M17x DPC Latency

And to those seeking Customer Service, remember this. CS is there to make it harder for you to get a return/refund. They are there to save a company money, by stalling delaying and getting you outside your return period. They will waste more and more of your time and make all kinds of promises.

That is fact. It is backed up by my own experiences and those of you many of you guys.

The majority of M17x buyers never find this forum. They never get relief. And they just give up and live with the problems. That is what CS in a large organization is for.

Another thing, from my time at a massive Fortune 500 company, if the service levels are too good they start laying people off! They want a 60-70% satisfaction rate tops. Dell is margin business. They know how to deliver the minimum possible to keep your money. Regardless of what support people tell you, Dell management don't care. They have your money. Their research says you upgrade every 2-3 years, they will find a way to get you over the disappointment of this purchase with cool marketing or products in the future. You will have to fight for everything you get, and everyday you go without a refund is another day they win.

That is fact. It is backed up by my own experiences and those of you many of you guys. You paid top dollar for something and the support is the same that you would get from the purchase of a Dell Mini


AW as part of Dell will never work. Low margin service levels at a premium price is bad for consumers. Eventually folks will look past teh fancy AW wrapper and see the Dell underneath. I know this now, hopefully others will read this DPC thread and reconsider a Dell. I have experienced it and will share my experiences in my own way the 300-500 who read my blog every day will all know about this.

 

I am not an escalations manager. I am here to communicate what you are saying to executives and engineers. If you want an exchange or a refund, you can use the tech support and customer care escalations process. They will give you your answer. I just don't have that answer.

We proactively reached out to one customer, claxdog. He had like 43 posts at the time (could be wrong, but close enough). If I were going to reach out to an influencer as some type of calculated PR strategy, it wouldn't be a guy with 43 posts. BatBoy volunteered to speak to us about the problem, and because he happens to live close to where our lead engineer was travelling, it was a pretty easy connection. It just so happens that you might consider him an influencer, since he's after all a moderator here, but you will have to take my word for it when I tell you he was not a candidate for engineering engagement because of his post count or influence with the community. I think a lot of his "calming voice" posts may have to do with the fact that he's a moderator who is trying to moderate a volatile situation. I think it's in his nature to be a calming voice based on his personality (guessing) and his role on this community site.

Besides, since we have given or offered nothing of substantive value to either person, I am not sure "appeasing" is an accurate characterization of events regarding either individual.

OK. That's the last time I'm going to take exception to what anyone here says out of respect to the anger that understandably exists. For the record, I apologize for the frustration on behalf of Dell. If anyone wants to speculate on our intentions, strategy, or shortcomings, or express their anger, I will just let my apologies stand on the record as my response to both future and past posts.

 

I know if they do not offer me a refund/exchange for my laptop when I get back next month I will just cancel my line of credit with them and switch to another brand.

 

bill, i dont exactly get your role yet.

you say your here to tell the executives and engineers what we are saying.

so why cant you tell the executives that some of us are tired of waiting and want replacements/refunds?

as i have said before you cant process or authorize one but im really sure you can help convince the higher ups to give the ok.

its a widespread problem and if we all have to individually contact tech support or cs and leave our fate to luck(depending on whether we get a helpful rep), i think this is really unreasonable.

one cs rep may agree the audio and in games stutters are irritating while another who has no idea may just say 'i dont find this irritating and i dont see your problem'

 

My role includes, but is not limited to, talking to engineers about issues reported in this thread with the M17x, and to inform Dell executives about what the customers are saying and demanding.

Done.

I can give my opinion, and I have done so. My recommendations to execs are strictly not for public consumption. It would de-legitimize my role and what influence I do have if I were to spell out my recommended options here. It's a confidential conversation by design. I don't sign those checks, I am not qualified to sign those checks, and I can probably work at Dell until I retire and never be in a position to sign those checks.

Agreed 100%. I am not telling you that you must contact tech support and demand an exchange, just as I did not tell you not to take advantage of the 21 day return window. What you do to reconcile your situation is up to you. I just told you your options as they exist,and I would have forthrightly pointed out the return policy if you were within 21 days from purchase. On our part, we are taking unprecedented steps in order to reconcile the technical aspects of the situation as best we can.

 

Dell-Bill_B, what is the acceptable DPC latency threshold for Dell?

 

so what do the executives have to say about those of us who want refunds or exchanges?

most of us here are way way over our 21 day window. some of us has had the unit since it launched in i think june 09?

we have hardly have any options except to keep bugging tech support or customer support. and i seriously doubt with this model being soon to be discontinued or already discontinued and the engadget coverage, that anyone is going to buy it off ebay from us.
unless for a massive loss that is

its not really about whether waiting longer for a fix(if theres going to be one) would make a difference since we already have had waited like fools for so long.
for some, enough is enough and no one else in dell who has the authority to give replacements/refunds seem to understand this fact.

a simple statement. would you buy a car which has a faulty engine and cant go faster than 20kmph and not demand a refund/replacement if it cannot be repaired? or wait 10 months for a miracle that there is a fix for your engine?

 

I am not sure we have a spec for DPC latency, per se. If the system has audio stuttering under normal usage models, it needs to be fixed. I will confirm whether we have a spec. If we have one, I will post back what it is and how we measure it.

 

Could you define the "normal usage model" ? Is there any procedure you follow in order to test the system? What is "normal" , "model" according to Dell.

Thank you

*EDIT*
As you can see on my signature I have a process to measure the latency and it would be great if I could follow Dell's specific test/methodology

 

I wasn't looking to get a reaction from you. I want to create a beacon for people considering your products to see the kind of pain and loss you inflict on your clients. This is a 3 month old problem. Where was this concern months ago?

People come and go. You seem like a nice guy. You say the right things. My computer is still broken.

I have a lot of respect for the community here and have actively participated for many years. I am expressing my opinion, which to this point has been one of the more moderate ones. I have taken heat for that by the way.

In my opinion the only way this gets resolved for a lot of people here is if they get on the phone when they can and aggressively chase what remedy they feel is appropriate until they get it.

There are people here who make $100/hour who don't want to waste hours on the phone with your company fighting to get what they paid for.

No one is asking for velvet glove treatment on $400 Inspirons here. Quite the opposite, they are asking for basic service of $4,000 systems.

 

I only took exception to one sentence. I quoted it, and I addressed it. There's just no argument for anything else you just said, nor anything I can recall you saying, except for maybe some of CS's missions and methods, but I'm not here to change your opinions. I believe you to have a great deal of experience and thought behind those opinions just going by what I can see you write here. That's why I personally, as if my personal feeling had any bearing on the topic, do not have a problem with anything you have said, other than when you assert that we planned to leverage influencers to any end. No hard feelings on this end.

 

I will get a definition of normal usage model for you, if you really need one. What's your definition? I'm pretty sure you have one in mind, and I have no indication that what you have in mind is anything outside of normal.

 

any comments on this bill? your opinions that you tell the executives are confidential but are the executive's decision and reply on the issue regarding replacements and refunds confidential as well?

do you any suggestion for people who do not want to wait and have no progress from contacting tech support or customer service and have no visible options?

 

If you are not on the clock, go to bed. You don't need this abuse on your own time.

 

Haha. Best advice I've had all day. I think I might. You're a good man. I want to add your blog to my RSS reader. Linky love for a brother?

 

Dell-Bill B....we need resolution on this and I think you should suggest a line of communication for us, that we can call and not go through all this red tape for our warranty's to be honored. I feel, even if I call dell there smug CS is going to bash me away. I have a product that half works, yes my games are playable half of the time, my internet and music enjoyment is a half the time enjoyment because I have to do "this" and I have to do "that" to make a product work the way it was supposed to work from the factory. I recently did a fresh install of the system, applied only the online drivers and yes offline games work and its nice but I cant play world of warcraft(WOW) and it sucks cuz there is constant popping from loading different areas or mob contact its so damn annoying I can only play it for awhile before i just log off. I dont know im tired of messing with this system, Im at a loss, I feel like a fool for buying from Dell.

 

If anyone missed my post over the weekend about DPC. I did a test on my R2 with tons of whatever apps...streaming..Dis-regard the FPS of video, Audio is normal. Just look at those bars.

m17x-R2 : Clean install Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit and All required Dell m17x-R2 Drivers.

The only problem that I know that the m17x-R2 has is the micro stuttering and flickering due to CPU power management, which AW is aware of and is coming out with a bios fix, that is guarantee to fix the issues.

 

OK. One more post and I'm out. Rengsey's usage model for this platform looks pretty normal to me. Do we have agreement? If so, believe me, my hope is we can get you there. I have 100% confidence Alienware engineers will get us there despite what is a not-so-rosey recent history with this platform.

 

agreed, the m17xR2 flickering will be solved by the new bios update as joker already did. But maybe Dell can solve their part shortages and delay problems a little better. changing EDD without notifying us or in some cases, push back the EDD on few hours before the previous date is over. ie pushing original eta of 2/23 to 2/26 on the night of 2/23 and then not even an email or a call about it. Sorry if i'm complaining about an issue you already heard, and i'm sure you probably heard enough about the delay problems. But its 2/24, my EDD is 2/26 and i'm still being told i'm in production and that my rep has "tried" to expedite my order. Thats 3 weeks of trying with no results. I'm still not getting it before 2/26. And I feel another delay coming, as some on this forum already got an order delayed call or email. Which is sad seeing how i want to remain a loyal customer and stick to dell/alienware, but this situation is leaving me extremely bitter about this whole process.

 

What about the R1 owners, is this bios update going to effect us too? Do we benefit at all from this so called "bios" update?

 

What is unfortunate is that it has taken this long to get someone listening. I understand that is beyond you Bill, but it is a problem nonetheless. Dell doesn't seem to want to respond to that question, yet it is at the root of the anger. Telling us that Dell is dumping a lot more resources into the problem now is great, but why should it in any way make us feel better since it took so long and a lot of complaining. Dell ignored this issue, did not acknowledge it while they continued to sell it and now have to try and dig themselves out of a hole. For your and our sake, please stop trying to build positive PR as the time for that was many, many months ago. The only PR we want to hear is the problem is fixed and we're going to make good on it. Your own personal view on the what you would have told someone is irrelevant, it's Dell's official position that matters. No one should be attacking you personally but Dell itself needs to be accountable and the demand for that should not change.

Everything we've heard is smoke until a real solution is found. Unprecedented this or that is not really something to be touting. You could also say that the flaws in an Alienware product like this is unprecedented (apparently not for Dell though). What Toyota did was unprecedented to them, doesn't mean that we all feel better.

And let's forget about big talk about how "we deserve this or that", this is going to go one of two ways:

1) It is an acknowledged flaw in which case everyone will be happy. Either a fix or replacement.

2) It is just a limitation of the hardware, tough luck. It shouldn't be a problem and we have the latency down to some arbitrary "acceptable" level.

The first will only start to feel real when Dell acknowledges it and confirms a plan with a fix and a replacement contingency with a firm date. Until then it is probable that we'll see #2 and all the smoke is pointing to #2.

My latency is not as bad as others as I was swapped out to ATI but it is annoying since it is so random (which means it's flaky vs outright crappy). I'm sure that there are others even more angry than me because their experience is worse.

 

Rengsey very impressive indeed.
Would you mind to take a couple of minutes to run the DPC/ISR tracing procedure also? (Click on my signature to go to that thread)

 

Thank you, I would really appreciate it

Well my definition of normal every day use includes these:

1) Surf on the Web
2) Listen to music
3) Read PDF files

all at the same time without any video or audio stuttering.

(That's my personal opinion and I only speak for myself, I do not represent anybody else since perception of normal may vary from user to user and that's why we need a formal definition according to Dell's standards)

One quick question though, did you actually take a look on my thread? The post #1.

 

How great of an example of Toyota and how they handle this latest issue witht their products, and what Dell has done to us in this situation.

Great product in the lab, but in the real world with the nasty little consumers not using them in a lab type environment causes issues that were not thought of like: Excessive heat, moisture, road salt/corrosives, etc.. And to head fake the consumer that the real fix is a 1/2 inch square piece of metal put *behind* the pedal assembly that houses a pressure switch? Please. The throttle control modules sit in the engine compartment on top of the intake manifold, but customers see the right hand pedal as the one that makes it go, so that must be were they need to fix this. Toyota has had concrete evidence of this being faulty for over 3 years and now they take action? Why now? Ill tell you why, shareholder equity. They couldnt afford to take action with the massive bleed out on the balance sheet, now they are profitable and can take the hit and save face to the investors.
Like Toyota, Dell is a very recognizable face in the IT world. If you really think for a moment that Dell/AW had no knowledge of this issue post release of the R1 you are absolutely on drugs. They have been providing 1/2 inch pieces of metal to all of us to head fake us on this issue. They bought Alienware brand to wash their hands of the XPS line to help the hard core gamers out there to forget that chapter in the Dell history. You simply cannot develop the hardware that we have in our hands and discard it after you discover a problem like ours and stay in business. Why did the R2 come out so early after the R1? Do you really think it is because of the i7 processor? Really? Most states consumer protection laws have time limits that are ticking away! I am afraid that we are being head faked into turning this from a fix my current laptop at all costs to i want to be upgraded now. If anyone here thinks that Dell wouldnt take the side of "their just complaining because there unit is obsolete and now are using this as an excuse for a new unit" if there is a legal action or press spin, you are mistaken. Does anyone here even really think that engadget is front line news for the average consumer?
We are not in the lab, we do not use our machines the same. But our expectations are the same. We want the biggest, best and most powerful. Dell has been falsely advertising this, and all states consumer protection laws would absolutely cover every single person in the US if they press Dell on this claim. We are on the cutting edge, but we are a small demographic of the mainstream. Dell is not on our side. I have done everything that tech support has asked me to try, and i still cannot play a game without stuttering, and crackling of sound, and hard lockups and freezes. You know that if you call the AW Tech number from their site, you either get transferred back in to the Dell main tech or it just hangs up on you? I spent 1.5 hours on the phone with a tech from Dell three days ago that was with out a doubt the most frustrating experience that i have ever had. He wasnt prepared, wasnt informed, and wasnt any help. My Control center is now fragged, and i am sick of the fixes that i have been provided with. I do not want an R2, I either want: 1) My 45 day old system fixed, and now! or I want a refund. I will never buy a Dell again regardless of the out come of this due to the complete negligent manner in which they have produced and sold these systems.
If anyone in this forum had produced such a shoddy piece of work for our employers, would any of us really have a job? Really?

What data in the field that the engineers gather that they did not already have prior? They are not flying people out in the field, they are driving by peoples homes in convenient locations. To what end? As a sign of goodwill?

Bill-
You are in the damage control end of Dell. Nothing more, nothing less. You are not a person that has the ability to do anything to help anyone involved in this situation. What empowerment have you been given that you are allowed to use for our benefit? How are you going to fix anything that has been reported?
Here is the best part: You did not even show up on this thread, or any other thread that i can find until after one of the posters on this forum started beating the class action drum. I think it is time you share with us your real intentions and what part of this solution you have to offer us. Dell didnt hire you to read forums and report, you know it, and i know it. I would rather have an honest dialog than be put off till i am out of options within my states or credit cards merchantabilty rights or defective product resolution options.
To all the rest, i am sorry for the length of this post, but not to the content.

 

Lets leave the name calling and labels outside.

This is the third time I have mentioned this and Charles has also posted a warning in the thread a few pages back. There will be no further warnings. Anyone else who violates the forum rules will receive a temp ban/perm ban.

Final warning folks. Posts can speak volumes without violating the forum rules.

Thanks.

 

Tomorrow I call tech support. Will report back how far I get.

This is ridiculous. Dell has lost a customer for life. Every person I know will know about this ordeal (including the m1730 fiasco I previously had to deal with) and I think there are enough of us here that can spread the word and really drum up some negative press.

The more I think about what Dell is supposedly doing for us, the less enthusiastic I am in thinking a fix is on the way. I don't know the exact number, but I know many of us have been told that a fix is a week away...and on numerous occasions. How long is a week on the Dell/AW calendar? I got this thing October 27 2009. It didn't work then. AW support did absolutely nothing for me. I would not get escalated (even when I asked), heck I didn't even get a call number/case number... My guess is that Dell/AW has known about this issue for a long time and I wonder if the reason they aren't able to recreate these issues on their own machines is that they have pre-production units. In my experience from working for HP/Apple is that these early units are usually assembled to a higher standard than the mass-produced ones are. It makes sense since the supplier wants to make sure that Dell/AW is happy with the product as it has been supplied to them. Sure AW might have final assembly of all the components, but those units are going to be the best available. Better soldering jobs, pick of the litter in the chip department, better tolerances, heck I would even guess the level of cleanliness in their clean rooms was higher for these than what we all ended up getting.

I think I am going to call the Better Business Bureau tomorrow and make a formal complaint. I am at a point where I need this computer, not in a week, not in a month, but now. I have less than 3 months to finish my Masters thesis and part of my project involves a large number of edited video and audio, that will be hosted online. As this computer sits right now, I cannot accomplish my goal. What truly has me irked is that my desktop computer, which I built myself using all nVidia components and is using the same chipset (just not the mobile version) in both the motherboard and the graphics cards (well, the GPU's are 9600's, so LESS than the laptop) and the max DPC latency I have EVER had on it was 900...and that was playing Crysis on high, having my entire MP3 collection (11,000 tracks) randomly playing in the background, and email on my 2nd monitor...it works, cost 1/3 of the laptop, but it isn't portable and that is what I need right now.

Sorry Dell/AW, it looks like you have had your chance, I think you will be losing a lot of customers in a small niche market. That is going to affect your bottom line a lot more than it will mine.

 

Here what I did with my last two system that had Overheating issue. I order another Hard drive and use it to test what ever issues I had and had tech use that hard drive to see if they can fix it. I got a few HUH and I use to reinstall windows Bearbones over and over with out touching my Main hard drive. When it was finish we would do the test. I would tell them nope the issues are still there.

A idea is ask Dell for a Small hard drive 160gb or 80gb just so when you call tech support You do not have to use Your current config to solve the problem and it might help Dell?

1 you will not have to save all your files
2 you do not have to reinstall your programs

 

hate to say it guys but we've been here before with Dell. Remember the great Nvidia GPU chip in the M1330? Dell just kept swapping boards rather than providing a proper fix (which should have been an alternative machine).
I had 2 machines one that has never had a problem but the other one was non-stop trouble.

If this was me I'd be going for a refund now.

Neil.

 

Meh, Dell won't lose customers. In 3 months everyone will have forgotten about this, be happy with the new fix/BIOS and order a R3 when it's released.
Consumers will keep buying even after bad experiences. And Dell knows it.

 

i'm happy to annouce that im finally rid of my 750i sli nforce motherbaord computer

dear god thank you, if it weren't for the money i sold it for, i would of just tossed it down a roof and smash it with a sledge hammer

trust me when i say that all nfroce chipset motherboards all just failure
ppl were blind until windows 7 came along

now running intel chipset with an i7 and ati graphics, i have to say.. i love the power of fusion

i suggest to everyone to push for a different system that doesn't include nvidia technology

 

These wrong
I will not explain here the last shopping for my company
but I assure you were not a dell

 

My ATIs continue to stutter after two fresh formats.. well this makes me really worry guys!

 

I'm sure someone wrote something as "asinine" as this 3 months ago and the problem still isn't fixed

 

What happened?

 

The friendly tech replaced my mainboard, reinstalled OS, installed A03, drivers and the latest fix. He said he knew about the problem and laughed before we began that it likely won't fix anything to change the mainboard and joked that they always replace mainboards when they don't know how to deal with a problem. He said they should just exchange the system of the R2 variant that is known not to have said issues. After he was done, of course, there was no change to DPC latency - still the same problems (naturally - although I was hoping that maybe it would cure the issues somehow miracoulously like I was promised on the phone). Well, the problems are actually even worse with the new mainboard. Previously I had maximal spikes of ~110000µs (and one over a million once, but that was with BIOS A02), with the new mainboard and everything I had one that was over ~89000000µs range (yes, that's 89 million!). And that at idle. Crazy. The tech that replaced the mainboard confirmed that the problem remains and he said he'd add it to his report.
I need a working machine without DPC Latency, audio and video stutter/loop/freeze problems really soon (actually, right now would be best) as a lot of work is coming up that needs to be done on the laptop. I really hope they will replace my system with one that doesn't have these problems (M17x-R2) ASAP or refund me my purchase money so I can buy an equivalent notebook from a different manufacturer. I'm not going to wait for a fix that might not even work any longer or let them replace my parts and force me to format/reinstall my OS without any rhyme or reason again.
If they really want to test fixes and whatnot on my system, they should just exchangesend me a M17x-R2 replacement of equal value and then send my old one to the engineers so they can use it as their test object to research the problem further.

Needless to say I'm extremely frustrated. I hope a high level supervisor will call me back as requested and offer acceptable compensation.

 

This worries me too as I have my two ATIs sitting in the box waiting to be installed. Atleast they were sent to me directly so I can install them and if its worse, I will remove them and put the Nvidia's back in..


Here recently since my DPS has been really bad I have disabled SLI and just been using the one GPU.. Sucks that I have paid for 2 but the system is more usable with just one GPU then the SLI enabled...

I really hope the ATIs dont make my system worse..

 

Are you getting to keep your GTX 280m's kilthro? Or will you have to send them back? I had to send mine off with the tech who came

 

I get mild audio pops and some micro stutter while playing world of warcraft; offline games play just fine never an issue there. I played some you tube videos today, 3rd video started the audio pop/stutter latency this can be fixed/changed as having to turn off the main GPU's...this annoys me greatly .

 

ive been hating nforce since nforce3 lol... they failed and the 6800 series wasnt compatible with the nforce 3.

intel has been solid ever since. absolutely perfect chipsets from 845PE (8 years ago) to X58.

 

Honestly not yet, but I will by 10:00 AM, CST. I apologize, but I'm on a really tight schedule at the moment. I may want to get with you in PM->email at some point for some clarification and information that I can forward to the engineers who can better address the matter. I don't want to sell you short or placate you with any BS. Hold me accountable on this, please.

 

i really dont know. format was always the solution with ATIs... They worked ok for two weeks now. the most strange of it is i that fps drops are not followed by red spikes. tried dell driver , 9.12 with hotfix, and 10.2. HARDWARE! i wish i have never bought this crap machine! i spent more time dealing with it than anything else and i was the one who said that i didnt have serious issues.

 

Great post. Calling Alienware Director of engineering in Miami right now, this second, as I type this.

 

Ari, after my second format with the ATIs, I noticed the same in DragonAge as my stuttering came back. By re-installing the osd, but not CC, the stutter went away again. It does make me wary of ever formatting again... it was definitely scary.

 

i guess you are just lucky. i cant understand how osd may deal with fps drops anyway. i ll try though. i am desperate.

is there any way to re-flash the bios of the ATIs?

 

dont install the chipset drivers. if you have it installed uninstall it and try it. that should help. also i recommend you to install the dell drviers and then reinstall 10.3 beta on top of that.

 

you just take the original .bin or .rom and flash it.....the same way you flashed it to begin with

I can post the original vbios if needed

 

the point is that i had nvidia chipset drivers installed before as i never had such an issue since i got the ATIs.. thus facing lock ups without nvidia controller installed something i had faced before and now re-appeared.

now i have 10.2 installed over dell drivers..

please post it with a guide. does it flash both cards?

 

I am at the honda dealership getting my car worked on atm, but I posted the bios in the Benchmark thread (the third one) and you just need to download Radeon Bios Editor and Winflash to do the flashing

 

@stamatisx

Check your PM's at your earliest possible convenience, please.

 

Well when I called in I told the rep that I didnt want a tech sent to my house as in the past they do more harm then good. After describing what i have done and can do, the tech went to his supervisor and got approval to send the cards directly to me.

This way I can install them use them for a bit. If they are worse I will take them out and send them back...

I learned my lesson a while ago, that if a tech comes out, they have to take the hardware with them as they are responsible for it and will not leave it with you. So I eliminate that by having it sent to me.

I will have to send them back at some point or they will bill me for them..