*OFFICIAL* "All Powerful" M17xR2 Edition Owner's Lounge - Part 3

Disable sleep mode in all of your power profiles. Sleep mode very frequently causes problems on computers. If you never let your computer go to sleep and simply turn it off when you are finished using it, then all of these problems will be gone.

 

That is what i have currently done but i would prefer sleep mode, this problem was not an issue before my clean install

 

I just finished playing Crysis and L4D2 for several hours this evening and I don't have these problems. [Edit: I do have the flickering in Crysis, but not the other issues.] Make sure your power profile is set on High Performance, not Power Saver or Balanced. (Ignore the "recommended" setting of Balanced. It's basically useless.)

If you do not have the latest VBIOS (video BIOS), install the 5870 drivers and VBIOS update from the Dell Support web site. Install the drivers found on that same download page first or the VBIOS updates will not install because your display adapters will not be recognized correctly. Then install the A10 BIOS update from Dell. Finally, go to the AMD web site and download the newest video drivers.

ThrottleStop is simple to use, but I rarely use it. I do not find it necessary. If you do decide to give it a try, set it for performance mode.

 

With the clean install, you may have a different version of a device driver for something that is not playing nice with sleep mode. All it takes is one naughty device to affect multiple devices when you awaken your machine from sleep or hibernation. It may be something that seems totally unrelated.

Did you install all of the latest device drivers available on the web? Or, did you or use the disc that came with your machine? Never use the driver disc supplied with your machine if you can help it.

I would start the troubleshooting process with your audio drivers since that is what you are having problems with. I saw that you reinstalled them, but be certain you have the latest version available. If you do already, then try an older audio driver version to see if it helps. Troubleshooting this sort of problem can take a lot of time and sometimes the only way to figure it out is through the process of elimination.

 

i downloaded them all from dell after the install

 

I was told by dell rep to keep the 8.763 drivers from september as they are most stable. I am running bios x33 as that is supposed to be ideal by the AW rep. Not sure what to do. I did enable triple buffering in L4D and that eliminated the dips which is surprising as that is more intensive on the GPU..but l4d appears stable now. The flickering in Crysis is really bad. I am downloading patch 1.2 now though. Everything is set to performance in the CCC though. No one really mentions the x33 bios and I am wondering why? A10 seems to be most used right now?

 

The x33 was a test BIOS that was provided on the Dell Community Forum and not actually released on the Dell Support site. And x33 was replaced by the "official" A10 BIOS just recently. A10 helps with the "plugged in, not charging" problem, which is what the x33 test BIOS was developed for. I have not checked, but it's possible the A10 and x33 test BIOS are the same firmware with different names. I would have to look at the EC versions.

Just because the Dell rep you spoke with said something does not mean it's true. The rep may simply be misinformed or telling you what they have been instructed to say. At any rate, many of us on this forum are using newer drivers and having better results than we did with the Dell 8.763 drivers. All of my games work better with the 10.11 drivers and newer. I have less flickering with Crysis using the newer drivers. The splash screens that come up while the game is loading are very flickery. In game, it is still present but not as bad.

 

Any more, all they are using is quad core CPUs. I was give a i7 in exchange for a Core2 Duo when Dell moved me to the M17x from the m1730. You're correct about clock speed, as that is what the Dell rep told me when he was configuring my new Alienware replacement. What's available at the time may also have something to do with what they use, as they don't usually hesitate to give you something better once the decision is made to provide a replacement.

 

Wow, I'm pricing out my perfered setup of a Sager NP7280 / Clevo X7200 that I would order (if money were no issue). Talk about a beast. I could have 4 HDDs, Run RAID 5 or RAID 0 with threee HDDs, have a i7 980X, and 485M SLI. Beast. Only $5K Hmm, wonder what the M18x will have. I like the idea of a desktop XM CPU. Not to mention plenty of space for HDDs. Wondering what I could sell my M17x for... lol I would definately miss the RGB LED and 16:10 though. I love those things.

 

Now that other people are complaining about flickering in Crysis, I think I will join the fray and share what little I have been able to figure out about this.

I am also looking to see if anyone can provide recommendations for Crysis tweaks based on my configuration? I have been messing around with CCC settings and discovered that disabling CrossFireX fixes the flickering problems, but also causes a drop in performance to around 28 to 29 average FPS. The flickering can be visually disturbing after a while.

I also found that with CrossFireX enabled, setting the Catalyst A.I. slider to the right (Advanced) reduces flickering a little bit and boosts frame rates a very modest amount (about 1 or 2 FPS).

Also oddly enough, setting Mipmap Level Detail to the far left (High Performance) produces slightly lower FPS than with the setting to the far right (High Quality).

Is there a way to create game profiles with AMD like you can with NVIDIA? It seems that running Crysis under DX9 produces better results. Is there a switch I can use with the executable file to force the game to launch in DX9 mode instead of DX10 or DX11 as a system default? Is this what the "Preset" function is in CCC? Can you create a preset to disable CrossFireX when a game application launches and automatically re-enable CrossFireX when the game application closes?

I'm not very happy with my Crysis benchmark scores and wondering what additional settings might boost the performance while eliminating flickering. See below... this is with CrossFireX enabled, Mipmap detail set to High Quality and A.I. set to Advanced. I might be satisfied with an average of 39.74 FPS if I could maintain that frame rate with no flickering. It would be nice to achieve that without disabling CrossFireX.


1/29/2011 11:31:23 AM - Vista 64
Beginning Run #1 on Map-island, Demo-benchmark_gpu
DX9 1900x1200, AA=No AA, Vsync=Disabled, 64 bit test, FullScreen
Demo Loops=2, Time Of Day= 9
Global Game Quality: VeryHigh
==============================================================
TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 2000, Recorded Time: 111.86s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
Play Time: 57.11s, Average FPS: 35.02
Min FPS: 21.07 at frame 141, Max FPS: 53.08 at frame 1639
Average Tri/Sec: -25311512, Tri/Frame: -722791
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.27
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Play Time: 50.33s, Average FPS: 39.74
Min FPS: 21.07 at frame 141, Max FPS: 60.36 at frame 63
Average Tri/Sec: -28603246, Tri/Frame: -719775
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.27
TimeDemo Play Ended, (2 Runs Performed)
==============================================================

Completed All Tests

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>>--SUMMARY--<<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

1/29/2011 11:31:23 AM - Vista 64

Run #1- DX9 1900x1200 AA=No AA, 64 bit test, Quality: VeryHigh ~~ Last Average FPS: 39.74

 

Hmm strangely enough my issue wit the hdmi doesn't seem to be my audio drivers i have reinstalled them twice and even with the stock windows 7 drivers the hdmi audio completely disappears after waking from sleep. Could the issue be with dells 4870 drivers? i have reinstalled them but maybe the newest ones are better?

 

Try and thy shall know GOD said, then inform us

 

Cheeseborger - now you're starting to talk more like a true computer expert... +1 rep... "you da man" for questioning whether Dell's drivers are the best drivers to use!

Here is a link to AMD's Win7 x64 11.1 drivers for the 4870. Be sure to totally remove your current AMD drivers, restart your system and use CCleaner or DriverSweeper [ Guru3D.com] to delete all traces of your old AMD files before installing the newer version.

I agree with Psyloid. When it comes to troubleshooting driver conflicts, the only way to find out for sure is to try it. Oftentimes newer drivers from the OEM produce better results than what you get from the "approved" drivers provided by the computer maker, but that is not always true. It's case-by-case and even differences in installed software applications between two machines with identical hardware can produce differing results from one driver version to the next.

We look forward to hearing what your trial and error troubleshooting produces. Please let us know the results. Your efforts could be very valuable for others that experience similar problems. Once you have the machine dialed in and working exactly how you want it, be sure to create a OS partition image for quick and easy reinstallation. That's much better and a whole lot less time consuming than starting over from scratch with a clean install every time.

 

Alright i have installed the 11.1 drivers after doing a full uninstall of the old ones, the issue still seems to be there, i have run out of ideas on how to fix the problem so for now i guess ill just avoid sleep mode,

 

@cheeseburger : sometimes its better to change yourself than to try to change the computer

 

Yea i suppose, ill post back if i have any other issues or if i figure out the solution to my current one.

 

Quick question: Are all items in Device Manager recognized and enabled, or do any show up as Unknown Device or show to be in problem status? If everything is working correctly, the device group tree should be fully collapsed with all plus signs on the left.

 

Hey all items seem to be collapsed but under other devices there is one called PCI device and it has a ? mark on it and under properties is listed as an unknown device

 

Just right clicked it an went to update driver then windows did its thing and now u get +1 rep thanks bro my problem is solved.

 

great to hear that

 

What was the device in any case?

 

SWEET! Very happy the problem is solved! YAY!

Thanks for the +1 rep, too.

 

Well it was listed in other devices as simply PCI device, but after the update it became listed as High Definition Audio Device

 

Im using the 11.1 drivers from the ATI website just download them directly from there they should install fine

 

We'll I'm in Seattle for a military training school and it's a computer based class. We're using Dell Precision M6400's. But the cool part is there is an old skull cap M17 in the class. They didn't have it on, but I'm dying to tinker with it lol. It looks like a big boxy brick. I turned it over and it had the "Clevo" name on it so. I just thought it was cool

 

That's too cool! I would love to tinker with it also.

 

The M17 was Flextronics though....maybe you mean an M7700? That was a clevo D900T or D900K depending on whether it was Aurora (AMD Athlon64) or Area-51 (Intel P4)

It was 17" and had the wonderful skullcap on it

 

I know right???

Yea, it definately has a skull cap and Clevo tag on the bottom, but it looks very boxy. The lid is the most purty part of it so you are probably right. I'll look more tommorrow. Probably Aurora, I now I've seen that at another training site. NIce to know that at one point in time, the Army turned toward Alienware for their intense computer systems. Wonder if they will let me play with it.

 

maybe they even gift it to ya ))

 

OOOOOH my, i'm just recovering from a heart attack, got my ordernumber today, estimated delivery date 3 march 2011. oooh my, ooooh my, that is soooooo long. pfff that will make over 6 weeks without laptop

 

thats why powerless netbooks are useful sometimes. i know..

 

If he is recovering from a heart attack then the M17x might crush him and trigger another one

I am supposed to receive my 240 W adapter today so maybe now I can actually play a game ! yay

 

The 240W is crucial to fun with the M17x.

OT: Why the HTC Incredible Moo? Thought you had an iPhone (AT&T)

Don't get me wrong, I have an Incredible and love it

 

I have a droid X... do I really seem like a guy that likes a locked down phone?

The incredible is for my future wife.. I would like to get her a good phone to have so she can tether since verizon is the fastest we can get in our area...


Yea I haven't been home since I have been in town downloading ...internet is my only regret about buying this house

 

Thought you were already maried? Just engaged?

 

I think its time to take this to PM's Just to keep the infraction recored clear

 

Fair enough, responded to yours.

 

Hey guys... for those of you with the 5870 CrossFireX, is this in line with the results you are seeing with your system?

 

people with your cpu should answer your question as with extreme cpus its usually over 20000

 

That looks about right to me. Close enough to not fret over a couple hundred points as this benchmark varies a lot between runs

 

rofl, right? NBR Forum Police really have been acting up lately. Quotas to meet maybe? hehehehe

 

Hi mr fox...i read your readings...its good! you got a bang for your buck! I have the same cpu as yours too...my 3d mark reading came about 13700-13900...if your reading are from 13000 to 15000 for your current cpu, i think its good. Correct me if im wrong, guys.
_________________
M17x-R2 :: i7 720QM|1920x1200 RGB|Dual Xfire 5870s|2 X 500GB 7200RPM Raid 0|8GB DDR3 1333MHz| Thanks to Chief-running new WHQL VBIOS and AMDs 10.10 8.782

 

the CPU seems to make a ton of difference for 3dmark06...

 

Thanks guys! Have a good day.

 

The scores seem a bit low, I had around the same score (little lower) with my XPS M1730, which was only T9300 and SLI 9800M GT, there is guys scoring 17000+ with their M1730 (with 9800GTX SLI and X9000 CPU), so i'm surprised it is that low, offcourse these are synthetic benchmarks, gaming performance will differ

 

He is also all stock. Those 16-17k scores are overclocked.

My M17x does 14k stock. It does 22k overclocked

 

i got near 21000 with 920xm at 3.7ghz and never overclocked the gpus. never bothered to run throttle stop or make other tweaks to achieve higher score

 

just started wow recently and i noticed that every time i go into Strand of the ancients, i will get freezes and spikes every 2 seconds or less even though my fps says 50-60..

just wondering if any of you guys have it too and if so, how to solve it? driver change? im running 10.12 btw.. 11.1 dint seem to agree with my system

 

I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and assume that all the drivers are good and that the hardware exceeds requirments. Slight dips in fps and stutters are common problems with WOW. Do you notice this during peek hours or randomly or is it only in that particular part of the map? I have had the same issue when Linch King came out. My problem stemmed from network congestion and windows background processes pinging the internet.

If you can, WOW can be ran locally for diagnostics and testing. Google free servers or local check. I know that the blizzard forums look down on that because your bypassing the servers. If that does not help try minimizing background processes and check to see what the ping time is while playing WOW.

 

Wooooot finally jumped on an i7-920xm ... Can't wait to get it .. Can some of you post your avrg temps so I can gauge whether I did a good paste job/ tightening of the screws when I get it? + rep for sure for all who answer

Stock temps @ :

Idle:
Load:

Overclockd temps @:

Idle:
Load:

Thanks guys