[WoW] Sound Lag/Computer Lags - Needs reboot

The following is a quote from my post on Blizzard's Technical Support Forums. It can be found here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/t...863008-5qlW9WBWR5gGNed4SbjeK3ckFdCgdlUcGLp#16

Seeing as Blizzard is obviously ignoring my help requests I figured I'd turn my inquiry over to a more competent community. Can ya'll make anything of this? I'm on the verge of returning my Alienware if I can't fix this.

 

Crap sorry about the title it was supposed to be "[WoW] Sound Lag/Computer Lags - Needs reboot".

 

You on DSL or Cable? Sounds like a baud problem which isnt Blizzards problem.

 

I'm on Verizon FiOS

 

that sounds like the sleep "issue"

do you put your computer to sleep ?

 

Never. I shut down when I walk away from it. =\

 

ooooo i forgot about the quad core stutter when the gpus are under ful load

here is the link
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=368282

try E-wrecks performance drivers

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=347611

 

Alright I'll try it when I get home tomorrow and update ya'll. Thanks, Moo.

 

Maybe AW doesn't want you playing wow

 

if it is a gpu driver problem then it will be fixed with E's driver but some people said wow doesn't play nicely with 9.1

AW drivers are old they are new to AW but they are old drivers


The quad core issue has only been seen in qx9300 because most people dont get the lower quads but i think thats what it is with yours

 

Does this occur with other games also?
Bear in mind WoW is not optimised for SLI or Crossfire and has poor dual core support, so this may be causing part of your issue

 

had same problems and now i dont have (i have same config with yours)

i am using 9.1 ati drivers from this forum

no sleep (like you)

disable touchpad and uninstall touchpad drivers.

flashed ocz bios then after back to aw bios.


ps : from quad core problems post (which i wrote there)

1- updated drivers (all of them)
2- no sleep at all
3- vista 64
4- disabled powerplay in ccc
5- changed bios to ocz then again flashed aw
6- disabled aero
7- made all the things on that post : http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...ad.php?t=47212
8- using windows standart mouse theme (not aero or etc)
9- updated vista
10- hotfix from microsoft ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=367742)
11- no hibernation
12- no restore point
13- no paging file
14- no indexing
15- no prefetch

 

its 90% SLI and 10% xfire

i keep 150-300 fps all the time i dont do heavy stuff though

 

we have the same problem~~
you can update GPU dirvers to alienware 8.57~~~
play wow do not open windowmode and Fullscreen Mode ~~
i am chinese boy,my english is not well~~
i just want you can solve the problem~~enjoy wow~~

 

I had problems with WoW as well, and its not the game its the way Alienware installed the video/audio drivers. The Audio drivers have to be installed before the video drivers to prevent conflict (which is contrary to how they have been shipping them). See this post:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=376506

You may still have to run full screen as opposed to windows mode though because of the way WoW doesn't really take advantage of two GPU's. I always run full screen anwyay, so I haven't tested it in windowed mode.

Edit:

Bleh, nevermind, it came back yesterday

 

Have you tried togling the "use hardware" option in the sound panel in WoW? Hare you played with the # of channels? Toggled voice?
Just a few ideas

 

Toggling "use hardware" option made no difference to me, I would get the same issue whether on or off. The only thing toggling this option did for me was allow me to continue to play for a few minutes until it started back up again.

 

Thanks Marvie100 trying those out now, I'll report back on the results tonight after I've tested it a bit. Here's to hoping this works cause I've already drafted my letter requesting a refund.

 

Must suck spending loads on an AW only to realise it doesn't play your favourite game properly. =(

 

And it's still happening. Any other ideas?

 

Yean its the reason I am getting my sager/clevo is so i can play gta4. It stinks when the games you want to play wont play on a 2000 dollar laptop. Or if it does play it plays poorly....

 

Anyone? This is killing me in Ulduar with people talking in vent.

 

I didn't bother to read the entire thread. Your machine is obviously capable.

What results are you getting when you DON'T use the speech stuff, just playing normally?

 

Yep came back for me too. I've posted the things I've tried here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=368282&page=10

So far nothing's worked.

Guess I'll start going down this list to try some other things out:

 

Well I tried the weirdest thing today. I removed my battery. Since I use it as a desktop anyway it's no big deal. Anyway been playing WoW while looping 99 Luftballoons (kill me I know) without any issues. I'll report back if anything develops.

 

Noone ever thought to take out the battery?

My system always runs more plesantly without the battery in.

 

why does removing the battery help? is it because it directs the power more to the motherboard rather than to the battery and mobo?

 

Geez avonin, GMTA. I did the same exact thing yesterday and voila. Machine ran for hours without the battery with no problems. I had posted above that I took the battery out, but I only took it out after I'd started the computer and was having issues, and then I guess I only left it out for a short while. Yesterday I fired it up without the battery and ran it all night without any abnormalities as well. Thats just wrong i tell you.

 

Issue reappeared today with battery removed.

Try changing your power profile to High Performance instead of Balanced.

See here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=368282&page=11

 

Was JUST coming back to say issue came back! =P
I am using High Performance.

 

I'm beginning to wonder if this only happens on certain days of the week....

And Wasn't there a problem with AlienFusion a while back where people would get an arithmetic error that allegedly is fixed with the new command center? I think the workaround was to disable the fingerprint reader, although not sure what that had to do with it. Did the new command center, screw something else up?

 

Avonin, download both of these hotfixes:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956563

and install them. Alienware had Irishhenshin do this on the phone with promising results

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=368282&page=14

Make sure you use IE to download it, if you use firefox, it incorrectly determines your machine as 32 bit instead of 64 bit

 

Will do a bit later. I recently quit WoW but I'll try them this weekend.

 

i was just playing for 4 hours today and had no lag at all it seems to be the north bridge in your laptop is over heating

 

Negative, I just turned my laptop on after having it off for three days and it lagged out at the windows vista welcome sound. I'm ruling out overheating. =\

 

weird enough I have the same problem after reinstalling my QX9300. First couple of days it went like a charm ( still have the AW bios installed btw ). Now after 2 days choppy sound comes back and my mouse is laggy and stuff.. very very annoying..

 

Sorry to say it's not consistent with all of us - I played for a few hours today with no issues. Mine's dual core, tho - was one of the speculations it's a quad core stutter issue, or at least related? My specs are below, and I'm running stock alienware drivers right now...

 

Funnily enough im having a similar issue, the only game i have installed is wow.

In my experience ill be just in an instance or questing ill experience a slight lag in framerate like as if it is jittering for a few seconds. Then the screen/laptop just freezes and does not do anything. Have to reboot it and prey it does not happen again.

Power Plan is set to Performance and also i use it as a desktop so i have it plugged in all the time.

My Laptop Specs are

Alienware m15x
Intel 2.5Ghz Core2Duo 6mb Cache
8GB Ram
64Bit Vista
9800M GT

Have done a "Respawn" and also a clean format using my own CDs and i get same problems.

Last time i got the problem upon restart Windows Error reporting feature said it was a graphics card issue. However it does not seem to be over heating, temp seems normal. Might be a driver issue im not sure. No fix on alienware site either so it probably just affects a handful of people and is not widespread.

 

for quad cores copper mod work 100%.

 

Its happening so much its getting really frustrating, im beginning to wonder if its a hardware issue instead of a software one,

Ran a copy of WoW on my m15x and also on my Dell XPS m1530. Was multiboxing and bang the copy on the m15x stopped working. The laptop just froze, the only thing that would show signs of life were the touch buttons, they would glow when touched but no actually do anything. Might send it back to AW if this persists

 

I had extreme stuttering in WoW similar to this on an older desktop computer (6800gt, nforce3), it was like having a violent bottleneck causing sound glitches, game stuttering, disconnects and losing arena matches. I tried everything but eventually quit the game and only returned after I bought a new computer. I always assumed it was an nforce problem.

 

seems like I am having the same issue, WoW would just freeze up within 0-5 mins after loading and bam, it won't end task after that button is initiated and after WoW quits, whole laptop freezes too. this is bullcrap. A brand new laptop from a well known gaming company, this is unacceptable. At the time, I am still trying to look for a solution to this if anyone know, please post

 

I think the main problem should came from WoW, M17 run other games is very good so far. this problem only happen to few game. I would suggest try to turn down all the graphic setting, and see if freeze up problem still exist or not. and then try varing each simgle option in Video setting. dont know if this can help.

 

I was facing the same problem since i flashed my bios. I don't think that's related to the bios flash (i flashed with the lastest one, my m17 was already sold with the lastest). I think it come from the sound card/ATI driver, by flashing my bios, vista has recognized an unknown peripheral: by suppressing it and rebooted all was back to "normal". I've heard on this forum that the sound card driver must be installed before the ati drivers to prevent conflicts. Before that i've tested that solution, i've tested all lastest driver install: lastest sound card drivers, lastest ATI drivers, lastest beta intel chipset drivers, lastest intel matrix drivers etc ... and nothing really worked until i flashed my bios.
Another annoying thing is when the stuttering appear, unplug/plug the power supply and every thing back to normal.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=368282

 

While this thread may be helpful in determining the root cause of the problem and providing a potential solution, the real problem is "My computer should work on Day 1 after I purchased it without having to open it up to make my own modifications unnecessarily".

 

Ok understandable. the problem with me is i hate when i have to send my computer in for repair. that's why i left acer because that's all they wanted to do. for me and others, we also would like this issue to be worked out when we get our notebooks.

but this issue has been around before alienware signed the contract with flex. it started with the ocz whitebook when they had the contract with arima(bought by flextronics) in november. i got my notebook i think in early march or feb.(i have to look on the receipt) and got the quad a month later and the issue was never resolved. and this issue won't be resolved unless a new heatsink is issued out to all of us.


see the thing is the quad core is really to dual cores and therefore is bigger then the dual cores. so when replacing or adding or putting in a quad inside this notebook, the northbrigde heatsink shifts and it doesn't touch the northbrigde all the way. thus having the stutter we have/had on our notebooks because it renders the northbrigde and the whole computer unstable as we notice.

this is where the copper mod comes to play. this mod completely covers the northbridges die and when the heatsinks is placed on top it fully extracts the heat from the northbrigde. this results in performance increase and system stablility.


will update first post with this info. i was being lazy