Weird behaviours

Hi There,

I already searched this forum for possible resolutions of the problems i am having (again).....

After a swap of my old m1730 into a m17x R2 i received problem after problem.

Right now (after a second swap) I am sitting with the next configuration:

M17x R2, I7-840QM, 4GB 1333Mhz memory, 500GB 7200RPM HDD, crossfire Ati 5870.

Somehow it looks like 1 graphic card is not doing his job and is giving problems, or I am doing something wrong perhaps. To me the performance of the system looks not as it should be, I did some benchmarks and ending with weird (low) numbers to me.

With 3dmark 2006 i am reaching barely 14k points (default settings), strange to me since other people are reaching 18 to 20k points with the same setup as above.

I just looked a litle further with GPU-Z and figured at full load 1 gpu is staying around 36 degrees, the other one is flying up to 80 degrees. Is it possible 1 card is not acting properly?

I am using the 10.11 AMD drivers since Dell was advising those when they repaired the system last time to resolve the blue screens i was receicing(new mainboard, gpu's, cpu's).

Further at idle 1 gpu is showing me 47 degrees (startup windows) the other one shows 36 degrees, is this normal in crossfire configuration?

Hopefully someone can point me the right way to get a (proper) working system....

I am slowly getting annoyed of the mature problems i am having with the m1730/m17x system..

Forgot to mention, when trying to monitor the cpu temperature with Speedfan, the system hangs itself up 50% of the times. I have to poweroff/poweron the system to get it operational again.

Regrads,
Dennis

 

You might try reading this before you get to deep..
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/536733-crossfire-not-working.html

 

Thanks for the information, readed the post and did some checking last night already.

Did also reinstall the drivers with throwing away those in device manager.

Somehow crossfire looks operational again, also in a benchmark the FPS is moved up, temperature is going up on both cards but still having about 10 degrees difference. Is this normal?

How about the 3dmark score? I am unable to start 3dmark vantage (keeps hanging initializing GUI. Trying to fix that at the moment to see if i get proper scores there.

Thanks

 

I would check in CCC that you have powerplay enabled correctly...to maximise performance when plugged in.

Also, (althought with your scores thus far) check that stealth mode is deactivated/turned off. Simply by using the touch sensitive control that looks like a speedometer, it will bring up an window asking if you want to activate....keep doing this until you get a pop up from the taskbar from OSD stating that full power mode is being used....then your not in stealth.

As far as the scores you listed above....18-20k.....these will be on OC'd systems and not stock scores. If you look at my system below in my signature, its very similar to yours....i very much doubt that anyone with a system similar to "ours" would be pulling down those scores without any overclock of cpu or gpu.....20k is more so the kind of result expected from a stock system with an extreme cpu and crossfire 5870's....not our 840qm's unfortunatley....as 3dmark06 is very cpu intensive, the results are dependant greatly on cpu power and this is where the XM chips blow the rest of us out of the water with scores approaching 20k on stock.....even more with Overclock and Throttlestop.

My stock 3dmark 06 runs are 16300-16500......you should be aiming to get something similar i would say (standard settings applied)
If you get vantage working, my scores are constantly 14000p using standard settings.

Regarding temps, you may want to try Hwinfo32 - it monitors cpu and gpu in one window and seems to provide very accurate recordings.....there is generally a difference between the two card temperatures....the primary is always a few degrees more than the slave gpu in my experience....mine tends to be around 4-5c behind the primary....during idle and under load.

 

Checked, powerplay enabled, max. performance, stealth mode not activated (not displayed).

Downloading hwinfo32 now and see what it gives me.

 

There I am again, I did some tweaks left and right and launched 3dmark once again.

At this point (after enabling turbo mode) in the bios, not sure if this is advisable .... I just reached 12870 points. Still way too low with above mentioned information.

Scores are:
SM2.0: 4816
HDR/SM3.0: 6640
CPU: 3271

Further the last days I am having BSODS, after looking in the eventvwr i noticed errors 136 and 137 (NTFS).

On the internet no one is able to tell me exactly what might be wrong, but i start to get the feeling that this looks to be a harddrive :O Anyone with the same behaviours or any clue to get the 3dmark score at a higher level?

Regards,
Dennis

 

3d mark 06? That bench is very CPU intensive and a score of that is completely normal unless you upgrade the CPU.

 

If Stevie is mentioning that he is pushing about 16k points with the same configuration (except HDD) then i would say i would be able to push around 16k aswell...

 

I would think so too.....my '06 scores are consantly in the region of 16300-16500....sometimes they go as low as 16100 but it varies due to background processes that the cpu is running i guess.....

We have the same gpu/cpu set up......ok, i have slightly more memory but i dont think that is a huge factor.....the HDD test in 06 (deep freeze) would probably be about the same as both our HDD's are at 7200rpm so read rates should be similar...im not sure if two 500gb HDD's in RAID is gonna be any faster at reading....maybe, but not enough to warrant the scores you are getting.

Honestly, dont know why your scores arent similar....

One thing you COULD try maybe, is uninstalling 3dmark 06 and reinstalling it.....may help?

PS....are you sure its 3dmark06 and NOT pcmark06?......seen guys confuse these two bench tools before and not been able to understand differences in the scores....just a thought.

 

Hi Stevie

Thanks for replying again. I am afraid i got a broken system once more... not sure what exactly is broken but once more i called with dell today mentioning the problems i am having (again ....) getting a little tired of the hours of telephone conversations i made so far to get a working system.

Problems I am still having:
- Low performance (3dmark 06 score) difference of 4/5k points compared to about the same configuration.

- A bunch of BSODS every now and then (0x0000000093) dell is mentioning this is a OS issue but i just installed the os again especialy for Dell.

- GPU temp. difference of about 10 degrees difference (not the biggest problem, but weird in my eyes).

- Every 10 seconds 2 events in the event vieuwer (error 136/137) accoding to microsoft that are RAID errors, but I don't run any raid setup. My guess would be a hdd or SATA controller on the mainboard that is screweing around.

Im not sure about the last thing but it definatly does not look any good if i seen the history so far with the machine .... Too much problems for the money you are paying for such a system.

Dell is escalating the case once more and I should be called back tomorrow with the answer about that escalation, hopefully they will initiate a swap once more so I can try it for a final time......

I will cease any further investigations/analysing for now, thanks for the help anyway, in case dell isn't swapping i will take a further look.

Edit: 1 minute after pushinng the post button m17x did it again .... another BSOD 0x093 (0x01484). I keep getting less faith in this machine ....

Regards,
Dennis

 

Hi Dennis,

Sorry to hear of your ongoing problems - trust me, i know how you feel...I have had 5 systems in 5 months...each with their own set of issues....finally , after dealing with escalations, i now have a fully functional "normal" system.....

So, although you may have problems now with this system, the escalations team are pretty good at resolving them....i know it shouldnt be like this but at the end o the day, they are specialised systems and sometimes things go wrong...

Wish you the best of luck (not that you will need it from my own experience of dealing with corporate Dell escalations team) and i am sure that you will get things sorted....sooner rather than later!

Let us know how you get on either way eh?

Regards
Steve.

 

Hehe I will Stevie,

This afternoon i received a call from dell, once more a swap will be booked, broken system will be picked up around the 6th of January. In normal case a new system should arrive in 3 weeks.

This will be the 3th system + a lost system (fault of dell...).

Hopefully all the problems will now finaly be solved. Would it be advisible to take a look at possible other hardware? I mean instead of ati cards nvidea cards or another harddrive or something?

I noticed there are 2 difference 500GB harddrives with the same price (the one i own would be a WD 500gb 7200 rpm but has only 16mb cache, they also offer the 500GB Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive for the same price (even 30 euros cheaper) for what i found on the internet this is a 32MB cache drive.

Perhaps this is a weird question, but what should you advice if i get the posibility?

I already noticed when staying friendly alot is possible

Regards.
Dennis

 

Hiya Dennis.

Glad to hear your gonna get a swap....thats good i guess given the circumstances eh?

Rgearding hardware or the possibility of changing, im not so sure Dell will LET you re-configure any specs (from my experience, they only have to give you like for like) BUT, if you want to try them for it, i guess it wont hurt...see what they say eh? - personally, for the FOUR systems i had to return prior to getting this 5th one, I was compensated for the trouble in form of a cpu upgrade, ram upgrade and warranty upgrade.....i stayed polite throughout all my troubles and it paid to do so in the end.

I know that ATI 5870's have had teething probs but once they are sorted (which in the majority of instances, they are) they work really well. Nvidia cards such as the 285's arent as glitchy so ive heard but in terms of performance and futureproofing, the 5870 would be the better choice to stick with , i feel. Have a look here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...tx-285m-vs-ati-mobility-radeon-hd-5870-a.html as some info on the two....also if you google "5870 vs 285m", there are other articles to compare...I would be tempted to stick with 5870's presonally.

Hard drives? ... hmmm....the momentus is a hybrid drive, cross between SSD and mechanicla drive...no where near as fast as a true SSD but faster than a normal HDD....i dont know how they review, wether people who havew the XT are happy...ive heard different opinions, some good and some bad.

The XT "should" be faster at loading your OS than a standard drive, so if its a bit of speed your after, I dont see this being a bad option...something i would look at for sure....at the end of the day, you can always swap out a HDD after and upgrade...

I would maybe be looking at any other areas that you can improve on....do you have a 1920x1200 rgbled screen? - if not, this is a must.

Possible ram upgrade? do you have 8gb already? (although aftermarket RAM is cheaper than getting Dell to put it in for you)

Other than those, maybe you could negotiate a cpu upgrade at no extra cost because of all your troubles....I would pursue this avenue if it wont cost you more and assuming you dont already have a 940xm....if you can get one of those for your troubles, you would be home free....and laughing!

But , you do have the right approach....stay friendly, accomodating and the world could be your oyster....working WITH them instead of demands and shouting goes a great way to getting what you REALLY want......

 

Hehe, I already have received a dubble machine if you would ask me.

Moved from a m1730 with 2x 8700 into a m17x with 2x 4870 and 250gb hdd and a 620/640 (not exactly sure what was offered) CPU, at the start, been swapped into a m17x 2x 5870 and 500gb hdd, into a I7 720 (the system been lost), and swapped over to the 840qm i own right now, also received a blueray dvd instead of a dvd combo as a present

The screen always was the 1900x1200 version so they could not change anything there, also with warrenty i received a speciel threadment, the m1730 was about 2 years when it was beeing swapped, dell decided to start over with warrenty, since no 3 year full wrrenty existed anymore they choice for the 3 years full warrenty+accidentital warrenty.

With all this i may not cry, guess this is not always how dell is negotiating with someone.

At the moment of swapping they could not change the memory, still sitting at 2x 2gb (little low for the machine) but that's not really the price to upgrade this myself, this because they already offered the many upgrades mentioned above.

The only thing they tried was to change the 2x 5870 into 1x 5870 and giving me the 920 cpu, after reading on internet i decided to go with the 2x 5870 instead and leave it with a 840qm.

Anyway, since the price regarding the hdd is even i don't think it will be a big deal to swap that over, for the performance i would get back it might be usefull to go ahead with that. Regarding the cpu? I peronaly doubt they will change that hehe

Anyway I will see what they can and want to do when they call me the upcomming week, this also since I already warned them this would happen since the engineer already said he was not confident with the mainboard swap 1.5 week ago.

Will keep you updated and let ou know what i would receive, also when i get the system i will run a 3dmark test right away to see if it matches your 16k score

Thanks for the advice anyway.
Cheers
Dennis

 

Seems like you setup is already pretty sweet and maxed out in alot of areas....you have done well i guess, to get what you have in terms of spec....as they have already upped your cpu, i very much doubt that will happen again (mores the pity!)

Basically, I would be happy with ANY small upgrade that you can get as all the big ones are already done it seems....

Anyway, hope the system that you get next works as it should....keep us posted with how you get on, what you end up with and what kinda scores the next system has!

Best of luck mate!

 

Dell is looking to be Santa Claus

I did not ask to swap the CPU (looked to be a too arrogant question to me) Asked for a hdd and memory upgrade instead, guess what

500gb 7200 rpm HDD will be swapped with the 500GB Hybrid one
Memory will be upgraded from 4GB into 6GB 1333mhz.
Warranty stars over (again) 3 new years full+accidentital warrenty

Awaiting final confirmation that the laptop will be booked.

So far looking good Does Dell like or want to keep me as customer?

 

Thats good news eh!!!! - even tho it aint 8gb, it does make it cheaper to go to 8gb in future as you only have to buy one 4gb stick instead of 2! - thats great news

Hybrid drive also good....will give you a bit more speed and not a bad size too at 500gb

Always good to have as much warranty as poss....

Youve done really well on this one Dennis....Dell must LOVE you

 

1 Issue remains...

Dell is gonna pickup my system at 6-1-2011. It's unclear if the new one is delived in time Depends on parts.

This date is inrevisible .....

After all dell might love me, not sure if i love dell aswell

 

Normally they delievery the new unit before they take the order unit.

 

To me this is what they did normaly but at the moment dell informed me the pickup date could not be changed unless i would cancel the order... ...

Anyway, dell also informed me the new laptop should arrive on time before the 6th..

Hopefully this will happen else i might have a problem again.

 

Guess what System arrived this afternoon.

Benchmark runned with the next outcome.

3DMark Score15931.0 3DMarks
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SM2.0 Score6126.0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HDR/SM3.0 Score8580.0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CPU Score3630.0

This is right out of the box configuration. Will be updating GPU drivers later on and see if i can increase it a little bit, atleast this is much better then the 12k points I received earlier with my old system.

So far so good