*OFFICIAL* "All Powerful" M15x Owners Lounge - Part 4

hey guys,
i was just browsing the web just now and played a video embedded in a web page (adobe flash) and I got poor play back performance, jerky and sound was really crackly etc. I've not experienced it before and infact when i went to the bbc site and played a video it seemed fine. Then I realised that I was actually running off of the battery rather than plugged in. So I plugged in and then replayed the problem video and it played perfect and sound was perfect. Why was it so bad running from battery?
The only thing in my power plan that differs when running from battery is:

Processor Power Management: Minimum Processor State
Plugged in: 100%
Battery: 5%

GPU Power State:
Plugged in: Max Performance
Battery: Balanced Mode

Would these differences really cause the problem I had with the video play back?

 

no it should run fine on battery power, test it out again.

 

no still not right just when on battery. really strange.
can you try it on battery and see what happends? ok slightly embarrasing as it's marks and spencer site...don't ask
just choose any vid from this page:
M&S TV: Marks & Spencer

 

can't really test it out, because my system is totally different now, it doesn't downclock under any condition, only when i manually do it.

but try setting your system to high performance on battery mode also, see if that helps.
not judging you on the M&S Tv Bro, hahahha

 

no worries.
i've tried it on high and it maybe made a bit of difference but not loads. strange...not found this prob anywhere else yet. just as well i don't run from battery pretty much ever.
yeah don't know how i ended up on the m&s site...but you know what it's like when you browse from page to page. end up in the strangest of places

 

hopefully someone else witha 260 can test this out for you, sorry for not helping much.

 

Same problem for me. It's very strange, though I'm not very partial to going on M&S, so it's not really a problem for me.

 

Yup, it goes to hell on battery power. Like, one frame per second CPU usage doesn't seem that bad, so it is indeed strange.

 

maybe your M15x is telling you, it doesn't like those sites, hahahhaha
it wants you to feed it games.

 

Mine does slow to a crawl when it comes to flash apps as well.

I have my min / max CPU usage to 5% when on battery though...

 

I've set my Battery mode to be the same power as when plugged in (obviously it decrease anyway, but by a smaller amount). I'm even using Opera (hardware acceleration) and OC'd to what it says in my sig. It's like plaing Crysis on my old computer all over again.

 

gaming unplugged is pretty much impossible, it will downclock no matter how you set it. but with my 5870 it never downclocks, i have to do it manually if i want it to.

 

It's not an amazing decrease, but it's noticeable. Especially when watching (or attempting to watch) 1080p video.

My card has been acting really strangely recently. It seems to be fixed now, only time will tell.

 

im finding that the GPU downclocks when i take it out of sleep mode. I have to restart in order to fix it (no not stealth mode). Currently using 10.4 drivers but still getting the big cursor randomly. Catalyst still not installing with 10.4 or 10.5 drivers.

I was thinking of going back to 10.3 drivers, anyone try those? I don't want to resort to the dell drivers, since i don't want to lose out on the performance. Also something weird. I tried running the following video from youtube at 1080p in full screen, and seems display driver stops responding and i have to do a hard reboot. YouTube - Nvidia PureVideo HD 1080p Test


Everything else seems fine, just driver issue with ATI. Any ideas on a fix?

 

i would install the dell driver just to get ccc working, then update to which ever version you want after that. i'm on the 10.3 myself. or just download the dell driver and extract the ccc exe. and use that to get ccc working.

 

I was chatting with dell support the other day because the M15x is one of the laptops I am considering and he tried to tell me that this laptop lasts up to 8 hours.....this is one of the many reasons I dislike dell.

 

lol this is why i never trust what dell reps say unless i know from this lounge or forum as this place has the best knowledge about alienware and dell computers.

 

Thanks I did that, installed the Dell drivers, then upgraded to 10.3. I'm still having the issue that when I play a youtube video on fullscreen, something happens and display driver stop responding. Everything becomes really slow.

 

Hmm, seems I am also having the fullscreen problem. It's not only youtube, basically any fullscreen flash will lock me up. That's strange.

Edit: Right click on the video you're watching and disable hardware acceleration. That worked for me. That will do until the next drivers are released, or until one of us with the 5850 try out the 10.3 drivers.

 

thanks man, that did the trick. Wonder why that is...Anyone know?

 

what's the best driver for nvidia 260m gtx for playing battlefield bad company 2? =/

 

My guess would be that hardware acceleration uses just a little more power than the battey can provide.

 

I don't know about Battousai, but I wasn't running off of the battery when this issue occured.

 

neither was I....

 

Oh also, it's apparent that desktop 5850s are also having this issue, so I don't think it's our systems at all.

 

Out of it, at least a common problem should see a quick fix

 

Also try and update the flash player. The wizard had a similar problem and said updating helped.

 

what's the best driver for nvidia 260m gtx for playing battlefield bad company 2? =/

 

The latest mobile driver is pretty good.

NVIDIA DRIVERS 197.16 WHQL

 

Oh, I guess I should have left that part in when I edited it. I updated my flash player, and that did not help me unfortunately.

 

Wow! Congrats man! Show us some benches once it's in!

 

hey, harry whats going on, decide what to get yet with all that money?

 

Ha ha ha! I have some things in mind, bro! Got some bad news yesterday, though. Client will be sending me more work on Monday so I will miss the start of the Worldcup (most likely,anyway). He did send me a $700 bonus because of it, though. (More money that needs a destination, LOL!)

I will at least buy a new couch, flatscreen with built in DVD player for my son, Mamba mouse and lazy chairs for the balcony.
Still doubting about also getting an SSD, the 5870 (from the bonus) and a Dell 4500 work station. I know I don't need any of it, but, wth!

 

Funny, once I set it on High performance on battery power they run smoothly on battery with my lappy. Don't understand why that should be different with better cards. Maybe the ads are designed for poor people! Ha ha ha!

 

dude thats hella stuff,lol. sounds awesome, but i would recommend a tv and a separate dvd player. if one craps out at least the other one will be fine. so many new toy bro, enjoy. so jealous bro, probably next month i will upgrade the ram on mine M15x.

 

Thing is, my 4-year old breaks DVD players with an unknown frequency! (About 2 per month) If it's built into a TV he can't reach, it will probably last a lot longer!

Yeah, it's great to buy new toys, isn't it? I might get a new netbook as well, so I can check the forum when I'm lying in bed! :yes:

 

hahaha, yeah i feel you with the kid and all. yeah i love getting new toys. yeah my wife pissed at me at times, when i'm in bed and checking the forum out on my phone,hahahah

 

Yeah i'm definitely gonna put benches on this.

I'm soooo curious how they'll compare to the few benches i did on my 260m.

On a side note, after seeing you quote me i realized i typed built my old laptop instead of pc. whoops

 

so far only jubbing has 820 w/ 5870 bench, would like to see how they compare.

 

Ha ha ha! My wife regularly crawls into bed with her laptop, so she can't really say much! Besides, she gets new toys all the time as well, so.

 

ROFL, I thought I was the only obsessed indivudal out there. My wife gets just as upset too.

 

So this weekend, I tried the display port to hdmi adapter with my LCD. Seems that audio doesn't carry. I'm pretty sure I've seen this problem before, just wasn't sure if there is a solution. Anyone know how to fix?

Also, posted this in another thread, but does anyone find that the keyboard leaves marks on the screen. My microfibre cloth leaves an outline on the screen and id like to get rid of it if its not needed.

 

I think you need to change the default sound device from speakers/jacks to the display port to get the sound.

I don't have marks on the screen from the keys and I don't have any covers or anything.

 

Just go into your sound device manager and make sure the audio is actually selected to do so..
For the keyboard marks, most people uses simple sheet or a thin textile..!

Also to you guys, I always bring my 10.1 netbook into my bed (I'mlaying on my bed with it atm) and my GF does hate it. Ahhh, girls!

 

Me too, if a OC'ing noob like me could get those scores, guaranteed it can be beated. I never knew computers could be OC'd till Joker told me lol.. and in April haha (I thought it has something to do with Clocks )

 

yeah pretty much all the M15x onwer are oc noobs, hahhahah can't wait till mandrake gets his M15x, then he can see what a real pro can do.

 

This is a call to the guy who left his record player with a bloody needle behind. You know who you are.

 

In addition to what other people have said, make sure your drivers for your video card are designed to allow this feature. I'll admit I haven't used every driver version that has been released since I got my machine, but 186.81 is the only driver I've found that will support audio out over the dp. Also, if you're watching videos, xbmc and gom player allow you to set the audio output to the displayport without making it the default within Windows.

 

Well i just got my TactX mouse and its awesome compared to my last last mouse lol an old optical dell mouse lol. Now i know why this thing costs a 100 the packaging is what makes it that expensive though i only paid 30 for it so happy about that.

 

ok strange problem with my wireless, seems it getting really slow, after booting the wireless is fine but after 5 mins. it would slow down to a crawl. nothing sels is running in the background, started every since i upgrade the bios to A06 but even when i downgraded still have that issue.