Constant crashes and BSODs with my M11X

Hey guys,

I've read the thread concerning m11x crashes but I couldn't really find any solutions to my issue.

Here's the problem. I have pretty regular crashes while playing games on my M11x. The big games I've been playing recently are BF3, Skyrim, HitMan:Blood Money, Far Cary 2, and other various recent games. What happens is I'll get about 30 minutes into a game and the computer completley locks up and the only way to reset is a hard restart. Sometimes it happens in about 15 minutes, or times it'll let me get in about an hour. It seems to do it when I'm in graphic intensive areas.

1) I'm not over clocking
2) All my drivers are up to date
3) I'm in within minimum requirements of the game
4) I'm using dedicated grahpics

Back in April I had to have a tech come out on warranty and fix a heat problem in the computer. The computer would get so hot that the whole laptop just shut it self off, and it go so hot it could actually burn you. After the tech fixed the issue I don't have an issue with heat and have also started using a lap top cooler. The crashes or BSODs never happened prior to this fix.

At first when the laptop first started crashing it would give me the BSOD code to find out what was wrong, however due to my lack of technical knowledge in this area I failed to copy them down. After about the 3-4 crashes the BSOD code just stopped popping up at all. Last night after a hard reset the computer took upon itself to scan disks, I thought this would solve the issue but 13 minutes into Skyrim and and I was in the same situation. At this point I'm just not sure of what to do anymore, at the time I couldn't afford another year of warranty so I'm not sure if I can have tech come fix this problem. Did anyone have issues similar to this? I'm at the point where I'm just getting really pissed and gaming is starting to become a chore because of all the resets. When not playing a game the computer runs fine. I don't know what else to do? Any input fellas?

Semper Fi,
Derek

P.S.

Sorry its Windows 7 64 bit, I think 6 gb Ram, Nvidia graphics...pretty much the standard r2

 

It's probably over heating. can you get everest and start logging the temperatures, then play the game that crashes your system.
After the crash we need to analyze the log, we'll find out which component is overheating and try to resolve it.
If it's the cpu then we might need to remove the heatsink, clean up the thermal paste and put it back in. If it's the gpu then we can clean up the fans. Hopefully that would resolve it.

 

oh and I meant to say, put in new thermal compound after cleaning up the old thermal compound.

 

Try taking out 1 stick of RAM, see if that helps. If not, swap them and try the other stick just by itself.

 

Hey guys thanks for the replys...I did some more research after posting and a fella was having similar problems. One guy said to run diagnostic checks, so I did the window diagnostics and I'm running the I guess Alienware diagnostics right now. I don't know what the hell it means but 2 or 3 of the tests in the video category failed. I can upload the pics of the test fail code if that helps?

I don't really think it's a heat issue. Prior to getting a new heat sync it was running 85-90 C after an hour of load (this was tested by an Alienware employee) That was for the CPU, the tech said the GPU was just fine. Ever since the heat sync replacement I been pretty paranoid about heat and I run a large lap top cooler along with heat monitors. So far I haven't seen the CPU climb above 55-60 C which I hear is about normal for most M11x users from what I keep reading. Most of the time it idles around 30 C. But you sound far more knowledgable than me in this area Ring, what do you think of those numbers? You might be right thought I never really considered the GPU getting too hot.....to me it doesn't explain why it doesn't just shut the computer off like it did before my heat sync replacement. Also the AW tech had said the GPU was good to go (even though I thought it was hot...I think I remember seeing about 70 C for the GPU)

If it helps to know, when the computer locks up like it does I get that weird Matrix audio feed back if that makes sense.

Rishwin, you'll have to excuse my ignorance on this matter, but what will operating with less ram or swapping it out do for the computer? You don't have to get really technical, lamen terms are ok with me

I'm definatley open to suggestions fellas, and I really really appreciate the feed back so far. Hopefully I can get this issue resolved without throwing gobs of money at it. I'm very impressed with AW customer service, not so much with the product. I figured for $1300 the computer would last longer than a year. Thanks again

Semper Fi,
Derek

 

Most common faulty hardware on any PC is the RAM, and they most commonly cause system instability and BSOD's. You swap them out and isolate them out at a time so if it stops blue screening you know the stick of RAM you took out is the problem.

Even if the diagnostics says RAM is fine, it could still be the problem. From memory it only does 2 or 3 passes, I've found faulty RAM which only showed 1 error after 7 passes and that was enough to cause system instability.

 

Alright Rishwin I think I understand, I went and looked at my specs again and mine is a 4gb ddr3 ram not the 8 i thought I had. When you mean switch them out are you talking about buying a whole new stick of ram to see if it works?

Right now I'm learning towards Ring's idea of the GPU being hot. I just ran several hours of diagnostics and every thing did ok. I went ahead and downloaded everrest but I've no idea how to use or save the temps you were talking about.

 

Depends, do you have 1x4GB or 2x2GB?

Also GPU temps are supposed to be higher than CPU, while 70 degrees for your CPU may be considered hot, it's perfectly normal for a GPU. Your GPU heat only becomes an issue if you're pushing 90+ degrees, which it doesn't sound like you are.

 

okay so as an alienware owner, I have experienced my fair share of BSODs
Usually when it comes to gaming performance, such crashes are related to the drivers, now I know yours are updated, and that's precisely the problem.... bear with me.

You see in my opinion, the biggest downside of alienware products are the drivers. The drivers that come shipped with your pc work just fine, but then as upgrades start rolling from the oem (i.e. AMD), the machine begins to perform like a potato.

So what you need to do at this point is:
1. Go to the dell website and download the graphics card driver
2. Reboot and enter safe mode.
3. Remove ATI Catalyst or the nview desktop management program.
4. Go to run, type in devmgmt.msc, go to display drivers and uninstall them.
5. Install the package you downloaded from dell.

Now I know that it may sound weird that the companies which made the original products are making faulty drivers for your machine, but it is true.... Just ask any m17x r2 or m18x users with crossfire running windows 8 who suffer from the one of the graphic cards "cannot start" syndrome.

Hopefully this will resolve your issue. It certainly has resolved mine.
And hopefully this doesn't put you off alienware, I'd hate to lose you to apple lol.

 

Hey Ring,

Tried that fix and it won't even start Skyrim now, it just chills in the loading screen for about 20 mins before I got frustrated and terminated the game. I tried hitman as well and got about 10 minutes into before it locked up, not the same as before though. This time I was able th cltrl+alt+delete and attempt to close the game, however I guess it got even more confused and locked completley up and required a hard reset. Bout ready to just chuck this thing against the damn wall. It might be time to contact alienware.

 

If you haven't already, just unscrew the bottom panel (won't void warranty) and if you have more than 1 stick of RAM, try taking one out and see how it runs. If no difference and it still freezes/crashes, turn it off and swap them out so only the one you originally removed is in there. If still no difference then it's probably not the RAM, as it's unlikely both sticks will become faulty simultaneously.

At the very least even if that doesn't fix it, it will rule out the RAM as being the culprit. Even if you contact Dell they'll still want you to do this, or the tech will try it if they send one out.

My mate's new Asus G74 was crashing and blue-screening for 3 months before i took out half his RAM. Since then it's been completely stable, just he has to run on 8GB of RAM now.

 

Hi man,
I have been through something similar.
Uninstall the drivers and reinstall them a few times till the games work. It took me a few tries to get x-fire to work on windows 7 when one of the gpus didn't work....


If nothing changes after a few tries, just repair the computer via the included CDs or use the recovery partition. The fact that you're no longer seeing BSODs after tinkering with the driver tells me it's not a hardware issue. So your best bet is recovering your computer.

The recovery process will not remove your data if you specify it not to however, be on the safe side and backup your data if you want.

If you do have dell warranty and you don't want to waste your time troubleshooting the issue then I do recommend contacting Dell. However, be advised that they do take a while to fix up your computer, you can expect a week to three weeks downtime.

Again, I really recommend using the recovery partiton or recovery CDs. If it is a software issue, then it should be fixed. If it's a hardware issue (seems unlikely), then it wont be fixed after you use the recovery partition and at that point the best thing to do is send it to dell.

I do understand your frustration but troubleshooting does take a lot of time.

 

Thanks guys for all the help. Rishwin I went ahead and tried the Ram stick switching but no luck with either stick. I even tried swiitching up the positions and variations but alas no luck. Still get crashes

Ring I think you're right, I'm still getting BSODs but I think it'd be the best option to just bomb my computer and start all the way over. Wish I new where the hell my CD was...To be honest I don't think they included one. Win 7 was just already installed. So I'm guessing I'm down to the last two options. Sending it back to AW or recovery. I'll try the Recovery first, seems the most logical. thanks again fellas for being so patient with my noob ness

 

I'm sorry we couldn't really resolve it.
Hope things work out.
Take care and good luck