Upgraded M17X R3 to Windows 8 Flash Video Issue

Hi,

i've updated Window8 according to the excellent guide in this forum. Everything is working fine apart from one thing.

I used to be able to play starcraft on my external monitor and watch youtube at the same time no problem.

Under windows 8. starcraft still works fine but the video doesn't play fluidly anymore. It just shows every 5th frame or so. It's like a slide show. Thats true for videos in VLC too.

In my nvidia settings its says that chrome (youtube) is played back by the integrated intel card which is default.

So not sure what driver i am missing here? Any ideas?

Thanks for your help.

 

Sounds like its playing back videos on the integrated card... but even then it should be fluid. The HD3000 should have no problem playing HD video. Have you updated all the drivers and windows updates after the install? If not, than do so, you may have an old driver conflicting. You may also have a tun of leftover files stuck in cache after the install. That has the potential to slow you down. Run disk cleanup and the disk defrag.

 

thanks for the help. i also have randmon freezes that last for about 20 sec and then the system continous or crashes. the last time i got it it said CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT on the blue screen.

im am starting to think that i might not have all the right drivers for the chipset or something.

in device manager everything looks good. no unknown devices. so i dont even know where to begin now. i have an ssd card in the laptop. should i still do a defrag? i will do a cleanup thoug.
thx.

 

Cool thing about Win 8 is it detects ssd, does not defrag it, it optimizes ssd instead when you run the defrag program. I don't think thats your problem though. Try turning off the HD3000 graphics in the Nvidia control panel by selecting preferred graphics card to Nvidia one only, and see if you still have problems. If no more problems occur then your problem was the HD3000.

 

Specs ? Bios, graphics,drivers... Try here http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/719518-m17x-r3-win-8-fresh-install-new-ssd.html

Latest INF Update Utility, unzip>run setup.exe or http://downloadcenter.intel.com/con...g&Dwnldid=20775&ProductID=816&keyword=chipset

j95 Thank you for posting! Your post will not be visible until a moderator has approved it for posting ?

Third time, what's going on ?

Double post due to 'approval '

 

thanks for your help.

i've run the setup.exe you linked and installed it. also, i installed the modified bios and tried setting the bios from RAID to AHCI (thats what you were referring to, right?). the computer wouldn't start up anymore. so i guess my SSD is not plugged in the middle bay?

will open up the laptop and have a look and report back.

also tried running starcraft2 and vlc at the same time... vlc would slow down so that only every 20th frame or so is shown. so no improvement there. i haven't experienced any freezes anymore though.

regarding my specs. i know there is a program that just dumps all of the system spec into a text file. is that what you need? what is that program called?

otherwise: m17x r3, i7-2760QM 2,4 GHz, Nvidia 580m, 8 gig ram, 128 gb SSD, A12 BIOS, windows update intel 3000 integrated drivers, nvidia 320.18, win8 pro,

oh and for some reason i can't force vlc to use the nvidia graphics card. nvidia control center won't allow to change it.

i am not sure its a good idea anyways. i am pretty sure that under win7 it was always running on the intel card. and i doubt i would ge the 190 fps that i am used to in sc2 if the video and the game run on the same graphics card.

hmm my prior post got deleted it looks like. ..Your post will not be visible until a moderator has approved it for posting ?
posting again later

here is my spec:

alienware m17x r3, i7 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2760QM CPU @ 2.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.4GHz,
8 gb ram, 128 crucial m4 ssd, win pro8

here more detailed:

dx diag: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bzv_gKPnH5-kRWQyMVF2ODNENU0/edit?usp=sharing

msinfo: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bzv_gKPnH5-kUzhIUWs5WnZ1amc/edit?usp=sharing

i've installed the exe file you pointed too and tried switching the bios from raid to AHCI. this didn't work windows didn't start up anymore. i think my ssd might not be plugged in the right bay if i understand correctly. so gonna open up the machine later and swtich bays if possible. will report back.
thanks for your help.

 

First enter the Bios (F2) and set RAID mode back>F10, now windows will start up normally.

#12 http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...in-8-fresh-install-new-ssd-2.html#post9213367

1- Uninstall Intel RST, dont reboot.

2- Select Change to ACHI mode from RAID mode How to: Change SATA Modes After Windows 7 Installation reboot> (F2) enter the bios and set AHCI mode>F10.

 

hi j95,

i've moved the ssd to the middle bay. i've uninstalled intel rst then went into regedit and edited most of those values. one of them weren't there. the rest was already on the settings they need to be.

after setting bios to achi the system wouldn't come up. gives me blue screen.

also here is a crystal disk dump:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bzv_gKPnH5-kdThFR3RGOU5peDA/edit?usp=sharing

my question at this point is: do i need to reinstll windows freshly with bios set to achi set to from the beginning? would win8 then automatically recognize the setting?

thanks for your help.
v

 

Yeah, better reinstall windows... Transfer Mode : SATA/600 :thumbsup:

1- Enter the Bios, set AHCI mode.

2- Install windows> select custom Install (Advanced)>Drive Options (advanced)>>Delete all partitions SSD Drive 1 (including system reserved 350MB) until it is only unallocated space>Select Drive 1 unallocated space (SSD)>Next.

3- Follow these instructions "System Setup after Installation" Sean's Windows 8 Install & Optimization Guide for SSDs & HDDs Shrink System Protection 1% 1.19GB and don't Turn Off page file.

4- Shrink Page file>Windows Key + Pause|Break Key>Advanced system settings>under Performance click Settings>Advanced>Virtual memory click Change>uncheck "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives">Select the C: drive>check custom size> initial / Maximum size set both to 2048MB>click set>apply>reboot when prompted.

5- http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...e-m17xr3-windows-8-clean-install-drivers.html added

 

thanks j!

i'm gonna get on that in the evening. could you shed some light how the ssd disk interface relates to my graphics adapter problem. because the freezes have stopped as far as i can tell. now the only thing that is missing is being able to play starcraft while watching a youtube video at the same time. sc2 on dedicated gpu and youtube on integrated. how does it relate to the ssd?

 

Please read here for more information:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sit...ments/716582-delayed-posting.html#post9171956

 

so i have installed a fresh copy of win8 and now the system is running on ACHI.

I also did the ssd optimizations you pointed me to.

unfortunately i still get the slow video when running starcraft and any type of video at the same time.
also i have now one unknown device again in the device manager.

do you have any further advice what todo?

i've found a work around. if i set starcraft 2 to windowed mode (even in fullscreen) video play back is fluid... so the question that remains is

why slows video play back down when sc2 is in fullscreen mode... which i would prefer actually (has different gamma settings possible)

ok so framrates have considerably dropped with the windowed mode. i went from 200 fps in fullscreen to 120 in windowed. if there is a lot going on the screen its starting to slow down a little bit now fps drops to 60 or so...

could it be that windows8 is slower than windows7 for my configuration?

 

No, it shouldn't be. I think thats just windowed mode. You GPU and CPU render everything behind the window, and everything uses more power because it thinks stuff is active that shouldn't be.

As for your video playback problem... have you tried playing back the video on your laptop, and SC2 on the monitor to see if the connection to the monitor may be the problem? If you can run the same video's fluently while SC2 is choppy then it may just be the monitor or the connection.

Edit: I also noticed online that not all monitors claim to be Windows 8 compatible.

 

actually that was the configuration i had running. the external monitor is the main window and it was running sc2. on the laptop i had the video running.
but just to rule it out i now also tried the other way around. same effect. video slows down as soon as sc2 runs fullscreen.

the monitor is also win8 compatible RL2450H - LCD Monitors - Products | BenQ Global

any other suggestions?

 

You can try to do a complete driver refresh by deleting all HD3000 drivers and Nvidia drivers. Use a third party app to scrub drivers if you can to delete left over stuff in the registry. Then Install the newest drivers from Intel and Nvidia's websites.

You can always try to revert back to Windows 7 (Windows 8 is supposed to be slightly faster for current multi threaded games though), or wait for 8.1's (Windows Blue. its supposed to be pretty major) release later this year and see if it fixes things

 

- Under programs and features uninstall nvidia drivers v. 320.18, it's broken http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/718600-new-geforce-drivers-issue-blank-screen-8.html Install NVIDIA DRIVERS 314.22WHQL

- If problem persists open NV control panel>Manage 3D settings>Global settings>power management settings>set High performance>Program settings> add firefox.exe / chrome.exe set both to adaptive power management mode that's where intel card should kick in, open firefox options>advanced> uncheck "use hardware acceleration" if still no go set both to High performance.

- Last option. Unlocked Bios>Video configurations>Disable IGP (HD3000)>set display to PEG>F10.


Edit: Post #21 onwards http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...in-8-fresh-install-new-ssd-3.html#post9214214

 

ive installed 314.22 and set the settings like you said. i even tried turning off the igp hd3000 via the unlocked bios... but still whenever i run sc2 in fullscreen any video will slow down. thanks for your help anyways maybe one day an updated driver will take care of this?

 

@valtronic after researching Win 8 SSD optimizations, Superfetch service should be enabled (open services and set automatic start) runs Prefetcher function which improves Windows boot time.

regedit>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM>CurrentControlSet>Control>Session Manager>Memory Management>PrefetchParameters> EnablePrefetcher>Modify value to 3>reboot.

Even NBR got filtered, working well.

 

thanks j. i will reset it!
thanks for your help once more!

 

i don't know what it was but for some reason since yesterday i can have sc2 in fullscreen and a video running at the same time. the fps are still lower than on win7 but its ok.... i have no idea what it was. even though now if i play a flash video it sometimes flickers.... but only on the laptops screen.

i also went back to the newest nvidia driver because (i had the flickering on the v 314 too... and it didn't do anything for my actual problem and i had not other problems on the newer driver. then i was on the new driver again for a few days and mostly played on windowed mode. so it could've been the reinstalling of the newer driver....