Slowdown issues with M17x - Need Help

Hey guys, for the past week or two I've been experiencing annoying slowdown on my M17x after about 3-4 hours of usage... for no apparent reason given that my task manager reports memory and cpu both under 20% at all times.

I notice this slowdown on every task I do from gaming, loading even browsing... it's really getting on my nerves

Now, just to narrow it down

1- I've unisntalled and re-install the latest Nvidia drivers
2- I've uninstalled Command Center
3- Also unistalled Avira Anti-virus

I'm still experiencing the same issue..... and I'm running on Performance mode, with no stealth.

The problem seems to happen after 3-4 hours and after either a sleep or an alt-tab... i think that's triggering it but not sure to be honest as sometimes it just kicks in in the middle of gaming. Also temperatures are normal.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

Hi Xeneize,
Your computer is most likely not coming out of sleep properly. Does the slowdown occur after wakeup? Also, I would strongly recommend not using sleep, as most computers (gaming that is), don't resume normally.

Thanks,
Gabe

 

I would agree with that except it doesnt just happen after a sleep... it happens randomly for no reason. The only way to resolve it is to do a reboot.

 

Your CPU might be getting throttled by Clock modulation the same as a lot of other max spec M17x R1 users including myself.
Take a look on the stutter thread on this site for more info. Around page 70 onwards explains it all.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/410440-m17x-stutter-80.html

Basically what is happening when gaming is the CPU is being throttled by clock modulation because of insufficient power. Sometimes the modulation can "stick" aswell and only throttlestop or a restart will fix it. Ive also seen all 4 cores of mine being modulated to 12.5% after turning on from sleep!

Try downloading Unclewebbs throttlestop program and see if it is throttling.

 

Wow, thanks that is it! Is there something that trigers it? I have not had this problem up until a few weeks ago and had the laptop for a year.... is there a driver that's causing this?

 

Clock modulation throttling in this model is usually triggered by power consumption. Dell builds a laptop that supports SLI and a Quad Core CPU then doesn't bother including a big enough power adapter so it can power both the CPU and both GPUs at full speed. The result is throttling.

As games and other software is developed that is better able to take advantage of SLI and mult cores, this model isn't able to keep up. The throttling can be quite severe at times. There is no known solution at the moment for this issue besides an upgrade to an R2.

 

Thank you for the explanation... what makes no sense to me is that this hasnt happened in a year.... is it perhaps because I never noticed it?

 

The OP has concluded he is seeing the same behavior as posted here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/410440-m17x-stutter.html

Closing this thread.