The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    M17x Crashing in Games?

    Discussion in 'Alienware' started by lewdvig, Dec 8, 2009.

  1. lewdvig

    lewdvig Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    1,049
    Messages:
    2,319
    Likes Received:
    26
    Trophy Points:
    66
    I was having this problem and it was driving me nuts. I tried everything. Just as I was getting ready to flame Dell about my crashing computer I found the solution:

    Disable Active State Power Management in the BIOS (found in the Graphics menu - same place as Hybrid graphics).

    Whereas before I could only run games for a few minutes, now my M17x runs games until I close them (hours).

    I read a lot of threads and found no solutions, so I am posting this in its own thread.
     
    lewdvig, Dec 8, 2009
    #1
  2. stamatisx

    stamatisx T|I

    Reputations:
    2,224
    Messages:
    1,726
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    How about the temperatures? Did you see if they went any higher? especially the idle one?
     
    stamatisx, Dec 8, 2009
    #2
  3. lewdvig

    lewdvig Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    1,049
    Messages:
    2,319
    Likes Received:
    26
    Trophy Points:
    66
    Nope. Seven hours of L4D = 52 Celcius (both GPUs).

    GPU-Z shows the powermizer kicks in right away on both cards as soon as I quit a game. And the fans stop after a couple of minutes because the temps come down fast.

    I am running it 100% stable with Hybrid and SLI. I find Hybrid a little faster so I am just going to keep running that.

    Three hours of RE5, Mirrors Edge and Dead Space with no issues.

    I AM SO HAPPY NOW!!!!!!!
     
    lewdvig, Dec 8, 2009
    #3
  4. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

    Reputations:
    7,395
    Messages:
    7,964
    Likes Received:
    25
    Trophy Points:
    206
    I just checked it - not sure if its just on my machine, but I believe the default setting for this is Disabled. Did you happen to enable it at some point?
     
    BatBoy, Dec 9, 2009
    #4
  5. Glzmo

    Glzmo Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    476
    Messages:
    822
    Likes Received:
    86
    Trophy Points:
    41
    It was disabled for me by default as well.
     
    Glzmo, Dec 9, 2009
    #5
  6. lewdvig

    lewdvig Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    1,049
    Messages:
    2,319
    Likes Received:
    26
    Trophy Points:
    66
    Not sure. I know if I restored the BIOS to default settings and then set RAID on while I was having my problems.
     
    lewdvig, Dec 10, 2009
    #6
  7. vagiz

    vagiz Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    1
    Messages:
    17
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    IT happend and to me, I'm playing old game Lineage2 and it happend this week 5 times.
    (single video card - 260gtx, Win 7 OS 64bit, A02 bios)
    I have the same OS system image (2weeks old), and recovered, but nothing happend, after recovery and playing game, it happend again
     
    vagiz, Dec 10, 2009
    #7
  8. Stinger61786

    Stinger61786 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    18
    Messages:
    135
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I have been having the same issues also so far my games that crashed or won't start at all are

    1. FarCry 2 (This drives me nuts love this game crashes within first scene.)
    2. CounterStrike randonly crashes all the time. (Sucks its my lan game or was)
    3. Alien vs. Predator (crashes on start)

    runs other games like poop.

    I should be able to play Star Wars Knights of the old republic WITHOUT stuttering or audio issues damit.

    All work perfectly Fine on Desktop

    My DCP is still frinkin high average is 20,000-40,000 annd spikes over 3 figures with games or music ARGH.
     
    Stinger61786, Dec 10, 2009
    #8
  9. lewdvig

    lewdvig Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    1,049
    Messages:
    2,319
    Likes Received:
    26
    Trophy Points:
    66
    My DPC levels are no problem. Occasionally spikes into 2000-4000 range. Tested on Vista and Win7.

    If I press my wifi on/off but I get massive spikes.
     
    lewdvig, Dec 27, 2009
    #9