M11xR1 Troubleshooting Thread

I hope this is the case. From my discussion from the AW rep (FWIW), he said the 1.6GHz was just a precautionary measure for all the marketing samples, but final product will be 6.5x266. But he's not an engineer, so he only regurgitates what he's told. Also curious about the 0.1V drop too. Kinda odd that they'd drop the voltage with OC, why not drop it altogether. Why drop voltage overclocked and not at stock, makes no sense.

I'm sitting here impatiently waiting for the FedEx person since I missed them yesterday. They stopped by at 12:05pm yesterday, and it's almost 1pm today.... getting a bit irritated. I can't sit around all day you know! I want my M11x! Grrrr.

 

It's pretty much a download this exe and run it. It'll reboot windows and update the bios. From Dells site:

Run the BIOS update utility from Windows environment


1. Double click the Icon on your desktop labeled M11R1A01 for 64 bit Windows 7.exe.
The Dell BIOS Flash window appears


2. Click the Continue button.
The message Pressing OK will close all applications, shut down Windows, Flash the BIOS, then reboot. appears.


3. Click the OK button.
The system will restart and the BIOS Flash will be completed.

(Note: the link is to the A01 bios, which is the current one being used in the M11x)

 

That about sums it up

OC'ing is not the issue- it is the voltage drop that happens when it does. If like the Asus ULs, no problems. They do NOT drop the voltage when OC'ing the SU7300. The good news is you will know real quick if yours is sensitive to the voltage drop, so not "months later" surprise.

 

I know when i oc'd my desktop I had to do the vDroop pencil mod, I am wondering if that would help in this one.

 

BSOD Pictures:

 

IRQL is usually related to memory problems or driver problems.. mmm that's odd. perhaps faulty bad RAM or really bad drivers?

 

The FN-F2 issue is it for everyone? Or was it a problem only affecting a few persons?

 

nah i think homebrewer was one of the first who got it?? mm wait.. i don't recall.. i remember someone having bsod errors when OC

 

im having a wealth of issues already...
-black wallpaper after gaming, reboot is only fix
-1.6 gb of ram being used when idle
-40-60% cpu being used when idle (nothing in the background)
-and the maximum battery i see, even on the lowest screen and power save mode is 4.5 hours

what in the bajesus is going on here??

 

I have 1.28 gb of ram being used while idle.

My cpu is a constant 14-20% when idle -bothering me so much. Tried turning off nearly every thing and it's still using 20% at idle.

At first my maximum battery life showed 4.5 hours but soon after it is showing 6 hours.

 

seems like mylaptop fan is always on too. it was fine earlier but now its just nonstop

 

Has anyone taken the time to check Task Manager or the Reliability and Performance Manager to see what is eating up System Resources?

 

Thats crazy that your CPU is at 40-60% at idle . If you can't figure out whats causing it you might want to reinstall windows 7.

 

I don't know if what I am about to post has happened to anyone yet, and I am not sure if its an issue to begin with, but it doesn't seem like a normal behavior to me so, I am posting it here.

When I power on my M11x, the whole screen turns white. Then, it starts changing colors (to black, then blue, then red, etc...) until the system shuts off (the whole thing takes about 20 seconds). When I press the power button again everything is normal.

BTW, my CPU is overclocked, but I never had any issues with it.

 

Hmm, I wonder, is all the people that are having abnormal problems also ones that have oc'd their system?

 

This really sounds like bad hardware. I trust you disabled the OC bios option just to confirm it is not responsible? Have you opened up the system yet? Perhaps a loose connection if you have? If you connect an external display, do you see the same behavior?

 

The thing is, it barely happens. I disabled overclock, and rebooted the system number of times, and it never happened. I enabled overclock again, rebooted number of times again, ran wPrime 1024M test, and not a single problem. Strange...

I haven't opened it yet, and I haven't tried hooking it to an external display. (Maybe I'll give that a shot tomorrow.)

Interesting note: I've seen my CPU clock jump to around 1650 MHz with multiplier at 5.5.

Other than that, I love my M11x.

 

Personally I'd do a full reinstall of the OS to ensure that no crap is there.

 

Ok, First things first, love this little machine... build quality, size, performance, fantastic!

But, I am having a slightly annoying problem. This has only happened twice so far, but I've only had the machine a couple days, so can only assume it is a regular problem:

I put the laptop to "sleep" either vie closing the lid or start "sleep", it goes to sleep fine, but then when I go to wake it up, it powers back on, but then just stays at a black bootup screen with a "_" flashing in the top left corner of the screen... it'll do this for as long as I'm willing to wait.

Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing, nor any other keys, so have to shut down by holding the power button, and then power back on... Windows then says my startup last time wasn't right, and offers to try again or delete the saved state and reboot normally. Clicking restoring the last session options results in the same black screen with "_" flashing, but deleting the saved session and rebooting works fine.

Any ideas? Other than this, machine has performed great, both at Stock and OC on the CPU in all situations. Thanks for any ideas.

This is with the stock Alienware install and setup, on a SU7300, 4GB, 500GB 7200, Bluetooth if that matters.

 

Just got 2 windows errors that caused auto-restarts.

System: 7300 OC, 4gb, 250gb

Here is what windows reliability monitor says:
1) The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x00000050 (0xffffffffffffb8a3, 0x0000000000000008, 0xffffffffffffb8a3, 0x0000000000000000). A dump was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 022510-30841-01

2)Problem signature
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033

Extra information about the problem
BCCode: 50
BCP1: FFFFFFFFFFFFB8A3
BCP2: 0000000000000008
BCP3: FFFFFFFFFFFFB8A3
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_1_7600
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1

3)Description
Faulting Application Path: C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: BEX64
Application Name: rundll32.exe_srrstr.dll
Application Version: 6.1.7600.16385
Application Timestamp: 4a5bc9e0
Fault Module Name: StackHash_ac44
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 00000000
Exception Offset: 000007fed9b54140
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Data: 0000000000000008
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: ac44
Additional Information 2: ac44748277c562ab0634e2819db44cd0
Additional Information 3: 20dd
Additional Information 4: 20dd568d9c80e164b9a11074f56745f9

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: 1009335042

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Should I try to run a stress test (prime95)?

Thanks!

 

For a forum that would be a small sample for total sales, there seems to be a lot of issues.

OC failures
Erratic fans
Loud fans
Resource hog processes

Seems like the problems could all be related in some way and perhaps simple for Dell to correct.

Home later this evening- Wish I could speed things up. Cartman froze himself in snow for a Wii

 

I wouldn't call 3/4 of those "problems". Instead I would call them annoyances instead.

Only a few true problems like low voltage on OC leading processors to BSOD and screen issues.

 

Morkeleb (sp?) found an interesting issue surrounding WMIPrvSE.exe - in that it's tying up around 8-12% CPU consistently.

I just ran procmon on it - and it appears to be consistently accessing WBEM\CIMOM - still digging a bit to see what all of this is..

EDIT: and it appears that this particular issue would be the culprit behind the constant fan on/off issue - as it's pegging the CPU just enough to heat up - thus causing the fan to come on/off.

 

is it safe to end the task?
and @be77, i had that happen to me once so far

 

dunno yet - still checking..

 

seems like my computer just felt like taking the day off yesterday.
cpu processes are fine, ram is fine, black screen hasnt come up, and my battery's been climbing up every 10 minutes or so.
Sigh of relief

 

Good to hear, abusedbunny!

 

BSOD with rundll32 is usually a software corruption, you might have picked up a glitch from a windows update or something or a program that was installed or maybe a driver update... it can be a lot of things but it usually isn't hardware. I would respawn the system or do a fresh install.

 

No chance was picked up this morning got my refund now

 

Then you'll wonder forever "what could have been" lol

 

yeah both cores of mine are at 12% use and fluctuate up to 20% not doing anything..

Sigh

 

Well - I'm still looking - I don't believe it's related to AW software - as Morkeleb alluded to however...

 

My M11x seems to forget its brightness setting from time to time. As in, once Windows tells it to dim, it won't automatically revert back when I go to use it. Or sometimes it won't dim on its own. And occasionally the brightness control is stubborn. Someone else in the Owners' Lounge thread has similar issues, so I'm not too worried. I'm guessing they just have some issues to work out in future BIOS updates.

 

This is an issue with the Display driver. With the M17x, we saw a similar issue with the first two drivers - commonly referred to as the 'wake to black screen' bug. On the M17x with NV GPUs, this issue was resolved with driver 186.82 (a Windows Update driver) release.

One thing to consider, this is the first NV/Intel Hybrid display driver. Future driver releases by NVIDIA will hopefully correct this. I'll look at the driver when I have some extra time and see if anything stands out.

--------------

Concerning the CPU usage report, can one of you who use CCleaner take a screen cap of the Tools---> Startup window? I'd like to see what is launching at startup on one of the systems. Thanks. The screenshot I am attaching is what I would like to see.

 

no not really glad i got rid of it, dell is the the worst company i have ever dealt with

 

funny - I've gotten my system almost 3 weeks prior to when it was promised, had a "small" issue with my laptop, and they've immediately sent out a tech to take care of the issue the next day (today) - not sure what else I could ask of them? I've seen a LOT worse responses.. Including that "sony" and "mac" you're now prompting in your sig....

Look - I know you had a bad experience - and I'm definitely sad it happened. My question is - did you give Dell a chance to rectify the situation? Or did you simply return it immediately - without giving them the chance to either replace the unit - or come to you to try to fix the issue?

I've always given a company the chance to come back and make things right. And usually - 9/10 times - they do make things right.

 

Lets not side track this thread. He decided to return it and thats fine. We wish him the best in his future purchases.

No derailing the thread. This is not the thread to discuss customer service. For that, you can go here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1040

 

Apologies...

Attached is the screenshot you wanted.

 

And a capture of the offending program - this consistently runs between 8-12% CPU utilization.

 

Exactly the same with me... consistently 12% to 18%...

I also have get the perm dimmed screen once Windows auto dims, until I hit the function f4...

No biggie... I'm sure it can be corrected..

 

A lot of people are bashing Dell for being the "worst company" etc. I totally disagree:
After receiving mine this week and discovered that I have a terrible dead pixel right in the middle of the screen and having a constantly running fan, I called the next day and they offered me a replacement right away, all though my first attention was to have a tech coming in the office and just replace the screen.
But since the rep explained to me that they are going to send me a replacement and After I receive it I will have to send back the old one, I was pretty impressed, not to mention that it is going to be delivered with overnight option and it is already in production with EDD 03/03...
So I have to give them a big credit for that!

 

has anybody had any bluetooth issiues ? i can not find it in the device manager, or in the control panel, and when i click on the blutooth icon in the programs menu, it just flashes and is gone.


ok, forget it, wow, if you read the manual, you get some fun information had to turn the wireless on, FN plus F3, go figure yay..works like a charm

 

Yeah I got a faulty keyboard, called yesterday, did the troubleshoot, and the keyboard is now on its way with overnight.

 

About WmiPrvSE -- I've tracked it using Resource monitor and noticed that with Wireless Off (Fn-F3), it goes down to average of about 1.4% and with Wireless On it's mostly about 3.7%, but sometimes spikes up to 4.7%.

P.S. This is without any network connectivity - at work, so can't use wired or Wireless.

 

Thing is buggy... 1st 2 days it was rock solid. I now have the sleep/wake screen freeze. Restarted and got six consecutive beeps then a windows hardware failure message. Now it is fine again. I have been on hold with Tech Support for over 30 min. I am starting to rethink my purchase. Damn I love this thing tho...

 

@Sanmanatoo

Do you have yours overclocked?

 

I did at first, but funny enough because I was calling tech support I decided to turn it off. Presently it is off and was so when I got the error. Also temps are good

 

Same here. Ever since I got some weird behaviors, I disabled the over-clock. The problem is, I miss the performance boost already.

 

what sortof weird problems were you getting? starting to wonder if this is why they capped it.

 

I'd also like to add, when the above was happening, there was not a single beep.