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

I really hope, for everyone's sake, that it's a driver issue and nothing more. That said, even if it is, they may not even release a fix.

 

I'll test it on my HD TV.

 

+rep for brandon! yay!!

Thanks. Took a while

 

I'm interested to hear if this makes any difference, pulling the RGB LED out of the equation as a power draw..

 

Does anybody have news from Joker's system? Are they really analizing it?
Do you guys think that a solution from Dell or ATI is coming?

 

Who knows. I am staying optimistic but I wouldn't be surprised if there is no fix either.

Joker said Wed maybe.

 

Wednesday for a fix?
so soon?
I was thinking in something within a month or two..

 

Crysis still flickers, SFIV Bench dosen't do the FPS drop, but it dosn't do it on the RGB LED either any more, so i'm guessing it was a fluke when I got the drop, though I got it twice. I don't think any change.

 

That, if confirmed, will drop the powering issue from the equation. Good job my friend. It looks like if it's a drivers problem afterall.

 

No, Wednesday for a diagnosis from the Greys at the Alienware mothership... ah techs at the Alienware office.

Come to think of it, did Joker ever come out of the office? Maybe they killed the messenger...

 

I found some information on a forum that people were experiencing this kind of problems with the desktop versions aswell, and they say that it's a GPU memory problem, they say that the memory are factory overclocked and are over 900Mhz, if you downclock to 900MHz or less you should have no problems with flickering.

 

If card memory clocks were to blame, wouldn't you expect the same issue with single card operation?

 

I'm no expert, so I don't know what to expect.
That's what I found on Tom's hardware forum, and some ppl says that downclocking their GPU memory solved the problem...

What do you guys think? Return it or wait for a fix?
I'm really happy with the system, however this is frustrating.

 

Well. down-clock 'em and see what happens.

 

I've just found another problem.
Whenever I unplug the Power Cord my system freezes and I need to force a shutdown.

Also, do you guys have any problems with the following keys on the keyboard? the "S", the "F", and the "J". They seem to fail a lot.... I have to hit em twice, or three times to get it to type the letter.

 

i have that same problem it locks down when i unplug the cord, it has something to do with the 9.12 drivers

 

I just got a BSOD while trying to run furmark... It didn't even start furmark. It was point to ati drivers, so again I think its a driver problem.

 

Which driver(s) are you using?

 

Dell.
10char.

 

Memory is clocked at 888. I ran it at 1100 on my M17xR1 with no issue.

Then a different driver would fix it but it doesn't. Plus the M17xR1 w/4870XF doesn't have this issue.

 

What do you think it is? hardware? motherboard?
bios?

 

What temps do you get at idle.. stock cpu and then overclocked(fully maxed) cpu.. without the aid of a cooler, just to guage an idea?

 

When you think about it, they fit a 240W PSU into the size of like 2 dvd's stacked. That's nuts.

They probably cut some corners the way Apple "magically" makes things smaller, but in the process created an unstable PSU when its being used to its max.

I can see a PSU the size of the m1730's or the xbox 360's being the solution. It doesn't make me happy, but no flickering will make me happier.

 

You know how in psychology and biology, twins are useful for determining whether something is the product of nature or nurture?

Well, terrible analogy aside, has someone tried making their M17x R-1 hit 220W+ consumption? If there were no flickering in that instance, then we know its not the power supply (assuming the r-1 and r-2 supplys are identical). If there is flickering, then we know its not the motherboard or cpu specifically in the R-2 that's causing the problem.

Then it would be either an issue with the motherboard or bios.

 

I'll repost what I said in another thread: I'm beginning to suspect it's an ATi problem in xfire with the PM55 chipset. Especially in light of 820qm user experiencing flickering just as bad as 920xm owners. I wouldn't be surprised to see a 285M option surface at some point and if that option is made available to me, I'll take it since I really do not like ATi's driver solution or lack thereof. This is all speculation of course, guess we'll know in the next 36 hours.

 

To be fully honest i would trust Nivida over Ati. But i thought they were just as bad with the R1 with problems?

 

R1 had issues because of an old nVidia chipset they used. The 280's were fine, people complained of DPC latency issues but again, I think that's a chipset problem and has nothing to do with the 280M. Since the R2 is based on an Intel platform, I'd much rather have dual 285M's instead of an ATi solution. The 285M's just became available for Clevo so I'm assuming AW would also have access to the same inventory if desired.

 

I see, well that could be a good solution. Lets see what they say on Wednesday

 

What's happening on wednesday and why would 285m sli work with this chipset when 260 and 280m sli is not compatible?

 

Both 260M and 280M should work fine. Who came up with this incompatible b.s. anyway? Take a look here: http://www.clevo.com.tw/en/products/prodinfo_2.asp?productid=177 It uses the same PM55 chipset as the AW M17x-R2.

 

I have the 820 right now and i haven't experienced any of the flickering you guys are reporting. I've played crysis, counterstrike source, bioshock, unreal tournament 3, kotor 1, indigo prophecy, half-life 2 episode 2. no flickering in 3dmark 06 or vantage, either.

What's happening in 36 hours?

 

I assumed because as soon as the core i7 configuration was released, it only had ati options.

 

SpinalGT also has the 820qm but with plenty of flickering. Don't be surprised if you end up with it eventually. In 36 hours I will know what AW came up with (or didn't) as a solution. They have my R2 in their labs right now (I live near alienware headquarters).

 

Holy crap balls.

 

One wonders how these systems made it past testing if the flickering is intrinsic to all 920 systems.... has anyone with a 920 NOT experienced flickering under the circumstances that most of you guys have consistently been experiencing it?

 

Must be nice living so close to AW HQ hehe

 

If thats the case. Why didnt Dell just put all four on there? 260m,280m,285m,ATi 4870?

 

Then they would have to support all of them plus I'm sure they have a special contract with ATI so money will more likely be the reason.

 

Me too, after playing at max settings for 4-5 hours non-stop I have yet seen any flickering or power/heat issues. What was the stress test the 920 users first used to discover this? Furmark?

 

I saw it in Borderlands but I believe Furmark makes it more obvious.

 

Could you please run Furmark as Mandrake recommended so we can see if there's a problem with 820 for sure or there's still hope ?

 

Yes I'm going to run it now. I hope it doesn't accelerate any appearance on my system as well though :/

Though if it were to appear an issue, better to have it right away I guess...

 

yeah, i agree. i'd prefer to make absolutely sure that my system is ok.
Also, i think there are certain furmark settings you need to set when running to reproduce the issue, but i am not sure.
Mandrake ?

 

Ok and how long does it run? Or how long should I run it. I did an initial test 3 minutes before I aborted. So far no signs of flickering.

 

Furmark 1.8: stability test, xtreme burn, post process, diffuse(?) mapping, 1280x1024 resolution. Run it for about 10 minutes. If you're really daring, run Prime 95 (small TFTs) with it simultaneously for the ultimate stability test.

 

10x joker.. you saved me like 10 minutes of my life..
i was in the middle of searching the whole forum for furmark keyword..

 

Ok, I ran a benchmarking test in extreme mode. I guess benchmarking is same as stability test, only with time limit option? Anyway, the result was good, no flickering. Temp didn't go higher than 69.0 degrees C. GPU clocks stable all the way.

However I noted 2 things:

1. Every 2 seconds, the fur donut would freeze for 1/10sec (guesstimate). Not very noticable and extremely short. is this normal or is this the stuttering some people is talking about?

2. The donut ring made me hungry and now I want a DONUT!

 

Well, congrats? You seem to have a 820QM that doesn't stutter/throttle/flicker etc etc. Now we must figure out why.

 

he has i7-820qm

 

/signed... Only time in my life I didn't regret trying to save money. Well I did at first after I ordered it...