m18x and windows aero

I don't really know anything about the 3D stuff because I haven't taken time to learn much. So, is an AMD-based M18x capable of 3D video output, or only nVidia? It also takes a 3D TV or a 120Hz display, doesn't it?

I been using this program for a very long time and rarely ever have any issues with Hollywood BluRay Gestapo-ware. It works beautifully with PowerDVD and Nero.

 

An AMD based m18x should be capable of 3D video output but I don't think it's as well fleshed out and streamlined as nVidia's solutions. It needs to either be a 120Hz display or a 3DTV with HDMI 1.4 (usually the 2011 models). After that, it's all good to go. Nice and easy.

I had a friend try that out. Last time he talked about it, he noted that AnyDVDHD didn't work for this set. Also said he looked at the slysoft forums and found others who had similar issues as well. Some real funky stuff going on with whatever new top-secret protection is here. Works for some, not for most.

 

Ask him to watch the slysoft forum and monitor his email for update notices, as they issue updates almost every month and may fix it for your current set. (The updates can be set to automatic, but the emails include release notes on fixes.) Just because it does work now does not mean it won't with the next update or two. They watch their forum closely and fix what needs fixing.

Thanks for the quick lesson on 3D. I didn't know all of that. If I run across someone with a 3D TV with HDMI 1.4, maybe I can convince them to let test it on AMD graphics hardware.

 

GUYS! Dell has released an update for OSD that is supposed to correct the Aero bug.

Alienware OSD Application - Dell Support - Downloads

 

Lets give it a try now....

 

So far, so good. Ran WEI twice and Aero recovered upon completion both times.
I ran 3DMark11 twice, Vantage once and 3DMark06 once and no Aero issues.
Will see how things go over the next few days, but we're off to a good start.

 

Sweet Jeebus. Hallelujah! I'll give it a run with 3D later.

 

Holy Cowabuuuunga.....downloading right now before it gets removed....lol - great news this....hope it works 100%. Thanks Dell!!

 

Someone make sure you upload it to file-sharing in case it does get removed

 

Thanks Mr Fox - will download and test it with WEI later today

 

i have experienced aero problems once in a while before, but rarely. No issues so far with the new OSD)

 

After removing the old OSD and installing the new OSD(R315150) and reseting then running PowerDVD with Star Wars Blu-ray Aero flaked out again

 

At least for me WEI did not crash the Aero - some progress being made

 

I could not get WEI to crash aero with the new OSD. But I was able to get Aero to crash 2x in PowerDVD 11 Ultra, Crysis 2 & 3DMark06.
There has been some progress made. It took 8 3DMark06 runs to get it to crash. 20 minutes into Crysis 2 it crashed. 2 out of 3 runs of PowerDVD 11 Ultra produced a crash. For the record my PowerDVD is up to date and runs Star Wars EP. 1 Blu-ray flawlessly.

 

I played Crysis 2 for a few hours today with the new OSD and no problem at all.....I have ran WEI a few times without issue. I will test out 3dmark06 to see what gives on that score but at the minute, I havent had a single flake out....

 

One thing I did that was not in the instructions from Dell, but seemed like the right approach... I uninstalled the old OSD and Alienware CC, cleaned the registry with CCleaner, installed the new OSD and then reinstalled Alienware CC.

 

I guess thats the "wise" way to do things.....I have just uninstalled the old and reinstalled the new version. No probs yet....what about you Fox?

Note: I have been messing with my U2410 settings and there is an option in there that switches from Aero to basic when selected....every time I have altered this setting and changed it back, Aero has returned without issue. Must have done that over a dozen times ..... I say this only as it is something which is changing my Aero to basic and then back again without a problem and I see that as a good sign)

 

Steve - I also have not been able to force an Aero crash as of yet. Things looks very promising with this OSD update.

I am wondering if there is an unresolved issue apart from OSD involving PowerDVD 11 and/or the overly-aggressive copy protection that we are seeing used on some of the new BluRay discs that are being released. I don't own or use PowerDVD 11, and I don't have the new Star Wars release on BluRay, so I am not able to test or comment about this. Do you have PowerDVD 11 and the new Star Wars release that you could test this out on your system? If so, that may be helpful for Skygunner to troubleshoot his system.

Skygunner - do you have another brand of BluRay software player that you can use for testing? If you have the ability to uninstall PowerDVD 11 and use an alternative player, it would be interesting to see if the same problem exists without PowerDVD present on your system. Perhaps PowerDVD is still having a conflict with CSRSS.EXE and continuing to cause issues on your system. I only find myself curious about this because I have never had the opportunity to observe the CSRSS.EXE you have posted about before. (Until now, I thought maybe that my eyes were not quick enough to catch it happening, but perhaps it's a situation that I haven't seen it because it actually hasn't occurred on my system.)

 

WOOT WOOT first time my aero working properly just ran a WEI and it didn't crash sweet

 

Same here! WEI doesn't kill aero any more!

 

Hmmmmmmmm!!!??? Now what for all the doubters?? Looks like Dell/AW might be/is on its game.

 

I never doubted they would release an OSD update, but there were definitely some doubters out there.

Alienware had too much at stake and too much publicity with this problem to not extend proper efforts to fix it. Plus, it affected the M17x R3 also. I also believe they care about their customers.

 

I was a doubter because Dell was silent and I have been burn't on the Dell Streak when the were telling me a fix was weeks away and BAM they cancelled the product. I am glad they fixed this issue and it makes my TWO M18x's a better product!!!

 

No Aero issues with 3D! Well, except playing a 3D Blu-Ray but that requires full screen anyways so you don't even see Aero.

Same here but I think that's more due to the Star Wars Blu-Ray than OSD. That set is just too effed up. First the weird changes to the film, now the poor disc protection.

 

I neglected to mention that I ran ccleaner after the uninstall.

I have found Aero to flake out during other Blu-ray playback....lame. I'm glad most users have found resolution with the new OSD

 

The silence was partly my fault. I knew we were working on this, but I didn't stop to check NBR for a thread on the topic until the blog post went up today.

If anyone is on Twitter, hit me up there next time I'm asleep at the wheel. @BillatDell

@skygunner27 Your situation worries me a bit. Are you thinking about trying a clean Windows install yet?

 

Bill - thank you for this post and the link to the blog post on Dell Community. I'm adding you to my NBR buddy list and just posted a thank you note to your team on the Dell Community blog you linked. +1 Rep

Now that we know you're an NBR member, I'm sure you will be hearing from us.

 

Most welcome. I'm glad they got it fixed so (relatively) quickly. I cover Inspiron, XPS and Vostro for the most part, but I jump in on the Alienware side sometimes as well. Thanks for the note on the blog post. I'm sure John will appreciate it.

 

I too posted on the blog. Bill, now that we know you will cover Alienware it may be good to pop in on the NBR forum from time to time just to scan for issues etc...even positive feedback from these forums can only be a good thing for Dell.

You will find that the people here are amongst the most passionate about high end computing and we love to hear from Dell at any point in time, from any liason who shows the initiative to pop by - even if its just to say "hi guys - how are things going"

Hope to see you around the forums on a "regular" basis .... (as much as it can be regular with any other commitments you have)

 

Thank you Bill for addressing this problem and providing a fix.

In my house hold we have two M18x's. One of them has not encountered a problem with Aero after installing the updated OSD. The other one on the other hand still has Aero drop outs. I'm not sure what the deal is. It should be as simple as uninstall>ccleaner>install new OSD. I have not tried to do a reinstalling of the OS. The unit in question has also had a few issues as of late with the BIOS and motherboard requiring a reflashing of the bios/loading of the default BIOS settings, just to get AW CC(AlienFX) to work properly. I've also had a few random shutdowns.....so maybe I have a hardware problem on my hands. Currently I have a replacement in progress........

Thank you again for your work on this problem.

 

@Bill----What Mr. Fox, Sky (thank you part), and Stevie said. Thanks for the note and dropping by. Way to go Dell and AW on this one.

 

Thank you pmassey. You have also contributed greatly to the awareness of this problem. I apologize for my past aggression towards your exchange process/system capture. I understand that you were not completely at fault for that system capture.

 

Don't even know what you are talking about. I learned a long time ago, little stuff said in the heat of the moment, are often not the true feelings of a person. Like water off of a ducks back.

 

@BillatDell Thanks for your update and assistance in resolving this issue!

 

Thanks, Stevie. I've been around NBR before. If you dig through the M17x DPC latency and Studio XPS 16xx cpu throttling threads, you will see me getting kicked in the nards on a regular basis as we were working through those issues with engineering. I am a huge fan of NBR. Every time some agency shows us a list of influential sites, I scan for NBR forums. If you guys aren't on the list, I tell them NBR needs to be there. The level of expertise, influence and reach of some of the members here is something you just can't overlook.

Are the hardware configs pretty close to matching? I'm just thinking perhaps a HDD swap from the known good box to the problematic one would prove/disprove hardware as the issue.
*Set a restore point first if you do swap them.

 

I tried swapping SSD's. The issue still remains on one of our systems. The hardware is very close. I know that PowerDVD 11 Ultra(latest build) causes Aero drop outs on both systems(I can live with that). On the system that works only PowerDVD can trigger an Aero flake out.
I know that my motherboard is having problems, randomly shuting down(without memory dump/error message) and AlienFX, requiring a reseting of the bios on the system in question.
I'll report back on OSD, once I have received my replacement in production.

Could you & your team look into the 580M SLI throttling? Thank you.

 

Well, if a HDD swap produced similar issues on the known good system, it's gotta be hardware. Hopefully a new mobo sorts it out.

Is there a thread for 580M SLI throttling? I guess I could look, but if you have the link handy, cookies for you.

 

I am glad that finally Dell is looking into the aero problems in-depth...Dell in the States though...

I have been complaining so many times with the Dell team here in the UK and have been receiving so many denials and accusations that i stopped trying to get my laptop fixed and will just use it as it is...

I mean, i call the Tech team and ask for an update of the aero problem and i get answers from "we didn't knew there was a problem" to "the problems are only with ATI users" to "you are a liar, you don't have any problems".

Oh well, it must be only me...

 

Dell/AW has fixed the problem for most. They updated the OSD software. Did you get it from the earlier post? And try it?

 

Yup, installed it, tried, flaked out, did a clean install, installed it again, tried it again, same problem again.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...tebookchek-net-m18x-2920-580m-sli-review.html<--mentions the throttling
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/610973-580m-sli-throttling.html
Review Alienware M18x (GTX 580M SLI, 2920XM) Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews<--In depth review that mentions the *throttling in detail. The 580M SLI config also has a problem with DPC latency that the artice addresses.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/614025-dell-gtx580m-sli-undervolted.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/594137-580m-vs-6990m-benches.html<--This thread has tons & tons of info on 580M SLI throttling.
Throttling also occurs in 3DMark.
Thank you for looking into it.

* Throttling
Last year we saw more and more notebooks which could not always summon the maximum performance of the built-in components. Cooling systems that were too weak, or mains adaptors that were too small, forced the manufacturers to make compromises. But when it comes to pricey gaming notebooks, this would not be acceptable.

The Alienware M18x with GTX 580M SLI and 55W Core i7-2920XM is the most powerful model of the series. Thanks to the well-designed cooling system, a reduction in CPU or GPU speed during normal programs and games cannot be observed. The graphics cards even stay relatively cool with a maximum of 72°C. The processor does heat up to 94°C at first, but it then levels off within the completely safe range of 77-85°C (approximate values from HWiNFO32).

Interestingly, we still managed to find an instance of throttling. Once Furmark started running, the graphics cards did not always run at their maximum speed of 620 MHz. As soon as the graphics cards reached around 65-67°C, their speed dropped to 73 MHz until the temperature came back down to 54°C. As the GPUs were still a long way from the critical temperature zone, it could be a form of protection for the mains adaptor, or a special routine for Furmark. An extreme stress test made up of Battlefield BC2 and Prime95 ran without problems (and was subsequently used for the temperature and energy consumption measurements as well).

DPC Latencies
The bars of the DPC Latency Checker program almost always remained in the green zone. But the plot seems to show a spike up to 5600 microseconds, which would have caused an interruption to real-time audio or video applications.


I know that this issue is a little off topic but since we have Dell's attention I can't help but ask.

I'm also having Aero dropouts with the new OSD on one of our units ....but the other unit works perfect , except for PowerDVD 11 Ultra w/Aero.

 

@skygunner27 I'm still reading through everything and about to send a note to the lead engineer for this, but one thing i noticed from the Notebook Check review that will get us nowhere: "Once Furmark started running, the graphics cards did not always run at their maximum speed of 620 MHz. As soon as the graphics cards reached around 65-67°C, their speed dropped to 73 MHz until the temperature came back down to 54°C. As the GPUs were still a long way from the critical temperature zone, it could be a form of protection for the mains adaptor, or a special routine for Furmark."

I don't know for sure if there is a special routine for Furmark, but I would not be at all surprised. Using Furmark as an example will not work.

Still reading, though. Will let you know what I hear back. If I get something tangible, I'll hit all those links I can with a reply.

 

Hello Dell-Bill_B

I take that you're here to ask you a little something.

Have you read the first post of this thread ?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/607421-what-users-want-m18x-r2.html

If you have some information about the R2, they will be extremely appreciated
Obviously the answer will be more appropriate in the other thread.

 

There's enough info there to present a case. You're probably right about Furmark. I really appreciate your prompt attention to OSD and other issuses.

I seriously doubt that he is able to provide any info on the M18x R2's specs because of "current sales".

 

Furmark protection was implemented by Nvidia, nothing can/will be done to change this. Nvidia simply decided to eliminate Furmark and a few other burners from the list of stress-testing programs for their cards.

 

Bill Throttling like this also occurs in intensive games that use high GPU usage. Please bring that up as it only happens to Dell users not to other manufacturers such as Sager/Clevo that also use the 580m video cards but with their own VideoBIOS. It is not temperature related in games either because like you said it happens at low temps like early 70's and high 60s sometimes (on extra cooling) while some users have tested that even in the high 80s and low 90s it does not occur when fans are manually disabled for testing purposes. It seems to be power/load related and most likely power related because I have tested that I am able to overclock higher (without throttling) using a modified vBIOS that changes performance voltage to .85v vs. the .87 that is stock. On the other hand I am not able to overclock as high on a 0.92v VBIOS (strictly from a throttling standpoint) because throttling occurs at lower clocks than even at stock voltage.

 

littleone562 is correct. I have observed the M18x throttling with 580M SLI in Crysis 2.
It is believed that since the release of A02 Bios a safe guard was put in place that affects the 580M's at high load even with A03. This level of throttling does not happen on Clevo rebrands.

 

Wow, cool update sky, they are giving you 580`s to replace your 6990`s? awesome.


Ok, so my problems I ever had with aero was just a 1 out of 100 bootup and aero would not turn on. A quick reboot would fix it.

So what I ended up doing was downloading the file from the link Mr Fox provided, but I save everything I download onto my D: drive cause C: is my M4.

I unzipped osd and installed it. No uninstall of the old one first as per instructions on the dell file. So now this is my fx version, 2.6.10.0. Is this the right one? I cant really tell if it updated or not because of the fact I saved and unzipped on my D: drive?

Thx all for the dedicated hard work you guy put into this on keeping the fire on the burner on this osd problem.

PS: I don't know if anyone noticed but there is a NEW HD graphics update in the windows 7 optional updates too.

 

Yup. I've had problems with OSD causing me BSOD/Aero flakeouts in-game since late June. It has been a nightmare. When I got my computer it was full of issuses. Now it has started to have hardware problems It has really been a battle. But the folks in Costa Rica have been supporting me all the way through this.

I'm really tired of AMD so I really want to give Nvidia a go again. Hopefully Dell can get this 580M throttling under control.

 

I called Dell Tech Support here in the UK again, and again they called me a liar...god, i wish i could record these calls and take these guys to court...but what good would that do...