M17x DPC Latency

That's one my my worries about a software fix. They'll do something to either reduce the capability of the laptop or make it more likely that there are issues in the future.

 

I get some red spikes around 5 K sometimes they come every minute other times they just keep on popping up right after each other. It does not really affect the sound any more after I installed the Bios A03. I just get some slight lagging in the game each time they appear. It is the lagging and the fact that I only get these red spikes when minimizing or scrolling with ATI activated and not with the integrated NIVIDIA(of course not when playing games as I use ATI here) that make the DELL support here in Denmark/Sweden believe that my issue could be a hardware flaw in the ATI card. In idle mode with the ATI activated I only see green spikes. So the good thing is that the stuttering is gone

 

So I would like to thank all the people in here who suggested me to install the A03 Bios. This has made it so much more fun to own a m17x.

 

Hey guys,

I posted a few times before but I wanted to give you a full version of my story and hear some comments.

When I got my m17x I already knew about the DPC problem so I wasn't surprised by finding all the red bars. The pattern was as follows:
red bar, green bar, red bar, green bar, huge red bar, green bar, red bar, etc...

Now.. I've been following this discussion on Dell's page and I just can't believe how silly they think we are and how the heck they can't seem to replicate our condition "under lab tests".

It is so clear to me, please tell me if I'm wrong, that the huge red bars are provoked by the GPUs changing core speeds (Nvidia's Powermizer, the ATI I don't know the name).

But this is when it starts to get interesting:

Even before the release of A03 I managed to get my machine pretty stable by disabling Powermizer (photo: DPC Latency A02.jpg).

Now you might tell me that disabling powermizer reduces the components life and will have the fans always running at maximum.

But the solution I found was to use Ntune, or Nvidia system tools (I think its what its called now) and change the clock speeds to minimum myself. And it worked, I stopped the huge spikes, everytime i wanted to play i would just get the cards to the default clocks.

Apparently there are a couple of ways to simplify the process (avoiding sliding the bars down everytime). One of them is the Nvidia nvprofile application but I only manage to have it working for a week, and then everytime I tried to switch profiles it would crash my system. I have tried everything, reinstalling drivers and stuff but no luck there, so back to manual mode. The other method is by using rivatuner but the current version doesn't support the drivers I am using (195.62) so it doesn't even do anything when I adjust the sliders. So yep, I have to do it everyday, everytime I start the machine I downclock the gpus and everytime I want to play I put them back to the default. (nTuneCmd.exe doesn't work properly either)

A03 update was a great fix, I have no doubts about that, because it managed to get rid of practically all the red spikes and made the green ones minimalistic. The problem is... if powermizer is activated you still get the huge red spikes, there is no way around that.

So I have been using the manual mode for a couple of months now, and I get absolutely no red bars except for the eject button, but even that doesn't cause any stuttering on sound.

I have been happy with my machine but in terms of justice I think we all deserve some kind of compensation, because in the end of the day they are very expensive machines and they should arrive working 100%, we are not testers, and the price certainly doesn't reflect that.

I think that at least they should allow us to get the R2 version for free but maybe it'll only happen in a dream world...


To finish, one interesting thing I noticed is that changing the clocks from Nvidia's page doesn't cause any DPC latency... so i wonder, would it be possible for someone to build an application make the change at this level instead of doing it with powermizer?

Anyway, thanks for your time, please feel free to comment.

PS: I wish i could have managed to save the screenshot I took when the BIOS update program was running, as soon as the new files were installed the DPC latency immediately decreased to green bars. Unfortunately at that time the keyboard and mouse stopped responding and I couldn't save the image.

PSS: check out the last screenshot, I don't know if anyone is keeping some kind of DPC latency Ranking but this would definitely be one of the top spikes you will ever see =P

 

i am speaking about the stuttering in games and not dpc latency. those two may or may not be related. my case was a proof of what i am saying. Overclocked ATIs were causing fps drops in games while there was no red spike.

So if anyone wants to try to just reduce a little bit the highest clocks. not permanently downclocked.

 

oh my! do you have the nvidia controller installed?

 

@TecznologY

Not a record lol

I got a spike of 3,477,093,740

 

This is so awesome, tech support just had me reinstall Windows for the 5th time - guaranteeing that this time, my DPC latency/stuttering would be completely resolved. I agreed to completely disagree and guaranteed it wouldn't.

Tech connects after a fresh install (formatted partition as well), installed the drivers in the super secret "this is going to fix your DPC latency" order (completely random by the looks of it), even installing several different versions of drivers for the same device over each other.

Now, with an ATI 4870, I'm seeing spikes of 59k every minute. They officially made my PC worse with an ATI. Thanks Tech Support!

EDIT: By the way, the tech was in Florida, and was a Supervisor, no less. Just so you know...

 

My highest score is around 23K something. Some of your people in here got some very huge numbers to show. I really do not know whether to find them lol or scary... Perhaps the correct word here would be disturbing...

 

The 0 on the end of the record spike in your pic looks like you've added it in. Yes I'm that bored.

Think I'm going to contact Dell for the first time over the spikes this weekend. Have been really put off by the stories of endless formatting but if they can do it themselves over remote I'll happily leave them to it

 

i used to get around 32 million. 3.5 billion is insane. i am now getting around 10k for most spikes and i saw 60k max so far. but i don't always have it running so i could get worse.

 

it does look like an O and not a 0

 

well after multiple botched repair orders and communication failures and a very stern phone call with dell support, they authorized a replacement. It was actually the fastest phone call I've ever had with dell support. I explained I just wanted to return it for a refund and refused to replace my motherboard myself, and they were happy to help. I was ELATED to have a good customer service experience, and will be sending a letter to DELL to thank him. Having worked in customer service based industries, I recognize good help. Have faith guys, DELL does care!

 

Lololol no I didn't add the O to the end. It looks normal in my latency checker but weird for some reason in the screenshot... I noticed that right as I was posting. I swear

If anyone really cares, I think my checker is still open and I could get another screen lol

 

well I called this morning and asked to speak to my resolution specialist, he was busy but they said he would call me today...that never happened. This is really pissing me off. Now I just want to ditch this laptop and be done with it, but damn did it take me a long time to even afford to get it :/

 

Same thing happened for me, but I still haven't gotten a replacement confirmed. After 5 calls they finally acknowledged that an R2 is the only solution yesterday, and someone would be calling me about it this morning... but no call...

However, they put some note in my file and everyone I talked to during all the transfers sounded like I was good to go for replacement. Will call again tomorrow and hopefully have my replacement confirmed

 

here is mine - I was playing a DVD

 

Does anyone know if there's a way to make sure I get American tech support when i call?

 

Tech support said the same thing to me so after I reformatted and had them install all of the drivers this is what I got. Sorry for the poor photo the lady in the office took the picture with her cell phone. You will notice that tech support has access to my computer when this was happening so they couldn't there isn't a problem.

 

From what others have said just keep calling and until you get a real english voice hang up

 

That's disgusting.

 

Here is a better photo of my 3 billion spike for anyone who cared



EDIT - I don't know why my imageshack pictures keep disappearing...? Anyways it's not a big deal - but yeah, I really did get a 3 billion spike.

 

Yeah, i'm tempted to do that, but i'm just not sure how late the US call centers are open. And tonight is probably the only good chance I'll have to deal with them in a while.

 

It's all the same more or less. The guys in FLA never get back to me. You have to take the initiative with these people.

It's less about location than it is specific individual. Frustrated? Hang up and call again.

 

This is rather interesting, could you do me a favor to click on my signature and take the 3 minutes test?

 

Dell should hold a contest. Everybody submit a photo of their bar display from the test and whoever has the WORST wins a replacement Alienware Laptop

 

I care - I'm now relegated to 2nd worst recorded maximum

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5813422#post5813422

 

lol people could just spam the eject button until the entire screen is full of red bars then send that in.

Well, I'm not sure if having the highest spike recorded is a good thing... but... I guess I do now have the highest spike. Yay?

 

3 billion microseconds is 3000 seconds = 1 hour. your computer cant possibly lag for an hour, there is obviously something wrong with the DPC checker if you're seeing 3 billion spikes

 

it prolly meant that if the computer remained in that state which caused the 3billion ms latency spike, itll have 1 hour delay.

however since the latency states keep changing you dont see it

 

i'm no expert but DPC stands for deffered procedure call which is a way for an OS to delay tasks that are of lower priority to execute high priority tasks first. Your latency in an online game is measured by "pinging" the server, meaning you send a request to the server, the server responds and your "ping" or latency is the time it took for the information to complete the round-trip.

Likewise I assume (correct me if I'm wrong) the DPC latency checker sends requests for low priority tasks and waits for the OS to process them, and than calculates the time it took to get a response (latency). I dont see how a 3 billion us latency means something else than "the low priority task just got delayed for an hour". Could it be that the computer went to sleep or something?!

 

I've been following this thread for a little while now and have decided to finally create an account and join in the discussion. My M17x has had stuttering issues for a while now, and even after last week's suggested fix (plus getting A03), I still get red spikes in the 60k range when listening to music or watching videos. Since I've had my M17x since September and the issue remains, I'm gonna call Dell tech support tomorrow or Saturday, but before I do, I just want to make sure I know what the best fix for the problem is. If they offer me the ATI cards, will that fix the problem, or should I try for an R2? Also, is there anything I should do to prepare, aside from backing up all my files in case they want to restart from the beginning?

Lastly, I'm going to run stamatisx's DPC/ISR tracing regiment soon, but is there any other info from my particular case you'd like to see (like screenshots of my the latency checker while watching a video or something)?

 

Most probably that or the program just got a wrong reading. (we have seen for instance readings like 200+ degrees Celsius from HWMonitor that are unrealistic)

 

Welcome to the conversation. You are right on all counts.

+ rep for calling BS.

 

Following my guide will give you a good idea of what is going on with your laptop. It will show if something else except from some know issues, introduces extra latency to your system. Screenshots are more than welcome.

Keeping a back up is always advised no matter what you are doing with your laptop.

 

Thanx for that post But still I will give Dell another month to solve the issue, I'm going on holidays on 1st April for 3 weeks and don't want to deal with Dell before that because I know that it would cost me a lot of time and frustartion but if in the mid of April they don't find a fix I will start a battle

 

Problem would be if you send in your system it going to take 2 months to get a new one haha. I Order On 1/19/09 Shipping on 2/5/2010 Cancel due to DVD drive Reordered on 2/02/2010 Shipping on 2/05/2010 Updated on 2/08/2010 Updated on 2/24/2010 and now at 3/02/2010

I wonder if I will get it on 3/02/2010?

 

Rengsey, I missed this post of yours.
Could you run the test on my signature too and provide some feedback ?
Basically I saw on your screenshot that you have a maximum latency of 10180μs (double of those that I see on the R1) and I was wondering what caused it.
http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/2131/82191247.png

 

Before you jump to conclusions like that I have now experienced 2 max values in excess of 3 billion. When the first one occured I'd left the laptop running while I went to bed and found the result the next day.

When returning back to my running laptop after leaving it alone for an hour or so I get cursor movement but no other control for periods reigning from a few seconds to a couple of minutes.

Occasionally I decide its locked completely and hard power it off by holding the powerbutton down till it goes off.

Recently when it happened I knew DPClat was running so I didn't hard power it down. I kept checking back avery five minutes with no change - cursor moves but wont do anything - and sure enough after nearly an hour it worked again, DPClat showed a reading of 3.1 billion.

I'd love to know what minor background process stops my mouse interacting with anything for nearly an hour.

This thread title mentions lock ups - though I don't see much written about them. Have other people had lock ups that would have unfrozen after an hour if they had left the laptop running?

Please don't be so quick to call BS as up to this point I had found your posts to be very informative.

 

The only thing I can think of that would cause hard locks after being left alone, is some device attempting to go into power-save mode. Whether it be LAN, Wifi, of the whole computer, something is definitely wrong.

If it happens while being used, that could be multiple issues. have you monitored system temps to see if anything is overheating? Great free program to try if you haven't - HWMonitor.

 

my ssd is dead . first a blue screen from nowhere and now is dead. nvidia motherboard issue?

 

Nothing overheating as far as I know, I already use HWMonitor. A lot of the DPC problem is down to powermizer clocking the graphics cards, maybe that freezes up?

 

i know what you mean kissarmy.

last time when i pressed the eject button, the entire computer froze for about 5-10 mins with only mouse cursor working and not even alt ctrl del works.

left it alone after that 10 mins the disc poped out and everything was back to normal and dpc spike was HUGE and about the constant value throughout the entire freeze time.

i think the commands just arent going through somewhere.

 

Could be... in HWMonitor, can you view your voltages? (not at my M17x at the moment). Maybe your power supply voltage output isn't stable. Power surge or under power could cause these issues as well. Maybe it just can't keep up with your video card switching power modes, too. Either way, if your voltages are swinging around a bit, could be a bad PSU causing all your issues.

 

I wonder if all the lock ups mentioned would have unfrozen themselves if left long enough?

I only see temperatures sorry. The problem for me is just windows7 using the graphics cards - not gaming, its not like the cards are working hard, they are only driving the desktop aero interface. I am more inclined to point the finger at powermizer than the PSU. Still a potential answer, might have to buy the spare PSU I'd thought about buying so I can test that out.

 

I'd test the PSU out, should be programs out there that will show voltages, or maybe voltages can be viewed in the Bios. If you see them flickering around and you're under warranty, call and get a replacement.

 

have downloaded PCWizard 2010, so far voltages stable but will have a good stress test and see if I can shake anything loose so to speak. Thanks for your suggestion.

 

I get the lockups. Mine average 30-45 seconds but can last a few minutes. It usually involves the browser changing tabs (IE and Firefox). A few times a week I do have to reboot. It seems completely random though.

My trackpad also gets laggy sometimes (skips around instead of being smooth). It seems to follow a spike in the DPC.

 

My experience is that if I push control+alt+delete then after a while a window with the text a message saying something about a time out(cannot remember the words exactly as it has been a while since I have seen the system freeze up) will pop up. I then push ok and the issue is more or less solved. Sometimes this took the system 2-5 minutes

 

A 45 second lock up is something you should be callling support about. That is not a usable pc. Don't tell the supprt rep anything about dpc or youwill get pigeon holed with the rest of us.

They pushed back hard when I called yesterday. I got my 4870s because:
1. That is what my m17x originally came with
2. They screwed up deliver somany times.