My R3 has been..."acting up"...

Truthfully, I feel like I'm cursed with Alienware. My R2 was the love of my life but was buggy as hell and I honestly had nothing but problems with it which was a major factor in my decision to sell it.

Now, as some of you had seen my glowing review of the R3, I'm starting to have problems with it as well, silly problems that I have no idea why they're occurring.

- For the life of me, I can't get the 6300 to "play nice" with my router. Massive lag spikes in any online game I play, but no noticeable lag browsing the internet

- 6-8ish BSOD's since I've had the machine

- Windows explorer has been crashing and NOT recovering I'd say about once or twice a day. To the point where I have to manually shut down the machine

- Windows update gets "stuck" (Where it says "Configuring your updates do not turn off your computer, it will freeze on that screen)

- HWinfo32 literally crashes my computer if I use it (seriously, ...WUT)

- My windows key randomly stops working and won't take me to my desktop from whatever game I'm in (I'm not talking about games where you can't window out of them, this is in games that I always window out of)

- I got a really bizarre windows error message that I couldn't make sense of and have never seen before (should've taken a SS of it, but meh)

I've never had a single issue with my Envy 14. In fact, I think it's the only laptop I've owned that I've never had a problem with. The reason I point this out is because my R3 is essentially a clone of my E14. I have mostly the same games, apps, and programs installed on my R3 as I do the E14. So why all of a sudden my R3 has been "on the fritz," I have no idea. It's getting annoying though.

 

Oh yeah, anyone have any suggestions?

I'm definitely not a tech wizard, I understand computer specs and hardware, but when it comes to identifying and troubleshooting a problem, I could definitely use help.

 

-try to change your wireless card back to stuck card and see if you still get the lag spikes? maybe the card itself is buggy or not compatible with your router?

-what is your SSD, let me guess C300? most of your errors are Freeze/Crash which is the C300 is famous for and it's the only main difference i can think of between your envy 14 and m17x, if it was c300 hit google +C300 Freeze it's very common error, so best way to confirm it is again switch back to stock drive or any other HD and see if you still BSOD/Freeze etc

*Keep in mind that lag spikes might be hardware lag not network lag so most of your issues might be related to the SSD in your m17x

you can always test each hardware separately (change ram to stuck etc) once you stop getting the freezes with installing some hardware it would be the one causing he issue

 

That all sounds more software related than hardware, honestly. What is your main disk(SSD)? Did you do your own install of Windows? Is the drive set to AHCI in BIOS? Is the SSD updated to the latest firmware? I really wonder if a reinstall would fix everything...

I realize now that HSN21 already said pretty much the same thing. Except I have the C300 and have no problems. Definitely check that your firmware is up to date.

Just to double check, the bulk of these problems is recent, or is it that the honeymoon is over and they are just more glaring now?

 

Lucky, my wireless card broke. :/

 

Just a guess... What version of Windows are you running? Do you let Windows Update do whatever update Uncle Bill sends down the pipe. The reason I ask is that if you let SP 1 update happen all alone it takes quite some time. I left a virtual machine running forever because I forgot to watch what updates were being sent. Perhaps you have Win 7 64 bit SP 0.5 which would create all kinds of nightmares...

 

had random BSOD issues here and was advised to use only oem everything (driver wise) on a fresh os build, as there's some conflicts with hardware (specifically 6970M) and software (latest catalyst from AMD being one of them, some windows 7 rollouts being another) atm...

 

Intel® Driver Update Utility

Letting the detection routine check will get you updated chipset, IGP, and wireless drivers which may at least improve your situation with regards to the wireless connection and possibly BSOD's if you were using the IGP at the time.

Chipset update couldn't hurt either.

That gets you some improvement hopefully.

 

OEM (factory) settings/drivers caused my 2 BSODs initially (updating to Sp1 and updating BFBC2). No idea what drivers are good anymore.

 

Thanks, this all makes a lot of sense. I haven't checked the windows version, but it's whatever was shipped as of April. I haven't done a clean install (for what reason? AW builds are very clean).

I've been trying to clean the registry and whatnot, but some of these issues are persisting. I'm going to try a clean install next.

I figured it was some sort of software issue, and it amazes me how a conflict between a video card and the drivers that are supposed to run the damn thing could be at fault.

 

On my desktop I've had ATI drivers range from amazing to "what the hell did it just do to my machine." Hope you get your issues sorted out.

 

@OP: So what's the verdict? Any updateS?

 

I do not have anything to really add that has not already been covered.

I did try updating ATI drivers and that flaked my R3 out until I could get rid of them and revert back again to the factory drivers.

Aside from that my R3 has been running like a charm. I know that fails to help