[*Unresolved* Issue] Alienware M18x: GTX 580M SLI DPC Latency Problems

I think All you mentioned.

 

Thankfully, when listening to music the audio artifacts are not as prevalent as when editing.

Unfortunately, I think the people telling you that have no earthly idea what they're talking about. I'll only believe the technical explanations I hear from Dell/Alienware experts in Level 3 and Engineers like Louis Bruno. The rest are just talking heads. This sounds more like a list of maybe/what if scenarios than something based on facts. Fact is, I don't have killer-n 1103 wireless card and my DPC latency is exactly the same with Intel Ultimate-N. I physically remove the driver and hardware and it has no effect on DPC latency. While numerous devices and drivers can contribute to DPC latency, only one thing ( NVIDIA driver) seems to be causing DPC latency on my M18x. Switch to IGP and the problem is gone, right? Not rocket science, LOL.

 

I've been doing a little tweaking in my spare time, which has been pretty hard to come by with the long hours I have been working. I am convinced the root issue with DPC latency is the way Windows Vista and Windows 7 handles audio in kernel mode, which sometimes does not play nice with device drivers.

Disabling NVIDIA PowerMizer stops DPC latency. The trouble is, I still have not found a way to effectively disable PowerMizer on both cards in an SLI system. Having the cards run in P0 mode all the time would effectively overcome this. My cards never run hot and I have no objection to being without an "ecomony mode" because I don't give a rat's tail about energy conservation, especially when it comes to computers. (I can always switch to IGP and run Intel HD Graphics in the rare times that battery life becomes important.)

I tried using NVIDIA Inspector to change the speeds in P8 and P12 to match P0 (same concept as the "Fox Fix" for throttling) but that causes Windows to freeze. I may play with that more as time permits.

Although I have not found a way to completely disable PowerMizer in an SLI setup, I have done some tweaking to the NVIDIA driver using Inspector that seems to help in my testing. Using PowerMizer Manager disables the "feature" on GPU0 and the driver tweaks help keep GPU1 from going into a power saving state as quickly. I have exported the tweaked driver settings to an Inspector profile that others can test. While this tweak does not cure the problem, it reduces DPC latency and it helps us to point blame squarely at Microsoft and NVIDIA. Other than being an advocate for their customers and bugging NVIDIA on our behalf behind the scenes, I think we can expect nothing from Dell on this as it's not their fault.

I'm still looking for a way to defeat NVIDIA PowerMizer completely with an SLI setup. If I figure that out I will post the method so we can enjoy not having DPC latency issues while waiting for NVIDIA to fix their drivers. It may be a long wait. They (NVIDIA) are pretending not to hear their customers. It reminds me a lot of their past behavior... deny the problem exists and hope it eventually goes away. As they say, "Leopards never change their spots." In this case, "skunks don't change their stripes" seems more fitting.

 

Thanks for the hard work Mr.Fox. We all appreciate your efforts!

 

You're welcome, bro.

Do our brothers with an R3 and single GTX 580M have DPC latency issues? (I read a post where you were going to ask around.) If so, disabling PowerMizer should solve it for them. Here's an interesting thread on the subject: LINK.

 

Yup...thank you. I really hope someone at Dell can let us know what's going on. I do soooooo much more than just gaming, this latecy problem causes me to fall back on my desktop when I shouldn't have to. I really can't understand how this continues to go on unchanged month after month after month after month..............................

I really think this fix is simple. Dell's old driver doesn't suffer from latency. Why can't that driver be reverse engineered to ascertain a fix?

 

I think you're right about that. I wish I had the knowledge to know how to do that, and it would already be done by now. It's probably simple, but I don't have the time to learn how.

We probably will not be getting any status updates on this issue. It would be unwise for Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, NVIDIA (et al) or Microsoft to make any public comments about DPC latency. Unless NVIDIA will step up to the plate and do the right thing, I think we're on our own this time. (I think Dell, HP and other OEMs will be quietly hammering on NVIDIA, but seriously doubt there will be any public commentary. This probably explains moderator ManuelG's silence at NVIDIA forums.) This affects a huge number of systems from a variety of OEM/ODM. Microsoft could fix it for everyone by changing the way Windows handles threaded DPCs in user mode. They are probably reluctant to do so because synchronous DPC routines help keep Windows Vista and Windows 7 more stable and minimizes the BSOD issues we saw so frequently in WindowsXP and earlier OS versions.

"Dell's old driver" is a standard NVIDIA driver, not a Dell customized driver, so it should be something NVIDIA can fix. What we don't know is whether or not whatever fixes it will break the advantage NVIDIA offers over AMD products as far as gaming is concerned. Perhaps they had to remove or tweak something that prevents DPC latency to get the results customers demand with gaming performance. I don't know.

As far as falling back on your desktop, I agree you should not have to. What about switching into the IGP instead of using the desktop PC?

All the tree-hugger go green garbage technology (NVIDIA PowerMizer and AMD PowerPlay) just causes problems. I wish they would toss out all of that junk and focus on performance. If I wanted a power-sipping piece of trash I would buy a netbook.

 

Actually I asked around in regards to the 3D prototype error, but nobody responded to that

However I did just create a thread in the m17x section of the site, I have a strong feeling R3 owners do not have DPC latency as I believe it is most likley tied to the fact that our systems are dual gpu setups, like the M17x r2 which was also plagued by DPC latency issues.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/646872-m17x-r3-dpc-latency-580m.html#post8325337

 

From my perspective, the sheer fact that Dell actually DO have a driver (even as outdated for gaming performance as it is, given Today's latest drivers) that WORKS with Dual gpu systems WITHOUT latency problems means that its not about hardware or dual carded systems, moreso the drivers......its obvioulsy proven that these dual gpu setups CAN run without latency issues WITHOUT resulting to hardware changes, meaning that it is not a hardware/dual gpu issue.

That's my take on it anyway, just my two pennies right now.....

Couldn't agree more......well said Bro! - just like I wouldnt expect to buy a high-end sports car only to have it limited to 50mph.....

 

Mr Fox my m18x still has DPC with integrated GPU on ??? liitle weird hey

 

Dan, I wonder then... if maybe M18x owners with Killer Wireless and GTX 580M SLI are getting a double-whammy of latency? I think I may have tested this before. Let me reboot into the Intel HD 3000 and see if my DPC latency disappears. I have Intel Ultimate-N 6300.

Edit: No DPC latency problem running on the HD 3000 IGP with Intel Ultimate-N 6300, as noted below.

 

yes Mr. fox NVidia suck.

 

I think the point he demonstrated was that the Killer Wireless Card might be causing some latency issues as well.

It's already been established that almost every modern nvidia driver has latency issues with our cards.

 

I respectfully disagree, unless we insert "and AMD" in the same statement. At least I am still functioning with the same set of video cards. In the same amount of time I have been running the GTX 580M SLI setup I had 3 AMD CrossFire failures. In every way except for the DPC latency, the NVIDIA cards are superior to the 6970M and 6990M setups that I had.

It makes me sad to say this because I was an AMD customer for many years and was very happy until they spawned the 69X0M series, and now I may never consider going back to AMD again. I don't think I have ever owned anything quite as unreliable as AMD 69X0M video cards. Maybe that was just a rash of bad luck for me, but it is pretty obvious that AMD has done an equally poor job on drivers as NVIDIA. They are just releasing bad drivers more frequently than NVIDIA, LOL.

 

The problem with that is: I use Badaboom and DVDfab which are both optimized for CUDA/SLI making short work of video conversion. I'm serious, the accuracy, speed and quality of these "Nvidia optimized programs" is second to none. Disabling SLI or using the iGPU defeats the purpose of a SLI w/CUDA setup, slowing down the process. For example: In DVDfab one GPU handles decoding and the other handles encoding with their CUDA cores. For video/audio conversion we are amongst the best as far as hardware goes. The problem is that after the conversion during playback the horror of DPC Latency becomes apparent. The 580M SLI M18x is NOT suitable for video/audio conversion or demuxing/remuxing.

As more people buy PMP's(Personal Media Player) w/o media player apps that allow the playing of files beyond M4v & MP4 like the PS Vita, the problem with the M18x's latency will become more apparent.

 

FYI - No problems with latency here running on iGFX with killer 1103 card.......ran the test for over 5mins with some music playing and a few tabs open....maybe its the version of killer driver that you are using Dan?

Spoiler

 

It's definitely an "Nvidia Problem" on our M18x's. Regardless of what is causing this problem, we need Dell's help. Our system says Dell. Nowhere on my M18x does it say Nvidia.
I trust Dell to fix this problem any day now in a timely manner. This in NOT the first Alienware Nvidia SLI system to suffer from DPC Latency. I think Dell is in a good position to demand a permanent fix immediately from Nvidia.

 

Unless you run the only decent driver NVIDIA has released in the past 12 months, right? (Which is the Dell recommended driver.) Then the M18x becomes totally awesome for audio/video editing, right? It just doesn't kick tail on the latest games with the old driver which Dell recommends and supports, right?

I'm intentionally being a little bit silly here because I think it is important to draw the distinction that drivers make or break computer hardware. There is absolutely nothing wrong with NVIDIA hardware. It is the lack of quality update-to-date drivers that is the problem if you're a gamer. If you're not a gamer, just an ordinary schmuck that uses his laptop for productivity apps and web browsing, then it really matters very little and the NVIDIA driver recommended by Dell is just fine. Those folks can use the NVIDIA driver recommended by Dell for the next 5 or 6 years and it would be OK. The M18x is a gaming laptop and most of us are gamers, so it matters immensely to us.

Eventually, I suspect NVIDIA will release a driver that doesn't have DPC latency. In the meanwhile, I suppose a person could partition a small piece of drive real estate and use it for dual-booting Windows 7 with the old driver to use that OS installation for audio/video editing.

AMD has proven that quantity is not as important as quality, and they're still pursuing the latter. Producing a plethora of crummy drivers in rapid succession is not really any better than not putting out WHQL certified drivers and calling everything a beta to avoid criticism.

 

I never really thought of it that way. Anything other than the OLD Dell driver breaks the functionality * of our M18x's. Dell needs to understand that in order to play the latest games(BF3 won't even run on the old driver), the OLD Dell driver is NOT suitable.

*Functionality: the quality or state of being functional; especially: the set of functions or capabilities associated with computer software or hardware or an electronic device.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/functionality

 

Thanks steviejones133 running latest Nvidia, KillerN drivers currently. When i install new motherboard,CPU heatsink, KillerN card i think i might do a reinstall again start fresh.

 

So someone replied to the thread I created in the m17x forum, no DPC latency on the R3's. Most likely an issue tied with SLI maybe? Just the fact that you have a two card setup? Also i don't have the killer N card and do exhibit DPC latency.

 

Your avatar is very cute, skygunner. I don't know why, but for some inexplicably weird reason it makes me feel happy.

 

Thanks. Mobious likes it too
Antonio and I share the same B-day.

 

you know very well that NV has this problem sinse the release of the m17xR1, and i remember that dell stop seling the m17xr1 with 28om because this problem. it is not fear that nv don't fixe this problem.

 

You're right, it is not the first time NVIDIA has had an issue with DPC latency. DPC latency is not a problem with Verde 269.03 drivers, so it has not been a continuous problem since the M17xR1. It's clearly a driver issue. And, this is the only problem I have experienced with GTX 580M SLI in the M18x. It was not that long ago Dell stopped selling the 6990M CrossFire setup for a while until they found a fix for the overheating and thermal shutdown problem. I'm glad that Dell/Alienware places an engineering hold on broken products. That's very good. Some of their competitors just keep on selling broken products.

The list of problems I have experienced with the AMD 69x0 video cards in the M18x is a long one. I'm not a fan of red or green, but I am a hater of problems, and that's all I ever had with the 69x0M cards. As the lesser of evils, I will choose DPC latency over 3 pairs of dead or malfunctioning video cards, BSOD problems, lack of brightness controls, poor gaming optimization, failure to resume from sleep properly, jumping through endless hoops to create a "clean driver installation" and an ongoing variety of driver errors and hardware malfunctions any day of the week. At least I'm only chasing a fix for one thing, LOL. Seems every time I turned around something else was broken or malfunctioning with the 69x0M series of display adapters. (Not to mention the poorly-performing AMD HD 6670 display adapter in a gaming desktop I built for one of my boys recently.) AMD has a lot of work ahead of them to win me back as a customer. I think I will sit back and watch to see what sort of unpleasant surprises are waiting for the early adopters of the new line of AMD video cards. If they turn out good and AMD starts producing consistently good drivers, then I'll consider becoming an AMD customer again. I'm not from Missouri, but they are going to have to "show me" big time.

 

you know that the 6990M was the king of hill before the overheating sabotage. ha-ha-ha-ha just kidding

 

I'd have to agree with Fox. Besides the DPC Latency Problem and 3D Prototype Overlay Error these 580M's are the cats meow. ....especially in game.

 

I java to agree with you to.

 

Regardless of Ivy/Kepler on the horizon, it is so lame that we are soooo close yet soooo far away from a properly working system.

 

I don't disagree, but the way many people use the M18x the DPC latency and 3D overlay issues may never be recognized. It is only those that want or need to do something where these two issues have the opportunity to surface that it becomes problematic. For those users it is totally lame and extremely frustrating. For the rest, ignorance is going to be bliss.

 

Like I said before, the PS Vita http://us.playstation.com/psvita/?CMP=VITAGOOGSEM official launches on Wednesday. A lot of people are going to be looking for ways to convert .avi, .mkv etc.... to MP4 for the PS Vita. I personally can think of 5 M18x 580M SLI owner's that are going to run into DPC Latency on the M18x. It may take people a while to pinpoint the cause of video/audio artifacts during playback after a conversion. Through Google this thread is VERY easy to find. I know there's a problem, you know there's a problem, Dell knows there's a problem. It just makes sense to fix this for current and future owners in a timely manner.

 

Totally agree, No matter what we say or do I think we losing the battle against nv.

 

I agree with this comment, but the entity that knows there is a problem and needs to take steps to correct it is NVIDIA. This affects more than M18x owners. Actions speak louder than words. We will have wait and see if they (NVIDIA) care enough to do something about it. Until NVIDIA decides to do something about it, using NVIDIA's old 269.03 driver is the only option for those that plan to do that stuff. That option sucks if you need newer drivers for good gaming results.

 

...or want to play BF3. You can not run BF3 on 269.03. It's really sad too. BF3 is one of today's best game/demo/benchmark on the market.

 

Yup, that's a good example of what I was referring to. The Verde 269.03 driver is no good for a number of the current game releases. BF3 is an extreme example of just how crappy things can get trying to use that old driver for gaming.

 

After I get something to eat, I'm going to make my bi-weekly call to Dell regarding DPC Latency & 3D Prototype Overlay. There goes 3 hours of my life that I can never recover.

 

Would you call the Ford dealer about a problem with your Goodyear tires? (I'm just being silly here, bro. Could use a good laugh on a heavy thread like this one.)

Too bad we don't have a phone number for NVIDIA. That's where the most heat belongs. Dell is not going to write new drivers for NVIDIA or AMD products. The best we can hope for is that Dell (and other OEMs, like HP and Asus) will use their influence to persuade NVIDIA to fix it.

Maybe if a horde of NBR members start assaulting the NVIDIA forums they'll pay more attention. Only a few members of our forum ever posted there and we basically got ignored. We can rest assured that not posting on the NVIDIA forums will guarantee that the resolution will seem less important than it really is.

Official BETA NVIDIA 295.51 Display Driver Feedback Thread For NVIDIA Geforce Desktop/Notebook/ION GPUs Released 1/31/12

 

Do anybody know if the clevo or sager laptop has this DPC latency problem?

 

The best we can do is repeatedely explain the problem and ask Dell for a solution. 1-800-ALIENWARE. Which is what I am currently doing. If my brand new Ford car that came with Goodyear tires has a problem with the tires, I'm contacting Ford

I haven't seen this problem in the Clevo or Sager threads. I suspect it has something to do with the M18x's lack of info(M18x Hardware ID) embedded in the referrence driver that is suppose to configure the driver to not include latency. I would like to know why the old driver is void of this problem. My ALX with 580 SLI and Mobiousblack's 580 SLI PC don't have latency problems.

 

No, but I have seen posts in NVIDIA forums about Asus, Acer and HP owners that have the issue with a single NVIDIA GPU. There are probably a lot of people (possibly some with Clevo machines) with a variety of laptops brands that have DPC latency and don't know they do. It is only apparent when you look for it, and only shows symptoms when you are doing something that DPC latency causes problems with. I would be oblivious to the problem based solely on my use patterns. I know it is there because I can measure it and because it is causing problems for some of my friends.

For guys like skygunner, it's a serious issue because it prevents him from doing what he wants to do with his M18x.

Well, I don't know if that is completely accurate. I think you might be on the right track, but the driver INF files do already have the correct information (see screenshot in thumbnail). I wish I understood this better so I could just fix it instead of waiting for the folks at NVIDIA to pull their heads out.

You cannot really compare desktop with laptop or compare one brand to another because DPC latency can be triggered in the way drivers for different pieces of hardware interact with one another. The 580 and 580M are not the same hardware, they just share a similar name. I am leaning toward the fact that the M18x has switchable graphics, and possibly making that more complicated by SLI. I think some of the other brands of laptops that have DPC latency issues also have switchable graphics.

I also think that perhaps power saving features built into the cards are behaving too aggressively to act right in an SLI setup. It is also possible that something with Insyde BIOS for the M18x is not playing nice in power saving modes. I think it is important to note that DPC latency issues completely vanish when the GPU clocks come out of a low power state. In fact, I think that is key and doing something to tweak that at the driver level is going to be our ticket to success.

I'm sure there are other people that can remember having fits with AMD PowerPlay. It did not cause DPC latency, but I had numerous problems with AMD cards when they dropped down into a low power state to conserve energy. They just didn't behave properly at ultra-low power states. I think that may be what we are seeing going on here, and it's something a driver tweak can fix.

This is going to be trial and error for me, but I may try using a hex editor or something to examine differences between system files in the 269.03 driver package and the current driver. It may be like looking for a needle in a haystack since I don't know what I am doing, LOL. I would also like to know why the NVIDIA 269.03 driver is void of the problem because that could prove to be helpful in figuring out how and why NVIDIA broke their drivers after that release.

 

Fair enough. Good point.

 

So, did anyone try my tweak yet? If so, did it work for you, too? This is baby steps, I know. But hopefully, at least some sign of progress.

 

I havent tried it personally just yet, Bro...... BUT...I did find this old thread and this thread too and wondered if they may be of use as it seems to disable Powermizer using reg hacks.....Fox - I am not sure if this is how you disabled Powermizer but it may work better disabled at registry level if you didnt do it that way....(which you probably did anyway, right?)

The second linked thread seemed to rectify audio problems that were being experienced....much like we are experiencing

I had a look for the reg entry "PerfLevelSrc" but couldnt find it on my system ???

(I'm too much of a chicken to mess with things right now as apart from the latency problem, my system is really sweet and I would HATE to muck it up !)

 

OK. Get ready guys... I think I have a workable solution... I'm gathering my documentation to post and will be back in a few minutes.

That old version of PowerMizer does not work. When I was testing I used NVidia PowerMizer Manager and it was a better app, just doesn't work on both cards in SLI.

I did use registry hacks and that also does not work on both cards in SLI, just GPU0 for some reason. You will not find "PerfLevelSrc" because it has to be added.

The new tweak I am about to post requires no registry hacking. In fact, it's ultra simple and only temporary. Reboot and your system is back to normal. Stay tuned for more...

 

Excellent, looking forward to it brother fox!

 

OK, I think I have a fix that will get us by until NVIDIA steps up to the plate. I borrowed a concept that was dubbed the "Fox Fix" for curing throttling symptoms on the GTX 580M SLI setup and applied it here. (I am referring to the Alienware M18x GTX 580M SLI Throttle Fix - No vBIOS Flashing Required thread.)

Before we get started, be sure that drive indexing (aka "Windows Search") is disabled. This will give false DPC latency readings and cause spikes if drive indexing is happening in the background. This is just another useless Windows service and you don't need it.

Spoiler

Remember how we made P1 equal to P0 to eliminate the evidence of throttling? Well, we're going to do the same thing here except we are going to make P8 and P12 equal and set the clock, memory and shaders at 200/400/400, respectively.

To simplify matters, if you have already set things up to use the "Fox Fix" for throttling, all you need to do is add the following code to your batch file:

Remember to modify the path to NVIDIA Inspector if yours is not "D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe" like mine.

Your batch file should look like this:

Spoiler

Now, whenever you need to eliminate DPC latency for something like audio/video editing, or if your music playback is being screwed up by clicks and pops, simply launch the batch file.

It worked for me... Please test and let me know how it goes for some of you.

3 minutes...

5 minutes...

6 minutes...


My batch file is attached below for anyone that wants to use it.

 

Thanks Fox tried your fix but something else is causing mine? as it happens on Intergrated too? will try all original dell drivers tonight

 

Wow, that's crazy DPC latency. Even without the fix, mine wasn't anywhere near that bad. I suspect it could be your Killer Wireless. Have you already changed that driver as someone suggested earlier? The one on Dell's support page I believe to be problematic. Thanks for testing it. Hopefully, a few more folks will give it a try. I let LatencyMon run in the background for like 10 minutes and never once got a spike with P8/P12 set for 200/400/400 on both GPUs.

 

Yup running latest driver from Killer site. I can hear the latency and it drives me mad lol and even using a external DAC its worse.

 

Hmm. I would try uninstalling the Killer drivers completely, then go to the hardware in Device Manager, browse to the folder the driver package extracted to and manually select the driver files. That should kill all the extra software garbage and give you a nice, clean, driver-only installation. You can use the built-in Windows app to select a wireless network. Maybe that would help. At the very least, uninstall it completely and test for latency to see if Killer Wireless is "killing" your M18x with DPC latency.