m18x and windows aero

I had issues with Aero after installing Windows updates when I first received my M18x. No Aero theming, got the grey color on the taskbar and windows instead, no transparency either.

After getting the system settled and consistently using the Nvidia GPU, the Aero bug has not returned. But there are other issues still, like suddenly not being able to select any windows with the cursor, active windows going inactive when clicked, and nothing short of Ctrl+Alt+Del and starting task manager (bringing it up with Ctrl+Shift+Esc doesn't help) forces the system back to working correctly.

I have no doubt this is a result of the Alienware processes that are running since nothing of the sort happens on any other systems. But I doubt anyone is really working on a permanent fix this late in the game. Windows 8 is on the way and there will probably only be one new batch of Ivy Bridge systems with Windows 7 coming before Windows 8 is standard on everything. I expect 2012 will be spent preparing the new AW cosmetics for Windows 8 on the new systems, not fixing bugs and taking care of issues on older and current Windows 7 systems.

 

I have to agree. My confidence in Dell providing a fix for this issue is <50%. It is a shame that we may have to live with this bug.

 

I think it is about time for an update.....................

 

Aero bug popped up again.

But at least now when the cursor won't click on anything, using the keyboard to navigate windows for a bit seems to make everything clickable with the cursor again.

The "Keypad Controller" application from the AW TactX application turns up in Task Manager sometimes....wonder if that's related. When I click on it in task manager it goes away.

 

Still holding strong since 08/23... I have zero evidence of an Aero bug with OSD not loading automatically with Windows. Since I have not uninstalled OSD, I have lost no functionality with manual on-demand OSD launch capabilities.

Hopefully, an updated version of OSD will be released soon. I'm OK with waiting as long as there is thorough testing to be certain the update functions properly and does not break something that was working fine before.

Chris - if you're watching the thread here at NBR, I am willing to be a beta tester for an updated OSD if Dell/Alienware is looking for testers.

 

After being on a M18x with 6970's for the last 2 days... I can safely say that the 6970's are prone to "Aero Flake Outs" more than the 6990's and 580M's are.

 

Well, that's good to know. By this time tomorrow I will no longer have 6970M CFX hardware in my M18x. Sounds like that M18x needs to have some tweaking to make it behave better. It would be interesting to know why Windows behaves differently with OSD software bugs with 6970M hardware installed.

 

With the 580M's and 6990's I've never seen a crash in game or during a graphics intensive program, but with the 6970's Aero can crash at anytime. At the time of the Aero crash csrss.exe restarts, causing the 6970s to not respond for only a second. The result can be BSOD, graphical artifacts like you & Steviejones posted or just Aero reverting back to basic. For 6970M owners this problem needs more attention, because it limits their ability to use the system as intended. I know of 4 games on our system with 6970s that we have to disable Aero to avoid problems. On our 6990 system we will sit tight and wait since it's nowhere as bad. I finally was able to speak(3 and 1/2 hours) with a level II at Microsoft about this(it is very hard to do this because my Windows 7 has a Dell OEM product key). The tech was very knowledegable and said that this problem is NOT a simple fix. He also confirmed through remote assistance that OSD is causing csrss.exe to restart. The tools/commands that Microsoft techs use to troubleshoot problems on Windows 7 are really amazing and straight forward. They also save a lot of time. To a degree all M18x configs are affected. I hope AW/Dell is aware that the extent of the problem is different from 6970 to 6990 to 580. The worst case being 6970M. Most owners of 580M/6990's aren't complainning or are as adamant about this, because the problem doesn't effect them in game or while using a graphic intensive program. In the end the MS tech referred me back to Dell because their suggestion is to remove the 3rd party AW OSD program or contact Dell and hope for a solution.

To be honest we really shouldn't have to jump through a bunch of hoops(tweaking) to try and keep Aero/OSD/csrss.exe happy.

 

Agree about the hoops. As for the 6990's, I have had a few Aero flakes and all with fresh installs on 11.6 drivers straight from Dell, but not as persistent as with the 6970's. And I have BSOD crashes with the same setup. The only times I really see it duplicate is when running P vs. Z for the first time after each reformat. And on the last install, I just went with all stock drivers-even OSD and CC. Been several days w/o the issue but.....I'll eat those words soon enough I bet.

 

Oh my goodness!!! I swear not 2 minutes after I wrote this, I uninstalled AVG and restarted and Aero was gone. Basic returns!!!!!! What the crap???!!! Restart fixed it though.

 

Does your BSOD happend at the time of an Aero Flake Out with your 6990's?

I've seen 4 M18x's with 6970's BSOD in result of the Aero Flake Out, all happen while in-game, benchmarks, PowerDVD(watching Blu-ray) or while running video editing software.
The 3 6990's M18x's that I've seen all randomly flake out at boot, with PowerDVD(watching Blu-ray) and with 3DMark06. I have never seen a M18x with 6990's BSOD while experiencing an Aero Flake Out.

 

TBH, I am going to have to pay more attention when it happens next. I know I've had BSODs with the 6990's. But they were my fault I believe. I posted earlier in this thread about it-I was using the 6970 drivers from Dell instead of the 6990s. Since my fresh install the other day, I don't think I have had a BSOD come to think of it. Not even a drive crash. But I have had-as stated-Aero flake on me a few times.

With the holiday weekend and all, my days are running together....

 

Oh ok. I'll take that as good news. The 6990M's play a lot nicer with the Aero Bug than the 6970M's do.
You would definitely know if your BSOD's were directly caused by the Aero Bug because as soon as it reverts back to basic a BSOD follows. It's extremely annoying.
On the 6970M's w/o a bunch of tweaks on current or past drivers the Aero Bug is a frequent annoyance....especially if you are playing a game or editing video.

 

alright so my alienware M18x (a beast ) just got here today, and after its first nap, the Aero had already crashed, and i had lame, boring blue start pannel, not the cool deep red i was rockin.

Is there any known bandaids for this issue yet? I'm rocking (i hope) 6990's but i cant seem to find any evidence that theyre in there, other then i got 2 6900 series cards.

 

This is the bandaid that a member developed as a temporary fix to get Aero running after a Aero Flake Out.
Please make sure you give rep to leigh_vh for creating this utility.

 

Well, I received new heat sinks and CFX cable, but no video cards. Trying to figure out where they are and when they are supposed to be here. Hopefully, will arrive before I begin my trip back home to the West from the East Coast on Saturday. Will need to have my Alienware L3 Rep redirect the delivery to my home if they haven't already shipped.

 

Congratulations. The M18x is an awesome system. It's not perfect, but still phenomenal.

In addition to the utility provided by leigh_vh that skygunner mentioned, you can also simply stop OSD from automatically loading with Windows. Leigh's nifty utility will definitely help you revive Aero when it crashes, whereas not loading OSD with Windows has completely eradicated any trace of the Aero bug on my system and allows Aero to work flawlessly for me. See this post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/588142-m18x-windows-aero-86.html#post7846955 and the posts that follow. For me, disabling OSD from loading with Windows is the preferred workaround while Alienware is working on an update. I prefer being oblivious to the Aero bug during normal daily use and it's fairly seldom that I find I need to utilize the features that require OSD to function. (The need will obviously vary by individual use patterns.)

You still absolutely need OSD, so don't uninstall it. It's a crucial program for the system to do all it was intended to by Alienware. Browse to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Alienware On-Screen Display\AlienwareOn-ScreenDisplay.exe" and send a shortcut to your desktop or wherever you would prefer to have it handy. If you need to use the switchable graphics or specific F-keys, you can manually launch OSD to accomplish what you wish. A number of the F-keys work with standard Windows drivers, but there are a few proprietary features that only work with OSD.

Downloading leigh_vh's utility is still something you should do, because once you manually launch OSD you may need his utility to re-enable Aero if it crashes before your next system restart.

I'm having an unrelated issue with defective replacement video cards, with new replacements on the way, but I can tell you that I couldn't be more pleased with how my M18x behaves without OSD loading with Windows. Until we have a new version of OSD that fixes this issue, I'll continue using OSD on demand only.

To answer your question about whether or not you have 6970 or 6990 cards, a simple way would be to run GPU-Z and look at the specs. For example, stock GPU core clock speed on the 6970 clocks is 680MHz and the 6990 GPU core clock is higher (715MHz). You can also run 3DMark11 or Vantage and look at the results online. See the attached screen shot for stock specs on the 6970 and compare your results.

Hope this information is useful! I wish you a worry-free ownership experience.

 

received my system few days back, completely reinstalled windows 7, downloaded 280.26 modified drivers and experience no aero bug whatsoever! i might admit that upon arrival i had 269.03 stock dell drivers which resulted in an aero bug issue as sson as i ran any kind of bechmarks: no aero theme + tabs don't open full!

 

Unfortunately the 6990M's produce more heat and usually perform the same as the 6970M's in-game.
I've seen this with both of our M18x's side by side running the same game also notebookcheck post a similar comparison

Computer Games on Laptop Graphic Cards - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

ChaosShadow00x and Red Line - be sure to disable SoftThinks Agent service. (Red Line may not have it with a clean install depending on what software was reinstalled.) This little gem is the service for AlienRespawn. It is notorious for causing display issues and it is nagware. It does not need to run in the background.

 

Random crash today while on Youtube. Just black screen and the annoying 'buzz' sound. Reboot and Aero has flaked out again. Now this is really getting to annoy me some..............No mini dump or anything to show for it. Had to hard restart just to get it to shut up.

 

I just sent another email to Dell corporate office about this issue. I will continue to escalate and I suggest that all of us having this issue do the same. That is the only way this will receive the priority within Dell for resolution.

 

Hey thanks for that. The rep has been distributed as suggested! (btw, 120% unsure how the rep system works, but i assume the more you get the more you can give.

I also found and disabled Respawn like you suggested Mr. Fox. Thanks to you too! Hate having unnecessary apps running.

 

Yup!! You got it. +rep back!

 

You're welcome, buddy. Glad you found that helpful. +1 rep.

The rep system is a little bit convoluted, but here is a link that should help make it a little clearer: Reputation Points/Power and User Titles.

The Forum Rules may also be useful. One topic that is frequently overlooked is posting excessively large images. As a workaround, using coding "spoiler" and "/spoiler" (between braces [ and ] without quotation marks) before and after an image hyperlink works well to help hide large images and save screen space.

Example:

Spoiler

 

as someone considering an m18x would the general consensus be that this issue is annoying enough to warrant possibly looking at another system or based on the poll going the 580m instead of 6990m?

 

whodat5 - it depends on what you want. The M18x really has no rival. Personally, I would not dismiss the M18x for an inferior system on the basis of the Aero bug. If you have read the recent posts over the last 10-15 days you will see there are viable workarounds while waiting for an updated version of OSD. Even if Alienware never produces an update, personally, I would stick with this system over a plastic piece of trash. These are my thoughts.

This glitch has nothing to do with the brand of video cards installed. It's caused by OSD. As for AMD versus NVIDIA, the bug is present either way, with the 6970 being the worst offender at manifesting the problem. Your choice is a matter of preference and budget, but you'll have the bug either way unless you use the workaround. I consider this to be a major annoyance, but not a crisis. I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water or willing to compromise for something less because of a software bug. With OSD not automatically loading with Windows there is no visible evidence the software bug exists.

You will find varying levels of passion about this situation on the forum because not everyone feels the same way about it. The passion ranges from the hardcore overclockers that don't care because they run the Windows Classic theme and don't use Aero anyway; to those that are extremely frustrated with lots of folks in the middle that absolutely expect a fix but still love their beast and don't want to part with it.

 

thanks for the insight mr. fox. i have run into issues in the past with strange software glitches and just want to make sure it isn't annoying enough to cause me concern in the future.

 

My case has been escalated an ∞ infinity number of times. I expect a call back with a serious resolution for our M18x with 6970M's this Saturday. Almost everytime Aero flakes out in game results in a BSOD, artifacts or crashes to the desktop with no way of being able to alt tab back in to the game. Our system with the 6990M's doesn't BSOD from the Aero Bug. Since early June I have called every week to get this resolved.

Mr. Fox is dead on. Outside of Alienware there isn't another competitor that makes a Dual GPU with IGPU as cosmetically pleasing as the M18x. The only alternative is Clevo rebrands

Perfectly said.

 

If you run Aero and hate Windows Basic it will be most definitely frustrating unless you use a temporary workaround. If you don't mind running leigh's utility when Aero flakes out, or just stop loading OSD with Windows, you'll most likely be very pleased.

Thanks for the compliment, buddy!

 

No problem. I'm just calling it, how I see it.

 

i appreciate all the insight to this issue, while windows aero is nice i'm definitely more concerned about things like performance, sli/cf gpu configurations because at the end of the day aero crashing/not having it is definitely better than having a machine that can't run the games i'm trying to play.

 

So, it sounds like you're ready to pull the trigger on buying an M18x. Excellent choice. Let us know what you get and how it is spec'd.

 

Whilst I was on the phone to a rep about another issue I asked him if he had an M18x. He said not yet but he would be getting one soon. (Monday).

Whenever a rep remotley connects to my laptop aero flakes out. I asked him about the aero issue and if it would bother him when he recieves his. He said he wasn't worried because everyone in tech support was aware of the issue and a fix was being worked on.

He was however adamant that it was a graphics driver issue....

 

Dual 580's here... Aero issue happened about once per day.

Disabled the OSD startup item in ccleaner and now it doesn't...

I don't need OSD (it's really only useful for the eject button and launching the command center).

If they ever release a new version of OSD, i suppose I'll install it.

 

Only once a day? I like those odds. Consider yourself lucky.
I also have 580M's on the way.

Does anyone have any official info on a proper fix?

 

Good job! That simple task may add a couple of years to your life by not having to burn any calories fretting about the OSD bug. I'm not calling it "The Aero Bug" any more because Aero isn't the problem.

I agree... only once a day is pretty darned good considering it's multiple times per day with AMD CFX unless you nix OSD from loading with Windows. While the problem is absolutely an OSD issue, the NVIDIA GPU or NVIDIA drivers seem to experience far fewer issues with Aero failing to recover from the software conflicts. The unscientific poll results for this thread seems to point that way as well.

 

Sweet, welcome to the GREEN side of things. I can honestly say even with a full factory install less mcafee and respawn deleted and I don't run benches really at all I only see a aero glitch once every 30-40 bootups.

 

Thank you....I am so excited. I miss Cuda and PhysX. The Aero bug(AW OSD Bug) is always lurking about on a AMD CF config. It is so annoying. It'll be nice to actually enjoy my laptop w/o aero flaking out in-game all of the time.

 

Is it particular games where aero flakes out? I've really only played deus ex so far and it doesnt flake out during game play.

Perhaps right click on the shortcut and request for aero to be disabled on start, and then restarted on exit? Not ideal I know...

 

We have 2 M18x's in my home. One with 6990M's and one with 6970M's. From what I've seen the 6990M's don't BSOD after an Aero crash in-game. Consider yourself lucky you don't have 6970M's.

Aero is suppose to disable during remote access. The problem is it does not return after the session is terminated(Aero Crash). Everyone was aware of the plugged in not charging/code 43 and sleep/resume brightness problem caused by AW OSD on the R2 and that was never fixed to this day. Dell/Alienware have known about this problem(OSD Bug) since early June. Hopefully this time will be different.

 

Yep, Aero does disable when remote is activated.

 

Hi,

Just got my m18x today and found this work around and thought i would share. Although admittedly i only looked at the first 2 and last two post to see if someone already had.

Hack to Force Enable Aero in Windows 7 My Digital Life

 

Hey, welcome to the forum! We are so glad you have joined us. Congratulations on your new M18x... what an awesome machine.

One thing you will want to do is add a signature with your system specs. We would appreciate knowing more about the configuration of your beast.

Thank you for the suggestion. We always like to see them.

We have confirmed this problem is a bug with OSD. Scan back through the last couple of weeks and you will see that there are two workarounds that can be used to stop the problem from occurring while we are waiting for Alienware to provide an updated version of OSD. One is to disable OSD from loading with Windows and adding a shortcut to the desktop to launch OSD when its features are needed. The other, which can be used in conjunction, is a utility provided by leigh_vh.

We look forward to hearing more from you. Again, welcome.

 

do i need a certain amount of posts to post a sig? i didn't see it in the user cp

 

Yes, you will need a few more posts before that is enabled. Also need a certain number of posts in order to send PM's to others on the forum.

I'll be back with some links for you in a few minutes. I just gave you a rep point, so you should see that in your User CP.

[Edit] These should help you get started.

• Forum Rules
  
• Private Messages and Signatures
  
• Forum How-To Guide
  
• Rep Points and User Titles

​

 

Looks like Aero goes bonkers when you hook up to a 3DTV.

 

Does it do that even with OSD disabled at startup, or does the utility from leigh_vh revive Aero successfully?

 

I don't know if this has been already reported on this thread, haven't had the time to fully go through this large thread just yet.

Aero bug can be easily replicated when running an instance of Folding@home on each GPU or even maybe 1 instance a single GPU. The bug happens right before your eyes and a windows error log message pops stating AMD display driver stopped responding and has successfully restarted.

This will lead either one of the Folding instances to freeze even if it shows some CPU utilization. You will have to close both instances and then run them again. When you close the instances you will notice one of them doesn't close and free up memory/CPU entirely. You will know this from the process tab under Task manager. Manually end the Fahcore_11.exe and you may start your folding instances again.

Does this happen to Nvidia users?

 

mharidas - the label "Aero Bug" is a misnomer. The problem is an OSD bug. NVIDIA seems to behave better than AMD and the 6990 more so than the 6970. All systems are affected. There are a couple of temporary fixes that work great (go back a couple of weeks and read forward to current). Bottom line is that this bug is going to last until a revised version of OSD is released by Compal for Alienware. Turn off OSD and Aero works flawlessly... except for new information wraithrsw just posted about connecting to a 3DTV. (That's a new one on me, but I'm not sure how many of us have a 3DTV to connect an M18x to.)

As you can see from my signature, I have the 6970M CFX. The AMD Display driver stopped responding and has successfully restarted error is a real nightmare on the 6970M systems. I have frequent BSOD issues, but those are probably unrelated to the OSD bug that crashes Aero. It's just related to the 6970M CFX being a POS. I'm on my second set of 6970M GPUs and they just don't seem to work correctly in CFX. I have 50 instances of Display driver amdkmdap stopped responding and has successfully recovered in my Event Viewer log since 08/25/2011.

Less than an hour ago I shut down my M18x, went upstairs to my bedroom and turned it back on. I logged into Windows and after about 3 minutes of sitting idle and doing absolutely nothing I got a BSOD pointing to the AMD driver file atikmpag.sys. DirectX will crash at the same time, even though DirectX is not in use. See below.