m18x and windows aero

Ok, so after trying all the scenarios posted here, after multiple cold boots and GPU to IGP switching cycles, I can't reproduce the problem anymore!
Running stock Dell drivers. The only difference from before is that I upgraded my wifi card to Bigfoot Killer 1102.

 

Interesting....................even my brand new 3 day old replacement is plaqued with the Aero bug. All my drivers are up to date. Currently I'm on the Dell AMD drivers.

 

Dunno what to say, I had the problem 3 or 4 times back then before reverting the drivers and upgrading WiFi. Not anymore.

 

Aiki, I wonder if you could try running 3dmark06 which runs on a basic theme.....then see if your system will revert to Aero afterwards. I've found that once basic has been chosen, after a bench like this, I cant revert to an Aero theme.....used to be able to do that on my R2 without any issue. FWIW, im still on everything stock "Dell"......although my experiences of this have lessened, I believe its still there......lurking!

 

That is a good way to replicate the problem!! 1 out of 3 runs causes the issue.

 

1 run - no issues, will do a couple more later on.

 

Well, it certainly replicates things for me....mores the pity

Cheers fella, thanks for testing.

 

No idea if it's related, but I consistently lose the Aero theme when toggling crossfire on and off.

Logging out then logging back in brings it back though.

 

Are you toggling Crossfire just testing things, or to make a particular game or program behave? Only asking out of curiosity, as I have never had a reason to turn it off.

 

I was doing some Googling on this Aero issue and it seems to be an issue on a wide variety of computers, with AMD GPU based systems seeming to be more prevalent. I'm still not entirely convinced this is an Alienware problem or an issue with the BIOS.

Hopefully this will turn out to be one of those simple things that was right under our noses. In the interest of finding a solution, I'm going to ask what may be a simple, if not silly, question.

Has anyone experiencing this problem tried going into System Properties and changing the setting on the Visual Effects tab from "Let Windows choose what's best for my computer" to "Adjust for best performance" or using custom settings? Adjust for best performance should force Aero to work except when running an application or utility that is not compatible.

If you're on the default of letting Windows choose, it may be that Windows is deciding for you. If those who are not experiencing the problem have already changed this setting, that would be an enlightening discovery.

One other observation in my Googling is that a fair number of the people complaining about this issue have systems with more than 4GB of memory. Going back to my question about the visual effects settings, I am just wondering the part of Windows that handles Aero is glitching out a bit while addressing such a big pool of RAM. With 16GB of system memory and 4GB of video memory, that's well beyond the average system capacity.

Another random thought that comes to mind is Windows Power Profile settings may be causing an issue, especially with CCC PowerPlay involved. This may explain why some are finding good results with CCC being disabled at startup. (There's no good reason for most programs, including CCC, to run at startup.)

 

Ive had the aero bug appearing before I installed my 16gb Ram whilst I was using the 4gb stock Dell stuff so I dont think it could be related to that....still, worth looking at everything.....

Its happened twice to me today. Once upon booting. Got to the desktop,2 seconds...BAM.

The other was via testing....run 3dmark 06 which defaults to a basic theme to run....normally on my old R2, when exiting the bench tool, it would revert to Aero. Not on this sucka.....have to reboot to get back to a working Aero theme.....

 

Today I booted up and was greeted to the Aero bug. Decide to run 3DMark 06 just to see if it would flake out to basic mode....yup Aero Bug again. Restart>back at desktop with Aero.

 

Are your visual effects set on best appearance, performance, custom, or "let windows decide"?

 

Not once have I been able to run 3dmark06 and then have it return my desktop to an Aero mode....its always stuck at basic after running the benchmark.

Everything on my system is stock Dell issue....

 

"Let Windows choose what's best for my computer"

gonna try "adjust for best appearance"

same here exactly

 

You may have missed a suggestion I offered in a prior post. Change it to "Adjust for best appearance" or "Custom" with all boxes checked. See if Aero behaves when the decision is not left up to Windows to choose. It's worth a shot, don't you think?

 

I will try this too. I have just changed to your setting Fox.....gonna run a 3dmark06 and see what gives....

 

ran 3dmark06>no problems w/aero>restared M18x>ran 3dmark06>no problems w/aero


so far so good................

 

Well, bugger me......

I just applied those settings, ran 3dMark06 which obviously runs in basic....closed out the bench and bingo....she returned to the Aero theme with success!

I am really hoping that this setting works upon boot too (cant see any reason why it wouldnt) but if this DOES work, this is GREAT news....

Fox....you are a genius, my friend! +rep (even if it doesnt hold out, its one better than what I previously had which was whenever running '06, I couldnt get Aero back AT ALL!)

Lets hope Gunner returns with similar good results.

Top man Mr.Fox - you have made my evening!

 

Same here Gunner......gonna do another run.....

 

Well, I just happened to think of it first, that's all. If this really does stay fixed, then we can all celebrate.

 

I'm gonna do another restart/run

+1 rep Fox/Stevie.

 

Hahaha - im like a kid in a sweetie shop!.....just run '06 again....NO AERO PROBLEMS!!!! - wooooohoooooooo!!!!!

What makes it even sweeter is seeing my rig pull close to 28000 without any gpu overclock and still on Dell video drivers ......muahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.....

Gunner, repped you too fella.....sheer dogged determination! (well i will when NBR lets me!)

 

This time it flaked out back to basic after running 06

Thanks for the rep.


What's interesting is after the bug...changing it to best appearance does nothing. If it really works it should change back when selecting that option.

 

I generally have my system set on "Custom" with some of the useless animations unchecked and several times Windows has changed it back to "Let Windows decide..." somehow.

I've been not able to figure out why or how it gets changed back, but I've also had XP and Vista do the same thing to me before.

 

Well, I havent restarted as of yet but I have run 3 instances of '06 and none of them have flaked out yet. All have returned an Aero theme upon closing. I guess I will see what happens after a restart/shut down.

 

Hopefully Windows 8 may fix some of these issues. Build 7989 was leaked not to long ago.....

keep us posted stevie.

 

skygunner - double check to make sure the setting stayed on "Adjust for best appearance" after rebooting.

 

I just rebooted, checked first to ensure that the above settings were still enabled prior to running '06.....ran '06....flaked out...didnt return to Aero afterwards.....stuck on basic, cant change back to an active Aero theme..

Thing is, this cant be windows 7 as this worked fine on my R2.......its gotta be something M18x related.....

 

they did............

 

Did you check to make sure the settings stayed put to "Adjust for best appearance" after rebooting?

If/when aero is not working, try opening a command prompt and typing Net Start uxsms to bring it back. (If you get an error that reads "The requested service has already been started" then type Net Stop uxsms and then Net Start uxsms.

 

Has any one had any problems with internet explorer(either 8-9) Ever since i got it out the box i been having problems with it. Even after reinstalling the OS, it kept crashing. IDK, maybe its related to this issue.

 

no internet problems here.

tried, it doesn't bring it back.

 

Well, it sort of is a Windows 7 thing, but only to the extent that it is manifesting symptoms. I think it's a combination of things, and it potentially seems to be an Intel/AMD conflict. So far, with a few exceptions, most of what I am finding on the web where others are having similar issues with Aero being fickle about when it wants to work they have AMD cards with Intel HD 3000 graphics switching.

I found this registry "hack" for enabling Aero by force on systems that are not supposed to have the cajones to run Aero. Out of curiosity, I checked the three DWORD that need to be manually created and my registry already has them and they have the correct value of zero. You might want to look and see if yours does, too.

 

Ive been trying my best to research this. I wonder if it has anything to do with DWM (Desktop Windows Manager) getting disabled/affected by something...... Maybe a good idea to check that the service is still running after Aero has "flaked out" by doing what was suggested here. Got that idea by reading this Aero topic

 

I spoke with tech support again. They say it's the video drivers. They also say that there is nothing we can do on a software level to fix this. He said that it's up to AMD to fix this.

 

Well, it doesnt suprise me that they've come up with that excuse. It may be true but where was Dell's testing on this before releasing the M18x with AMD gpu's & AMD "Dellized" Drivers.....its not something they could have missed now is it?

 

As you (and all of us) can see (and 'experiment'), we return to the question (big problem) of the lack of Total Quality Control and Assurance at testing and selecting parts, at assembling, at manufacturing, at pre-boxing, and at post-selling (servicing)...

Some minimalize the percentage of people with different kind of issues, but that percentage is a sample of something that is not a divine commandament but a human decision: to take in consideration the issues and to improve the TQC&A or to ignore the realities that are very costly for Dell, for the brand and for the customers...

 

I think checking out your services is an excellent idea, Stevie. I was looking at this on my R2 last night while researching this issue. I do believe that DWM is being adversely affected by something. Along the same lines as the information below (from skygunner), something with the Sandy Bridge platform and AMD GPUs, especially with CFX, seems to be a common denominator. It's possible this problem did not show up on the R2 because of the different chipset, 5870s and the absense of switchable graphics. There are major hardware difference between R2 and M18x. This does not seem to be an issue with the R3, but the R3 only has one 6970. It would be neat if someone that owns an R2 and M18x and could swap the GPUs out to see if the problem follows the 6970 GPUs and shows the same behavior on the R2, or if the 5870s have the same issues with the Sandy Bridge and HD 3000 hardware. It would also be interesting if an ambitious M18x owner would yank out one of the 6970 GPUs temporarily to see if the problem goes away with only a single 6970 installed.

I am wondering if changing settings for the service will help. See attached screen shots. I wonder if checking the box on the Log On tab to "Allow service to interact with desktop" will help. On the recovery tab, are your settings on all three drop-downs "Restart the Service" or are any of the options "Take No Action"? I would try setting all three to "Restart the Service." Maybe Windows is giving up after the second try and changing Subsequent failures to "Restart the Service" will help. Also, maybe shortening the minutes under "Restart service after" would do something.

Well, that sound like an answer that seems to fit the scenario I have found by my Googling activities. There seems to be an issue with AMD CFX not playing nice with Intel HD 3000 switchable graphics with notebooks sold by multiple OEMs. When a rep told you it was a Dell/Alienware BIOS problem I did not believe that. But, it could be an AMD vBIOS issue, or a driver issue.

I am optimistic that if it is an AMD problem it will get sorted out. They have a lot at stake competing with NVIDIA with AMD hardware on too many systems to not fix it.

 

Fox,

I have checked my DWM settings....changed the last one to restart the service. Also enabled the checkbox. Will monitor and see if it makes any difference.

It is somewhat encouraging to think that this is a display driver issue. If it is, I hope that AMD do acknowledge it and that it gets taken care of. Such a simple thing can really do your head in, cant it....I mean, a £300 netbook can manage Aero......

EDIT: Did the above and ran 3dmark06 but it wouldnt return to my Aero theme after. Looks like that doesnt work either atm. Worth a look though!

 

Hey Stevie, the very old (antiquity?) Mobility Radeon 9600 (from January 2004) runs the Aero without any issue at all... ( and with a very old 2005legacy driver)

 

Ha! - I can well believe it.....

 

I wonder if we all should petition AMD for a fix http://www.amd.com/us/aboutamd/contact-us/Pages/contact-us.aspx

 

So, are you thinking Dell and other OEMs should spend 6 months or a year testing all new products and countless hardware/software configurations before selling any systems that incorporate new technology? I'm so glad they don't do that. I agree that quality control needs to be improved with all electronics vendors and OEMs, but I find that Dell does a far better job than the majority of its competitors when it comes to post-sale service and support. Good help is hard to find in any industry, so to some extent we can blame the population of worthless, incompetent and lazy employees for service failures. The percentage is small, but it only takes a few bad hires to give an impression of poor service. The bigger the company, the bigger that problem becomes. Outsourcing labor further compounds the problem.

True, but I would expect good quality legacy hardware that was widely circulated to work well with most any Windows-based system. I still have an ATI Radeon 9600 AGP card in a desktop gaming system I built years ago, and it's a fine product. However, it will not come even close to achieving the performance of current low end GPUs. Even many of the latest IGPs will outperform it. So, while your point is dead-on accurate, it's sort of a moot point.

In reality, the type of problem we are discussing is not unusual for new technology. This is just one of the hazards that early adopters have to deal with. Anyone not up for working through glitches should not really be an early adopter and should not be buying cutting edge technology. Those folks should consider that it is feasible to be an avid enthusiast and wait from the sidelines to purchase while observing other customers deal with the bugs. In the long run, I find that working through issues like this one build stronger technical skills. As long as the problem is not a hardware engineering defect, it will (or should) get sorted out over time.

One of the things that makes Alienware products so awesome is they are on the bleeding edge. If they spend months and months trying working all of the bugs out of all of their products before releasing them, they will not be able to stay on the edge and be early to market with the hardware gamers and power users demand. The most savvy power users purchase systems from Alienware with the understanding there can be some issues to work through.

If having a system completely free of hiccups and bugs is important, I would not recommend that person purchase the latest and greatest products from Alienware or any of its competitors that cater to gamers and power users.

 

Speaking of Windows 8, check out this very cool theme for Windows 7. LINK I really like the added transparencies, pointed corners and new window action buttons. (The user tile in the system tray is sort of an irrelevant thing. I'm not sure why anyone would have burned calories on that invention, but somebody else might find it to be nifty.)

I have IE9 and it works OK. I do get an occasional crash now and then, but I use Firefox and Chrome almost exclusively. Sometimes the IE crash recovery feature can be a problem because it tries to reload a buggy web page when it restarts. If that happens, I have to open IE in safe mode first to get it to behave properly.

I only use IE when I have to for the web site to function correctly. (One example is my company intranet on VPN because an IE certificate is required for access. I have also found a few secure web sites that require IE to operate properly.)

 

Well, even though I can't reproduce the aero glitch anymore, I think it's a driver issue. I've noticed poor performance in some games, ran 3DMark11 and got low score there too. Looks like I've messed with the drivers too much and will have to start from scratch. Will wait till my new ssd arrives and do a clean install. Will keep you posted but I'm positive the bug will be back as soon as the drivers are installed properly, lol

 

Cheers for the update from your end. I will probably be doing the same as my SSD has been sitting here neglected, begging to be installed....

 

That W8 theme is pretty slick. I checked it out to see what W8 looks like. Usually the most I'll do is Aero Themes because I like a clean running system. Thanks again.

 

Dear Fox, I underdstand perfectly your point. I agree with most of it. Even so, please allow me to explain my intentions: I didn't mean to compare the performances between the cards. But that the Mobility radeon 9600 (that wasn't meant to work with the Aero) do it so well, and the new cards seems to have some 'glitches'...
When the old Tecra 730 CDT were made (back in 1996) and the Inspiron 8100 (1998) and Inspiron 8600 (2004) they achieve a different long lasting quality (as in the Precisions)... We have the right to expect that a flagship state-of-the-art piece of work like the AW M18x will have some kind of quality control and assurance... The people that love techs and new techs in special, understand that those are human made and not God made... so, we understand that maybe can be some "hiccups and bugs"... But, even then they do not need 6 months of checkings. Just a 24 hours "burn-out"... That is what Dell (and also ATI) use to do with their products. The systems that do the checking are almost totally automated. They just produce a feedback when they found "glitches"... Or if it is a human checking, it's done in one out of ten machines... (lie in the Ferrari motors) or one of 3 (in the Rolex products for wide consumers) or alike. We are paying not just for "bleeding techs" but also for fully working machines right out of the box...
The Aero suppossed bug could be tested and detected a long time ago before those machines start to be configurable. Who must do it? The costumer?

Then when you call the customer services they argue with you as if you was the one that caused the issue or worst: "that issue was never reported, so it doesn't exist in our books".

 

I've seen this sooooo many times....lol.