*Official Alienware M18x AMD CrossFire Discussion Thread (re: Dell/AW Conference Call)*

Agree... that's why I added that guide as Update #3 to the opening post. Even for those of us that have been here a while it can be tough to find things we read days or weeks ago. For the newer members of the Community, it could be overwhelming trying to figure out where to start. And, for a person merely stumbling onto this information using a Google Search looking for help... well, good luck, LOL.

Even using BatBoy's most excellent tip to Google using site:forum.notebookreview.com followed by key words produces tons upon tons of hits that have to be sifted through for actionable information.

 

Thanks a lot Mr. Fox!

You have to set the fix every time you want to use it, but we all knew that long ago. Since i use intel when im not gaming it wont be an issue. BTW Jesus fails no one, but there are people who fail to see him...

 

You're welcome.

I must remind all of us (including myself) of forum rules at this point and ask that we stay on topic. This is a technology forum.

 

"exactly why i waited a few post before saying anything about that"
lol

 

Where to begin....

I'll start with hello since I'm new to these forums. I've been following this thread with great interest ever since I found it and have read every post. I don't seem to have it quite as bad as others but...let me start from the beginning....I apologize as this will be a long post so please bear with me.

I first ordered my M18x near the beginning of June. At the time Nvidia cards weren't even an option, nor were the 6990's so I have dual 6970's. I've never used ATI cards as I've always heard bad things about their drivers but I figured I'd give it a shot. My order was delayed 2 weeks into the processing because the Creative sound card that I originally ordered it with was suddenly no longer available for some reason, so I had to settle for the internal IDT Audio. That's the 2nd biggest disappointment about my M18x. The sound volume is acceptable through the speakers if I have the volume cranked but with headphones (Alienware TactX) it doesn't go loud enough imo.

I digress...
The delay was a problem because I work on a rotational basis in Saudi Arabia. Since I ordered it from Dell.ca a week or more before I even left Saudi to go back home I thought that would be plenty of time. Due to the delay with the sound card (or lack thereof) I was contacting Dell to try to expedite my order. That's where my frustration began in earnest. Every time I called customer service - the toll free number listed right at the top of dell.ca - I managed to reach an agent who couldn't find me by name, phone number, email, address, blood type, zodiac sign - you name it. Each call I was transferred 4 or 5 times before I eventually just hung up. After about a half a dozen calls like this I was transferred to someone who could actually find me in their system. Apparently, even though I was calling the number listed right on dell.ca, I had not been speaking to Dell Canada support, and when they tried to transfer me somewhere after I told them I ordered it off dell.ca, I still wasn't speaking to Dell Canada support.

So when I miraculously reached Dell Canada support and they found me in their system, I explained the situation and tried to expedite the order. The ship date I was given suggested it might get to me before I left for Saudi again so I waited. A couple days before I had to leave I was getting worried and asked to authorize a family member to pick it up on my behalf. I received an email saying it was arranged. The ship date was July 18th and it arrived a few days later. By that time I was back in Saudi and I received a call from said family member who found a failed delivery notice in my mail and tried to go pick it up - and was refused. More phone calls and emails to Dell....
Finally they were able to pick it up for me and I was told that my laptop was safely in my living room awaiting my return home.

By the time I got home my 21 day return period was over. I noticed a dead pixel and wasn't impressed, but given my previous experiences with laptops I didn't think they would replace it for one dead pixel so I let it go. Then the crashing started.....
Sometimes I would get that notification from the system tray that the AMD driver had crashed but recovered. Sometimes I would just get a BSOD, often with sound (the IDT driver also crashed sometimes) and had to do a force shutdown. Updating the drivers with slightly newer versions from the Dell website did not help. I tried an ATI driver from the AMD website but it didn't recognize my hardware, as has been mentioned in this thread. Oddly enough, this happens more frequently when I have a few (say more than 4) tabs of YouTube videos open than it does while I'm gaming. I'm currently playing Crysis at max settings and full 1080p and also Rift but that's all I've tried so far. It has crashed a few times while playing Crysis and Rift but mostly YouTube. I had blamed it on Adobe Flash at first but I don't seem to have that problem on my gimpy-by-comparison work laptop so I figured it was just bad ATI drivers. I googled and found this thread.

I don't know if it's a thermal shutdown but that would be my guess. I've been logging with GPU-z for a few days and the fan speed never goes over 30% no matter what I'm doing. It doesn't report the actual RPM's. If I feel the behind the laptop it seems heat is only coming out the left side not the right. I have it raised on the Targus cooling pad I ordered with it, which I turn on while gaming if I remember to do so. Normal temps are 63-65°C as reported by GPU-z and I've only played very brief sessions of Rift since I started the logging so I haven't seen it go much higher. I will try playing Crysis tonight and check the logs...
I couldn't see my MoBo revision when I took the battery cover off, but given the dates everyone else was posting when they got their M18x's, and given that the revision no. is just a date stamp of some sort and that 6990's weren't even available when I ordered mine, I'm guessing that mine is earlier than most others here.

To experience these kind of problems with such an expensive and robust machine has been very frustrating. To be honest I haven't had the patience to tinker around to much. I do that kind of stuff all day so when I get off work I just want to play some games and watch some shows. I'd rather not tinker on an expensive system like this either until I know for sure it will fix it.

I've always wanted an Alienware laptop and now that I can actually afford to spend this kind of money (only the SSD drives would've made it more expensive) I was so excited when I got mine. I love everything about it and don't want any other laptop (that new Razer one is kinda cool, still like this one better though), but I cannot express how disappointed I am with this issue. My company uses Dells and I've worked with many different models of their laptops and desktops (I'm in IT). I always recommend them to friends and family as I've found Dell hardware to be more reliable than other brands (I like Toshiba's too) and they also don't come bloated with useless proprietary software that some other companies who shall remain nameless like to load up on their laptops.

I haven't contacted tech support as of yet and have been dreading doing so given my earlier experiences. I was hoping to find a reliable fix, possibly updated drivers, posted here at some point. I will wait until Bill_B tells us those new drivers are available and go from there. Frankly, I just want NVidia's at this point and never have to use ATI again, but I don't know the likelihood of that happening.

Again I apologize for the length of this post and for the overall negative tone (maybe I shouldn't have posted right after a crash). Let me end on a positive note by saying I admire those of you who have battled it out trying to get to the bottom of this, and also Bill_B who seems to truly care and goes the extra mile for the customer. Working in Saudi Arabia I can tell you that is extremely rare with the companies I deal with and have only found one such person like that in my time here....maybe two.

I filled in my specs in the User CP which I'm guessing is going to be my signature, but just in case I'm wrong here they are:

Alienware M18x - Space Black | Intel Core i7 2920XM (Overclocked Turbo Boost to 4.0GHz 8MB Cache| Dual 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6970M AMD CrossFireX | 32GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz | 2x 750GB 7200rpm HDD Raid0 | Ultimate-N 6300 Wireless | Internal WirelessHD Technology - FullHD Video Transmitter | Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray | IDT HD 5.1 Surround Sound Audio|

 

J3RMS - Wecome to the NBR Community!

Thanks for sharing your story. There are certain elements that I can identify with and I am sure that many others can as well. Every issue I have had with the M18x has pretty much been directly tied to AMD video cards except for the OSD bug (which has thankfully been resolved by Dell/Alienware). It seems the lack of quality drivers from AMD is holding them back from achieving all they are capable of in terms of performance and the ownership experience. It's has been a roller-coaster ride with their drivers for the past year or two, with two or three lousy releases for every decent release. I know Dell is working with AMD to try to improve that. Hopefully, other OEMs are putting pressure on them as well. (It is not any better with AMD desktop video cards based on my experience.)

We are looking forward to hearing more from you in the Alienware Forums and we are happy that you joined us. Below are some links to important information that will help jump start your membership here at NBR.

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Just a heads up guys, I am going to be on a business trip this week and will have very few opportunities to cruise the threads or respond to a PM. It will be Friday night or Saturday before you see much of me. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and a nice week ahead of them.

 

Wow what a surprise, all this time on the forums and I was not aware of this issue with the 6990. So lucky me just received mine and first thing I notice no fans running and gpu temps on card 1 hit over 100c. I have read thru this tread and the boot thru bios seems to get them to work for me. If I had known Oh well I'll call tech support so if something burns up they have a heads up. Hope they fix this soon.

 

After over 2 years of problems and excuses and replacement parts/systems from Alienware, I'm folding my cards. The replacement motherboard fixed the overheating problem, but I'm still left with the freezing after resuming from sleep mode. My warranty is now expired, and I'm not wasting anymore energy on this pile of crap. You can find it in the NBR marketplace very shortly.

 

hey nick, before you shut it down...can you disable one card and see if it will resume from sleep? thanks.

 

It still freezes when resuming from sleep, even with crossfire disabled. It doesn't do this on integrated graphics. I have no desire to fix this POS anymore. How about a system that just works? No that would be too hard. Thanks for wasting 2 years of my time Dell. Die in a fire.

 

i was just asking because mine was doing the same thing. but now it's not due to one of the bad cards removed. but it still has that sata port drop out which is driving me up a wall. so this whole machine is going back im afraid.

 

I had a SATA problem with my first M18x. It was a bad motherboard. This system stays at 6Gb/s with no dropouts. It gets 900mb-1Gb/s sequential reads.

This time around I had yet another faulty mobo, but that wasn't the end of the problems. I ignored the lockups after resuming from sleep because I figured it needed a fresh windows install after the mobo replacement. I finally did that last night, and the system hard locks as soon as I recover from sleep mode. Every single time - like clockwork. The system 'works' so to speak, but I'm not dealing with another issue with this junk. Totally done with laptops at this point. See you on the "I built my own desktop and it works perfectly because I'm not a retard" forums.

 

lol
i feel you on that nick!

 

I might be next who selling it away but I believe nobody gonna buys it...
I feel your pain , we sharing same pain, sometimes I goes rage almost throw my m18x away , this is why people posting video of how to destroy alienware machines on youtube.

 

I doubt I'll sell it either. I was honest about what's wrong with it, and with no warranty - I don't have my hopes up. Maybe I can sell some parts off, buy a cheap cpu, and deal with it while getting 'some' of my money back. I put it on craigslist... maybe some sucker will scoop it up.

 

Nick, I thought Bill had you on his Christmas list?

 

That's a bad luck!!!

 

Hey all ... Ok so I just want to get a few things straight here then ...

Sleep and Wake, hibernation errors, … its “rooted in AMD PowerXpress”
-Does this mean its not going to be fixed !!?!? Or is not able to be fixed ?

I know this doesn't seem like a big issue, but its a HUGE issue for me. I am constantly closing my laptop, letting it sleep, carrying it somewhere and opening it back up and expected (and being expected) to have it WORKING right away. Not time to boot up, see that its black screening, hard power off, reboot and force windows to boot normally.

This is simply not acceptable. If this is the case Dell better start putting a warning online when you are ording this machine "warning, does not sleep or hibernate and recover properly" Who the hell would buy a system that couldn't do one of the most basic functions properly ?

Brightness control, preventing proper communication to third party software, etc … also apparently an AMD issue. Again, is there a fix coming for this, or is this just going to be a constant error. Again, same comment as before, not acceptable unless the consumer is informed BEFORE they purchase. "Hey, you can buy this system and its awesome and stuff but some of the programs you are going to want to run, just wont run properly"

Now I have loved my 6990s more than most. And these errors aren't huge for most people, for me they kind of are, especially the sleep/hibernate bug. The point is you can not sell a system to someone without explaining that these issues exist and expect them to be happy. Especially not such a premium system.

Some clarification if these problems have any potential solution would be appreciated.

 

Whoa, AMD finally responded to our tweets that we are hammering them with. Throw down. How does Dell feel about this?

@CatalystMaker less travelling more making my m18x not BSOD upon startup!
24 Nov
in reply to ↑


Terry Makedon
@shawnmccrea You have the wrong guy - you should be talking to Dell.

 

I agree, its a HUGE problem for alot of people...I recall the same kind of issue on my old R2 and the thread that ensued after I created it. I dont think that was ever resolved - maybe because there "IS" no fix....maybe it is, as Mr. Fox put in his meeting minutes, (as quoted above, 1st post of this thread), its deep seated in PowerXpress and AMD dont give a stuff.....there is no sleep issue with Nvidia, afaik, so that kinda makes it AMD related - doesnt it?

Speculation of course but annoying nonetheless.....

 

@CatalystMaker must be one heckuva tech to be able to deduce root cause of a BSOD without analyzing the dump. I won't go out on Twitter and battle with him, but I'd just ask Team Green how their S3 resumes are going and say, "hmmmm," if the problem is limited to Team Red.

 

Maybe he (Terry Makedon or one of his cohorts) should stop by this thread, eh? - could learn a thing or two if they bothered to do so. They could do with taking a leaf from your book, Bill......caring about your customers is actually a GOOD thing.....

 

OK, guys. I have an update, and here is the official statement as of this time. More details will come.

“As I posted previously, Dell is aware of the issue and is working toward appropriate next steps. When we have a better idea of what recommendations we may have, I will post more details. Thanks for your patience.”

 

oops. I got my speaker wrong. I guess Terry is the one I meant to refer to. Apologies to @CatalystMaker

EDIT: nevermind. They're one in the same. Original post stands.

 

So I received a 580M today..a single one after 3 weeks lol!! Man what a buzz kill that was. As for CatalystMaker (Terry Makedon), he's too busy going on trips to be bothered with us notebook guys. Even the desktop AMD cards have been getting bent over with bad drivers so its not just us and definitely not Dell's fault. Next time if given the choice, I'm definitely not picking AMD, even if its cheaper.

 

I could have sworn you were on the capture and exchange list. Sorry if I was mistaken. Watch the news on this thread, though.

 

Upon further review... lol. We will have the fixed Dell driver posted soon. (Terry was right.)

 

Hi all, not been on these forums for a while.

Whats the deal with all these 6990 problems? I got mine back late August and all seems ok.

Have the problems come out since the 2x60 cpu updates or a new motherboard revision?

When did the problems start for everyone on the M18x?

I do have the wake from sleep problem though. Black screen and nothing else, is that what some people get? It doesn't do it all the time, it seems to be fail when its been a sleep for a long time.

 

Wow, first of all, thanks for all the support. Secondly, it's refreshingly awesome to see Dell owning this issue. So out of curiousity, what was the root cause, since previous AMD reference drivers worked just fine.

 

more than likely...someone fell asleep at the wheel for a few batches of cards...then woke up and corrected his mistake...but no one knows which ones are bad or good...speculation of course.... so now the sort begins...

 

Argghh. I knew someone would ask right after I confirmed it was a problem with the Dell version, but realized I did not ask for specifics.

"Meh. No one will want to know the exact problem, but just that the corrected driver will be posted soon."

It had to do with our overlooking some explicitly Dell requirement in the code that we did not make AMD aware of ahead of time.

 

Thank god, that makes me a little happier with AMD. I'm not disappointed anymore.

With Dells awesome support I can't be mad at Dell either .

Thanks for the update and being honest!

 

i knew something was cocono some where,hehehe.lol

 

I wish everyone was on the same page, would make things easier. Been treated like the enemy going around with Tech support today. Had a hard time finding one Tech to admit there even is a problem. Hope the fix is soon as that would be nice. Just wanted it in the file in case something happens only help I got was reflash Bios, power drain, pull cmos, thats it like I didn't already try those.

 

Hahaha, I am sure some peeps will wanna (or would like to) know what the exact problem was. - (including myself)

Just wondering Bill, will this "fix" allow current AMD owners to use AMD reference drivers without issue or will it just be the Dell version that will be problem free? - you know how much already this community relies on regular updated drivers for gpu's - I know that one of the points on topic during the conference call was the regularity of Dell updates for video drivers as opposed to reference updates.

Saying that....my hat goes off to Dell for owning up to a faux pas and putting the work in to correct it, and to you, Bill, for all your sterling work to get this problem resolved. Long may that be the case.

Good work "Team Dell"

 

you have to approach the situation differently...you need to relay your concerns as a tech would. before they even start in to the pre printed dialog...you start with what you have done first. and i mean everything, because their list is long. and part of it now involves them remoting into your machine.

once you state all of what you did and it will pretty much meet their list...then comes what would you like us to do. so they can go back and ask a manager if it's possible.

how do i know this you ask?..because i just did it not 10 minutes ago....but the difference is...this machine is going back for a full refund...

 

Congratulations on the honesty (and all what it takes).

Just a somewhat practical suggestion: is it possible that the techs, instead of answering like human 'answering machines', do receive some instructions (training?) on simply admiting that, sometimes, there even is a problem from Delllienware side, instead of wasting the time (and patient!) of the costumers?

Really, appreciated Dell-Bill_B, they can learn one or two things from how ncerely, honestly and diplomatically, you manage here the issue...

There are too many testimonies of calling consumers that too often complain of being considered as plain idiots that do not know nothing about computers, etc. or even worse, treating us like some sort of 'fifth columnist' (subversive groups of enemies)...

Thanks again 4 all your efforts (and attitude!).

 

Nice idea SOS, and it would be ideal...in an ideal world.

What we have to remember here is that Dell is a huge global organisation with thousands of employees at varying levels. To get the message to everyone would be logistically impossible.

I'd like to use an example, and if you ever watched the movie "Titanic" , there's a point in it where, as the ship is about to hit the iceberg, one of the ships engineers says "The ships too big to steer, the rudder is too small and doesnt corner worth a damn" - meaning it takes time for big things to manouvre to avoid catastrophe......I guess its like that with Dell....they will turn the corner but it may take some time for them to "come about"

(Personally, I dislike having to deal with stoopid EMEA reps that read scripts off monitors at us like we are imbaciles.....but dont get me started on that one! lol)

 

wait, are you returning your machine. why are you returning the beast?

 

Well said, my friend. I feel somewhat as an schizoid... one part of me recognizes that you're right... The other part wants to believe that it's possible ( and definitely valuable and effective for booth sides) to provide a better support / tech service (as Dell-Bill_B showed us here).

 

a few reasons in general, but the main one was where nvidia dropped the price of the 580's.

 

Are ya buying another or waiting on R2? Might as well wait now that you're getting a refund. Send me your spare 580M lol. I hate having to sit here and look at a single 580M when I was supposed to receive two.

 

i'll more than likely get another one, because r2 is like 8 months or longer away.

side note:
i was looking at skygunners 4 580m's he received and i couldn't even get one in 20 days..haha
i feel your pain!

 

lol.....too funny. What's messed up is, there is no shortage of 580M's for new builds but for replacements you have to sit at the back of the buss.

 

i might have been able to circumvent that part...but that 700 dollar loss could not be.

 

Yeah the wait is ridiculous. I'm very annoyed right now because I'm afraid they'll run out before they can put in the order for the 2nd GPU and I'll end up wasting another 2-3 weeks waiting or I might not even get one. Should have just kept my defective mainboard, let this POS get captured by Bill and gotten a 580M replacement system. So far with these winning AMD drivers I've encountered:

1. No wake from sleep, gotta hard boot the system.
2. BF3 crashes for no reason.
3. Brightness controls work on 8.93 but BF3 and other xfire games stutter so I can either go back to 11.10 and have games work but still get no sleep + brightness.
4. Profiles for AMD are useless.
5. Cards run unreasonably HOT, even at stock where the fans start kicking on loudly.

Disappointed with AMD is an understatement. I keep the computer on the IGP 90% of the time now so I don't have to deal with the useless AMD video cards and drivers.

 

Well I got Tech support to agree if I give them till Friday to come up with a fix, since I can not get home till then at work in another city. They promise either replace the parts I assume, mobo and video cards or they will build a new one. I really don't like the idea of a third party tech teardown to the mobo. Any thought's on which way to go?

 

i would have ran the single 580 and been a happy camper till then....like i had ta do...haha

 

Joker I have the same problems other than the Heat issue on the cards ....

If I had known, I would not have gotten this system.

I have loved benching it ... and playing LoL on it ... although even the benching has required considerable work arounds due to fan control issues but fully enjoyed playing with its potential.

However ... for my professional life, this has been completely useless. For my near $3000 ... not ok. Bad enough I have had to suffer through it this long, if there is no fix coming (which I don't think has yet been clarified, yes drivers are coming, but will they fix the Sleep/Hibernate issues ? the brightness vs game play issues ? Not clear on what they are supposed to address.)

If I could bust out $150 and get a replacement with 580s and not have to deal with this anymore ... I would ... I don't even know who to be mad at ... It doesn't actually seem to be AMD's fault from what I am gathering ... but I am not sure if its dell's fault either ...