical driver gets released I fail to see how reinstalling the OS and NOT applying any Windows updates is going to assist the situation.

 

Probably to verify with base system software only... ? No added patches, drivers, startup apps, etc. This is normal when troubleshooting an issue. You test with a clean system as well as the 'normal' user enviro.

Just responding to why they might want to use a clean install.

 

in other words a check mark in the box on the troubleshooting list. lol

 

Hi Bill
Do you have any updates on this issue as many here will be relying on you to provide us with any new information with this issue.

 

You got it. One should try to hit every possible test case when researching an issue.

 

I am sure they are taking this issue very seriously but the fact is we've had half working gaming PC for 9 months. At least for me. I've had 4 replacement and I've spent, listen to this, 8 days total over the phone since I've had the PC with Alienware tech department guiding me through redundent and useless test.

They now have a working version of the M17X called the R2. Just like a recall in the car industry, Dell needs to take their responsabilities and recall the M17X R1. I am sure the write off on the income statement for the recall won't be significative enough Dell stock to drop and it will show good faith and avoid bad plublicity which clearly has happened on this issue in the past 9 months.

 

Kilthro, I see you mentioned something about experiencing lag with your USB devices.

I currently get a strange stutter with my external wireless logitech mouse as well as my wacom tablet every so often. The mouse device seems to 'hang' for 1-3 seconds at a time at a random interval. It seems to happen more with 3-4 programs open, but I cannot make it happen on demand (occasionally my external HDs do this too when loading mkv/divx videos). Is this what you're refferring to? Or something different?

 

The problem you are describing is most likely due to a faulty driver or driver compatibility issue. Make sure you have the latest driver for that device and that it matches your windows config.

 

That's what I thought originally - but they work just fine on my work pc (windows 7) as well as my sister's macbook (bootcamped with windows 7). The mouse uses the default windows 7 mouse driver - and the wacom is using the latest windows 7 driver from the site. Only the M17x is giving me that lag during my digital painting sessions and such. Strange.

 

Is the lag an on going issue once you connect the mouse or just while plugin it in?

If it's on going, it could be tied to a conflict problem with another M17X driver.

If it's just when plugin it in then it's problably nothing. Do a fresh install and most likely the lag will go away. You might just have a software or application that uses that driver or port therefore the lag is "normal".

 

Hmm - basically, for the mouse it will work perfectly fine for awhile say 30 minutes, then all of a sudden as I'm moving it, the mouse pointer stops - keyboard input and all other inputs still work fine but the mouse pointer will stay stuck or stutter very slowly for about 1-3 seconds, then will allow itself to move again at normal speed.