M11x Problem/Technical Question thread for New Owners

Have you cleaned the fans out? It really feels like its a temperature problem,also try researching a program called throttlestop,see if that fixes your inconstancy.

 

Driver's make a big difference be sure to check what drivers you have

 

which is the driver more stable for gt335m? for me is 260.99 but this driver punkbuster kick me in BF 3,now using 285.62!

 

I am currently deployed (US Air Force) and doing quite a bit of travel... and not so much gaming. I want to get the most battery life out of my R1 as possible... I have heard of the battery lasting up to 8 hours on integrated graphics, but its been some time since I switched to the dedicated card and don't quite remember how to revert everything back... right now I get just under 3 hours on the 335m at stock clock speeds. I know how to go into BIOS and switch the GPU to "Switchable"... but there is something I need to do to the drivers, right?

What could I do to get more battery life? Revert to stock drivers? How exactly do I do that again? I remember have problems getting it to switch back and forth before after I installed the BF3 drivers, which is why I left it on dedicated in the first place. I also do have driversweeper installed from the last time I messed with the drivers. I still have the Alienware stock drivers on a disk, with an external DVD drive.

Other than GPU settings, what is the best way to maximize battery life?

 

When you boot press F2 to go into bios, do some looking around and you'll find it. I don't have na R1 so I can't give you explicit directions.

Turn down brightness of the screen, turn off alien fx and you should get 8 hours.

 

Yes, I knew how to switch back to switchable, what I was not 100% on was re-installing the original dell drivers and getting back to the "original" intended drivers (197.12). I figured it out after a bit of trial and error though, I had a good 45 minutes where it refused to actually switch to the nVidia card, but I re-ran Driversweeper, re-uninstalled everything nVidia, then re-installed a freshly downloaded driver from dell, and that did the trick. I will probably revert back to the dedicated card permanently once I get back from my deployment. I havent tested the battery length yet, but when I unplug the laptop on the intel graphics it estimates just under 5 hours... lowest brightness settings, AlienFX off... 5 hours is better than 2 1/2, but still not 8 hours.

 

Hi Everyone,

I'm a new owner of an M11 XR3. I've verified that both the Intel and NVIDIA Graphics Drivers are installed. However, I cannot (for the life of me) get the MX to switch to the NVIDIA Graphics Card.

FN/F6 has no affect. I've tried to change the settings in BIOS but I cannot locate the (known?) setting that is supposed to allow me to select either " Switchable => Linux will use the Intel 4500HD internal video" or "Discrete => Linux will use the NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M".

Any help would be appreciated!

 

That's my max battery life, only word processing, this is after owning the system for 1 1/4 year, so it's expected. I used to be able to get 7 hours out of it, but I leave the charger plugged in all the time, might makea difference if you don't fully charge and discharge the battery overa long period of time.

 

With the M11x r3 you have Nvidia Optimus. You do not manually switch the graphics, Optimus automatically switches for you, for graphic intensive programs. If it isn't switching for you, your programs aren't listed correctly in the nvidia control panel. You can turn the Nvidia card on manually by going into the nvidia control panel and "manage 3D settings" and set the "High performance Nvidia processor" as your preferred graphics processor.

 

Thank you for the information. While I was reading your reply I was on the phone with AW Support. They confirmed that Optimus automatically switches the card depending on the load demand from the machine. Your reply makes me feel a lot more comfortable with the AW reply. Much appreciated!

 

Hey, new M11x owner here, having a great time with this machine. However I am having a stupidly hard time getting Skyrim to run well. I get mediocre FPS (about 10-15) wherever I am, although it's especially bad indoors. This happens at whatever detail level I set the game to. I am running the latest nVidia drivers, and I have the i7 2637m processor/GPU configuration.

Any help would be appreciated greatly.

 

The problem may well be the latest Mvidia drivers. Posters here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...73-nvidia-drivers-out-not-beta-drivers-3.html
say that it hurts Skyrim; see if going back to the 285 divers work.

 

Thanks for the assist, actually found that the nVidia Control Panel had set the default GPU for Skyrim to the integrated video card. I set it back to the 540 and all is running great.

 

Recently I got m11x-R2 , I'm really frustrated I have no idea why it always keep frozen while I play League of legend , It was still fine last week. The setting are tested in low/mid , it keeps frozen randomly. I don't see gpu overheat , around 70c++ (not sure if its counted as overheat on m11x)

It was still fine last week.

Every time it frozen it appear buzzz sound...any idea is the cpu or gpu's problem? Anyone have same issue?

Edit : nvm I found the issue. http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=1961436&page=2

 

^ I'd like to know the fix to this, the link you posted doesn't have a fix, other than setting the gpu to always on. But that kills my battery life.

 

Anyone know where else I can get my hands on USB 3.0 drivers? I get "file not found" error on Dell's site.

edit; nvm found it

 

I OC on BIOS my m11x r2 i5 to 160 a 1/2 weeks ago...but today start to freezes randomly..i think is the OC ...but i dont understand...and the temp max 83C...help...sorry bad english!

 

83C is pretty high temperature. Lower your OC or get some sort of cooling to help lower your temperatures.

 

ok heres a question, where do i get the oem windows 7 iso for this? my recovery partition was corrupted [thanks alienware!] and i need to do a system reset

disregard, found the iso at microsoft.com

 

Hi all

Quick one for you, l ran a few pingtest with my M11x R3 and noticed a packet loss from 98% to 60%, this was with the stock n-1000 fitted, l then tried a n-1030 and finally a n-6205, all came back with similar results for multiple runs.

I checked the Ae connections and the micro co-ax looks sound, however l am unable to carry out a breakdown test as no fluke or megger(well to be fair would not use this lol) at hand.

I even went as far as fitting an Edimax EW-7811UN.

And again got some very poor packet loss.

Was wondering if this would attribute the horrible latency l get when playing online, and if it is worth a call to Dell.

Now is it just me or do other suffer from this packet loss on the M11x R3, my desktop and N55SF all show a 100% packet retrieval, with 0% packet loss no matter how many runs l do, l used the same server at all times for the test.

Upload speed and download speed are constant on all machines.

Thanks for any help in advance.

Regards.

C.

 

Quick question: Could I use this:
Amazon.com: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 1600MHz PC3 12800 Laptop Memory(CMSX8GX3M2A1600C9): Computers & Accessories
on my M11x R1?

Thanks alot for any reply

 

Should fit fine.

 

Thank you so much! Was wondering abit bout its HS.

Imma order it right away!

 

My Advanced-N 6250 AGN on my R3 shows 58% to 78% packet loss. I'm thinking of getting a killer killer bigfoot 1102 as they are supposed to be one of the best cards and are not too expensive anymore; look at the reviews for ping and packet loss comarisons, it is phenomenal. I think the poor packet loss on the M11x is due to the small antenea configuration inside the screen (and is stuck between thick aluminium and thick plastick and glass). Your desktop probably has an antenea sticking out the back of the case if its wireless for much better reception. I've never opened or handled the Asus you have, but 0% packet loss is great for any laptop.

 

Thanks for the reply buddy, guess l will live with it as when l use it away the connection is only fast enough for skype.

So single player only.

Regards.

C.

 

My keyboard starts a problem after a freeze last night...when i press keys 'b' 'n' 'space' have double tap 'bb' 'nn' ' '...but when i plug other keyboard..this problem stops...in both keyboards...someone help me?sorry bad english

 

Probably the wrong place for this, but didn't see any reason to start a new thread.

I am looking at getting an SSD for my r3 in the next month or 2, probably a Samsung 830 series. With the drive caddy in the R3 do I need the kit with the spacer or can I get just the bare drive?

 

If you get a new Samsung 830 it comes with the spacer standard, I put the spacer in mine, but it is not really needed as the HD caddy in the R3 has 4 screws to hold it in place. "the kit" version of the 830 series comes with norton ghost and a HDD transfer cable; I perosnally just backed everything onto an external and did a fresh install of windows because of the limited space on my 128GB 830 compared to the 750GB that was in my M11x

 

Cool, thanks.

 

Are you very restricted for programs on a 128GB drive? If I get an SSD it will be 256GB and I'd probably partition it to keep data separate (old habits die hard), not sure how much space to give C for Windows 7 and rather a lot of programs including video editing.

I'm thinking that an SSD should really speed up video editing, yes?

 

I find i am not too limited. I use steam for most games so I can delete the ones I am not currently playing and not loose any saves etc. I also installed this: MR15 (Dual Micro SDXC/SDHC/SD Cards to mPCIe Adapter) and put two micro SDs one 64 GB with 6 speed rating and a 32 GB with 4 speed rating. I am able to play Starcraft two off of the 64 GB micro SD fine ( I have some other non steam games on it as well). I keep my music library on the other SD. Everyhing else, like my video library, is on an external. I do not use photoshop, but every program I used scince moving to SSD has Loaded Considerably faster; it only gave about 6 FPS better when running games though. I'd immagine that it would help a lot for video editing more than gaming.

 

im having lately fps problems when im gaming. what might be problem ?

 

Most commonly, you have your Optimus settings not setup and it's using the integrated GPU rather than discrete. If it's an R1, press Fn+F6 to switch GPU's, for R2's & R3's go to your Nvidia CP > Manage 3G settings > program settings and from there add the games manually tot he list and assign the High performance Nvidia GPU as the default rather than the global integrated.

 

Having some random bsod/ restart issues. While idle, the computer will randomly bsod, then restart. It started happening after I turned off page file, so I turned it back on, but its still happens. thinking of reinstalling windows this weekend if I cant get it fixed. Here is the dump.

I have already run memory tests and tests on the ssd, everything comes out good there.
This crash happens multiple times per day, but only when the computer is at idle.

EDIT So, I did a restore back to before I got the first bsod, crashed while restoring, so I tried again. This time it worked.
Shortly after I restored it, I got a crash again. This time whocrashed pointed to ntoskrnl.exe as the problem... so, im going to do a full reinstall tonight.

Crash Dump Analysis provided by OSR Open Systems Resources, Inc. ( OSR)
Online Crash Dump Analysis Service
See OSR Online - The Home Page for Windows Driver Developers for more information
Windows 7 Kernel Version 7601 (Service Pack 1) MP (2 procs) Free x64
Product: WinNt, suite: TerminalServer SingleUserTS Personal
Built by: 7601.17835.amd64fre.win7sp1_gdr.120503-2030
Machine Name:
Kernel base = 0xfffff800`0321f000 PsLoadedModuleList = 0xfffff800`03463670
Debug session time: Wed Jun 20 07:58:46.642 2012 (UTC - 4:00)
System Uptime: 0 days 1:04:37.655
*******************************************************************************
* *
* Bugcheck Analysis *
* *
*******************************************************************************

CRITICAL_OBJECT_TERMINATION (f4)
A process or thread crucial to system operation has unexpectedly exited or been
terminated.
Several processes and threads are necessary for the operation of the
system; when they are terminated (for any reason), the system can no
longer function.
Arguments:
Arg1: 0000000000000003, Process
Arg2: fffffa8008c3b060, Terminating object
Arg3: fffffa8008c3b340, Process image file name
Arg4: fffff8000359d510, Explanatory message (ascii)

Debugging Details:
------------------

----- ETW minidump data unavailable-----TRIAGER: Could not open triage file : e:\dump_analysis\program\triage\modclass.ini, error 2

PROCESS_OBJECT: fffffa8008c3b060

IMAGE_NAME: wininit.exe

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 0

MODULE_NAME: wininit

FAULTING_MODULE: 0000000000000000

PROCESS_NAME: wininit.exe

EXCEPTION_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0xc0000006 - The instruction at "0x%08lx" referenced memory at "0x%08lx". The required data was not placed into memory because of an I/O error status of "0x%08lx".

BUGCHECK_STR: 0xF4_IOERR

CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT: 1

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: WIN7_DRIVER_FAULT

CURRENT_IRQL: 0

STACK_TEXT:
fffff880`069b90a8 fffff800`03625892 : 00000000`000000f4 00000000`00000003 fffffa80`08c3b060 fffffa80`08c3b340 : nt!KeBugCheckEx
fffff880`069b90b0 fffff800`035d1e8b : ffffffff`ffffffff fffffa80`08c47060 fffffa80`08c3b060 fffffa80`08c3b060 : nt!PspCatchCriticalBreak+0x92
fffff880`069b90f0 fffff800`03550f74 : ffffffff`ffffffff 00000000`00000001 fffffa80`08c3b060 00000000`00000008 : nt! ?? ::NNGAKEGL::`string'+0x176d6
fffff880`069b9140 fffff800`0329d453 : fffffa80`08c3b060 fffff800`c0000006 fffffa80`08c47060 00000000`00c00e00 : nt!NtTerminateProcess+0xf4
fffff880`069b91c0 fffff800`03299a10 : fffff800`032e8e7f fffff880`069b9b38 fffff880`069b9890 fffff880`069b9be0 : nt!KiSystemServiceCopyEnd+0x13
fffff880`069b9358 fffff800`032e8e7f : fffff880`069b9b38 fffff880`069b9890 fffff880`069b9be0 00000000`ff23bce8 : nt!KiServiceLinkage
fffff880`069b9360 fffff800`0329d842 : fffff880`069b9b38 00000000`00c80000 fffff880`069b9be0 00000000`ff23fa80 : nt! ?? ::FNODOBFM::`string'+0x48e34
fffff880`069b9a00 fffff800`0329c3ba : 00000000`00000000 00000000`ff232230 00000000`0032e501 00000000`00c80000 : nt!KiExceptionDispatch+0xc2
fffff880`069b9be0 00000000`77128f55 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : nt!KiPageFault+0x23a
00000000`00c013c0 00000000`00000000 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : 0x77128f55


STACK_COMMAND: kb

FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: X64_0xF4_IOERR_IMAGE_wininit.exe

BUCKET_ID: X64_0xF4_IOERR_IMAGE_wininit.exe

Followup: MachineOwner
---------

 

still aint working like it used to be :/ damn

 

I have an r1 and I need to get back all the programs and functions that I lost when switching HDDs. If anyone can help me get back the standard m11x r1 functions and programs, I would greatly appreciate it. (Also, my freakin' touchpad drivers from synaptics are gone)...

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ook-feel-after-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...er-install-order-guide-alienware-systems.html

 

question is my keyboard broken or i need to reinstall win7
because i got like 10 keys that don't work i am using Tablet PC Input Panel
for most keys

 

Well that depends, did something happen or did they just suddenly stop working? Just the key input or just lights or both?

May not need to replace the keyboard, check the disassembly guide on youtube and carefully check the ribbon cable under the keyboard, it may just be loose.

 

My M11x R3 i5 version discharge rate(shown in BatteryBar) went from 9-10W to 17W idle out of nowhere. I did a clean install to try to get it back to 9-10, but it didn't change anything. I didn't install anything new. What could be the problem?

 

Any known solution for switchable graphics on r1? latest intel + latest nvidia pack?

 

If you mean you no longer have the ability to switch between discrete and integrated GPU, that is because you are using the latest drivers from Nvidia and not Dell. Only the drivers from the Dell site support GPU switching.

 

Hi

I'm having some truble with my m11x r2. I bought i about a year and a half ago and the first 6 months i worked like a charm. But suddenly, just over night it seemed, it started lagging in almost every game I played.
Before I could play Company of Heroes on max settings and suddenly I don't get more then 10 fps.
I have run test on the memory, the hdd, almost everything. Reinstalled twice with not difference. The simple question: What the hell happened to my computer??? It was awesome before and now I just want to throw it in the wall...

 

Most probably clogged with stuff, happens to every PC after 12-18 months. Registry entries, background processes, spyware, and the OS itself deteriorates over time.

Either do a fresh format and chuck on all fresh drivers from the Dell website, or if you don't want to, get CCleaner (by Piriform, just google it) and do a full clear of your temp files and run the registry scan several times.

 

Hmm, not so sure if that's the problem. One of the installations where a "clean install" of windows 7 and the other (present) one was from the recovery cd. When doing some more testing in the afternoon when playing company of heroes on the "suggested" settings i get about 6 - 7 fps when moving around the map and do stuff. At the same time i have a CPU activity of 30 - 35 % in each core and a temperature of ~70 C. Is that temperature to high?

Idle temp is about 55 - 60 C.

 

It's alright, a little on the high side but not overheating. I would look at getting a can of compressed air to spray in the exhaust vents (in short bursts) which could give you a 5 degree drop in temps. I would recommend doing it as part of a dis-assembly, but if that's beyond your capabilities spraying it through the vents should suffice (though it won't be AS effective).

 

Hi I have a problem with my m11x rw wifi. I just installed new memory from 2GB to 8GB. And a new HD from 120GB to 500GB. I got it all installing nicely until I got to the drivers part. I don't know what to install first so I started with the first unchecked driver link under the 'Drivers' tab. I'm using the disk they gave me. Then I went to the Intel R wifi link 5100. I extracted it successfully but i got a message sayin that I can't install it with my system and I click close cause there's no other option. I checked the network drivers in device manager and all I got was the Atheros Ethernet. Help!

 

Below are the updated drivers with the correct installation order. Just choose your revision and download the drivers needed.

M11x R1
M11x R2
M11x R3

 

I've just had a look at the Dell driver downloads for the R3 and the NVIDEA GT540 is for a 1GB version, mine is 2GB. NVIDEA notified me of a new driver but Windows Device Manager wouldn't let me update it, said I already had the latest/best(?) driver. A day or two later Windows reported that I had a problem with my graphics driver but that's gone away without me doing anything.

 

You may need to do a clean install, which means to completely remove all existing video drivers and their traces (both the integrated and discrete).

You can do this through the device manager (right-click, uninstall, check the box for delete driver software. Then double check programs and features to make sure no traces remain). Once you've removed everything, you can use a tool such as driver fusion to clean up your registry (if you do, do not check the box for nvidia chipset, just the other nvidia options).

Here's a guide on how to correctly install the video drivers for Optimus Units such as the M11x R2/R3

Optimus Units: Correct video driver install/uninstall procedure

You shouldn't have any problems with the 306 driver, I tried it on an M11xR3 and it worked like a charm