M17x DPC Latency

i'm calling tonight.

 

Are you also having stuttering issues, Don?

 

i can say i never tried the dpc latency thing. i'll try it tonight.

 

You've probably got your reasons, man. Sometimes, you don't even need the checker to know that there are issues. But you know, if 4870s will fix the problem then go for it; you should easily score a pair.

 

hi guys, as I posted before here (on a couple different threads) a week ago, Dell is replacing the 260s and 280s with ATI cards. This is a massive upgrade for the 260 users and reports are that it does fix the stutter without a mobo issue. And if you are worried about drivers you can always use the ATI mobility modder (google it) and get new drivers for the ATI do. I doubt the 280s are faster than the ATI cards but I know the 260s are not. Go with the cards and start enjoying your laptop. Mine get here tomorrow and I will confirm if my stutter and lockups stop.

 

theres 9.12 mobility whql available http://strags.com/


and the only reason why ati doesnt support mobility officially is because they let the OEM builders push the drivers. now that alienware is pro ati i imagine we'll see the catalyst 10 series by a months time.

and yea, the 4870s with 800 shaders should surpass a g92 card with 128 streams.


as the 4850 edges a 9800GTX+, a 4870 should easily edge a gtx 280

 

So what is this registry fix they talk about when you call in, anyone know what it does?

 

i'm idle on my desktop how is this?

 

You running a03?

 

no. a02.

i'll install a03 in a few.

 

What hoops do you have to jump through for them to exchange them?

 

yes id like very much if it can work properly cos i travel alot as well and in campus there are spots in lecture halls that do not have power.

however i spent 7k on this laptop and if i have to compromise to get it to work properly i dont think im satisfied.

the fix would be temporary until dell gets back with a proper solution/replacement


and id like to keep the nvidias as much as possible.. im not a green fan but i love digital vibrance and ati doesnt have it and i cant stand 'washed out' looking desktops without digital vibrance

 

Huh? I thought ATi is better than Nvidia...what you talking about digital vibrance
I thought ATi looks fine but then again I haven't used an ATi card since the old 9600 Radeons back in the day.
For the last 5 years I've been running Nvidia exclusively on my desktop and now on my laptop.
Running a Nvidia 295GTX on my desktop.

 

Digital Vibrance is a option within the Nvidia Control Panel. In the color options, I think.

 

Its a 15 step road to nowhere and its listed on the main dell thread on this issue: http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2009/11/18/dell-dpc-latency-and-you.aspx

 

I reinstalled several times in the past, read that they were not occuring in ATI, tried memory, tried the 15 step thing on the main DPC thread, did beta drivers etc.. Basically when I called in and told them I was done troubleshooting it and that I wanted the ATI cards and drivers (and cited multiple ground up reinstalls) they put me on hold and said ok. I have seen at least a dozen posts of people saying they got the same thing as me after I intially got approval. Some of them already have their cards and are DPC free.

 

Did you go from 260 or 280 to the ATIs?

 

Thanks I will call them tomorrow, I have already had a mainboard replacment, bios updated, all drivers reinstalled by alienware tech support etc. so hopefully it will be a smooth process and that they will replace them right away.

 

So, if you have dual 280s and receive Crossfire ATI cards, you have to turn off hybrid and integrated graphics, correct?

 

atis look fine but digital vibrance is some sort of a color enhancement which makes everything look alot more vibrant and rich in color. its just personal preference.

im fine if my 280s arent faster than the 4870s if the stutters go away.

 

When I had 280s and played with digital vibrance option, it felt extremely unpleasant and too tiring for my eyes. IMHO, this feature is useless.

 

Here you go.

 

alright! thanks! havent seen that before.. guess ill start asking for atis now

 

Spent five hours on the phone with dell yesterday and it din't get anywhere.. The promised to call me today, they haven't yet.

 

Call them back now.

 

Agreed. Keep calling until you hear what you want to hear.

 

It's not useless, but I share your dislike of it. Digital Vibrance is basically intended to over saturate monitors with poor colour and contrast (especially relevant with older LCDs), if you've got a good monitor already it looks hideous.
ATI tend to be more conservative, and if set to use your monitors EDID for colour info, tends to be a bit more natural with a decent monitor. IMO anyway.

Both have thier place, they just default to different settings, which Nvidia has made more confusing recently by resetting digital vibrance to 50% standard on normal monitors, whereas before that wasn't the case, so old saturation settings may no longer be right

 

I can confirm that using batteries cause more latency than using power adapter.




Was using the batteries up until -50 where i plugged in the power cable. This happens every time. Notice the drop in latency? almost got halved when using external power.

 

I called again and the guy simply told me to wait as "another owner with the same issues" are testing the his m17x and Dell told me to wait until that owner has solved his issues and then call me to forward an eventual solution to his problem. A rather strange thing to hear as a customer i might add. They will call me on thursday again...i won't be as forthcoming and if they don't have a good solution i shall demand a refund- using the current customer laws here in Sweden. Seems to be that they are just buying time.

I asked for a gfx card replacement but he said that it haven't been successful on other systems...but that seems to contradict what i read here.

And it drags on....

 

Has this problem been confirmed on ALL m17x notebooks with nvidia cards? or just some? or a few?

 

all of them with windows 7 and Nvidia cards.

 

So why are they still selling them if it's such a big issue?

 

Well i would have thought that we would have had a update on http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2009/12/30/19591948.aspx by now but nothing no activity from John B since 22nd.A03 was released on 11/01/2010 16 days ago.I for one have experimented with different drivers etc etc to no avail.I dont fancy going down the route of phoning Dell & going through the nonsense yet .Can you imagine buying any type of product say a car for example and it has a known problem with its power management and being on the phone 5 hours playing around with things.In this day and age it should not be happening .

 

ATI have no reported stuttering problems, as far as I know, reading this forum.
I am getting my Nvidia's swapped for ATI's. Waiting for replacement system at the moment.

 

Because its Dell?
lol marketing....

 

Anyone here got the 260s replaced with the ATIs?

 

i'm calling Dell tomorrow, and will try to get my 260 replaced with an ATI card. Fortunately, I'm having issues besides latency that should guarantee a replacement.

 

Belgium Dell support never heard of that DPC problem, after alot of blablabla ,...i have to wait for a update of the chipsetdriver,.....case closed.
Hope it will be for this year
I got a "deja vu" feeling.

 

Tell them to go do one and point them at the Dell US community post on it

They can't bury thier heads in the sand and pretend it doesnt exist, given how well documented the issue is elsewhere, it's not like it's some dodgy 3rd party writeup, but a different devision of the same company!

 

Right so... If in the end this is a response you accepted then you're not making very good use of your time.

You need to explain that actually you don't really care what another customer is experiencing because you are a different customer who needs his computer working properly. Also, you have next business day warranty. You are tired of spending personal time dealing with this. Please transfer me to your manager I find this resolution unacceptable. Etc. Saavy?

No one will fight for you. You've got to fight for yourself.

 

Guys a miracle occured before a while . i was dealing with some problems (saving downloaded files of 198MB with Internet download manager after changing the nvidia storage driver to windows default was taking 10 minutes) on my M17X. Then i uninstalled Internet download manager, run some registry cleaners and stuff and now i can play winamp online radio and browsing youtube videos without any stuttering. THIS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE ON WIN7!!! even the eject button causes stutter of 41000 which doesnt lead to sound stuttering!

i really think this is only luck and nothing else and i have to test more and restart.

microsoft acpi is enabled!

have a look guys! this is under win7! i cant explain it for now and again i doubt it will remain like that.

http://i48.tinypic.com/fof97b.jpg

i am trying to cause stutter on win7 now but i cant!!!

 

I am going to squash this 'rumor' right now. Dell has not (as of 1/26/2010) made any official statement on this issue stating that switching the GPUs is a viable fix which they will offer to all customers/owners.

Until Dell openly states this, either here on NBR or on their own blog posts/site that the DPC Latency issue is being 'fixed' or 'resolved' or 'handled' or whatever by replacing NVIDIA GPUs in the M17x with ATI GPUs then this is nothing more than another rumor. Feeding the rumor mill just makes you look bad when its found not to be accurate. Do not post rumors please.

What occurs on a 'case by case' basis is another matter. If you are not happy with the DPC Latency issue or Dell's response to the issue, you have every right to call tech support and open a service call with them. How the rep decides to handle it is Dell's business. If you feel you are not receiving a proper response from phone support you also have other options which are detailed here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5713924

 

ok it finally was because i set performance mode for windows explorer and in nvidia control panel as well and i forgot i did it. after i set to adaptive and restarted here comes stuttering again.

 

So keeping it at performance gets rid of stuttering. Isn't that good?

 

All thats happened then is powermizer has been disabled. If you are lucky enough that the performance mode stops both your cards downclocking then you are a lucky man Aris!

 

A tech just came over and installed the 4870 cards and so far no popping sounds in youtube videos or in games.

 

Skate... how long did it take to swap the cards? email me cjnic7 at msn.com

 

around 30 minutes. It was fast, but i didn't like the fact that he was using a power tool to unscrew all of the screws.

 

Skate, how old is your alienware?
Were you still in the 21 days window to return or get a replacement?

How did you get them to replace your cards?

 

Hi Guys, My swap is Friday for the ATI cards. Others asked what I am running now, its the 260s. Once the cards are replaced I will post here. A Dell tech confirmed to me he has not seen this issue with the ATI cards but it is not an official stance as of yet. They are simply willing, with some prodding, to do what is needed. I have tried all other steps and some customer posts elsewhere have confirmed that the card replacement worked for them but I cannot recall where I read it. Again I will post my experience. Far worse for me than the stuttering is that I have the lockup issue which is also as of yet not resolved. I know some do not get this issue but I experience 2 to 3 minute system locks where direct memory apps work fine but the kernel is unstable and cannot respond. During that time period the HAL is busy sorting out some conflict which it recovers from apparently. The tough thing about this issue is that it does not show up in any log and even the task manager will not respond (oddly enough Ventrillo works). Anyway I will report back but if you have the cards as I have seen others post, please let me know how you are doing and whether you did a reinstall which I may want to do.