M17x and DPC Latency

Where did you hear that from a tech on the phone?

Like I said before I hate to be negative but Failenware is in no rush what so ever to resolve this issue and I'm sure Nvidia has even lesser interest in a fix as well. Especially considering people continue to purchase these things every day.

I got mine as a replacement for my M1730, but if I was in the market for a new gaming laptop and came to these forums and read all the issues people are having with these M15x and M17x laptops I would never buy one. Especially since they come with a premium price.

Again - I pray they prove me wrong and come up with a fix as said above, but I'll believe it when I see it.

 

This afternoon I was inquiring if/when the Bios would be released, and this was the information I got after having the AW techy talk to his supervisor for 5 mins.

I quote:
"It is a big problem affecting a lot of (different) system-configurations due to driver issues with several hardware components, all replacements/hardware replacement requests are put on hold until the new BIOS will be released this januari. If latency problems still exists after the new BIOS A03 upgrade, users can claim replacement systems or repairs."

I just hope they keep their word and release the bios... they wont handle my refund/replacement until a bios is released....How's that for customer sup.

 

I really wish you could get that in writing.

 

Hope thats true then...

 

And what does a replacement system get us? A fix? It gives us exactly what we have now with a month worth of hassle in between.

 

well they dont really have a choice, they have to fix it one way or another either by a bios revision or a hardware revision right ? they cant keep selling it with that annoying issue

 

i think the most they could give us is repair and not replacement if i am not wrong. i am not sure if we can return it now anyway.

my motherboard was dead before 2 months and they replaced the motherboard (in less than 24 hours really) not the whole machine. thus i think the new motherboard has worse dcp latency (maybe someone sent it back to dell and they sent it to me) than the previous one. but i was on vista with the previous motherboard and win7 with this one. as for the motherboard it was my fault really because i dissasembly the covers to clean the fans from dust (of course i didnt say that.. ) and maybe i touched something. i am always careful. i have done this 3 times already with the new motherboard

 

Interesting - I can get the stuttering now. When latency passes 8,000 I get a stutter.

I upgraded to Windows 7 x64 a couple of days ago and now I get the stuttering when streaming internet radio in WMP.

I listened to internet radio in WMP almost every day in Vista x64 with no problems.

Very strange, it comes and goes and there is nothing else happening.

Can't we manually change the latency in the registry for audio?

 

Are you ready for "Fight Dell Hell for yet another different laptop" Round 2?

 

That is complete insanity. I get a spike every 20 seconds or so when streaming audio and its annoying as heck. The latency in these screen caps would mean unusable PCs. Insane.

There is not reason why a BIOS fix won't fix this, so I have hope. The 9400m is still a new chipset and the algorithms need to be tweaked for a system like ours (which puts a ton of stress on the bus).

Here are mine (the Win7 results are the problem ones):

 

Mine already had the dual 4870s exchanged for 280m SLI.

That took two months and about 20 calls/emails.

Then the first owner traded me for my uMBP.

I am still happy with the deal - games run fine.

------------------------------

If I keep Resource Monitor open, while looking at the CPU tab if I filter "System Interupts' this service has a CPU spike to 5% or so that corresponds to the stuttering.

Look for the orange spikes.

 

Again, I don't think this is a 100% hardware issue. There are no Audio/Video problems in Linux. I have a W7/Ubuntu9.10 dual boot and unless I kill acpi.sys in W7 I have the annoying video/audio stutter (at least at the very beginning of movies/songs' playback) even with P8700 dual core and stock speeds, while the sound and video in linux are crystal pure and clean.
Among other things ACPI allows Windows to take power control over hardware components (mobo, integrated controllers, chipset etc...) from the BIOS, so to me it looks like there is some work to be done by Microsoft to make everything smooth (buy some patience pills). What Dell can do is to provide a new BIOS that will lock the problematic nodes, but it may result in lower overall system performance, benchmarks, FPS in games etc. It's gonna angry many OC'ers and gamers but the stuttering will go away, allowing the corporation to sell more machines.
Bottom line: even though the fix is coming, keep a copy of the current A02 BIOS, and wait till next service pack from Microsoft. Meanwhile use the workaround found in this thread involving the acpi.sys using batch files or switch to other operating systems.

 

I agree 100% - I can't imagine that Dell or the community won't eventual cure this.

Regarding OS, this is a rare case when Linux's comparatively weak out of the box notebook power management becomes a plus.

 

You can do the powermizer fix but thats about the extent of it.

 

Won't this lock your GPUs at their max clocks? If so, it will keep the cards about 7-10c above their idle temps and add a constant ~30%+ fans' boost. This might get very frustrating on the long run.

 

odd i use to get the sound stutter now i never get it but now i get this when my game just freezes for like 2 secs in game every 20-30 mins or so

 

Mine were 176 and 168. Created the batch files, ran suspend - but I still have the problem. So I think my problem has to be something else. My spikes are not as severe as the other folks in here.

++ rep anyways as this probably helped a bunch of people.

 

Again, according to AW it isn't a hardware issue. The hardware is 100% fine.
It is the hardware in combination with the current drivers and the A02 BIOS that is causing these issues.

 

Ah, I am also having the same issues, the sound latency issue that is.

 

Well, if they bring out the new Core i7 variant soon, they might just replace it with that...in theory.

 

Well, if they bring out a new Core i7 variant of the M17x soon, they might just replace it with that...in theory.

 

For those with the sound stuttering even with the acpi.sys suspended, try downloading the audio drivers for the M15x. Yes, I said the M15x. They're updated and so far I haven't encountered any stuttering with them (and I resumed acpi.sys to test). There's also more configuration options in the IDT control panel which is a plus.

 

after installing the m15x drivers on w7





*UPDATE* after running it a bit, there are a couple of red spikes, and I did see one at 62k (after taking that second ss)





btw is there a disadvantage in doing this ? or are they just not updated for m17x yet ?

 

Well, yes. All things in moderation though until the legit fix is released. I mean, if you have a notebook cooler and don't play for a rediculously long time then you should be fine.

 

Can you listen to some music? Any stuttering?

 

it might just be placebo, but there seems to be less

 

I tried the m15x driver - no difference for me.

The m15x uses a Realtek DAC.

[edit] I think you emant the M15x - I am going to try those drivers.

 

Also tried M15x driver, seems to make it even worse... Im gonna throw this AW out of the window...am using a 10yr old pentium2 machine to play MP3's now... how sad.

 

weird. you guys in vista or 7? the new driver worked well for me, but I'm in vista 64...

 

Its because you're in Vista.

I bet they are in W7.

 

Don't make your neighbors happy again, install linux (Mepis, Ubuntu or Mint) and play your music

 

Yup, I am in Win7 (in my sig).

I had no latency issues prior to upgrading. I did not do a clean upgrade (mistake).

Right now I am missing Vista - never thought I would say that.

 

I had latency problems in Vista as well as Win 7......so you cannot blaim the OS that much, the problem is deeper than that (most likely a BIOS thing which will hopefully be addressed by Dell)

 

Windows is not the only OS I bet if you install Snow Leopard on M17X there won't be any issues with DPC latency. OpenSUSE Linux didn't have it, Ubuntu 9.10, Mepis and Mint don't have that problem. IMO it's the "open" and "flexible" Microsoft's ACPI that got confused with a little different hardware config.
Haven't booted into my W7 partition for a week, and the more I stay away from it the more stable the system gets. A single system crash (due to my lame skills) for 120hrs of operation (including gaming) - is not bad at all.

 

Does xp pro suffer from latency?

 

latency yes, stutter no(from what ive seen)

 

I rang dell and told them about my stutter problem and all they did was send a techi to my house to replace the MB and GFX cards lol, It still stutters (obviously) so i think ill just ring them up again today and tell them i want to send it back for a refund.

 

There's supposed to be a new BIOS revision in early January, so if you can I'd wait for that.

 

Better be!

 

Bah, I got my M17x in trade for a uMBP (so basically $1500 had I sold my Mac and bought a G51Vt as planned). So I have no warranty.

As long as this thing plays games well (it does) I am happy.

The audio stutter thing (which I notice in Fallout 3 now - playing found audio tapes in the Pip Boy) will get fixed.

 

Dpc laterncy randomly increased just now. large spikes more often then usual.

This is pissing me off..

Edit: Pissed off..mode has been turned off. I guess it was just the game I was playing. I had grid to 4x AA and that caused lag and more dpc latency...turned it to 2x and everything was fine. I dont know why that would happen...

 

I think the best thing to do right now is to hammer this post here on dell website

http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2009/11/18/dell-dpc-latency-and-you.aspx

Log in, complain and let them know how you feel. Now i'm giving them a chance to redeem themselves with the "supposed" bios fix, which im almost sure its not gona fix anything....

If the fix does not work, ill be sure to let every tech blog, website and gaming community know about this issue and how dell/AW basically screwed their customers.

For those who think that they dont have this issue(most are running Vista), try playing a 1080P video. Not from a blueray movie, but any 1080P video file. I started playing some that i captured by my camera, and guess what? the audio stutters and becomes completely out of sync with the video... This happens with the 280s SLI, once i switch to the 9400, everything is fine! this is VERY frustrating!

I was very angry when my friend's old POS HP laptop played the videos better than my $4000 Alienware laptop.......

 

Update, 12/2: Some good news! The engineering team has successfully recreated the problem and identified several causes. One root cause has been identified and can be addressed by a BIOS revision, and an updated BIOS is now being validated. The engineering team is hopeful that the other root causes will also be resolved via a BIOS change, and are working to confirm this so a full BIOS update can be implemented.

Update, 12/15: Sorry there hasn't been anything concrete to report, but I finally have something. My friends in engineering informed me this morning that a fix has been written and is now in the final testing phase. I've been assured that the fix will be ready for consumption in the next couple of weeks, barring any unforeseen incidents

Holy Cow Holy Cow Holy Cow A FIX IS A COMIN! WOOT!

 

I'm sure many of you have jobs and if you havent then you should know that people shut down during the holiday season. That said this Friday is the last excuse.

Enjoy your new years and hammer them on Monday but I wouldnt reasonably expect them to do any work until then (everyone is on vacation.)

 

No kidding! I took three weeks off and have been averaging about 30-40 hours a week gaming!

 

As mentioned a couple of pages ago by Lord Zath, the audio driver that came with our M17x (6233) is from August. There are two newer versions:

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&fileid=363141

No miracle cure, but the stuttering in WMP seems to be less pronounced.

There def seems some merit to the theory that there is a conflict with the KB. I only get bad spikes while I am typing.

Could the IRQ and DPC issue be related to the PS/2 KB?

Look at the screenshots below (no typing and then typing the following text)

 

The stutter seemed worse when I pressed two keys on the KB at the same time - i.e. Shift and G

When I submit form data in IE or type into the text box the stutter is worse.

So there is a conflict with the audio, KB and network. Just like the old days. This is almost certainly fixable. If we had access to the IRQ area of the BIOS we could probably fix it ourselves.

 

probably due to the way the OS handles interrupts such as mouse or keyboard inputs

 

that is pretty incredible. Reminds me of issues I had the first time I built a desktop.

 

ok as far as we are waiting for the long expected new bios i have done one more test. i installed the new IDT driver above. then uninstalled nvidia driver and then i suspended both acpi.sys threads . the result?



NO MATTER what i was doing now on. web browsing or whatever. NO sound stuttering at all!. THE SOUND AS IT SHOULD BE.

So its 1) the nvidia driver (because even with acpi.sys suspended when nvidia driver is installed it causes spikes) and 2) the acpi.sys threads of win7 (they cause 4000μs sec spikes every 1 sec ! which rarely cause sound stuttering though with nvidia driver uninstalled). just to note all other drivers (including the IDT driver above are installed).

sorry for resolution it is due to the absence of the nvidia driver

by the way BATBOY the threads number of one of the acpi.sys files changed after a fresh format. but again they stay the same after restart.