M17x DPC Latency

Well, if Nvidia problems are solved, then some of us are in a better situation. . . at least in part. Good for them, and some of us!

However, I absolutely stand in support of all M17x owners, including ATi users such as yourself. Currently, this is news from Nvidia, but we need a fix from Dell regarding the chipset, OSD, and other issues experienced by some ATi users.

Until that solution isn't at hand, the matter remains unresolved, regardless of how well my machine may or may not be running.

 

by the way with osd disabled i get only 2781 red spikes or less when pressing the eject button.

thus have you tried downloading something with utorrent and at the same time switching between windows? almost constant red spikes.

 

Well, there's two points here regarding OSD and ATi cards.

First: Aikimox did the test WITH OSD, and he was still limited to just 4k. So there is an issue of varying experience across the board.

Second: Since you are limited to 2.5k with OSD disabled, it's only a further improvement, which is good. Were you getting 60k+ spikes before disabling OSD?

Now on the issue of using utorrent, which I don't use too often, I did do the test, and no issues. Didn't even get any minor red bars. Tell me something, are the 'constant reds' high, or just you know. . . 2-16k?

 

the utorrent test could also be fouled depending on which connection you're on - wired or wireless. Since they are two different drivers, and the wireless drivers are the ones that historically gave us problems, I'd expect the red spikes to appear mainly on wireless...

@stig - you saw my report in your thread. I'm running the ATi's (see sig for details).

 

i had 41900K WITH THE OSD. near the limit of audio stuttering.

as for utorrent use wireless connection and then switch between fullscreen windows. not windowed.

 

Well, irrelevant to my case since I haven't touched an ethernet cable in years.

Once again: Same result since I was using wifi before and still use wifi.

I'll try the fullscreen and exit out of fullscreen approach.

Edit/Update:
Nope. Nothing.

Anything else?

 

Whats ethernet

 

Exactly. Lawl@folks questioning whether I've really used WiFi or not.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to boil a pot of water, so I need to go out and get some good sticks that'll rub together nicely to produce decent friction.

 

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=157614&st=120&gopid=1010117&#entry1010117

Hm..

 

Yes, that was already posted. Then lots of silence ensued.

We are all in a holding pattern ATM.

 

sounds like nvidia's fix will fix the dpc latency issues caused by gpu throttling, but you will still need updated nvidia chipset drivers to get 100% rid of your dpc latency spikes...

perhaps the gpu issue is similar to the chipset issue and the solution nvidia found for the gpu drivers can also be applied to the chipset drivers? wouldnt it be great if that was the case?

 

Has anyone found this "fix"? Not sure if nvidia noticed but its tuesday.

 

as explained by ManuelG the fix is not out yet, it did not make it in time for today's new drivers release. it will be included in the next drivers though...

people have demonstrated interest in beta testing the fix in the meanwhile, so we're waiting for a response from ManuelG

 

Until I see proof, as far as Im concerned this is just another stalling tactic by Nvidia until they release the drivers. Otherwise they'd have just released a beta version and had done with it already, until WHQL were ready (if they haven't got a beta, what have they been testing with, eh?)
Even if the fix didnt make it into the drivers that went out today/yesterday, they've obviously got some drivers they've been using for testing this 'fix' to see if it fixed the issue on multiple models, with the time people have been waiting for a fix or news, Im pretty sure they could have leaked it.

 

Exactly my point.

 

agreed, i'm also very skeptical, i wont believe it until i see it

 

I'm not saying that to be sceptical, but simply because I've heard this sort of stuff before, and seen what's happened before hand, and also seen Nvidia bury this issue before just to reappear.

 

well let me tell you my opinion hoping that i will be wrong. Long dpc state as i understand it is constant red spikes and is nowhere to be found on M17X or if they are i am sure its not due to the gpus. the red spikes appear for a sec and periodically during downclocking or overclocking.

 

Lol, that is scepticism

 

Yes, it's scepticism, but Im not saying it purely to be argumentative, devil's advocate or purely to be BE sceptical, I'm being pragmatic. Thats what I meant. Right now I'm VERY sceptical about Nvidia's fix, simply because of the way things have been going on for months, let alone anything else, something just doesnt sit right, not to mention, just because they THINK they've cured it, doesnt mean it actually is, so in essence we're awaiting a beta of a fix . Once I see a fix in my hands which works 100%, I'll happily acknowledge it, but the current track record isnt exactly a positive factor on the scale
I've been hearing, it should be sometime soon, we should hear something soon, they've got it on priority, a fix is just round the bend etc since before November last year...colour me blind, but I've a fair reason to be a little sceptical after that.

 

As someone who has played devil's advocate enough, I take exception, Mr. Rose.

I too play that angle to be pragmatic and realistic. There is nothing more valuable than knowing where one truly stands; knowing the real ground beneath oneself.

And of course, I agree that we shouldn't start celebrating just yet. Stall tactics have been used by many companies, and I believe anyone with moderate levels of critical-thinking and intelligence would know that companies don't lie - they stall.

 

The real question is does the fix become a permanent part of the driver code base - allowing M17x sufferers to upgrade in the future.

Also, to what degree this driver fixes the issue on different makes of notebooks.

I'll have installed my ATIs by then so I don't think that I will ever know.

 

UPATING. Short and sweet. I had to keep the verbiage pretty tight, so apologies if it sounds robotic.

We found the root cause of one of the issues causing DPC latency after speaking with our customers here and in tech support contacts. We reported it to Nvidia. They provided a beta driver to us last week, and it's the same one ManuelG references on the Nvidia forums. We have the driver in test. We are providing the driver to some customers under NDA shortly. We hope to have at least a beta form of this driver web posted for customers to try by the end of this week.

 

Dell-Bill_B
If this was provided last week they have had some time to test it,Have they provided you with some feedback on beta tests?

 

Yes, they have, but in word only via email and IM. I hope you will understand that I am not willing to characterize it one way or another in light of the repeated kick to the shorts I took after introducing myself here as the magic man with fix who got egg on his face shortly thereafter. I have been humbled and will stick to observing and reporting facts.

 

I'm quite sceptical, but some of you make this sound like a problem that can never be fixed... i still have hope.

I know nothing about programming drivers but do know a bit about programming in general. It shouldnt be THAT difficult for nvidia programmers and engineers to crack the powermizer code, isolate the piece of code responsible for GPU throttling, fix that piece of code and include the fixed code in all future versions of their GPU drivers. If they say they isolated the issue and found a fix I hope we can believe them and hope for a permanent solution in the reasonable future.

Now will that solve the nvidia chipset issues that's another problem...

 

They (in the quoted part of your statement)=Alienware engineers, not Nvidia, for the record.

 

Hey Bill, I've been reading that this is mostly for users with nVidia video cards... does not affect the DPC that appears to be stemming from the motherboard at this point. Is this true? (sorry if this has been answered already)

 

This will have to be a question I will ask after this update goes up. That and the OSD question are queued up on my list of asks.

 

I understand & i if i was in your position i would be wary of quoting anything until i was 100% sure.

 

Excellent, I'll be looking forward to what the engineers have to say... On this, and the OSD.

 

Excellent! Thanks for letting us know Bill!

I hope Dell can get compensation from Nvidia for screwing up the pooch here and that we get to share on that too

 

On a side note, Bill, can you kick some tech department managers in the pants for me? (pass the buck from us to you, to them)

HD videos piling up that I can't encode; the DPC latency causes the video/audio to get out of sync during the encoding phase... I know they say a fix is around the corner, but honestly... how long have they been saying this? I'd honestly like to get either an exchange or a refund at this point, before my secondary drive is completely full. (see this thread for more details on that situation.)

 

I'll probably come back and level set a new list of issues after the new driver comes out if we still have some ground to cover.

 

Bill forgot to answer the kicking in the pants part

 

Thank you for the update, Bill.

However, I still fail to understand how this handles the issues on the ATi front.

 

Very good question. Imagine if the ATIs will only have issues now on after this driver. lool. i highly doubt..

as for your question its an nvidia driver so no effect on the ATIs.

 

That would be ironic... Though I have strong doubts that Nvidia actually fixed the issue.

 

I know it can help, i posted here before about some results that i had with the tweakforce drivers. Things seem to be better, but not fixed. I still had spikes around 16k, but no where near where it was before. And someone asked if it killed powermizer and i checked. No powermizer is still working on mine with the tweakforce drivers.

 

Excellent. By the way, I was the one that asked about the powermizer factor.

Well then, I guess that does show potential.

 

I'm curious fanatic... which version of tweakforce's mobile driver did you install?

 

Not 100% sure but i believe its the current version on the site. 190.62m. I can double check when i go home tonight.

 

just dld Xtreme-G 190.62m Win7/Vista64 will give them a whirl.

 

@Dell-Bill

If you could ping Susie at Alien ware tech support (she said she is the only supervisor there named Susie, she had an American accent, I have her last name if necessary). And let her know the issue is still prevalent and unresolved. She told me the same song and dance about a fix being available that should fix the issue outright and there are no more problems.

My issue is I was assured a R-2 would be issued to fix my problems and I got a new order number with a refurbished R-1. It's very frustrating dealing with Alienware support and I wish you guys could get your stories straight. I am tired of being told one thing and having another done.

Thanks!

 

Im noticing a lot more sound stuttering lately then before. AO3 bios. (which is was the one that was supposed to stop it, all it did it was make it happen less which is fine, but its happening a lot more now)

 

So will this fix only work with nvidia cards? What about the stuttering that happens on the ATI equipped machines...

 

I will ask about ATI equipped boxes at my first opportunity.

 

UPDATE: Dell just tried to change my ATI card. The new card caused a hardware error as soon as I turned on WOW. We decided to install the old ATI card again as that was more operational... Anyway Dell has decided to change my motherboard and graphic card and we have decided that Thursday next week will do just fine. So until now nothing has changed. However, the person was very nice and polite (this does still not change the fact that Dell is obligated to sell 100 percent operational laptops when they are sold as new). So all in all good service but still a bad fix. Next week might fix the latency or shall I see another hardware malfunction?!? That will be interesting to see...
Edit:
I managed to do a few scrolling up and down in a pdf file before the new ATI card malfunctioned. The result was the same as with the old one: red spikes around 4-5 K and even more frequently than with the old one.

 

Dell/Alienware finally approved a replacement of the M17x-R1 for a M17x-R2 for me. They even offered to call me back to talk about components and also upgrades and I got quite a sweet replacement system on the way, I believe.

It took quite some time including calling for hours, writing a detailed e-mail with video and audio recordings of the problem and what fixes I had tried in detail and allowing them to replace my mainboard (I had the tech that replaced it confirm in his report that the replacement didn't fix anything). I finally got escalated to a higher up tech who was very nice and approved the replacement a couple of days ago. I was called back by a sales person today to confirm/adjust the configuration and the nice man granted me some upgrades after some haggling.

Although it might still take a bit, I can't wait for my working M17x system to arrive so I can finally use it...after 8 months of audio/video stutter problems with my original one.

I'll still have this old DPC-Latency issue plagued M17x-R1 system until my replacement arrives, so I'll still be able to help you guys with the testing until then.

 

Congratulations! And nice replacement spec!