M11x Problem/Technical Question thread for New Owners

What are you copying the data to? I have this problem at my house when trying to copy large amounts of data to my NAS (with multiple different systems, including the M11x). I worked around it by selecting smaller groups of files in batches...

 

Engineering recommends Windows (System properties) or CPU True Speed. Yeah, I know... I know...

 

Umm... that wasn't me you should have quoted.

In any case, for people who have situations were copying is sometimes a dicey proposition - read as copying to ANY usb device - then I'd highly recommend installing the free version of TeraCopy. It allows pause and verify.

 

Does anyone know the answer to my question on page 10... its driving me crazy . I guess I should call dell.

 

What caps lock notification? I don't believe there is one by default on the M11xR2. Have you installed microsoft mouse/keyboard software? If so that can enable something like this:

 

yes thats the message I have not installed any software however I did hook up my logitech bluetooth mouse and keyboard and it probably installed the windows drivers. Is thats whats causing it. Im off to uninstall see if that fixes it.

 

well i uninstalled my logitech mouse and keyboard and every time I hit caps lock that message pops up.. grrr

Hey I finally found the fix by google.. In case anyone her wants to know do this. Open registry and

Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MCHINE_\SOFTWRE\Widcomm\BTConfig\General and then locate KeyIndication
Modifiy it from 1 to 0, then restart your computer.

 

Hi,

When powering up I get four short beeps, the LEDs all light up but windows doesn't load the the screen doesn't come on. If I hold the power button down to switch off the machine then switch back on it boots and runs fine. I've had it running (in and out of standby) for several days without this happening.

Hardware fault or some software thingy?

 

Had you been over-clocked?

 

I have a couple of questions. I have had problems with my old M17r1. After 10 months!!! I got a replacement. The m17x r2 that I have now has the 920xm, dual 5870, 8 gb 1333 ram, rgb led, intel 6300, and 256 gb ssd. Now the new machine works great except for dirt 2, which you mentioned worked flawlessly for you. I have the micro-stuttering or what I think that is. For me it is the little snag when playing, like the frames just stop for a split second and the game lags. This is particularly annoying for racing games as it messes you up dramatically when turning. But I also have this problem for GRID which is also a codemasters game. Both stutter. At least this system does not have the fps dropout right? thank god. All other games work fine except for Dirt 2 and GRID. Can you giver specifics for your drivers and your system specifications, or can you see a problem with my system? I know there is no "specific" crossfire support for them but they should work right. Not even if I take the crossfire off, does the game work.
Any ideas? Drivers? Something? I really don't want to return this system as it works pretty amazingly except for this little problem.

Any suggestions would be great. Thanks

Quote:
Originally Posted by 5150Joker
I'd say almost every modern game has crossfire/sli support. Here's the following games I play flawlessly with crossfire:

1. BFBC2
2. MW2
3. Frontlines Fuel of War
4. Dirt 2
5. Metro 2033
6. GTA IV
7. Batman Arkham Asylum
8. Team Fortress 2
9. Left 4 Dead
10. Left 4 Dead 2
11. Counterstrike Source
12. Far Cry 2
13. Street Fighter 4

Not a hint of microstuttering (sounds like an ancient nVidia issue) and the performance boost from crossfire is quite substantial in each game. The dual card system simply works as good as a single card in my experience so far. The biggest issue I had was with street fighter 4 slowing down after the 3rd round but the latest Catalysts addressed that issue. With AMD now focused on performance profiles for crossfire solutions, the technology is just going to get better and better with the compatibility gap between a single card and dual card setup dropping significantly. If someone is serious about buying a top end notebook, M17x is the only way to go.

Just one more thing, if this helps at all, but I find this really peculiar. Back when I had my computer, the little snags when playing GRID and DIRT2, I remember were supposedly caused by the dpc latency which they fixed. So from the way both games were playing, I thought to test if it was in this situation as well. HOWEVER, it's NOT!!! I downloaded dpc latency checker v.1.2.0 and whenever those little lags occur in the game, there is nothing on the graph. No spike for the dpc latency. Do you find that a bit odd just like I do, or are there further problems with this graphics card that are being handled?

Thanks for any information, on any of this. Please reply.

 

I think you took a wrong turn AlienwareLover. M17x forum is 3 blocks down on your left.

 

what is Intel Rapid Storage Technology? Do i need it enabled or can i stop it? still trying to optimize!

 

lol I googled the *!@# out of that like a week ago trying to figure out. The help file is...not helpful. If you hover over it in the start menu, it says it improves performance and reliability of sata disks, so I left it on. I'm also curious if it's really needed.

 

i have read that it works with RAID set ups. since the m11x only has one hdd it seems like it is not needed. i want to find out more before i disable and uninstall it

 

First time poster here.

I've had my m11x for a little over a week now. Up until yesterday night, I was able to connect to my wireless internet flawlessly. All of the sudden, I was disconnected from the internet and the network adapter says "there are no available connections."

My family members can all connect to the wireless internet on their laptops

I have tried reinstalling drivers to the dell network card (1520), but still no wifi. I don't think it's a driver issue though. It should be noted that I'm wired to my router at the moment... the only way I can connect to the internet.

 

did you actually go on the dell website and look for the new updates? uninstalled the one you got right now and install that one? its definately a driver problem if it worked before, unless you hulk smashed your laptop before the problem started.

 

Are you over clocked?

 

Dell - Drivers and Downloads

I went to this website and typed in my service tag and downloaded the files off of this website. Though the website warns against installing out of order, I only uninstalled the network drivers and installed the ones off the website. I'm at a loss of what to do right now.

I'm at factory settings.


EDIT ***

What an embarassing reason. I accidently hit fn + f3 and had disabled wireless. Everything is a-ok now

 

RE: Four Beeps

On all but one occasion the bios was at the factory defaults. Nothing overclocked

It doesn't happen every time you reboot or every time you come out of standby. A bit of googling suggested a ram problem but the system is very stable when running.

 

The Intel Rapid Storage used to be the old name for Intel Matrix Manager. Think back to the Intel Application Accelerator days, the IRS is similar. It is not just for RAID configurations, it benefits single drives too. The IRS 9.6 is actually very recommended if you have an Intel chipset and a SSD that supports TRIM, as the Intel drivers support TRIM. So IRS is actually beneifical, however I don't know if the actual program component is really needed as much as the drivers.

 

Reboot, hit the F12 button and boot into diagnostics run the full memory test and see if that turns up a smoking gun.

 

There are two possible wireless cards in the M11x - make sure you are grabbing and installing the proper driver for your card.

 

4 beeps is a memory failure. Try one at a time, then try reseating with both. If it works, boot up and hit F12 to run memory diagnostics. If not, call support once you determine if it is one or both DIMMs. Weird that it works sometimes...

 

How do I determine which wifi card I received on my m11x? I'm a bit of a noobie.

Thanks Brian

 

Chances are you have the Dell 1520 Wireless-N Half Mini Card. Go to Device Manager and look under Network Adapters to double check.

 

Anyone else getting random freezes with their m11x? The only cause I can think of would that the laptop is overheating, but temperatures seem to be fine /:

My system freezes about 2-3 times a day, it's getting really annoying. Btw, no OC, stock settings i7.

 

Test your memory.

 

If it doesn't show in device manager, you'll need to open the bottom of the system and have a look at the card itself. It will either be the Dell card or the Intel card. Unfortunately, it isn't listed in the BIOS on the M11x.

I think that the Intel driver will give you an error if you attempt to load it on a system that doesn't have the actual Intel WLAN card in it, so you may just want to download both drivers and try the Intel version first. If it gives you an error, you have the 1520. If it still won't load, you might open the system and try reseating the card. If still no go, make sure it is enabled in the BIOS (advanced, wireless network, enabled). If still no go, call support.

 

Hi guys. Got my R2 about a month ago

Nothing wrong happened up until today. Today, suddenly the machine doesn't recognize its own power adapter anymore. I was browsing the internet (not gaming) suddenly Windows changed to battery mode and didn't show that it was plugged in anymore. I shut it down for about 10 minutes, and then turned it on again. It showed my laptop was plugged in for about...5 minutes, then the same thing happened.

My cousin has a Dell Laptop so I borrowed her power adapter (which is the same) and plugged in, same problem

Any help?

 

I doubt there's anything to be done beyond calling Dell support. Maybe pulling the battery for a few minutes, slapping it back in and seeing if the issue persists.

 

Either the power adapter busted or unfortunately the charging pin thing on the motherboard is busted. Definitely call Dell/Alienware ASAP. If it's the former then they'll ship you a new power adapter. If it's the latter, I believe your motherboard will have to be replaced.

One way that might help to distinguish which problem you have is by looking at the blue light on the power adapter wire. Plug it into a socket but don't connect it to the laptop. If it's lit then that means its a motherboard issue. If it isn't lit, it's probably the adapter.

Although by the sound of it, it sounds like it's not the adapter but rather the laptop itself that's having issues.

 

RE: Four Beeps

Ran all three mem tests (short, full and another full one) from the F12 boot option. Every one passed. Laptop has came out of standby tonight without issue. I'll crack her open and reseat the Ram this weekend and see how that goes.

I honestly thought this was just some Win7 quirk of Standby/Hibernate on the M11Xr2 where I'd got some option selected somewhere.

 

A couple of others have reported that reseating memory has been necessary. Hope that does it for you.

 

The AC adapter is tripping for some reason. You can reset the adapter by unplugging it from both the computer and the wall, then plugging it back in. When it is working properly, the LED should be on. If the LED is off, it has tripped or is bad. If another AC adapter does exactly the same thing, you have a problem with the system itself. Check the DCIN connector on the back of the computer just to make sure that there isn't some sort of debris in there. If not, you'll need to call support to get a service or exchange. Sorry about the issues...

 

Two issues with mine that came in today:

Firstly, the plastic between power-button and the Wi-Fi LED is bent. It slopes up like a small hill, then slightly slopes down.

Secondly, the left side of the keyboard also seems to be misaligned with the rest of the keyboard. The keys to the left of F4, 4, R, F, V and the space bar slightly slope down.


What should I do? Request a new one?

 

That strip might push down as you pull it up to take the laptop to bits.

I notend that my TYG keys are slightly lower but I am fine with it is mostly visual and my figures can't tell..

 

everyone's keyboard has the problem yours has. basically the bottom is only screwed in on the right side, so that causes different parts to be different heights. a replacement will not change anything :/

as for the plastic bar, it just pops up and off, so try pressing it down hard.

 

Just some questions: how many ram slots does the m11x have? What kind of ram should i use (1333, 800mhz)?
thx

 

It has 2 RAM slots, one stacked on the other.
I know that the ones that come with the laptop go at 800Mhz.

 

My wireless adapter cannot connect to my home internet using Connectify. I don't know if this is because of WPA security, but my other family members can all connect to the same network, while I can't. I know the adapter is working fine because I can connect to some other networks like in Starbucks, but it doesn't work at home. Any ideas?

 

No matter what I do: uninstall all drivers, reboot, install dell 335m drivers, or nvidia 335m drivers (both beta and whql)...

i always get the same error... what can I do? Someone please help..

 

Just a thought - are you using the right drivers for your OS? i.e. 64bit or 32bit.

 

Sounds like you are installing the Nvidia drivers rather than the Dell ones. To make these work you have to copy the modified ini file as per the instructions in this first post.

 

I am having problems with game crashes so want to test/diagnose the M11x.
What would people recomend?
Are there some Dell/Alienware diagnostic tools?

I am using Prime95 (for CPU) and FurMark (for GPU) at the moment.

 

Reboot, F12 at the alien head and boot into the Dell diagnostics suite. They're just going to test all of the system components for you. Memory is probably the most valuable test in terms of stability. The rest will just confirm that things work or not.

Are you overclocked? If so drop it down a notch and stress test with Prime95 or some other CPU/Memory burn-in utility.

 

Yes I'm using windows 7 64bit drivers

I've followed those intstructions completely, but it STILL happens. Can you believe that crap? lol

 

Thanks I found them and ran them all. Problem exists between user an keyboard

 

So my adapter blew out. ,however i have another 90 watt charger sitting around. It only powers the laptop but doesnt charge it. When I turn it on also, a error message comes up saying that its not a proper charger.

am I safe using this charger just for a few days?

 

Should be fine to use until you get a replacement.

 

Can i use this ram on the M11X ?:
Notebook Sodimm Ddr3 2 Gb 1333 Mhz Kingston

Thanks.

EDIT: Same question with this ssd
WD SiliconEdge Blue 2,5 - 64gb