M17x DPC Latency

Congrats Gizmo! I hope this solves your issues once and for all.

I do have one question: what will you do with all the spare time, now that you're not having to call tech support so often?

 

Why do we have to go to such waste of time when we payed so much money for this laptop? I already went through this back in November to get a replacement for my original R1. I got a new R1 that works better but still not even close to what I was expecting.

I'm dreading having to call support because I know I'll have to spend hours on the phone for several days to get anything done.

I'm dreading having to let the tech do all the stupid stuff they do that we already know won't fix anything.


:-(

 

I installed the pair of 4870 cards last night.

Quick test this morning playing MP3 with visualizations on - no red yellow or red spikes (unless I press the eject of course).

If I eject the disk from windows explorer there is no red spike BTW.

Now I just have to get the performance of these 4870s figured out.

 

Can you send him my way... I am at the bang head against the wall stage of the replacement process. They have shipped a refurbished r1. I don't know what the hell this company is thinking sometimes.

 

Thats good news 4 u.Have you given them a run under gaming conditions if so how do they perform gaming /latency

 

Dell-Bill_B
Have you guys provided Beta driver on a Non-disclosure agreement yet? as we are eager to hear results.

 

I had a massive 3 fps slow down in ME2 last night. It may have been anything though because I was experimenting with different drivers.

Using the 10.3 beta drivers (everything working propoerly, xf indicator on) the ATIs are much slower than the Nvidias in games. Dirt 2 seems to be the exception, where the in-menu FPS indicator is way higher than it was on the 280ms, but the game crashes before a race starts.

Everything set to 'let game copntrol' and AI on advanced. XF enabled naturally.

3dMark06 the scores were identical 13,500 range (stock).

I'll have detailed game benchmarks soon.

If these cards get me stutter free music and video I will be happy (even if games run a little slower).

 

I would be willing to help - and I have signed lots of NDAs in my time.

The Nvidia cards are still here so I can quickly swap them back in (its a 15 min job).

 

Look forward to your results as if this Beta driver is not functioning as it should will be pushing for Ati's.

 

As of yesterday at 5 PM, CST, the quote I got when I asked for beta status was, "We are working on uploading the file [~100MB] to an FTP server and getting credentials built for beta testers."

I got you down, but my feeling once we hear back good news, if it's good news, from a couple of customers, they are going to move very quickly to post the driver as a beta release with some sort of disclaimer for all to test. If you can hold off on sending those Nvidia cards back a few days, that would be great. Let me know by way of PM if anyone from Dell/Alienware Returns starts asking for them back, and I'll get with that team to hold off on returns efforts.

 

Bill, would you add me to the list? I'd like to test these drivers.

 

Will do. I think my ask will be something like, "Can we add a stage of more private beta testers for 24-48 hrs before we make the move of posting the beta to the site?"

That doesn't mean the answer will be yes, but the whole reason I'm here is to communicate what you guys are saying and asking.

Matter of fact, I'll ask right now.

 

http://i50.tinypic.com/121v4mx.jpg

 

Thank you, Bill. Much appreciated.

 

Thanks for the screenshot, cool wallpaper, but, it would be more useful if you spend 5 minutes to do the test on my signature and provide us with some feedback

 

Waiting with baited breath

 

Call me a pessimist but it sounds like they are covering themselves for this not actually fixing the problem. Notice that Bill states "root cause of one of the issues" emphasis on one of.

Since M17x's with ATIs still have problems then an NVidia display driver isn't going to fix the what ever else is wrong. Best case is NVidia owners will still be as screwed as ATI owners are now. Doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

 

if you need beta testers, I submit my rig for testing.

 

Count me in this camp. Best not to get hopes up, it gets tiring and depressing when they keep getting crushed.

 

Heck, I am all for giving these beta drivers a test as well.

Let me know if you could use me.

D.

 

@Dell-Bill_B - ill give them a test. lmk

Well get got off the phone with Dell. My Resolution Specialist thinks I am lying about some people able to get their R1's replaced for R2's. So he wants me to come on here and collect info and send it to him so he an review your cases in order for me to think about getting a replacement (he said so he could try to "pull some strings"). So anybody that has got a R2 replacement, can you provide me any of this info in a PM(you don't have to give me all of it, but it would help me):

1)Case number
2)Service tag of R1
3)Name of rep that authorized the replacement.
4)Order number of R2 replacement.

thank you very much in advance! hopefully I can get this done!

p.s yes I have tried to get my case escalated past him but he wont let me. I asked for another Resolution Specialist, but he said I couldn't get another one cause they would just do the same thing.

 

I would be nervous to provide that info. I am afraid he would go in there an start canceling orders just to prove his point.

I spoke to a supervisor "Susie" who said that there was nothing in my notes about having a r-2 replacement besides being assured of this from not 1 or 2, but three people at Alienware techsupport.

I am starting to think the tech department is just flat out lying. I mean Dell-Bill has said multiple times they have sent out communication that this issue is present and has not been solved, but yet I am getting; " we have been told by our engineers that this problem is resolved, and you are the only one receiving this error.

 

i could say this is from a desktop> where is this ati overdrive menu?

 

Dell Bill
just to put an end to this story can you ask why they dont offer us an r2 replacement as all R1s have issues? especially after we paid so much?

 

refusedchaos
I think nobody will give there details to a complete stranger i certainly would not.Plus it could jeopardize there case for a replacement which has probably taken many hours of unpleasant phonecalls to achieve.No offence

 

There is no way that a rep would cancel an order once it's been issued.

 

I would love to be part of the beta test as well...could you please add me bill thanks.

 

I have had my R1 exchanged for a R2. I didn't take any crap from any employee. They sold me a defective system, I told them to fix it, or replace it.
R1 was a no go, so they sent me a R2.

 

@Dell-Bill_B, is the beta driver you're refering to a new nvidia display driver? if so i assume it could be used on any system, not just alienware? I would be interested in testing it on my Clevo with GTX260m

 

The INF could be written to only work with AW machines, but you could mod it to run on your Clevo

 

Good question. I think Nvidia will have it up around the same time we do. I'm sure there would be some mod-ing involved. Most of the guys posting on this thread know about 100X what I do about mod-ed drivers. They should be able to help you out, assuming you don't fall in the 100X group yourself. I'd watch Nvidia's and Dell's download sites for the driver. It will be kind of interesting to see who gets it up first, the Dell public beta or the Nvidia public beta. The WHQL version should come some time later from both sources.

 

Kind of off topic I guess, but since you are here Bill, along with alot or M17x users,

Any chance of the R1 getting a BIOS update that allows us to adjust the core voltage of the cpu like you can in the R2? Same for ram voltages?

 

I'll put that on my list. Can you remind me Monday after the beta drivers are up on our site? (there's a hint of the date in there somewhere )

 

Thanks a ton Bill. That would help the M17x to stay as one of the best laptops in the world performance-wise

 

its cool

None taken. I myself would be the same. Maybe people who already have their replacements can help me? According to him, he wants to see who you talked to. It was a lil weird that he asked me that. It was ether that or format my computer and run the OSD tools and pray. So basically ether way I am not promised a replacement.

I wish I could bypass him but I cant, they ether say that he is top level or they transfer me to a dead extension. I will forward the email to anyone if they are skeptical.


Hey John, do I rly have to format and run the script again in order to get a proper reading?

 

I know a few people around here who would probably be concerned that one of our employees would ask you to solicit private information from another customer.

 

Same here. I dont really like this guy. He tells me to either format and run the script (but I already did that when you posted it) or this.

 

Would this fix the sudden drop in FPS sometimes experienced in Call of Duty MW2?

Or a different way of asking, are those FPS drop issues confirmed to be power distribution issues? If so, what values should be used?

 

Don't do anything. My advice, and this is about as close I'll get to any more detail: wait and see what the weekend brings to all those running Nvidia cards.

 

So far so good. post more results later

 

did you get your hands on the latest driver?

 

I am curious too claxdog

 

They asked me to run the new beta stuff to see if i see any improvement as for as the gpu driver latency issue. Ive done all the usual stuff I do with my pc from games and surfing the net watching hd video i have even scrolled big pdf files and so far so good. Fingers crossed. been using for about three hours so time will tell but that screen shot is what the latency has looked like since I installed the stuff they gave me.

 

Could you run my test also and post the results?

 

Hey Claxdog,
That's quite an improvement. Have you tried using this with OSD enabled? Would be interesting to see the 'eject button latency'.

 

my initial batch of tests show the 280m SLI a lot faster in games than the 4870s. I would rather keep the Nvidia setup if that result Claxdog has is indicative.

 

It's true on a number of games but not WoW.

 

I would be interested in seeing the clocks in gpuz to see if there different to original clocks

 

As they should be - and this is the very reason I am not replacing my 280s for ATi's that cost half as much.

 

As far as I can tell this does not address the osd issue just the gpu issue.Here is a gpuz screenie.