M17x R2 more stable than M17x R1?

The subject says it all. I still can't run several games I have without constant random crashes and freezing (Dragon Age, Civ V), and I've tried just about every driver with my R1 version of the laptop with 280M cards. Besides gaming, I've generally had no issues with the laptop, but I'm getting tired of tinkering with this thing. My warranty runs until August 2011.

 

get a replacement R2 is much better than the R1.

 

Anyone have any suggestions how to approach getting a replacement? I've still got a warranty but I've had the laptop for a year. Thanks!

 

Yeah! Sell R1.
Sold Price+Additional Cash=R2..
Easy!

I believe talking about fraud is not allowed here!

 

If he is legitimately having crashes, then go through the paces with Dell support and they will either fix it or give up and get you a replacement.

This will be a slow and painful process though so selling and buying a new one may be better (but you will take a considerable loss on the sell most likely)

 

I have no problems with my M17xR1. Hasn't crashed at all with any game that I've thrown at it including DA. You have problems, most likely with your gpus. Call Dell. I do have crossfire 4870s though.

 

Yeah, the crashing in Dragon Age has been very annoying. I know many others are experiencing the same thing, based on the Dragon Age boards, but I've seen a few people with r1 and 260M or 280M cards actually say they could play the game fine, so it must be a combination of some issues with my set-up. I have no overheating issues (check the temp regularly) and I keep a laptop cooler underneath it for almost all gaming. I'm still no A03 Bios, but my understanding is that A04 and A05 are worse. I'm guessing that their first plan of attack will be to replace the GPUs or motherboard?

On another note, I still haven't upgraded to Windows 7. I'm guessing that if I wanted to do this I would be best served to do a compelte wipe and reinstall?

 

I have heard that DA:O pushes hardware pretty hard so it could be heat related. Also make sure you are up-to-date on drivers as they are a huge factor in game performance.

I still recommend dell and trying to get them to resolve the problem.

 

Yeh jump onto windows 7 chiefs. Give it a go and see how you fair. It should run much better than Vista if that is what your currently using.

If you still have troubles give dell a ring. No guarantees though how your journey will pan out. You can't just go expecting to get a new machine however some of course get lucky quickly while others have to endure 6 months or longer doing the dance back and forth with dell trying to resolve issues.

However yeh try and solve it yourself 1st and give win 7 a go if you can. That way you have a bigger story to tell dell about all the things you tried already on how to fix the issue but nothing has worked and so forth.

Cheers.

 

Do a clean install of Windows 7 and use the latest drivers from the Dell site. I am positive you will be fine. Have you monitored your temps on both cards or your CPU activity? Try that to see what the issue is.

Also try running some Benchmarks and stress tests that can analyze your system.

 

Thanks for all the ideas. I do always monitor the temps with that program everyone recommends. The fans come on pretty quickly and I'm using a cooler underneath. I've been trying to avoid the complete wipe as it entails so many reinstalls. I'm presently using the SSD as a boot drive, and a 7200 RPM drive as the secondary drive.

By the way, memtest checks out fine, but I only have 4GB. Any sense in upgrading to 8GB?

 

Memory is not the problem. If the fans are ramping up quickly it might be temperature related. What sort of temps are you seeing?

 

With everything on fairly high resolution in LOTRO tonight I hit maybe 62-63C on the GPUs. The fans were going quite strongly and noisily, but that seems pretty low to me. Just noticed that I am still on A02 for BIOS. Does A03 make a difference?

Also, anyone know if we can upgrade the R1 machines to any higher nVidia mobile chips beyond the 280M? I see some DX11 compatible chips are out now in the 400M range of chips.

 

The top nvidia chips for the R1 are the GTX 285m (which are just overclocked GTX 280m's). So far nothing in Dell's line up has the GTX 400 series stuff yet and when it does, I doubt we will get it. Those will most likely go to the R2 people and maybe an R3 will be out by then. As for the bios, A03 has much less aggressive fans, so would be quieter,