M17xR3 lags alot though cooled

I bought an Alienware m17x3 with 2gb amd radeon 6970M, intel i7 processor, and 8gb ram in June and it ran perfectly well- I played bad company 2 on maxed out/best settings possible- anyway very smoothly 60+ fps, not sure exactly... and then maybe 20-30 days ago it started lagging... I played the BF3 beta/alpha on high/best settings smoothly 50/60+ fps again- but NOW when I play any video game... I can't even play it on low without getting 20 fps for like one third of the time. I even went and lowered my graphics to no anti-aliasing, and highest performance/lowest quality in graphics properties. It is also not overheating, because I even bought a cooler for the laptop and it stays very cool. I have no idea what is wrong with my laptop.

 

If you right-click on your desktop and then click "Configure Switchable Graphics", make sure that your laptop is using the High-performance GPU and not the Power-saving GPU.

 

Yeah it's on the better graphics card

 

Is your laptop plugged into the wall with the charger?
Is you laptop on high performance mode? (AW command center/Power options)

 

Make sure under the powerplay settings in catalyst control center, that you have maximum performance turned on.

 

download HWINFO64 and look at your temps. This is the only way to know for sure.

 

I have maximum performance on, it is plugged in and at high performance mode. I will try out the HWINFO64

 

It says I can fix 20 critical errors... am I to trust this?

 

umm idk if you downloaded the correct hwinfo 64 did you get it from here?

 

yeah... I clicked start download and then start download on the top right of the next page. That is what it was supposed to be right?

 

yea that should be it, im just confused at to where you are getting the 20 critical errors

 

AAAAhhh I scrolled down and saw the US self installing thingy. What does it mean? It shows stats realtime stats for my processor/gpu?

 

it shows just about everything for your computer

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32085775/computer stats.png this is what it looks like- all good?

 

perfecto you got it, good job. Now just monitor your temps while you play a game and see how hot it gets

 

ahhh ok... I have a cooler and it never feels hot though- but I will check. Anyway- do you have any other possible fixes for the framerate problems?

 

im not very familiar with AMD stuff since i haven't used it much but have you done any driver updates or anything like that?

 

no- should I? EDIT: I downloaded a couple driver updates- Ill see if they help at all.

 

I updated the driver- now atleast I can play on low without any lag! Definite improvement. I still think there is still a problem though... it should actually be able to run better than this- though for now atleast I can olay well

 

well im glad i was able to help a bit

 

Headless, download Furmark here and run the extreme burnin test for 5 mins. post you temps.

|MG| FurMark 1.9.1 Download

 

should have thought of this earlier, oh well

 

Ok, I'll try that. Whenever I try to run it- the display driver crashes/ recovers after 5 seconds... is there something wrong?

 

hmm it appears that you have a problem. You sure you haven't touched the clock settings?

 

what settings?

 

you haven't overclocked the card right?

 

no (too short post)

 

help? plz?

 

Your video-drivers crash when you are trying to run Furmark?
Do a complete reinstallation of your drivers, and try that FurMark again.

Tell me what happens after that!

- Scott.

 

ok I will try that. EDIT: I uninstalled my AMD 6970 and reinstalled it but it still crashes... should I try to uninstall it a certain way or with a program or try to reinstall other drivers? Or any other ideas? I have no idea.

 

Install DriverSweeper.

Go to Add/Remove Programs, and Change ATI Catalyst Install Manager and do Express Uninstall ALL ATI Software.

Reboot into Safe Mode

Run DriverSweeper and select ATI Display and Clean

Reboot into Windows and reinstall the ATI driver using Express Install.

 

Ok I will try! EDIT: HOW do you reinstall the ATI driver using express Install?

 

it should be a setting at the beginning of the installation

 

Oh! I did that... instead of custom. But I think I got the wrong thing THIS : http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/GPU124AMDCat1110PreDriverV3.aspx
Instead of THIS: http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/radeon_win7-64.aspx#1
I restored my computer back to normal... should I try the process over and use the other link?

 

hmm i don't know anything about AMD drivers at this point. just bumping so someone with an AMD can help this guy out

 

also @ Megatherion- I couldn't find ATI Catalyst Install Manager- It was AMD Catalyst Install Manager... If that means anything. BUT I did everything else and as I said above- I may have installed the wrong driver... I'm not sure

 

Sorry for not having gotten back to you!

You're running the 6990m, right?
If that happens to be the case, you need to fetch the original driver from DELL first, i think, install that and then install THIS driver over that one.

Use this website with your service-tag to get your original DELL-driver;
Dell - Drivers and Downloads



Good luck, keep me posted!

- Scott.

 

nonono im using the 6970m- do i still need to do the same thing for this driver? EDIT: @ inzelux should I use THIS: http://support.dell.com/support/dow...bIndex=&scanSupported=False&scanConsent=False the first download for the 6970m instead of the one you labeled THIS above?

 

lol anyone still there?

 

from what i understand you install that 6970 driver and then you install the newer updated drivers over that

 

OK... I will try to find them.

 

should be right up on the website, Sombody feel free to correct me, but i believe its the one i circled in blue

 

2 people already explained to you in this thread on how you should go about removing / installing the ATi driver. If you get confused or not able to follow their simple explanation, I kindly advice you to have someone more experienced to look into this matter before you end up messing up completely your system.

Hope you do not mind my interfere...

 

1. remove the driver from control panel;

2. restart your system in safe mode and run driver sweeper (select ATi driver from the list and press clean);

3. restart your system and if you have ccleaner installed, run it;

4. install dell driver;

5. restart your system, switch to your dedicated GPU if you are on the integrated one (FN + F7);

6. Run any game and see if the performance has improved;

7. If you are facing the same problem after completing those steps, do not proceed with ATi / AMD driver; call Dell and tell them you are facing this problem while your system has as default driver installed, the one from Dell;

8. Let us know what is the status of your problem

 

As bigtonyman said, this is the Dell driver you want for your 6970M: Drivers and Downloads.

 

ok.... I'll try to find and get them. EDIT: I removed all AMD drivers and stuff from computer, restarted into safe mode- Used driver sweeper, restarted- ran CCleaner, Downloaded/Installed this: http://support.dell.com/support/dow...1&formatcnt=0&libid=6&typeid=DRVR&dateid=-1&f , I rebooted, checked it was running on AMD driver, and then tried playing BF3 on lowest settings. For the first 5 minutes I got 50 fps- then It dropped to 20 fps so I left the game. Is there anything else I should try? Or should I just contact Dell? If I should contact Dell- what did you mean by "call Dell and tell them you are facing this problem while your system has as default driver installed, the one from Dell"?

 

Anyone there?

 

UPDATED STATUS: I contacted Dell- they said that I had to pay $129 to talk to some Game Section of Dell that would help Fix my problem... Any Other Ideas?

 

that doesn't sound right at all hmmm i'm running out of ideas here

 

uuuuuhhh... well I'm getting pretty desperate- My computer is sucking pretty bad I'm searching around trying to figure out solutions but I got nothi ng so far