M17x DPC Latency

I agree with kade storm, atm it seems my audio problems are gone, and so i dont really care of dpc checker.

For aristotelhs, id say that you shouldnt do test while overclocking or downclocking, the notebook has to work in factory spec, if you want to oc its always with stability/issues draw back, also softwares like clock checkers and temp checkers add a lot of dpc latency so you shouldnt test dpc lat with those opened, you should only check if you get audio/fps problems, then you should test your notebook with only dpc lat checker + streaming etc...
I didnt understand whats your issue btw, audio/fps?

 

Since using the beta drivers, I cannot switch graphics anymore. When using 186.82 I could change graphics via stealthbutton or by changing power plan to power saver - fn+f7 didn't work at all, but the other methods were working. Now neither works.

 

Thanks!

Batboy, Are you still on Vista or have made the switch to W7?

 

The new beta update fixed my audio shuttering .... just when i think of getting a refund they acually did something ... cheers...

^^

 

my problem is that there are still red spikes with ATIs and Dell shoudl pay attention to that too, audio stuttering when pressing eject and other buttons, scrolling of pdf stucking probably due to the ATIs driver as i tried other pdf readers as well with the same results.

Overclocking has nothing to do with clocks changing and the red spikes. Thus i overclocked only the cpu and not the gpus. Overclocking is supported in bios so it shouldnt have any impact. Voltage and other stuff locked so as not to blame overclocking.

Finally if you think the remaining red spikes are not issues just dont press Dell to fix them and let them enjoy your money. I wont!
Dell initially supported that there is no issue with nvidias. Pressing them (including me as i had the GTX280s) forced them to those results. If you are happy with the all way green bars let the ATI users succeed this too.

 

working beautifully, good job AW / Dell <3

 

True - Removing the nvidia chipset drivers does help but does not fix everything.
Especially for those of us running raid on our notebooks.
We HAVE to run some nvidia chipset drivers or else our raid arrays dont work (I tested this out before posting and had a bit of a heart attack as it totally borked my install.. luckily Acronis auto backed up my install last night so I did not loose any data).
PLUS we should not have to NOT use a supplied driver in order to NOT have issues ------- that is kind of backwards thinking.

I also agree that they need to do more work regarding the ATI's but I think that the chipset has to do a lot with the remaining issues (including the ATI's).

And the OSD needs to be worked on still.

Dell still has a long way to go.. I am happy that my system is performing better, just not too happy as it still has issues.

Just my thoughts

D.

 

For a clean install of Windows 7:

I purchased an m17x a month ago to use as a digital audio workstation and gaming machine, but after experiencing the latency issues which make it useless as a DAW, I put it back in the box about 2 weeks ago and have been following this thread for updates. This is after reinstalling Windows 7 multiple times and installing every combination of nVidia chipset drivers (SMU,NIC, Storage), several different nVidia graphics drivers, disabling Hybrid and Integrated Graphics in the BIOS, manually disabling Powermizer, etc. Basically every suggestion I could find on the net I tried with no success. And I'll also add that my wireless card (1510) never worked after installing any part of the chipset driver or the Broadcom driver. Skipping the chipset driver and using the generic Windows wireless driver was the only way I could get the Broadcom wireless card to work.

So now that this new beta nVidia graphics has been released, I am going to give it another try.

I'm thinking that I should first disable Hybrid and Integrated Graphics in the BIOS, install Windows 7, skip the chipset and OSD drivers, install the Beta nVidia Graphics driver, install 5.60.18.8 A02 Broadcom wireless driver, and finally IDT audio drivers. Then in the nVidia Control Panel/Manage 3D Settings, set it for Single Display Performance Mode and Prefer Maximum Performance, then see how the m17x performs.

What drivers should I install and which ones should I avoid? Any recommendations before I try this yet again?

 

So can we now use hybrid SLI with no audio issues with the new non-WHQL beta driver?

 

My advice is to leave the Hybrid on, install Win 7, install win updates, only the chipset,display drivers, wifi drivers, audio drivers

Personally I don't use Bluetooth or NIC so I didn't install any drivers and had them after the win 7 installation disabled on both BIOS and device manager. I also don't use the card reader or the infrared thus both disabled under device manager. No touch pad drivers, no command center for me since I had it set once to a standard color and haven't changed it since then. For the OSD I keep it on as I want to see when I disable or enable charging the battery.

For the NVidia settings try to see what best fits your needs and gives you better results.
Disabling services that run in the background and you don't really need, will improve the performance by keeping your system light.

 

Yes. I have actually had HybridSLI enabled in the BIOS for a couple of weeks now. No issues.

EDIT:

Yeah Yeah Zero989... I'll get to it. Need to add another item to it as well.

 

update your sig!! I can confirm the issue is also gone for me with hybrid/9400 disabled. I'll change to hybrid SLI right now. R1 is now superior to R2 in my opinion.

 

New to the forum here but I figured I'd throw this out there: if you are on a/c, disable the "Compliant control method battery..." in device manager. On my system this got rid of those ~1000 green / yellow spikes. Might help. This in combination with the new beta driver has my highest spikes at ~100 to ~150. Prior to this they were between 60,000 and 90,000.

 

apologies... specs now added to sig

 

This introduces other issues - I wouldn't do this. BTW, welcome to the forum.

 

When enabling the 9400m in Hybrid SLi does anyone have a dimmer screen when on the 9400m instead of the GTX 2x0 SLI? The first two times I installed it the screen was really dim, now on a 3rd time it is not AS dim but it is still dim nonetheless.

 

Thanks... understood. I disable it temporarily for broadcast mixing (latency needs to be as low as possible). It's on for everything else. Just thought it could be another area to troubleshoot.

 

I've noticed this at times. Apparently switching cards will reset your desktop calibration (if you've done any).

 

The max brightness for the 9400m is dimmer than the GTX 2x0 SLI's max brightness level. This sucks .

 

We're gonna continue to work on audio latency. However, our definition of success will not be dependent upon all green bars in DPC Lat. It will be something like no audio dropouts in normal usage models for this system. IE, playing games, streaming audio, scrolling through pdf's with audio in another app, using the OSD while playing audio, etc etc.

 

I agree, the DPC latency is too critical in the world of computing

 

I truly believe an "all green" DPC plot on a machine that is actually doing something is impossible. Why? Two weeks ago, I was prepping a Lenovo W700ds with an Nvidia GPU and... well, see for yourself.

The second picture shows the specs of the machine.

http://i46.tinypic.com/2a7aq35.jpg

http://i49.tinypic.com/2d960qf.jpg

For what it's worth, the new driver has all but made my machine perfect.

 

I want an updated bios or chipset driver so I can author video without having the audio get out of sync.

 

agreed, complaints about <5k spikes are not critical and should be discussed in another thread.

 

I'm still curious to know whether someone else can reproduce the 18k spikes I'm getting when my GPU goes from clock level 1 to 3 or 1 to 4 (check out my post here)... This is critical, it means the GPU drivers are a half fix and audio stutter can still occur. Could you guys give it a try and report your results?

 

Well, considering this driver basically eliminated audio stuttering for me, that's no longer an issue on my machine. I'm a little at a loss as to why you're still having this problem.

 

Tell that to my little S10-3T netbook with a touch screen, I can browse on that with no red bars. I see on another post that Dell is aiming for the lowest common denominator, "normal usage". The ATI's are working fine for me except for the annoying whine due to electrical noise but I do still see occasional freezes for 20-30 seconds when browsing. Something tells me not to hold my breath for a fix for that.

I'm amazed how a company can do what Dell did for so long, get people so worked up and then finally release a fix only to receive a ton of kudos. Relief I can understand, but kudos? For getting it to work as advertised only after months and months of rending of clothes and hair pulling out... Wow! I guess you guys are easy to please in the end. Good job ignoring/denying an issue for months, then paying attention only after bad PR starts to hit all the while continuing to sell the laptop. Don't be surprised the next time they do it to you then.

 

Okay, so after getting an m17x as a replacement for a crappy m1730 (which a lot of people here seemed to have gotten as well) I firstly had a dodgy screen, which was replaced, and then this audio tearing problem. I contacted Dell support (Australia) and they said that this wasn't a known issue, and to just update my BIOS and it should be fine. Yeah, well so much for that - I still get audio tearing/stuttering. Then I find this thread, how can they say that it's not a known issue?!??! I sent them this link (in a reply to the support emails) and they havent replied (it's been a week now). So what, has it come to just ignoring the problem?
Not only that, I've been getting calls from Dell Returns with them demanding my m1730 back (and by calls I mean one ever couple of days - and about five calls and a few emails). Yeah, no, screw them - they can have it back when I have a laptop that actually works.

 

Okay, so sorry, but I've been going through many pages - is there actually a solution or? I'm reading conflicting things...
And also, it is a huge issue for me, I'm using the laptop for multitrack audio mixing... well I'm trying to.

 

did a fast test, seems ok, clocked up from lvl 1 to highest clock, no dpc spikes

 

Update your signature first with your system specs and we'll see how we can help you

 

well fair enough and nice criteria for success.

 

Exactly. Bill's done well by us, and if I had any doubts pertaining to *Dell's* commitment towards this matter, Bill has helped put those doubts to rest. I was actually worried about stall tactics, and I was wrong. Great!

Anyway, I made a post in this thread from when this BETA driver was just announced. In that post, I made it clear that all M17x issues should be resolved, including ATi-related problems. No one here is disagreeing with that sentiment, including Bill. Now they said they would deal with the Nvidia problem, and they took a huge move towards dealing with that problem. That gives me reason to believe that they'll do their part and their best at dealing with the other problems.

Eject button and touch panel issues should be the easier of the bunch since removing OSD already eliminates the huge spikes and audio stutter, and that's with the old drivers.

 

thanks Heah, you did it with SLI disabled right?

can anyone else try it with a GTX260m?

maybe it's happening on my machine because i stole drivers made specifically for alienware... hopefully it wont happen on the official release from nvidia

 

I reverted back to 186.82 because I can't manage to play any games with these beta drivers. Hopefully won't be long 'till final whql version comes out and ofc is stable in games.

 

While most here have decided to give Dell a pat on the back i will not be.I would like to thank the people here on this Forum as if it were not for you all this would still be a long way of from the progress that has been made to date.I think Dell has learned a lot of things here on the thread.The bottom line is the system was released June 2009 & should have been thoroughly tested obviously it was not .And let's face it Dell has been churning out systems prior to this that had latency problems & they still have problems to this present day.I feel the M17x Latency still needs attention as it is should be cleaner.This is there flagship model & it should be perfect in every way no compromise, why should you as a customer expect anything less .Dell were forced in my opinion to do something as this issue was getting publicity .With this beta driver it is yes a step forward in the right direction .With the driver i still am getting occasional audio stutter & some of the games have lost performance.I would like to see better standards from Dell in the future.

 

Even with the beta driver things are still a mess... I just got video card replacement and now out of sheer luck an R2 replacement. I would much rather have a laptop that is confirmed working the way it should be than one that has just given me a headache. Also, completely agree with sauce's post. Everyone is so excited and giving dell a pat on the back when they have done very little... Anyway just happy I finally got a replacement....

 

i cant understand why you guys dont ask for a motherboard replacement first.

 

what do you mean you cant play? fps drops or something? the driver may just be digitally signed. i cant see the clocks changing because i think thats what was changed.

 

I had my motherboard replaced, still had DPC

 

and the spikes were so often and so high as the previous one? i dont mean the red spikes caused by the nvidias clocks changing. this becomes even more interesting. i had my motherboard replaced too but it was because it was burnt and when i had the first one we didnt know anything about this dpc latency checker so i didnt check there.

 

My audio/video stutters are actually even worse on the replacement mainboard.

 

Depending on the tech, it could take a full business day. The tech who was supposed to replace my mobo said the last time he did this he killed the computer completely.

Seems like a big PITA so I cancelled it and explained the folly to my CSR. He agreed and we tried for the video cards it was a ten minute conversation but getting the cards took two months (after five shipment attempts I finally got them).

 

Well every time I try to join a game (happened with supreme commander 2 , battlefield bad company 2, age of conan and aion) the screen flickers for like 2 minutes and then I close the game with task manager couse I cant see anything on the screen. Flickers as in the screen keeps turning of/on like when trying to change resolution - can't seem to find the right words to explain. That happens like 4 out of 10 times.

 

Hmmm, even with the beta drivers I still get audio stuttering. Damn, why can't my baby be fixed!

 

as i have heared from nvidia users this must be the issue with the lines during windows startup which dell claims that will be fixed.

1) If a clean driver install is performed (e.g. remove old driver, reboot, install beta driver, reboot), you may experience some brief LCD color cycling and horizontal flickering lines during the Windows startup process on the initial boot with the beta driver. This occurs briefly and will go away after you have logged in to Windows (fix will be available soon).

copy from Batboys post. so this will be fixed..

 

Has the amd radeon cards stuttering/slow downs too? Or is this effect only on nvidia cards? If amd has no stuttering, i will call dell and ask for change my gpu.

 

I don´t know what to do anymore... My laptop is screwed it seems after that betadriver update...

I´ve got the GTX 260M

I installed the driver, and got the following message:The Nvidia Control Panel could not be installed which may affect driver functionality. The most recent driver that worked will now be restored.

After it reinstalled the recent driver after restart, it had to restart again. I could login, but after that my screen stays black (no I don´t have another monitor attached!).

I retried to reinstall the beta-driver and got the same result.

So in the bios I had to turn of hybrid, or else I couldn´t get in at all.

So I removed the drives, and downloaded and installed my old drivers.. I though I then I could turn on my hybrid in the bois... But my screen still is black after my login

What is this

My weekend is screwed

Win7 x64 Ultimate~Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9800 @ 2.93 GHz~ 4GB DDR3 1333Mh~ GTX 260M

 

Whenever you install the NV display driver on the R1, you should always have Hybrid Graphics and Integrated Graphics both enabled in the BIOS at time of install.

Try this:

1. Enable both in BIOS
2. Run beta installer over your existing driver - upon reboot if you have the color cycling, reboot again.

If you are still having issues with install, PM me and I'll help you sort it out.

 

Thanks for your respons.. but did you read my post right?
If I turn all on like you said, I can not log in..
My screen stays black after login

And I had it all on.. I swear *cries*

p.s. maybe a stupid question, but how can I PM you? *looks for the button*