m18x and windows aero

Same here on my m18x. And yes, I am on IGP... Only installed the dell drivers, otherwise no success. Any help?

And... what is WinSat, please?

 

I have the aero issue very rarely. When it happens, I just close and reopen my session.

 

Fox,

Just wanted to let you know that I have updated the iGPU driver to that of Intel's latest offering as per your posts...I havent disabled WinSAT just yet as I wanted to see how this works out.....

So far, I am impressed. I am only 15 mins into testing but have opened and closed 3dMark'06 numerous times after it states "changing to basic" and the Aero theme changes accordingly.

I havent run the bench itself as thats just a waste of time - I have merely exited the benchmark and my theme has returned to Aero with 100% success so far.....something I can say was NOT the case with Dell's iGPU Driver.

I will continue to test out and if need be, try disabling WinSAT too.....

I wanna get this sorted before I install my SSD......

+ rep to you, my friend - for your continued efforts beyond the call of duty (no gaming pun intended!)

Maybe, and just a thought, but you mention that your 3dmark06 runs in Aero....that must have something to do with disabling WinSAT.......mine still turns to basic with the updated Intel iGPU driver as I am yt to turn WinSAT off..........

 

Stevie - thanks for the rep. Glad to hear this helped you also. Excellent news!

With regard to the "dead space" at the top of the screen. This is courtesy of Dell DataSafe backup, known by us under the alias of AlienRespawn. Check out these links...

Maximized windows won't fill the desktop - Microsoft Answers
Screen Shrink from top - Microsoft Answers
Appearance of small top margin on Windows 7 desktop - Microsoft Answers

...this explains why those who have done clean installs don't have this issue.
I've already created 2 sets of restore media and imaged the entire drive, so I'm thinking that it's time to wipe it out and do it the right way. All I need is time. In the meanwhile, toaster.exe is going to die.

 

Yep , It came yesterday.

I got the bug after runing WEI but haven't seen it since.

I'm still on the drivers it came with 'cos Nvidia haven't released any yet.

Can anyone tell me how to disable Winsat?

 

Congratulations on your new system.

You'll want to disable SoftThinks Agent service and WinSAT. The first you do in the Services.msc console by simply stopping the service and changing the status to disabled. SoftThinks Agent is the nag-ware feature of AlienRespawn (Dell DataSafe Local) that is causing issues. It should not need to run in order to run Respawn or create rescue media. (If you find it does for some reason on your system, simply turn it on and do your stuff, then disable it again.)

To disable WinSAT, start Task Scheduler, go to the Task Library, Microsoft > Windows > Maintenance and you will see the WinSAT task there. Select it, then choose Disable from the lower right properties.

Just a minute and I'll come back and add some screen shots.

 

Its quiet from me cause I've been busy with the xps forum researching my wifes order.

Plus I dont have my M18x yet........................ BUT, I just got a tracking number today....... actually less than an hr ago.

 

Nigel! Good job on the sniping. If you have a tracking number, I bet you'll have it tomorrow or the next day. Sweet!

 

Well, booted thismorning and BAM....Aero flaked out.....might try Winsat next....then clean install.....

 

Steviejones, while you're at it, also disable the service named SoftThinks Agent. This is what was causing my "dead space" (2-3cm strip) at the top of my display. This service runs a process named toaster.exe. Toaster is the AlienRespawn nagware that runs in the system tray 24/7. It does not need to be running in the background to function on demand, and it sure doesn't need to be causing our systems to flake out.

I am on day 3 of no Aero malfunction. (I may be longer than 3 days but I went a week without my M18x and started the count over because I lost track.)

 

Fox,

Would you be so kind as to post a list of what things you HAVE done....I will try and emulate those settings to see if i get the same results....I just disabled WinSAT and opened 3dmark/closed it and was stuck on Basic..

 

Mine is landing soon, do you guys have any advice with the 6990's also i've ordered red, cause all my mates m17's are black, and pro's to neb red?

 

The disparity in the results of people trying the same things is telling me that the problem is yet to be identified, and is only indirectly and temporarily cured by the potential remedies mentioned in this thread. I'm afraid the problem is deeper than we have digged so far.
On my 3 years old Toshiba X200 I never had this problem, and that after doing all you can possibly imagine with this machine, from clean installs of windows XP, Vista, 7, benchmarks, executing all sorts of games and aplications and with days running at a time without shutting it down. That tells me that Windows 7 isn't to blame.
On the other hand, I noticed that any old game or application I run on my R3 is causing this problem, whenever I play a game launched in the era of windows XP and prior, the problem occurs, any old application which is not windowed (3d mark 06 for instance) also causes the Aero problem upon its closure.
I don't know if this can actually lead to something, but I'm thinking that maybe we have in our Alienwares some sort of application(s) that are incompatible with Windows 7, or maybe worse something in the bios itself, exactly what I have no idea at this point, but I hope that those who are more able than myself in these areas can look deeper into this matter.

 

The most consistent way I found to make aero fail is to enable or disable crossfire via ccc.

 

Sure... it's a short list:

• Installed the latest Intel HD 3000 drivers while running on the IGP
• Installed AMD Catalyst 11.6 (clean install after Driver Sweeper and CCleaner)
• Disabled CCC auto startup in MSCONFIG
• Enabled Intel HD Graphics overclocking in BIOS (options are only visible when IGP is active and CFX is inactive) - did not change any settings, just enabled it
• Disabled every EnableUlps instance in regedit - changed all DWORD keys from 1 to 0 (zero) - do not change the binary values or the EnableUlps NA keys
• Disabled AeroPeek, so the button next to the system tray clock now functions like the old "Show Desktop" quicklaunch icon. Do that by changing the DWORD value in the registry from 1 to 0 (zero). You will find that key in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM
• Disabled WinSAT task
• Stopped and Disabled SoftThinks Agent service (this is the AlienRespawn nag-ware and disabling it fixed my issue with the narrow band of "dead space" at the top edge of my display that was occurring randomly)

​

...and that's it. System is running smooth. I doubt that every tweak listed above can be attributed to Aero behaving for me, but I did not want to omit anything because the combination of tweaks is working so well for me. At this point, I have so few issues with Aero that I am not all that interested in burning more calories looking for fixes. It's almost a non-issue and a rare nuisance for me at this point.

With the current configuration, the only way I can force Aero to wig out (as Scrawl points out) is by disabling and re-enabling CFX in CCC. However, I do not have to reboot to get Aero to come back and I have no reason to disable/re-enable CFX during normal use. So, the fact that doing so kills Aero really is not relevant other than for testing. Plus, after killing Aero by disabling/re-enabling CFX, a simple log-off/log-on brings Aero back to life every time for me. Occasionally, Aero balks after switching to the IGP at first boot. After switching and staying on the IGP after subsequent Windows startups or a quick log-off/log-on, the problem goes away on my system while running on IGP. Apparently, a service is being restarted during log-off/log-on that brings it back to life.

As I have stated before, I think the Aero issue is being caused by mating of the integrated/switchable and discreet graphics and presently immature drivers for this hardware combination. The Intel update made the biggest improvement on my system and I think this problem may go away as newer drivers are developed by Intel to deal with the registry more effectively. (This problem is not unique to Alienware, so Intel has more at stake than making M18x users happy.) Unlike the R3, the M18x does not switch graphics "on the fly" within Windows. On the M18x, the Windows registry is dealing with two distinct and remarkably different graphics subsystems and when one is active, the other becomes invisible... but, the Windows registry is still telling Windows how to handle hardware that is (as far as Windows is concerned) no longer present. These are purely logical assumptions on my part, based on the behavior I am observing.

I have a call scheduled with my Alienware advanced support rep this evening so I can share this information.

EDIT: Another thing you'll want to do to avoid startup error messages is use MSCONFIG to disable the Intel and AMD system tray crapplets. If you are running on the IGP, CCC can produce error messages. If you are running on CFX, then the Intel IGFX interface can produce error messages. The reason being is both of those tray crapplets require that the corresponding drivers to be loaded. When they're not, they wig out and BAM... error message. These error messages are an expected behavior when the corresponding hardware is not found and thus drivers are not loaded. There is no benefit to either of these items running at startup. There may be a command line switch to silence and visually mute both of these error messages, but I don't know what the switches are. Disabling them requires no research, no effort, and works equally as effective. See the attached screen shot.

 

In my experience it's any program that causes Windows 7 to drop down the color mode (which always turns Areo off). For some reason it just doesn't come back on automatically like it is supposed to. Reboot almost always fixes it though.

 

Yes, dropping down the color mode would definitely trigger turning Aero off because Aero does not support low-color modes. That behavior is by design. Obviously, it's the failure to recover that is an issue.

Have you tried to simply log-off/log-on instead of rebooting? This works 100% of the time for me thus far. We just need to identify what service is being stopped and restarted as log-on/reboot to see if manually restarting that service also cures it. From there, it would be a matter of driver tweaks to automatically restart that service any time it stops.

 

Just did what you said and then ran WEI.....BUUUUUUUG!!

Thanks anyway.

Graphics 7.8 in WEI

 

Sorry scrap that... I was a bit hasty there!


Aero went off during WEI but came back when it had finished

Thanks very much........I'll keep an eye on it

 

Has anybody tried 3NZ0's solution? If he hasn't found any trouble, my system arrived today and after I check for pixels/temps and before I tear it apart for repasting I'd be willing to give it a shot.

I'm using the 580ms and 2920xm.

If there's anything folks would like me to do, please let me know. I'll check back again before I start, as it will be stright up out of the box from factory. Please be as specific as to steps.

 

I've not seen the bug since using mr foxs fix

 

Thanks Fox.

I have done, as you have described above, to the letter. About to reboot and lets see how she goes.....fingers crossed!

 

Well, done all of the above and ran 3dmark06. It auto switched to basic at the start, then wouldnt return to Aero after it finished. The only thing that I will try next is that I am still using 11.5b hotfix drivers...I will update to 11.6 and see if this persists.....if it does, god help me....i will lose the willl to live! lol.

 

Just for kicks, uninstall all of the AMD Catalyst package and clean it all out using DriverSweeper an CCleaner. Instead of running the Catalyst Install Manager, open Device Manager on your primary video card and browse to the folder where your 11.6 drivers are extracted. Manually install the video drivers so that CCC is not resident on your system. See if Aero behaves with a driver-only installation. I did this once early in the testing phase and it worked out well. If it does for you also, then you can install the full Catalyst package and disable CCC at startup to see if it stays fixed.

 

Im going with the full install first.....going "balls out" lol....yeah, done the old cclean/driversweep stuff...i have installed 11.6 via guru3d (Asder's) and gone back into regedit, enableulps, all dword values changed to 0....winsat disabled, along with all the other stuff ..... lets see.....

Fox. Did you say that when you run '06, it doesnt turn to basic AT ALL??? - even at the outset????.....ive always experienced it changing to basic to bench and then reverting but im sure i read that you said that it ran for you in full Aero mode????

 

Ok. Mini update from my good self.

So far, although I have only been testing a short while, '06 is behaving itself. Whilst it does change to basic mode upon startup, it does revert back to Aero after the bench. Initially, on the first run, it didnt. I clicked on troubleshoot Aero problems and none were found.....

Since then I have opend and closed 06 (without running the bench unneccesarily) a few times and its good to go.....I hope im not putting the nail in the coffin by saying that but seems good so far.....more testing.

Again, thanks Fox....hat off to you fella for coming up with some of this stuff in the hope to cure it....out of interest mate, 11.6.....did you get 'em to install direct from AMD 'cos I had mighty crap trying to get them to work.....thats why I found Asder's modded 11.6's and put them in....simply just would not detect my cards! (which I know is a problem that i have read of elswehere...)

 

What is Windows Aero and how do I knwo if I am having issues with it ...

 

I know that I have been inactive(lazy) lately in this thread. I'd just like to say thanks Fox and Co. for your ongoing attention to this matter.

 

It is the "transparency" or "glass-like" feel to you OS windows.....if it glitches out, you will be left with "solid" borders to your taskbar and windows. Best method to test is by running 3dmark06 which will change your desktop from Aero mode to basic (solid window appearance and colours) and it "should" revert back to the glass-like or see-through windows after the bench...if it doesnt....thats the Aero Bug right there......

Im guilty too Gunner...its only of late that its started to gnaw away at me......hence the renewed vigour....also, I must say that i did feel mentally drained after dealing with the sleep bug for months on the R2...I kinda didnt want to acknowledge this issue but it needs addressing just as the sleep bug did.

I know that between us all, we WILL get there...Fox has been doing the running of late...and I am experiencing good results so far...its only been a short while so I will wait a few days and I will keep posting. All credits go to Fox for coming up with what potentially is a good solution! - again , fingers crossed!

Hope everything is good with you mate.

 

I also got an update:

After fresh install (new M4 SSD) I was quickly greeted by the aero glitch
It happened when the display went off (power saving) and then back on again. And it struck me, two things that I did on the HDD before the bug stopped showing up was disabling the power saving (except for the dim display) and forcing w7 updates to "notify but not download".
I've just disabled the power saving and am about to finish with major updates. Will let you know how it goes.

 

I'm also exhausted from the R2 problems. I ran into the bug twice today....lame.
On a side note my space black lid and bottom chassis just arrived. I'm going to take them to the local Macco's to get them painted Blue.

 

Yep, that's right. I've never seen that before, and that's why I even provided screen shots of it if you look at some of my prior posts.

First off... you're welcome. Both of you. We're all in this together. I hope both of you (and everyone else) realize the excellent results I am having.

Stevie, I am using AMD reference drivers, not the modded version you posted. I manually installed the drivers. As I mentioned earlier today, I browsed from the Device Manager properties and selected the drivers I wanted Windows to install from the folder I wanted them installed from. Windows tried to tell me it was not the right driver, but I overrode Windows' advice and installed it anyway. This changed the hardware description in Device Manager from 6970 to 6900M Series. After manually installing the drivers (which were at first utilized with the version of CCC that came from Dell) I found good results. Later on, I did a clean install of drivers without any version of CCC and had good results. (I had permanently enabled CFX manually in the registry and used RadeonPro to control what CCC had been in charge of. I ran for 2 days without an issue of any kind.) Eventually, I did a full install using the Catalyst Install Manager. The driver's were installed manually again through Device Manager (thus no need for CCC to pass judgment on whether I had the "right stuff") followed by an "official" installation using the Catalyst Install Manager. The driver's were already in place at this point, so it was only updating CCC and the other stuff, like the HD Audio driver, etc.

I doubt there is any difference between drivers I downloaded from AMD and those you obtained from Rage3D other than the inf file was most likely tweaked to allow for an automated installation with recognition of the video cards.

 

The M4 has had a firmware update related to power saving sometimes causing problems.(mainly macbooks ) Are you running 0002?

I''ll be honest. Most of the settings I've read in this thread will have zero impact on the problem and if you see an increase or decrease in the frequency of happening it's more than likely just a coincidence.

The last time I can remember aero being a problem was with ati/nvidia drivers when vista came out. Some would cause the desktop/wei driver to crash and get stuck in non-aero mode till you logged out and back in or rebooted if it was more serious. It got solved after a few driver revisions.

 

I'm running the 0002 with extra tweaks.

Generally I'd agree but,... I'm going through the same story for the 2nd time. With the original HDD I had 4-5 aero glitches before all the updates were installed and power settings turned off. Since then - silk smooth. Until the fresh install today and 2-3 manifestations. I'm now on the same page as before and if it happens again - then you are right

 

Will be interesting to see how you get on then. FWIW, I manually tweaked all the settings on all 3 power modes on both machines to suit my use. I'm going to use both machines in power saver mode with max power saving and see if I can cause either machine to cough.

 

ah ... ok then I have no aeor glitches, seems to work fine. Did with the stock drivers and the 11.7.

I do have one weird thing, if I am in a window, and I hit the mouse, sometimes the window just disappears, until I move the mouse again.

But I am still in the window, I can type in it and everything, its really really odd.

 

Unfortunately, I remember that. And this is also consistent with what some of us are seeing right now. The biggest improvement in the Aero glitch came from installing updated Sandy Bridge/IGP drivers from Intel.

I haven't found any settings that make a big difference, but some of the tweaks are preventing whatever driver crashes occur from happening more frequently. I think that may explain what Aikimox is experiencing, as some power settings may be causing driver crashes as well.

Like you, I fully expect this Aero glitch will become a non-issue after a couple more driver revisions. It could be a little more complicated this go 'round since we are dealing with two sets of video drivers on the M18x, so they need to both work right with Windows and play nice with one another.

 

Ah, so you've discovered "Aero Peek" which is the goofy little rectangle on the extreme right side of your taskbar adjacent to the clock. If you have your mouse/touchpad set to hide the cursor while typing, it can inconspicuously hover over that rectangular critter without you seeing it do that. When that happens, you experience exactly what you've described.

You can disable Aero Peek if it becomes a big issue that bugs you too much. I've just turned off the setting that hides my mouse cursor while typing and then a can keep track of where it is pointing while I am typing. That being said, I just don't see a lot of value in Aero Peek. It's one of those features that's almost worthless to me. It's cool, but worthless. I'd prefer to see the "Show Desktop" icon make a comeback. That shortcut minimizes all open windows, and I find that far more useful than making them transparent. The placement of the Aero Peek button on the extreme lower right corner of the screen also seems silly to me.

 

I spoke with my Alienware Tech Support Specialist this evening and he is going to have their advanced Technical Support Team look into this issue more deeply, as well as the tweaks we have identified that help improve the situation. He is sending them links to posts on this thread as well as the thread on the Dell Community that relate to the same problems.

 

Thanks for the compliment Mr Fox.

But, sadly, not for us in Canada. it gets shipped Purolator Canada Standard. My EDD is not till Aug friggin 1st which of course is a MONDAY!!!! Worst stinkin day to get a delivery. It means it will sit at the depot all weekend and they never let you pickup until at least one delivery attempt. Plus Monday is a HOLIDAY here, won't get it till Tuesday if I'm lucky. Stupid slow purolator.

 

One good thing about this Aero issue could be that later into the future when the possible M18x-R2 is released, if the Aero issue isn't fixed by then on the R1 but is on the R2, it may be possible to complain and get a replacement R2.

 

Speaking of complaining......... How is everyone doing with the headphone jack problem on these m18's?

 

I didn't know there was one. Is there a thread on this forum talking about it?

 

The bug is back.

 

Ya, its a sticky on the MAIN alienware forum:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...g-after-using-optical-external-audio-out.html

 

I'm glad you pointed that out to me, Nigel. Thank you.

I'll not be using the optical adapter. I use Bluetooth headphones all the time, but have not plugged in my noise cancelling headphones into the M18x. Hopefully, standard headphones being plugged in does not cause this as well. I'll have to read more of that thread to find out.

 

Fox, just out of interest mate, where did you get a version of 11.6 that actually installs ? - a legit, non-modded one from AMD? - the AMD source does not work for me, never did. Where did you get the d/l from?

Scrub that....11.7 officially out....gonna go ahead and try 'em out.

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/radeonmob_win7-64.aspx

Release notes

 

Stevie, please read my post again as I manually installed 11.6 through Device Manager, and later ran the AMD installer. I had to do that to fool the system into recognizing my 6970's by the generic name "6900M Series". After I did that CCC was convinced I had the correct hardware and then it would install for me, but not before.

OK, I'm going to try the official 11.7. Thanks for the heads up. The modded 11.7b that I installed today really sucks. All of my benchmark scores dropped using 11.7b. However, I'm still having absolutely wonderful success with Aero not dying on me. 3DMark06 still runs in Aero. Take a look at today's screen shots showing Aero working while 3DMark06 is active, even though the driver's suck. (Again, the score dropped from what I could achieve with 11.6 drivers. If the official AMD 11.7 release does not perform as well or better, I am going back to AMD 11.6 Catalyst Package.)

Spoiler

This screen shot demonstrates that Aero never stopped working while running 3DMark06.


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

This screen shot was taken showing that Aero recovered from Basic mode after closing down Vantage.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I'll download the official Catalyst 11.7 release from AMD and see if anything changes for better or for worse.

 

yep. my 11.7 scores have dropped too.....not by huge amounts but they have dropped all the same. I noticed that you are running 3dmark06 professional which may account for the fact that it runs in Aero, im not sure....I just run the basic version.....im guessing thats the difference as there is really nothin different otherwise.

 

Here's something interesting I turned on my M18x today and was greeted to the Aero Bug. I had some issues with my 580M's, so I called AW and did an Alien Contact session.

As soon as the Agent ended the session my Aero Theme reappeared.

This is the ONLY thing i have ever seen that has brought Aero back without a log off/log on or reset/power cycle.