M11xR1 Troubleshooting Thread

Ive noticed a drop in my peformance as well. This small screen and keyboard make it hard for me to perform well in pvp on WoW and also in MW2. Hopefully ill get used to it as i play it more.

 

Heads up guys I was getting 7+ hours battery life (used it all day yesterday after getting it on powersaver until i got home to game)

Then I installed the dox drivers.

Now I dont get over 3 hours. Despite the GPU still being able to toggle, it is not actually turning off. I know there are people talking about this issue in other threads, however Im now wondering if it is caused by the non-dell drivers.

I'm restoring, will post my results.

 

thanks zlog.

 

Restored back to defaults, went through the tweaks and such from the opti thread.

Back up to 6h 54min remaining at 91% on my balanced profile.

Stay away from those dox (and seemingly any non-dell) nvidia drivers i guess

ALSO, my fan is silenced/off again, not getting stuck or revving. I will check back in at the end of today and let you know if that changes.

EDIT: Just adding in, 3h 40min surfing with 335 turned on, but back up to almost 7 hours estimated when its turned off again.

 

Sigh these official drivers are old. Probably a reminder of how long ago AW probably made the prototype. Lol.

 

could anyone give me a picture or post up a picture of there device manager? i have these 2 unknown devices that arent downloaded but i dont know which they are...

 

Just checking back in, My fan isn't flipping back and forth, but it did flip to the higher speed and is staying there despite my system literally being cool to the touch.

So it is not a correction for the fan issue, however it definitely improved my battery life, and I'm 100% sure those dox drivers were responsible in my case because it was the only change I actually made between amazing battery life, and then the reduced battery life I was getting.

 

@Iris = here yah go mate. If you need to see something expanded tell me

 

Can some one try something for me?

-Restart your PC with the Intel GPU selected.
-wait for your battery status to update with a estimated time, wait a good 10 minutes so it is somewhat accurate.
-switch to 335, and then when the 335 is fully activated, switch back to intel.


Does your battery status EVER go back up to 6+hours? Mine lingers at like 3-4. I'm not sure if windows is just estimating the battery life poorly, or if the GPU is not accurately disabling again, its like the problem i was having with the Dox, except with the dox drivers even if i shut down and restarted with Intel GPU enabled, i would only get like 3 hours.

So
-Dell stock drivers, 335 doesn't seem to shut off once enabled.
-Dox drivers 335 is always on and you can toggle, but it wont shut off.

Anyone want to try and confirm, or hopefuly, prove this wrong?

I'm going to go with the flow, and just let my system drain out after enabling and disabling the 335, I'll let you guys know how long it takes. As of this post, I'm at a 3hour, 25minutes estimated to be remaining. If we're lucky the time will go up on the battery status instead of go down proving that windows is just dumb.

 

I swapped and my battery life takes a while to go back to the IGP's super long range (about a minute or so) but its slightly less than the original value and the fan is still running even on IGP.

 

lol any chance you could expand everything? i have no idea what i should be looking for.

 

Mine doesn't want to seem to update. It doesn't bother me really, as I'm never away from an AC outlet, but if I go on a trip or some one else does, and this ends up being a real issue and not just windows measuring it wrong, then it needs to be looked at.

 

Just post your hardware IDs man

Properties of unknown hardware, advanced tab, Hardware ID from the drop down menu.

 

The first unknown
ACPI\CPL0002
*CPL0002

second Unknown
ACPI\SMO8800
*SMO8800

 

per google,

SMO8800 is the accelerometer that detects if the laptop falls, it locks the HDD platters and head to avoid bad things on impact. ST Micro Accelerometer

and CPL0002 has something to do with the battery/battery meter... SMB or something... COMPAL Embedded System Control in my device manager.

I'd check to see if anything on the M11x downloads covers any of that, or just install them all.

 

Found your two devices. Pics coming as soon they are uploaded.

EDIT:

Or rather, what Zlog said

 

i found the accelometer but i cant find any compal embedded system on the dell page, or am i misreading something? if anyone could find it please post the link xD

 

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&fileid=258162

Try that one.

 

Some router makers use their own proprietary compression. For it to work I think you need to use their components.

I am using a g/a/n router with no proprietary compression ( the apple router). The old apple did 2.4ghz and this work for me forever but wifi N speeds were hit and miss based upon the card and the maker of the card. Dell internal cards were always a problem. I had trouble with the 1520 card in the m11x on my router (distance was the issue). At 5ghz..no problems at all.

Apple's router is only $179.

 

I fixed the issue of there being no indication of volume change when you use the fn-F8/F9...I added a volume gadget to the desktop. Work perfectly.

 

didnt work for some reason..

 

try installing the intel storage matrix driver than. Sometimes one package has tons of stuff inside.

 

mind sharing the gadget name or where to find it? In the meantime I'll search.

 

Right click desktop and choose gadgets
Go online to look at gadgets
Its Called "Volume"

 

Here's a PIA. Went to make a recovery USB. Well the recovery requires a USB with at least 4GB.

The off the shelf 4GB drives dont have enough room by only a small amount and wont work. You need to buy an 8GB or use DVD.

I have all these 4GB's and they are worthless....I think this is a bug.

 

yup... installed intel drives all over again and still doesnt work.

 

For me the way around was to configure my LG NAS for iSCSI. Turned on iSCSI on the m11X and was able to access the DVD on the NAS. I am sure I can install this way as well.

 

@iris = tried installing everything on dell's site?

 

m11x gets pretty hot near the mouse pad and arm rest. Also I can feel the HD vibration.

Anyone else?

Not sure I like where the put components.

I have to use my n700 from logitech to keep things comfortable for me.

 

Yup. Everything on the alienware m11x section i tried everything and i just searched it up and the driver that you originally gave me the link for should have worked and it didnt so i dont know if its a bug or not.. because it successfully installed but it shows up on my device manage as Unknown device...
its actually bugging the freak out of me. i installed my ssd with such difficulty to find i lost my alienware wallpapers lmao and drivers arent fully installed.

 

IRIS after my reinstall I had two missing. I did windows update and it installed what I needed. Turned out it was the SD card reader and not sure what else.

 

M11x should be getting hot at all, the two we have here barely even get warm.

 

just did a full update pf 53 something megabytes and it says windows is fully up to date But. the hindering unknown device is still there.... god dammit now its just bugging me.

 

Well every storage product you hook up to your computer registers at a lower # of GB than is advertised since manufacturers report 1000MB per GB instead of 1024MB like they should. I have an external HD that reads 149GB, when it is actually supposed to be 160GB, my Raptor drive reads 69.2GB when it is supposed to be 74GB. I have USB drives that do the same exact thing...

Your 4GB USB drives are most likely showing up on your comp as 3.xx (4000MB) and the recovery utility needs a -full- 4GB (4096MB) minimum...

I don't believe it is a bug, just the nature of computer storage devices...

Check out this brief explanation:

 

1000MB = 1GB in the eyes of hard drive makers

1024 MB is actuallya GB but dont tell them

It is no bug just another marketing ploy

 

If is says you need 4GB USB then wont fit on a 4GB usb then that's a bug. The program should clearly state 8GB USB Drive required...as there are no 5's, 6's, 7's

 

I understand the size of GB, but does dell?

See post one up.

 

I made a boot USB on a 4Gb flash. Try the free windows 7 download thread. I used that iso to put on my flash. I didn't bother with making an ISO from the included disc.

 

Thanks i was playin around in settings 4 network changed ibss from 10 20 to 20 40 now im getting 240m- 275 still not 300mb but getting closer thanks again for apple info i appreciate your help

 

What router are you using?

I have a Linksys WRT-610n and I get a solid 300mpbs (rating) in the wifi status on my m11x.

Obviously it doesn't actually go that fast, I'd say my true-throughput is around 30-40mbps which is good for an ultraportable's internal card.

LOTS of good information at www.smallnetbuilder.com

If wireless is the only thing you are worried about, check out their wifi speed charts here:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_wireless/Itemid,200

 

Anyone have any luck getting the stock OSD to work for volume up/down? I sent a PM to one of the alienware reps that post on here so hopefully he'll give us some insight soon if it hasn't already been discovered.

It works for everything else, even mute, just not up/down. Thats honestly the only OSD I care about lol.

 

hey zlog, glad you asked. I posted this on the owners lounge, check it out:

link

it's exactly like Mac OSX's volume up/down OSD. It's terrific.

 

Yeah i got that going, I just like the look of the stock OSD a lot. I'm hoping to eventually only need one OSD running

 

yeah I'm doubtful the original Alien OSD will be updated.. There isn't even play OSD.. weak haha

 

Well hopefuly the rep will post back.

OSD is such a standard feature now day, it's sad that it isn't working on a premium laptop.

 

im runnin dir-615 thanx

 

The volume does go up/down there is just no screen display. I loaded a volume gadget on the desktop and now I can see the volume change

 

yeah I like my solution over the gadget since you have to have part of the desktop showing to see the indicator gadget. I have an actual OSD pop up for the volume up/down exactly like OSX's. lovin it so far.

 

Sorry if someone has asked this. Sometimes I noticed that FN+F6 doesn't allow for a successful GPU->IGP transition. How are people using the icon at the tray to switch? Mine just shows me I'm on IGP when I'm really not. Thanks

 

If the system isn't allowing you to swap, a window will appear to tell you what programs are interfering with the swap (eg. Steam, Windows Live) Close those and the "Save power"/"Increased performance" button in the window will become clickable. You'll be able to swap then.