M17 Keeps Freezing

I bought my M17 in mid December and it's been such a pleasure to have. However while I play EVE Online sometimes my whole computer will just lock up, the fans will turn off, the computer sounds like it's in sleep mode. This usually happens when i'm running 2 accounts (on low settings). One account will go completely black while I can play the other one just fine UP UNTIL I try to close the frozen account and then the whole computer locks up after telling windows I just want it to close the program. I dropped $4500 on this laptop and the least I would expect it to do is be able to run measly ole' EVE Online. Anybody have any advice? This has happened to me 7 times in the last 3 days alone and a handful of times a week before hand.

 

Did that ever happened when you where playing only on one account ?
If yes then check you temps and try disable one card (use catalyst AI) and see if that helps.

 

I do believe it did happen with one account but not nearly as often (maybe beacuse I usually have 2 accounts open). Temps are fine the highest i've ever seen with 2 accounts running in full combat is 72ish degrees. How do I disable one card if that's what I want to do?

 

Double click the ATI icon which is located at the tray. Go to Catalyst A.I under 3D and tick the "disable Catalyst AI".

Also check your windows logs, might find something useful there too.

 

Ok just disabled one of the cards and have both my accounts loaded up now so we'll see how that ends up. Also checking the logs is something I know nothing about.. is nice learning some of this new stuff for my laptop though

 

For the logs basically right click on my computer, go manage, then system tools -> event viewer -> windows logs -> system. And check if theres something fishy that has to do with your graphic driver Mostly these steps is to isolate the problem so we have something to blame

 

After disabling one of the cards, 2 accounts on EVE ran for about 15 minutes and then the same thing happened -- 1 Account froze while the other one kept running, after closing the frozen account the whole computer locked up

 

how did you disable the card? AI Catylst doesnt disable Crossfire. it is to achievement the best performance without losing to my quality. if you want to only use one card pull the cross fire cable out in the back. then you'll only be using one card.

remember it is hardware crossfired not software. you can really use software to disable hardware.

 

it doesnt sound to bad. i dont have eve to try it. i see there is a free trial but i cant do nothing until thursday friday.
but anyways what gpu driver you are using?
is your bios up to date?
is your game up to date.
your temps seems fine. maybe you have a software conflict in to.
are you using a controller. if so go in to the power options and set your computer to sleep later. when i used a controller, and never touched the keyboard or mouse, and my computer was set to sleep in 5 mins, i it went to sleep.


can you afford to do a respawn and install eve again to see if it is ok?

just trying every way.

 

Catalyst AI does stop the laptop from using crossfire effectively. Example ? Catalyst AI on 13k in 3rd mark, catalyst off 9k in 3dmark. You are right partially but its known that disabling catalyst AI help in many cases that crossfire support is an issue. So this is mostly to check the compatibility of the software (game).

That said, have you checked the windows logs i case something showed in there?

 

I do'nt know what driver i'm using, I also don't know if my bios is up to date but the game is up to date. What I meant by the computer 'going to sleep' was figurative and that when the computer freezes the fans shut off and everything. As for the windows logs: all i can tell is that it says this shutdown at xx:xx was unexpected. I don't know how to interperet these logs anyways.

 

An Update: My Alienware is STILL freezing one of my EVE accounts causing the whole computer to lock up. I noticed that even on low settings that my laptop lags a bit while i'm running both clients. Is EVE online really that graphic intensive for my $4500 laptop? I think not... Hopefully somebody out there has a solution for me.

 

try running eve in dual core. (if you dont know what i mean i'll explain but it's long. (i'll be offline for a bit in a few so quickly respond if you can ) also try to respawn i just think it is a software conflict.

 

Yep you will need to do some explaining

 

I'm also getting very concerned with having to manually turn my computer off and back on every time EVE freezes (this is probably the 11th time in the past 4 days). Isn't it bad for my laptop if I keep turning it off without a natural shutdown?

 

ok load the game up.
do ctrl+shift+esc
under applications
right click go to process
then it should switch you to the processes tab
right click the choice it gave you choose set affinity
then choose your cpu i would choose cpu 2 and cpu3 and leave the other unchecked.

it's temporray so you dont have to worry about it not going to be when you restart it.

 

This is starting to get ridicolous, I recently went back the last couple of days to play Age of Empires III. While playing and even before I get into the game my M17 will freeze again. It has frozen 4 times already tonight! This is just absurd, my laptop just seems to be getting worse and worse as time goes on. My first start up on my computer tonight, the windown screen wouldn't even load, it was just a black screen. Do I have to send my laptop in or what? I'm thinking about calling customer service as well, I read here on the forums that there was a team from alienware you could call that does a very good job but I can't remember the name of them. Anybody know?

 

I jst pm'd you. did you get it.

 

Ok i just got in. try these following steps. if it doesnt work then your mobo is shot and you need to get it replaced.
background:
the qx9300 has alittle problem with that system. because of the amount of power it takes, and some more bugs, a needed bios flash needs to be done. we are alll waiting for it.

ok know
try your best to do a fresh system install. not the alienware respawn. a fresh vista install. if you dont have a vista dvd then use the alienware one.

update all your drivers. this includes your chipset and vga. ones and a whole lot more.

i recommend you to download ocz's or zfactor's(someone on this forum) because it has more stablilty. i seen alot of m17 onwers say when they flashed it to either one (preferred zfactor's for overclocking(i hit 3.2ghz. stable on mine)) so this might help you if you got a bad bios from alienware. also beware that this will void your warranty. but you can flash back before anything.

download and install hwmoniter. run it and closey moniter your temps(we need these numbers. even though it migh not be a thermal problem.)

download and install prime95. run a memory test and cpu test. i think it is called a burn it. do this for 1-2hours. (your system will be rendered useless so gather information during this period. ) if you get a any types of error from this program what so ever. then your cpu or your ram is bad.

download and install everest and go to the tools and system stablity. and run that. remember to watch your temps. and see what happens.

download and install hdtune and run that to see how your hdd performs.

install 3dmark06 and run it(not to see how much better is your system but to see if everything is working right, if your scores are close to mine or someone else's. if it is then we know that crossfire is enable and your system is ok.
and that some info let us know how it works out.

can you give us detail what you did and how it worked out for you.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4696880#post4696880
here we go so we can talk about our problems because some of us are having similar problems but not as bad as yours

 

Ok, that's a lot of information to take in. Can anybody second Dondadah's suggestion? I just want to make sure it's a good idea to do all of that.

 

I second it lol. I thought I gave you a link to the quad core problem page. I wil give it to you when I get home. you will get a better response.