*OFFICIAL* M11xR1 Owners Lounge - Part 4

interesting to hear about the 197.16's, will try them shortly... I installed the Dox 195's in that same manner, and it does "switch", but both are always enabled in reality.

I guess my best bet would be a clean install of the Dell drivers, and then try the 197.16's on top of that as mentioned by BatBoy

My guts telling me though that the Nvidia GPU is actually not disabled, which fooled a lot of people with the Dox drivers.

 

Have someone noticed on the SDK of the AlienFx of M11X there's one application capable of changing the leds indepently of the "Zone" of colors from AFX's presets ?

It means it should be possible to change the color of each key.

 

Regarding the new Nvidia drivers, sorry I'm a bit confused here...

Is all that needs to be done is install the latest Nvidia drivers over the existing Dell drivers? And after doing this does on-the-fly video switching still work, or does a new registry entry need to be added first?

 

You can install the NV released driver over the existing Dell driver - this will be the only way at present ( without an INF mod edit) to keep the GPU switching.

 

Very nice - thank you!

A question though. When Nvidia releases another driver update after this current 197.xx driver, would the process of updating the M11x to the new driver be the same?

I ask because with my PC, Nvidia requires the previous driver to be uninstalled before the new driver is installed. So my question here is - if one was to install *another* Nvidia driver update (198.xx perhaps), does uninstalling the Nvidia 197.xx driver also uninstall the Dell integrated graphics driver? Or can you just keep uninstalling and installing the Nvidia drivers at will - with no worries of the Dell driver being taken out?

 

cool I'll test. Afraid after reboot is when it screws up. That's what 196.86 does.. switches fine then reboot and everything gets jacked up.

*edit*

yup 197.16 drivers aren't any good for me. They're just like the 196.86 modded. If you install over your current drivers it will switch fine. Not until you reboot then they fail. I'm assuming batboy didn't reboot. Back to original drivers.

Unless you disable switchable graphics and go purely discrete you can't really use these drivers yet... thinking about trying discrete gfx only with these. The 196.86 had a sleep issue and battery drain so I uninstalled it.

I'm on discrete mode only now and installing the 197.16. I'll see if it can sleep/wake properly as well as no battery drain. Don't mind running discrete 24/7 if the drivers are any good.

 

Dell really needs to work with Nvidia to update their stupid drivers. ugh. This is such a big deal, but years later, they still don't care about keeping drivers up to date.

 

Might not be the best workaround, but if you don't switch much you could just disable the card you're not using in device manager.

 

hey guys, im thinking of buy this laptop
but M11x has no optical drive
is it necessary to get an external drive to play games that require disc to play ? Such as Devil May Cry 4

 

You can download the games from Steam

 

i have some games that required disc verification to start games, such as devil may cry 4 that i mentioned
just now i have googled a bit and found that iso files of original disc will not work for games that have DRM
therefore, i think if i wanna go for M11x, external optical drive is a must for me
thanks btw

 

Mine had finally arrived!! Ordered: 1/3/10 Arrived: 29/3/10 << I know.. that sucks.. My boss even want me to show him my laptop. LOLX

 

I just ordered mine today. I was originally going to order a M17X, but decided to keep my gaming PC and use the M11x for school and travel. ETA is 4-14.

 

Hopes dashed!
Can you confirm Batboy?

 

Ordered mine today. Cant wait.

I've been trying to find a good notebook cooler for the M11x. Any suggestions?
- Cant be too large (Preferably 12" wide)
- Fans near the back (Where the M11x fan is on bottom)
- Uses USB power (none of the heavy duty AC powered ones)
- Prefer a nice aluminum one over a plastic

Thanks =)

 

I notice with the Dell stock drivers the 335m doesnt clock down when idle. it just stays at 450/800. Using a kilawatt my m11x uses 11w on intel and 20w on nvidia. If anyone is running 197 drivers, can they see if the nvidia card downclocks in idle?
I would consider just using nvidia if 197 downclocks as that will decrease the power consumption but if they stick at 3d clocks it will really hurt battery life

 

If the M11x is using Hybrid Graphics (switch between Nvidia and Intel GPUs) then it requires a Hybrid Graphics driver to switch properly. A Hybrid Graphics driver contains both Intel & Nvidia drivers in a single package that installs a specific way.

If you are looking to use the standard 197.13 drivers with the M11x using Optimus I have a INF in testing right now.

If you install 197.13 without Hybrid Graphics or Optimus the Nvidia part will act as a single GPU (without being able to switch). The same with installing the standard Intel drivers. (w/o HybGfx or Optimus)

Or at least this is how it is traditionally with Hybrid Graphics notebooks. If things have changed let me know. Sorry for overlooking this when I posted my last post, I was going by what was posted. (as I don't have a M11x)

 

wth, are you saying you can get optimus to work for the m11x?

 

Has anyone tested the 197.16 drivers as far as gaming? I'm thinking about disabling the integrated card and using these just for some benchmarking. Of course once done I'll restore back to stock drivers since they don't really cause problems except for being old. If they may yield better benchmarking scores it might be worth it for a few runs.

 

How does the Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 Advanced Wireless card compare to the Standard stock wireless card?

 

All,

Not sure if this is off topic but I wondered what laptop cases people are using with the M11x as I am having trouble selecting an appropriate choice.

 

iwantone, Not off topic, but there is a thread for that very question. You might be able to look through whats been posted to help decide. Maybe see something you like. Good thread as it has some good insight into various solutions for carrying and protecting the M11x.

What are you using to carry your M11x around with?

 

I m considering to buy this one :
http://www.booqbags.com/Laptop-Backpacks/Mamba-shift-L-black-laptop-backpack

 

Testing battery with this method:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8UEn63aRHs

 

Ummm I just test the laptop by actually using it... The only problem is if you're doing video play tests, you can't use it. But still I wouldn't rely on any other test....

 

Its not video, just recorded mouse movements/clicks and now computer repeats them.

 

Just going off EVGA Precision's display the card will downclock while idle.

I'm sitting bored at work so I'll run some random game benchmarks while I'm sitting here to see if there's any noticable improvement. I just ran a WEI and it knocked up Graphics by .1 over the DOX drivers.

Eyeballing the SF4 and Just Cause 2 benchmarks (since I didn't record my results prior to installing these drivers), there was an some improvement. Framerates in Just Cause 2 Urban Jungle seemed a little smoother, final portion of SF4 benchmark where it displays multiple characters was about 5-6 FPS higher then I remember from the DOX drivers.

I'll try to play some BFBC2 when I hit lunch time to try to get a better feel for the drivers, but they seem to perform a little better then the DOX drivers at least.

 

@Krandor- look forward to your post to see improvements... I am still running the oldschool 188.55 DELL drivers so I guess I probably won't be able to gauge if the performance will be noticeable for me since I never installed the DOX drivers but oh well... I may try it anyway

 

BFBC 2 felt about the same as with previous drivers, but I only did the opening scene up thru the trenches so I didn't test it much.

Ran SF4 Benchmark at 540/1296/850, came in at 73.94 FPS. My m11x doesn't have an internet connection while at work so I can't post a screenshot however though.

DR650SE, what were you OCing your GPU to on your SF4 benchmark posted in the benchmark thread? I'll try those numbers and see what comes out. I've got a few more minutes of lunch left so I'll run a DMC4 bench under default clocks to compare to the ones posted in the benchmark thread

 

71.83 Average for DMC4 with default clocks (all settings on High, AA/AF off etc).

I'm assuming that the 70.53 posted by tuxblondinet on the benchmark thread is also under default clocks, so I'd say looking at my results from SF4 and DMC4 that these drivers are a bit of an improvement. Outside of Just Cause 2 or Furmark I don't have any other kinds of benchmarks on hand on my M11x right now though.

Temps seem fine with these drivers too, the OCed SFIV mentioned in my post above peaked out at about 59c.

I'll unplug it and let it sit around for awhile to get an idea of idle battery life.

 

Well, the result is 7 hours and 16 minutes. Must say that first 5 hours cooler wasn’t running at all, but then he turned on and didn’t stop till the end
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5020311/Permanent/Review/battresult.png

 

I don't remember what exactly I ran SF4 at, but my guess is it was around 625/910/1440. Most of my benches are done at 620+ range. I run it in front of an AC though so it helps with stability. I'm currently downloading the 197.13 drivers on the M11x (so I'm on the 1720) at a rate of 9.4kb/sec...Iraq sucks

i'm hoping these drivers will kick up my benchmark results. From what I've seen in 3DMark06 it won't much. Maybe Vantage. Looks like it will do really well for SF4 though. Hopefully I can break 80. Well see tommorrow.

 

Not the most precise test, but I actually have to go do some work. Letting the laptop sit idle for about 15 minutes and just mousing over the battery bar, it looks to have about 6 hours of battery life off a full charge with the CPU OCed.

I'll try those numbers and see what I get in a bit.

 

Dr650SE - I posted a couple quick remarks using this driver on discrete only in bios. BFBC2 (IMO) felt extremely smooth and dips weren't happening. This was just through one entire 16player multiplayer match though, but very smooth, I noticed it right away.

Metro 2033 was easier to tell since first I didn't get a warning about using old drivers when launching it, and second, it was very noticeable that FPS dips occurred in combat on the 188.55 drivers and fraps showed low teens at times. The 197.16 drivers kept the FPS above 20 through combat easily and higher in regular exploration gameplay. Lowest I saw it dip when peeking at FRAPS was 18FPS during my combat gameplay.

There is no battery drain while sleeping like I did with discrete only and 196.86 modded INF, but problem is it does not wake properly. Screen doesn't come back on. So I have to shut down rather than close lid for sleep. I've had to do a hard power off (hold down power button 3s) and boot back up since no matter what I do I cannot get it to wake up. I have this issue with stock drivers but if you close the lid again, touch the track pad etc, it will usually wake up. Not the case here. Big bummer. Makes me think about going back to stock...

 

Mine seems to be having no issues waking up from sleep with the 197.16 drivers, I've put it to sleep 3 times since I installed them and it hasn't seem to have had any issues waking back up.

Edit : I take that back, I left it in sleep mode via closing the lid while I went out to smoke a cigarette and it didn't come up properly that time and had to restart it.

 

krandor have you been putting it to sleep via a different method before? like just pressing the power button rather than lid close? i've just been doing lid close.

 

I've been putting it to sleep via the start menu. I had an old laptop that had a problem along these lines where it wouldn't come out of sleep if it was put to sleep via the lid, but would if I used the start menu, so it's something I've done for years. I just put it to sleep that way and I'll let it sit for awhile then try it out before I head back home.

 

I do start menu only as well.
I close the lid frequently so I can't have it sleep all the time.

Gonna try the drivers when I get home.

 

Yup putting it to sleep with the Start Menu it wakes up just fine, either by hitting the power button or opening the lid. Did it twice each time letting it sit for about 10-15 minutes and no problems on wakeup

 

thanks krandor, at least that gives me an option. How about pressing the power button to put it to sleep?

 

Power button seems fine as well, looks like just closing the lid to put into sleep mode causes problems, all other options work fine.

 

Ok this has happened twice to me, sometimes when on battery the power button (alien head) starts to flash thinking it's low on battery,... while it's not possible because I just fully charged it. (Also when I try to check the battery with the indicator below, it gives me a fully charged) It shuts down on itself and I have to restart, after that everything is fine again.

Anybody have a clue?

(only happened twice, so it's not really an issue at the moment)

 

I close the lid almost all the time, aside from a few occasional times of shutting down the PC completely. Have no problem awakening the computer from sleep mode, but it does give occasional problems when starting up from hibernate. I get a black screen, and it never loads up to the login screen.

 

Thanks! Thats great news. I will install these drivers on discrete and measure power consumption to see if it helps. 20w on discrete seems way too high, my vaio CW with P9500cpu and GT230m is only 14w on idle

 

I just did an overclocked run of SF4 on stock drivers and 197.13 drivers and 197 was about 0.4 FPS faster. Ran both tests under the same conditions and GPU clocks.

 

I'm loving this laptop. However, I can't help but feel annoyed with the fact that the discrete card stays active after I press Fn+6 and sometimes the fan stays "on" until I reboot. I'm just doing my best to be patient with Dell and hoping for a BIOS and switchable graphics drivers.

I want to avoid using third party drivers personally.

 

@tears - Whenever you close to lid to put the laptop to sleep, do you leave the power plugged in or take it out every time? I was wondering if leaving it plugged in is good or bad for the battery.

 

Hey guys, I was wondering if this part is needed 65 Watt 3-Prong AC Adaptor ADDL? I order my M11x about a week ago so as I was going through the Customization options it asked if I wanted the power cord. I thought it already came with one but I didn't want to be left with nothing when it came so I ordered it anyway. Does the m11x come with it's own power cord or is that adapter needed?

 

it comes with its own power cord. Not sure what that part is.

 

Aznguyen's right. The laptop and presumably ALL laptops come with one. The option of ordering one during the customization phase is to order a spare in case you lose the original.