M17x DPC Latency

I think so - windows installed it. Also I get a USB Disengage sound often while just playing a game - it goes DDUN DUN and sounds like something was unplugged when I had touched nothing - And this was on my original M17x as well

 

uninstall it through device manager and see if that helps. I removed it from my m17x and my fps went up in all my games.

 

ok thanks for the tip, I'll do that especially since it doesnt even serve a real purpose - however my FPS are fine but DIP - I'll see if this resolves that tonight as i'm about to go home and indulge in a 3 hour dragon age session

 

Apparently some CSR decided to stall my replacement cards order before they got shipped. Well just spent another two hours fighting with Dellienware... Got no where.

So, being in a really foul mood I called our corporate Dell Enterprise rep and practically had him in tears when I was done (I just spend a $500k+ with him a year... can you say 'Sayonara'.).

He got me over to the 'executive' escalations department and within 10 minutes I had tracking numbers for my new ATI cards. I've never been apologized to so profusely in my life.

According to that rep, there is supposed to be some bios or driver update released next week - not holding my breath - to address the issue.

From reading here and elsewhere, nVidia has had a long history with this issue (dating back to early 2008) and we, along with countless other Lenovo, Dell and Sony users seem to have it the worst.

As soon as I receive the cards I'll update everyone. However, if any of you are in the same boat I was here's a tip... Our warranty provides next-day service. They have to resolve the issue by the next day... period... or offer an acceptable solution. If a needed part is unavailable, etc. we are well within our rights to request 'upgrades' or other compensations for our time.

- Denver

 

Well, its not entirely true, they have many caveats. IF THEY HAVE THE PART IN STOCK they resolve next day. Otherwise they have up to 30 days. That's the deal in the UK at least.

 

Quick update before I go get some sleep (night shift sucks)...

Just got off the phone with Alienware tech support, who was diagnosing my computer extensively via remote control... I was on the phone with them for a grand total of 2 hours 28 minutes... no joking, I noted the call timer on my phone after hanging up.

These guys are working their butts off trying to resolve this issue. After multiple driver (video, chipset, wireless) and hardware configuration (Hybrid on/off, onboard video on/off, 260M on/off) tests, the stuttering persisted.

I'm hoping their troubleshooting with me helped them come closer to a resolution, they said it helped them a lot. Not quite sure what they found, but hopefully they'll inform all of us very soon.

I really appreciated the time the tech took with me trying to get to the bottom of it... completely changed my view of the situation, and hopefully, they'll work with everyone else in the same manner.

EDIT: forgot to mention, this was US Alienware tech support - 1-800-ALIENWARE option 4.

 

yeah right. If they want to fix this issue they need to replace my cards with ati ones. I spent a total of 7 hours on the phoone to hear them not do nothing about it.

they said that they are working on a driver to fix this issue. I never heard of that in my life. I'm mad at this. This is worse then the whitebook and it cost 2 twice as much.


where's the alienware tech. I notice that they are never in these threads. Just like the quad core problem thread.

 

Think most of the AW/Dell guys who used to be on here have since left the respective conpanies

Sorry to hear you're recieving EU AW-quality service.

 

not when the whitebook was here. I saw we had the quad coore problem thread always in the front of the first page they never posted in it and say good luck but they posted in thread that said 'my computer is slow'...


sorry for going off topic. Everyone with ati cards please post your dpc checker so dell can see the results since they are watching this thread and not posting.

 

The dell guy who was keeping people updated on a DPC problem thread on the dell community forums has been quiet for a few days too. Think they must be getting as annoyed as us that there's no defined way for them to fix the issue yet.

 

Well, this could make them see that the only *real* resolution is swapping everyone with nVidia out to ATI cards. I know it's frustrating to the point of pulling hair (I know I have a few times over it), especially when watching videos or listening to music with friends as the stuttering issue occurs, and everyone's staring at you like "I thought this was an all-powerful machine, and it's stuttering on a simple MP3 playback..."... pretty embarrassing, honestly, to be shown-up by much less powerful machines.

As a side note, they said they've been reading forums, and specifically mentioned this one... and this thread. Hopefully we'll get someone from Alienware to pop in and comment soon.

 

there is... Ati.....

 

I know. I was at school and trying to show off the allpowerful speakers by listening to some music and the amount of stuttering that came I turned it off and said that my computer battery life isn't good and it does that when it low ane then I went home.

 

Here's what I just sent to the tech guy I worked with, and to whom I asked to forward this to the "proper individual"...



Hello Dellianware’s Engeneers (or whoever it may concern…),


Audio/Video stuttering used to happen on my old M1730. When Dell launched this laptop in 2007, it came with Windows XP, it looks like everyting was fine. When, always back in 2007, when Windows Vista came to the market, anyone who did own an M1730 and who swapped their O/S to Vista did indeed begin to experiment stuttering, and this was, again, also back in 2007. I bought my M1730 in November 2008; I then discovered the stuttering problem and I pointed that to Dell, who’s technical support was simply denying the problem, pretending it was NOT existing, while it was indeed happening for more than 1 full year... Pretty frustrating for a user that INDEED EXPERIMENT IT !!!


Dell finally admitted the problem was indeed real, this was in May/June 2009, but they told me they would not fix it because the M1730 was soon to be discontinued…

PRETTY IMPRESSIVE CUSTOMER SERVICE, INDEED… (Do I really look like that stupid cow it seems you think I am?)​

So, I managed to get a refund for this piece of crap, and got my current M17X, WHICH HAS THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM !

How hard is it for a company to learn from their past mistakes, I can’t tell; however, what I can tell is that from a customer’s point of view, THE JOKE HAS LASTED ENOUGH, TIME FOR YOU GUYS TO WAKE UP !

Could the problem be fixed only by Nvidia’s engineers is the least or the last of my concerns, as I don’t have any contract with them, would I call them they probably would not even care. However, I DO have a contract with Dell/Alienware, and you have to honor the warranty I paid for. It’s no esoteric type of thing that your customers expect a fully working machine, especially considering they bought a high-end gaming rig, considering most of them paid over $3000 for it, and the fact that this supposedly MOST POWERFUL LAPTOP IN THE UNIVERSE can’t even play a single mp3 without stuttering just makes us want to… …I am not even going to write this here…

Don’t get me wrong:
I have the full rights to expect a fully working machine WITHOUT HAVING TO RE-INSTALL, TWEAK, TUNE, FINETUNE, MY O/S, DRIVERS, what you will, what so ever…​

Consider this analogy: You buy a car, and it won’t reach 100KM/H or 60M/H if you will. You call the manufacturer who tells you to open the carburator, unplug that wire, plug it somewhere else, try your car for 50 mikes before calling back, DO YOU SEE HOW RIDICULOUS THAT WOULD BE? My guess, my bet is that you would return to the car dealer, get a full refund, and never buy that brand again, right ? (Do your own math here…)

I have had more than my fair part of issues with Dell’s-let’s-try-this-in-case-it’d-work, I have wasted enough of my precious time trying to fix YOUR bug (Nvidia = Dell from a customer of your’s point of view), now, again, the joke is over!

I AM NOT GOING TO RE-INSTALL, RE-TWEAK, RE-WHATEVER AGAIN, I GOT A LIFE APART FROM BETA-TESTING YOUR PRODUCTS​

And the worse part is that I will have to re-install everything when I will flash my SSD’s with the latest Samsung’s F/W to have my drives TRIM-enabled…

BY THE WAY, DIDN’T GET AN ANSWER ON THIS: Where’s the Nvidia RAID CONTROLLER TRIM-ENABLED SO I CAN SAFELY USE MY 2 PM800 IN RAID 0 ???​

As many M17X users, I’ve had it regarding the way this issue ( stuttering) has (not) been taken care of, it’s part of Dell’s issues since at least 2007, AND NEVER DID DELL INTEND TO FIX IT, THEY WERE SIMPLY DENYING IT, FOR OVER TWO YEARS, 2007 ~2009; NOW, IT’S BITING YOU BEHIND, haven’t you deserved it?
(And my own guess is that Engadget might hear from frustrated users of yours if BIOS A04 dosen’t fix this for good, just a thought…)


Please, let’s look forward to get your customers satisfied with your products, so they can begin again to spread the word that Dellianware is not a cheap-shot vendor that does not care about their customer’s satisfaction.

Thank you,

 

I just returned mine for a complete refund, no restocking fee.

I may consider re-ordering with an i7 and ATI card.

it's too bad since I've had 0 problems with my other Alienware systems, but they were all from the pre-Dell days.

 

eYe-I-aïe... I cant disagree with anything you said in your post .The lack of communication from Dell makes it worse.So many unhappy customers & no updates of progress there making to resolve this issue just silence from them.

 

NVidia (owned by Intel) is the bad guy of this whole story in the wonderful world of latency causing stuttering. Both in the chipset & graphic areas. Hope for Dell, for Alienware, for the other vendors, for all of us, and for all the others suffering from this issue that NVidia's engeneers will fix it for good asap... Clock is... tac, tic, t...

 

I agree... I heard enought of the 'nVidia's working on a driver' story today...

I basically told the rep as far as I'm concerned from this point forward ANYTHING with an nVidia chip in it isn't going to be purchased by me.

nVidia's own forums show this issue goes back to 2007... If you can't fix it in three years why would ANYONE be dumb enough to assume that it'll be fixed next week when they release whatever the rep referred to. If they do It'll end up broken again in the next driver release - they do it on the video drivers all the time.

If things go as they should my replacement ATI cards should be in my hands tomorrow night. If that solves the stutter I'll be a happy camper. Else, next stop 'refund'.

 

Problem with Dell is indeed they're frozen solid about it, but the bottom line is they didn't manage it as well as they could have done.

If they just had listened earlier and made better choices about how they reacted to the issue it would have been much better. But at the same time they released a product and just don't have the right business support to deal with the fallout, they move on to other projects instead.

At least I think thats what's going on its just priority and free resources. Anyway it's an interesting case, the merger with Alienware and Dell. Will the giant behmouth have the touch required for these individually specced and specialized machines, we know they can make them look pretty but will they be into receiving feedback and acting on them? Or, will they move on like most of the mass produced machines they come out with. Alienwares are part of a niche of close interaction with the user community, and frequent updates are standards of the market. if they're serious about moving forward and competing with sager etc then they need to give up that bad image they've sewn and follow through. Or, maybe they sell enough that they don't care and that's that. Imo only a few people can stack the cash to get these, and you better show them you are going to be reasonably quick to receive feedback if there is a problem to assess and implement fixes or just turn around updates to hardware drivers. Maybe a department that can move between products post-launch is the solution.

 

They will just EOL this model and run to something else....

They did this with the M17 which had quad core stuttering problems. All of the sudden it is EOL, you can't extend your warranty, and they got the M17x. Now they are pushing out a new M17x (6 months later?!). If you want a good warranty on your M17x, I would get it now before they try to block you from extending it like they did the M17 owners

 

I don't think they'll block you, the M17 wasn't Dell's machine so Dell didn't want to take over the service contracts any more than they already had obligations, thus cut it out. But these are Dells now, so they're covered just like other Dells, I believe you can extend as long as you have warranty.

Anyway i got 3 years so w/e

 

They are going to get a lot of angry people and bad press if they dont fix this.

 

The fact that Dell have chose not to include nVidia's gpu's in the M17x R2 speaks volumes of Dells faith in nVidia.

 

Sauce,

In Dell's defense, Intel is actually the one mostly keeping nVidia cards out of the M17xR2. Intel isn't supporting SLI on the new platform. They also won't license nVidia to make their own boards - essentially freezing them out of the market.

I do however agree that the shift of Alienware/Dell away from nVidia is VERY obvious... It's starting to happen all across their product line. The Precision workstations (forget which model) now have ATI Fire graphics.

nVidia has along way to go to solve their now mounting pile of issues. This stuttering thing on a 'flagship' -class notebook is definately an embarassment to both them and the notebook manufacturers.

 

They can always upgrade us to R2s of comparable value using their existing warranty system, eat the cost, resell the R1's on Ebay with 90 days warranty cheap and write it off.

obviously that's pessimistic, my M17x performs ok, but bottom line I dont have faith in this chipset to last. what peves me most of all is that this bad press has an effect on my resale value bonusly with the new model.

 

yes i believe the chipset is weak which also causes the dpc latency.

 

Latest from John B. I know you're all upset, but I can't exactly post an update when there's nothing to post.

I promise, the minute I hear of a fix, you'll all be the first to know.

 

Source: http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/...8/19591948.aspx?permaPostId=19643104#19643104
27 Jan 2010 04:37 PM

 

Sorry to hear about your problems, people. I do hope for all our collective sakes--ATi users included--that some kind of proper long-term resolution is brought to the table.

I understand. I feel more in touch and confident because they seem like decent and direct individuals, which is always a better source of reassurance, even if it is only words and no real solution. (As in the case with DPC latency.)

If the opportunity comes up, I'll probably get the next machine from them, regardless of parts and brands.

 

I had tried that and it did not resolve the issue but I would be happy to give it another go. Did you do it in safe mode?

 

i understand that the r2 doesnt give nvidia options because those intel boards dont official support sli but lets say if i get the r2 mobo and i7 but they refuse to give me atis will the gtx280s work at all?

atis are still unavailable in my country for some reason.. no idea why.

 

Do you think I should call and try to get my 260s swapped for ATIs or wait for a official statement and hope for some kind of R2 upgrade?

 

id wait if your issue isnt stopping you from your daily work.

for me im starting to make some noise so that once an official statement comes out(hopefully) the issue can be solved quickly since it takes some time to escalate the matter to someone who actually knows what is going on.

 

I'd wait until Monday, and if there is still no official word on anything, then call them up and give em hell.

 

Solution!

Get Ati
you'll notice a world of difference, i never really gave ati a shot in the past years, only until we discovered all this dpc issues, i was blind to the truth...
my favorite Geforce manufacturer took awesome care of me that i thought nvidia was solid, but i was wrong

the entire 200 series is faulty thus why they were going to discontinue all of them, chip failures, dpc problems with all nvidia notebooks using 200 series
most of the 9 series having dpc issues with desktop cards

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfFmJnaJn48

 

Yea in normal mode i uninstalled the chipset drivers, then went to device manager and uninstalled the controller and checked the box to uninstall the software.

Booted into safe mode and ran driversweeper... Then booted into normal mode. Went to device manager and installed the nic and coprocessor manually.. So far so good.

 

since dell is watching this thread here you go after 8 hours of being on the phone with you. i'm idling right now...

 

How do we know dell is watching?

 

they are watching.

 

I have also been talking to them, but it is getting me no place fast.

 

You guys should read up about the consumer rights in your area's about unsatisfactory products, and see whats up. You guys may have Dell by the balls and not even know it.

 

you mean the lemon law?

i just want some service honestly.

 

Yes something to that effect.

 

Agreed.

I honestly think that Alienware should be replacing everyone's defective M17x with an M17x-R2, warranty swap due to these issues. Will they do it? Probably not... just like car companies, if the hardware swap (or lawsuit payouts) for complaining customers costs less than a complete recall, they won't recall. Sucks, but that's the way it works.

One can only hope enough hardware swaps start occuring that Dell/Alienware realizes they need to recall.

 

toyota recalled 5 years worth of cars they just made yesterday

 

Yep, and I'm betting the lawsuit settlements (from previous accidents and deaths caused by the hardware failure) they've had to pay out are greater than what it would cost to replace the faulty hardware, so now they're replacing hardware.

Anyways, Dell needs to do something, and now. I've only owned my M17x since October, so I can't imagine how angry everyone is who has dealt with this issue longer.

 

Dell could learn a lesson from this.

 

watched some anime


i'm hitting the bed i cant even use this computer

 

wonder if dell bought their service awards

 

Was on the phone with a Dell tech this morning, i described the situation (again...) and demanded a solution They tried to counter with "reinstall windows" "check the memory" and so on...i replied that i have tried those things already and he went all quiet and said that he had to talk to another tech...and get back "start in fail-safe" mode to see if the stutters dissappeared.. They didn't of course. ...then i went away to talk to another tech again... Anyway, i said that i didn't accept this anymore.
I have demanded a solution in form of a replacement or a refund.
And they told me that they'll get back to me later today.
I wonder what happened to that guy a talked to in tuesday, who asked me to wait for another users solution /and I told them That was not acceptable and i wont wait for another user with the same problems to solve his problem and get back to Dell.

I have also e-mailed Dell threatening to use consumer rights in this case, something they wouldn't get any good PR from.