Project Freeze(M17/Ocz Whitebook)

*lurk* .

Theres a handfull of M17 users still on these forums and the M17 with 4850's is still a very competative laptop.

The only thing that is holding it back is the limited CPU you can use.
Would love to put a Quad into my beast but too affraid of the stutter i might get.

Maybe one day i'll just try it .

 

I followed every step i could find to help out with this I even used ZFactors bios and then undervolted the cpu, even took it from 2.53 to 2.2-2.0ghz and still stuttered. As of now all I did really was put artic silver 5 on all heatsinks and then removed the crappy covers AW put over the vents. nothing helped, but once I killed the drives in raid and left them alone so two 250gb drives no more stutter at all, I'm happy I left the forum for awhile due to marital issues with the wife, but now that its all back to happy days with her, so im back. I will be testing diff hard drives in my M17 as it seems like it could be chatter on the raid array causing my issues or the drives just dont like to be raided and could use a firmware update. More to come, plus I crashed the my '05 Mustang and went with a '09 Lancer so I been modding that a whole lot.

 

OK, I have done the copper mod to the northbridge and all stutter issues are gone, I was lucky enough to have a friend that had some copper sheets so i took a peice, and have also added a small copper mod to the southbridge I will try to take some pics later on, I used artic silver adhesive to connect the two copper peices. All I have to say is why did Alienware not realize what was causing the issues and fix it with a new heatsink really would that have been to much to ask for. For 4k I would expect them to bend over backwards. later. pics to come later on.

 

In all fairness it's a very 'random' problem in a way. Everyone seems to be 'unique' in their stuttering situation; some don't stutter at all, some stutter really badly. Some are made better by the latest BIOS, some made worse. It just seems very random.

For example, I have virtually no stuttering with B14. I get it VERY, VERY occasionally and very mildly, all I need to do is pull my power cord out and put it back in then it's done.

However, when I tried zfactor's latest .29 BIOS that's meant to be even better for most people (nearly everyone saw improvement), it actually made my stuttering 10 times worse...

Consdering it's something that can't be replicated exactly the same in EVERY machine, where the solution seems to differ for every single person, you can't really blame Alienware. (They never even made the damn thing anyway, it's just a rebadged OCZ Whitebook with the parts added in by Alienware)

 

Good job on reviving back this thread. lol...

good to see you have no more issues.

 

Actually it wasn't even an OCZ, OCZ themselves rebadged the machine. It was actually an Arima/Flextronics design.
Besides, from the range I've read it seems there was not ONE primary issue for the stutter, it seems there were 2.
1st would be inadequate/poorly designed CPU/Northbridge cooling, the 2nd being an insufficient power/power regulation section on the motherboard.

The first could have likely been dealt with by a slightly better heatsink/fan assembly (and better positioned venting on the backplate), the power issues with the inadequate 2-phase power section on the mobo however would have required a redesign/version 2.0 of the motherboard (moves made before with desktop boards like the NF7 revision 2.0 version from Abit [RIP]).

 

I would definitely suggest removing the bottom cover of the M17.....to all M17 owners.
I recently acquired some 4850s for my M17 and temps appeared fine at first then the high temps began to kick in and games seemed to struggle at high settings.....I removed the bottom cover for the first time ever whilst gaming and the notebook runs as it should have done in the first place.....with max gaming temps of 75 -80c. The fans dont kick in as much and certainly not as severe. I have the notebook sat on a Antec 200 cooler and plan to do a similar mod to DHC with a mesh cover to replace the bottom cover....Im thinking of getting it done professionally from a few companies Ive found online but as I use my notebook as a desktop its not priority.
Cant believe the cooling difference with the bottom cover off....its amazing.

 

if you can keep it cooler, memory on gpus works ALOT better

 

Well I tried it all the latest BIOS B14 to OCZ's BIOS, to Zfactor's 0.29 and the stutter issue was always there some less frequent but non the less the laptop was unusable other then surfing the web. Every game I played just stuttered and it stuttered bad. The pulling the power cord helped but then within 5-10 min I would have do it again so not much for gaming use. When I disabled the raid it did seem to work for awhile but then under stress it started back up. I then figrued ok this has to be a heat issue, and thats why I came back to the forums to check and see if it was ever fixed. Sure enough coppermod the heatsink, and now all issues are gone no more pulling the power plug nothing I have been gaming on it for a good two weeks and not one single stutter not ONE. Well who ever made it should have redesigned the heat sink and issued a replacement for all the quads out, I have a friend that has the same laptop but with a dual core and has never had the issue at all, reason why I bought it but went to quad for more power. Also the fact that from day one I could not even bench over 8k in 3dmark06 now that is sad, now no over clock i am pulling close to 13,900. I know we all need to show pic for proof, I have a screen of the first copper mod which was about 1-inch or so of copper that was all I could find in my house and really wanted to test before I went to a bigger peice. SO here is my frist copper mod. I will post more pic the new copper mod almost reaches to the CPU on the top side of the heat sink. I will post newer pics of the mod and new 3dmark06 scores. Trust me the copper mod is the best way to go as of now I can play DOW2 with no stuttering or need to unplugg the power from the back of the laptop. I'm not giving up on this laptop, its by far a great gaming laptop/desktop replacement if it works as it should have. I know I have spent alot of time on it working on it, but it is well worth it I love the M17 for what it can do, hate the paint job, but cant all be winners here. I must be the only geek that still has his M17. Well seeing how it has two Master ATI Radeon 3870's I dont think I would ever give it up. Hence one reason I was not going to send it back to alienware they "Might" take the second master and "Might" have replaced it with a slave
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49504715@N03/4540692900/

Tems.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49504715@N03/4540692912/

 

and tony can probably try to overclock the babies for some more performance not that the bottom cover is removed.
p/s: overclock don't provide performance boost in games just benchies

 

Oh I did not know that.....I thought you overclocked for general performance boosts especially in games.

Still looking for the right piece of mesh for the bottom cover....suerly it will have to be smooth around the edges? If I cut the mesh it will be rough on one side and no longer suitable as a "mobile PC"
dunno.....still brainstorming some ideas for the perfect bottom cover.

 

You can smooth it out with a file.....

 

I will be redoing my bottom cover aswell.

Bought 2 new covers, will use 1 for making a v2.0 of my idea and the other i will keep so i can put it on my laptop when i sell it.

There are actually pc customization shops on the net that sell really thin grills all sizes which you can cut to what you want...i just forgot the url of the UK shop i found the other day.

Try googling tony and let me know when you find one .

 

Actually there are general boosts, but its often not a huge amount, benching just makes it more obvious. I mean you might be talking say 35-39/40 fps kinda stuff.
It depends on the game and the machine and how far the overclock goes really

 

hum thread necroing

my oc did provide a 15 fps bump in crysis ....... but not every one wana do a 20% overclock across the board lol


i plan on building a custom cover with integrated fans to help keep my laptop cooled i also plan on taking hint from the project freeze to add heat sinc thus making the added fans blow through them evacuating more heat

i'l have 3 fans powered through the internal USB at my disposal now i need to find the best disposition for them see if i can fit ram heat sink under them etc

i'll have the fans on hand later today and a mesh similar to what dhc used later this week what i lack is a way to transform the internal usb into a usb femal and transform a usb male back into a internal conector

this will be fun if it works as planned i should have a little more room to oc my gpus wich are adrealy gones quite far with juste the back cover off

 

A little off topic but...
For replacing their back cover with the mesh , I found
this

Might help for ones wanting to replace their back cover.

I know I will.

Woops!! Seems as though you need to order minimum of 10 sq. feet. depending upon the product.

 

I would like to express my honest gradiditute to all of those that put their time and sweat on this problem!
I consider you to be pioneers!!! =)

I have the m17 notebbok and just I applied the Copper mod on my NorthBridge.

Although the performance is obviously better (meaning that now the CPU/NB fan doesn't get loud as hell
whenever I choose any other power consumption mode other than "power saver" and my idle temperatures are now around 60c instead of 69c!),
the stutters have reduced BUT are still there whenever tempatures in my cores go up to 74c.

Since I AM a complete noob at this (I consider what I did today to be the riskiest thing I ve attempted so far,
even though I ve assemplied a desktop pc from scratch and I am also known to break desktop PCs down to their components just to carry them around)
I DID expected to do something wrong in this procedure,
and to be frank I am quite satisfied that i didnt end up frying my CPU.

So any ideas as to what I might have done wrong?

Then again I know that it can take quite some time for the thermal paste to settle in and work right.

By the way check this image;
the colored values on my taskbar's right corner are the temps that the CoreTemp 0.99 gives me and at the same time the window above shows the values the CPUID is giving me which are significantly lower!!!
Why is that?
Which one should i trust?

By ibizanhound at 2010-10-08


TECHNICAL STUFF:
I used a 11x11x1mm pure copper square plate for my NB.
Does these dimentions sound ok?
I didnt see anyone else mentioning the dimensions of the copper piece they used.

Also,
I put thermal paste on the NB chip,
on the NB's heat conductor's surface
and on the 2 silver surfaces on my CPU which would be the 2 sets of dual cores of my CPU i take it :S.

The amound i used each time was as big as an unboiled grain of rice
and i spread that to cover the whole area of the silver area of each chip trying to keep it even and as thin as possible.

If i need to change anything please let me know you guys!

A big thank you to everybody once again
and a big SCREW YOU to Alienware for avoiding to reply to the mail i sent them 5 months before my waranty was over, asking them "what could be causing the stutters?",
and replying to me only when I sent them the same message for the 2nd time, just this month, only to get the answer:
" Sorry but your warranty has expired, we cannot help you."!!!

 

See my post in the other thread, and please try to avoid cross posting.

 

Ok, sorry about the cross posting.

Which thread please? Link?

EDIT:
Sorry! I just realised you meant to check out your answer to me on the other thread!

 

Wow thanks for all the info, just got a Q9100 and yes have been noticing stutters.

So is anyone selling/willing to make any NB and GPU shims? I'll pay through paypal, PM me please!

 

you could also use ek water block stuf availible from frozen cpu

alsowhat is you network card?

 

Do you have a link?

My wifi card? Its the realtek one.

 

Thermal Pad - 1.0mm | Page 1 | Sort By: Product Title A-Z - FrozenCPU.com  

well i waas checking cause mine came with the realtek one when i switched to the intel one i started having dpc issue wich cause stuttering

 

Damn, I was about to upgrade, but i couldnt get the area above my keyboard off, i really felt like i was going to break it.

Sweet thanks for the link, do i just cut it or fold the block if purchase it?

 

fold? well it's a high quality tape so it's quite eseay to cut part of it and use it


for the upgrate you may have missed a screw there are 2 under one in the back also i found a fix for it so if you upgrade it's just little trouble not a pain in the ...

 

Oh wow tape huh? That would make things alot easier, so I could just use it the same way I'd use the coppermod for both the northbridge and the GPUs?

I think I got out all the screws that I needed, it was the stupid snap on part of the top right side, above the power button that just wouldnt come out, I figured I've never had an issue with the current wifi adapter and there is no point i breaking it. So i sold the intel 5300 again.

 

I also noticed that there is a fujipoly tape also on the website, which one is better between the two? The fujipoly states the Thermal Conductivity 6.0 W/mK, where as the EK doesnt say.

 

i don't know for the other but i used ek water block and they have a thermal conductivity extremely good and they keep my nb much cooler then the normal stuff did they have been recomended to me by some people that did some test

i also used them for my memory chips on my gpu and they did great there to

but a copper mod on the gpu?

 

Haha sorry, I forgot it doesnt need to be modded.

So how many strips did you buy? Did you use any for the south bridge?

Also do you recommend any mini heatsinks for the copperpipes? Are there any that fit or do they all need to be filed/sanded down? Should I use as5 thermal adhesive?

Sorry for all the questions.

 

i bought the smallest one and well i don't know what i'm gonna do with what i have left the mini heat sink are all to tall they need to be sanded and don't brign any improvement unless you runn on a cooler with the back cover off

i got the 8800/3870 ones they fit but it's pushung on my back cover

 

So you only bought one strip (for 3.99) and it had enough for all the applications? NB and vram?

Alright I was looking at those, I just bought a NZXT cryo LX so yea I do plan on pushing some air, next thing is probably do a cover mod that allows air to come through the back. But I probably won't do that until the near future.

 

nop these strip are a new thing EK Thermal Pad Sheet - 160mm x 155mm x 1mm - FrozenCPU.com

that's the exact product i bought

i used some on the south bridge to

 

Ah ok, thank you for all your help!

 

Hi guys,

I've owned an M17 Alienware for just over a year now and have suffered similar issues, especially when gaming.

I am temtped to go through with the suggested fix, however I spoke with Alienware recently, explaining the problem, also referencing this thread. Apparently they don't make the parts for this specific model anymore, but they offered me this as a "compensation" as they put it...

-----

I consulted this issue with my colleagues . We agreed on option to solve your stuttering issue you will receive instead of q9000 CPU a dual core X9100 with a Bluray drive as a compensation .

-----

So basically they're solution to fix this problem is to replace my current quad core with some sort of dual core... According to a friend of mind, this is effectively a downgrade.

What would everyone recommend? I go through with the fix suggested here, or take AW's offer and switch to this dual core?

Cheers for the help.

James.

 

it's simple AW never fixed the issue and they tried to shut every one talking about it


yes this is a downgrade but sadly for some it's the onlyway to fix it you could try moding and if it does not work just put pads on it and say you wanna exchange


also note that alienware not that they have been merged with dell they honestly suck for case following they own me 53 bucks and they are not capable of sending me a damned email and when i call they say the team who mad ethe deal is not on sorry call again

 

See if you can get them to send you a T9900 instead. It is the same speed as the x9100 but runs MUCH cooler. It can be viewed as a "downgrade" going back to a dual core but odds are that your gaming performance will actually go up and for general use you wont notice a difference - and who does not like blu ray?!

 

yup but i doubt they have a t9900 in stock as in thier last time they where replacing all cpu by the extremes for free sins thier stock of non extreme proc was over

also they will give you at best a blueray reader because they don,t have a blueray burner option for this laptop even if it's compatible

 

While you're losing two cores, the x9100 runs immensely faster then the Q9000 PERIOD. Plus you're getting a blu-ray drive, I would take that deal in a heartbeat and never look back. To me its not a downgrade, but an upgrade expecially since this is what made my M17 actually function correctly and faster IMO.

 

Thanks for the advice guys.

I did a little research myself into quad/dual cores and there seems to be a universal agreement it would not be a downgrade... I just hope this fixes the stuttering issue as that's the reason why they are taking it back!

It's a shame really. The M17 is a really neat laptop, but those stuttering issues just kill it's primary selling point, as they brag about selling the most advanced piece of kit for gaming. I hope this will get it resolved!

Cheers,

James.

 

Well the gpu cooling is also a little lacking. But I agree, a very cool laptop indeed. And well priced. You could always try to lobby them and say you paid for a quad and want a working laptop with a quad and try to get replaced with an M17x

 

The problem is I am already 3/4 months over warranty. This is something I should have taken care of last year really, but feared to do so as I needed my laptop for the last year of uni. God knows how long it'll take to send this away and get it sent back fixed. It took quite a lot of reasoning to get the current offer, I think I won't try to push my luck anymore, haha.

In hindsight I wish I forked out a few extra hundred pounds to get the M17x. Probably would have had I know the M17 was about to become obsolete, haha.

 

If you are out of warranty then definitely take the offer

Are they going to let you do the swap yourself and send back the old parts or do you have to send it in? I would try to get the parts sent to you to save you time.

 

Yeah, take the offer man, no doubt about it. I wish I still had my M17 around as a secondary usable laptop for work, or just to have around. The look and everything about it was nice. The extreme dual core they are offering you is not a downgrade, and will definitely fix the stuttering issues.

You got the skullcap version I hope. Man, that thing looked mean. No fingerprints and a cool rubbery material. And felt solid too.

 

I miss my whitebook....was in the process of converting it to an M17 when I sold it haha

 

Haha, no, it's not the skullcap version. I remember having a friend over at the time who convinced me it looked silly, so I didn't get it! I think I remmeber it though, cool option to have when choosing your laptop.

Again, thanks for all the help guys. I would have the parts sent to me if I knew the first thing about laptops. Having finished uni now though, the only thing I use my laptop is for a game of Left 4 Dead every now and again really, haha. I can go a couple of weeks without that... I hope!

I will ask them though if they can send back the quad core parts back though. Just in case, who knows!

Cheers,

James.

 

You can still have the skullcap if you want it

Just ebay Alienware M17/M9750/M9700 lid hehe

 

Hello all,

I purchased the M17 in May of 2009 about a month before they discontinued the model and have had the stuttering/video/sound issues mentioned throughout this thread and others.

Unfortunately, my warranty is up and after calling today and speaking to a supervisor, nothing can be done for me because I am "out of warranty" unless I can reference JHookway's account number.

JHookway, if you see this message, could you send me a PM?

Thanks

 

Try to grab a X9100. It will fix your issues.

Also, I don't know why supervisors do this, where they ask you to provide another account to cross-check. They can either do what you ask them or not. End of story.

Good luck man.

I would throw him a PM in your name but he also doesn't meet PM privileges. sigh...

 

Thanks for the feedback man.

I ended up getting escalated 4 times when I called but I'll try calling again with that ultimatum.

If I don't have any luck, I'll start with the zfactor bois and move onto the thermal paste and case mod if needed.... /sigh

 

what are your spec like all of them

haswell as os driver and bios