Having nothing but issues with the 4870's in my R2...

Moo, he is talking about his particular situation, not a global solution. It may be true that the the 920's are power starved under maximum loads, but with turbo off his is not under max load, Ergo, there must be some other factor in play causing flickering on his computer. He's searching for answers, not sarcasm.

 

this is what happen to the whole complete line of fx series laptops from gateway. and a best buy tech..actually knew what was wrong.

 

Didn't know that, john.

Meh.

As long as my i7-620 has no issues, I'll be okay. The prospect of not being able to upgrade to extreme later on sucks, but oh well...

 

I wish Li Shin made 12.3A 240W supplies. I think we'd be fine then.

 

How can we expect an upgrade to 5870XF when the current R2 can't even handle the 4870XF.

 

Hmm I am thinking I will likely have issues because of the Raid drives. I didn't get the ssd so I am thinking ill have even more power consumption than Joker and Mandrake...

 

yeah sleepy..it's why i ditch the gateway and got a clevo. i set a bunch of records then jumped ship.(had all 3 models).

5150joker
there is a place that makes special power adapters with varying watts and amps, but the psu's are in no way cheap!.. like 350 bucks. gangstaone got one. he said it made a world of difference...he didn't beat me at benching so i never went and bought one, but i still may grab one just to have.




also..when pushing these systems...does the power supply make a high pitched whine?

 

The 5870's draw less power than the 4870's.

 

Here is sum food for thought...

A friend of my father and I bought our systems at the same time to get a package discount (among other discounts) but I got the RGB LED and 720, he got the CCFL and 920. He has MW2, Crysis, Crysis warhead, Sin Episodes, ET QW, and has run Vantage and 06 out the box while OCing his CPU... no flickering/stutter in anything. Doesnt make sense to me since LED draws less power.

He just left for a 8 hour drive to Quantico VA, but when he gets there, and is well rested, I will have him see if we can run some test for comparison

 

Well thats a new twist. Maybe something between the display and video cards... interesting.

 

It's still power/BIOS related IMO.

From what joker tested I am apt to believe that.

 

Let us know how it goes. I want to get my replacement system and test them side by side. For now I'm feeling a LOT under the weather. Going to go take some NyQuil and pass out.

 

Feel better, drake

We all appreciate what you do around here!

 

I'm sure the old-timers on here know all the tricks, but I did a bit of reading on the ATI forums about flickering one dude had a problem that sounds a lot like this....

His solution was to flip the cards around and use only one bridge connection:

"I swapped my cards order and took 1 bridge out, so I think i might have had a bad crossfire bridge or something, it works GREAT now!!! 8.12s and everything!!!"

So, ? Anyone think his solution might apply in this case? He was using a 920 FWIW, but this solution dates back to 12/08....

If I read the forums here right the problem only manifests with Crossfire enabled right? I'm wondering if this could this be some kind of BIOS issue... another set of fixes included turning off sleep mode and running power management as always on... without a machine it's kind of hard to help test

One guy even reinstalled drivers, unchecked crossfire in CCC and rechecked and had success...

What I'd like to know is why do all the machines supplied to testers NEVER have these problems, is Dellienware sending cooked rigs out, or did something change between now and then like a BIOS update, etc?

 

agreed, but something just doesnt sit well with me considering there is approx 40% more power draw from the ccfl

ill keep yall posted. get better homey.

 

One question, if that is the case wouldn't a simple test of outputting only to an external monitor be a good test? I am assuming you can bypass the RGB LED completely... this is my first foray into the laptop world so, if this is a retarded question please be kind.

All this still makes me think the test machines are cooked.... even if unintentionally...

 

I was having issues with my 4870's after I got the free upgrade. I reinstalled windows 7 and all of the drivers but it did not play games well, my fps was way down from my nvidia. I tried countless ATI drivers, but none of them seemed to make a difference.

I hadn't installed the command center and had the OSD disabled to try and troubleshoot why my CPU was being taxed over 50% at all times. It was shortly after installing these that I realized that stealth mode had been engaged the entire time! /facepalm

 

Ok... spoke with my homey

He was actually running in balanced power mode when he first ran the benches (he said there wasnt much of a performance change.) but had him run06 again... no flickering. he ran crysis and got some stutter when loading the level, but nothing like what Drake or Joker are having, and it was only when loading... not during actual gameplay.

Told him to register on NBR and try to help out so i dont have to be his personal stenographer. haha

 

that would be correct... but im sure that was tested already...

...it was tested right guys?

 

i am having the same problems my screen looks horrible when playng masseffect 2 max out also have stuttering this problem is affecting a lot of machines but some people not even belong to this forum and that's why we don't know how many

 

hummm, dont remember seeing that one answered yet...outputting to secondary screen....

 

I don't have one to try...anyone else?

 

Damn... I got lcds galore... just no 920. anyone gonna loan me one? ill pay the shipping...

haha... im just... serious.

 

or send m an lcd.

I can go hook it up to my plasma in my basement but I figured someone would have done it by now.

 

Wow Witcher.... you're returning your system already? I can understand being frustrated, but a problem like this *sounds* solvable on the surface. If it were me I'd just run with one card temporarily for a week or so and see what comes... you won't have any problems returning it then. Just a thought...

 

From all the posts I've been reading about that problem, it actually seems no one with 920xm stuttering problem hooked it up to external display only to test if they had same problem.....

 

i'm getting my r1 replaced for one r2 with i7, is there any problems or stuttering with specific i7 cpu's that i should be warned about before making a new order, which one should i chose?? tanks

 

the good and the bad...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5841012#post5841012

 

Bump. I didn't realize so many of you were having the same problems. I hope this gets fixed. I'm gonna hold off on my replacement, as it's likely to have the same problem.

Do you guys think this will be user fixable once it's determined exactly what the problem is?

 

Since theres an alienware rep looking into it and jokers system being looked at by alienware personaly i think it will be patched or youll have to send ur system in for a quick service is all.

 

just installed Crysis, and it's completely unplayable. There is a brief pause that occurs every 2 seconds at all times during the game. It happens on the menu, the cinematics, as well as the game. It's persistent too, it never stops!

I've tried the stock alienware drivers, as well as the modded 9.12, but they both behave the same. I've tried running the game in direct X 9 as well as 10, no difference. Mass Effect 2 runs like a champ, so I'm fairly confident it's just a driver problem with this game.

Has anyone else ran into this issue? If so, how did you go about solving it?

 

try turning off one gpu it seems to fix most people problems until the alienware guy isolates the malfunction.

 

oh and make sure stealth mode is off

 

Do you have the 920QM too?

 

Just thought I should mention, I downloaded and purchased Vantage and did several full tests today. With both the GPU and CPU being tested, I pulled a CPU score of 15000 and GPU score of just over 11000 with Xfire enabled.

There was NO flickering during any of the vantage runs for the GPU tests. HOWEVER, when running the second CPU test, the thing slows to a crawl and flickers like crazy.

Yet my score still seems in line with others??

 

we don't buy a $3000 dollars laptop to turn graphic cards off is unacceptable

 

Those are fine. Get about 12,000 overall (P =)?

 

true that witcher... that's the kicker to all of this. We paid a good premium to have the "best notebook / Fastest notebook in the world, we should EXPECT it to work out of the box.

You don't buy a Ferrari and be told to not go over 70mph because its not working properly.

 

Absolutely right. Hear Hear and to Saosinengaged...no need to apologise for being frustrated with your system; at that level any fault is entirely unacceptable. However, glad to hear they are dealing with it ok...

 

Yes it sucks but it happens so chill. They're going out of their way to look into the issue and resolve it so lets give them a chance.

 

Eh, this happens with any new machine or configuration. It goes through it's phases and the first phase is always the roughest. Nothing is perfect the first time. They will figure it out and fix the problems. So far it only seems to be with the 920 CPU while the others seem fine.

Luckily we have users like the ones on here who take the time to test these and let Dell/AW know what's going on immediately. Makes it easier for those who buy later down the road.

 

Plus I'm quite happy with the way Dell/AW are handling the issue so far. Nagshead acted on it immediately when I told him and they setup the capture the next day. I think they will come up with a solution since it doesn't seem to be a real mystery, at least not to me.

 

Or they may turn around and tell you Wed that it is a bigger issue that needs adressed via corporate channels.

I'm being very optimistic myself, just not setting myself up for disappointment.

 

i concur sleey0....was trying to be optimistic myself...but it's looking more and more like the bios is not configured right. if they add a touch of cpu vtt, that would probably balance out the cpu...and a touch of ioh voltage to balance out the vga's under load...we shall see....*(and of course..speculation on it being the bios)

 

That and most likely needing a beefier psu.

 

Well if that does happen, I'll see what options they can offer short of a refund. I'm being optimistic as well (obviously) because I don't think this 920xm issue is really complicated. The throttling/flickering happens when the power draw hits >220w according to my tests so all they gotta do is supply a more powerful/efficient PSU and/or adjust the bios a bit. If it was a serious system issue then i720/820 owners would have the same problem.

 

i love you joke always make the most sense

 

I am so thankfull for your optimism. I was feeling so down when I thought you had given up and were going to send it back without fighting for a fix. It was probably your posts about the RGB LCD back in the Refresh thread that made me want to get this thing in the first place. Anyway I feel like I can hang in there now.

Mine has a EDD of 2/23/10 now so they may have a fix by the time I get it.

Oh and hey, if it isn't fixed maybe I can use it as leverage to get a good price on a 256GB SSD upgrade

 

I'll tell you guys this. Whatever you do, don't hold on to your system for more than 21 days after the date on the receipt. Which is not the date you receive the system. Don't get false hopes on something being fixed, because the track record is that it will either take a long time to get fixed, or it won't get fixed at all. In fact, I would send your current system back to buy you more time, because its a tough battle to get anything done after your return period. The more returns they see the more likely they will be the fix the problem.

 

Wait... so its 21 days from the day I ordered it? If I don't get this order till my EDD then its already past that. It has to be from the date you receive your system, or at least your shipping date. That just seems like it would be common sense.