M17x and DPC Latency

The M17x with the ATI cards is still running the nvidia chipset....not sure what you expect to be different here

 

I was hoping that the ATI Crossfire Configuration would have a different chipset. If you get some time, could you download and run the DPC Latency Checker and let us know what you come up with on your machine with the ATI Video cards? I was wondering if it was in the normal range compared to the results everyone else here is getting with the Nvidia card and chipset?

 

I've been messing around w/dpc latency checker. I completely reinstalled Win7 yesterday and only installed graphics drivers and bluetooth (I use a bluetooth mouse). I let windowsupdate install infared and ricoh card reader, which I have since disabled in device manager.

Before I started clearing out stuff, DPC latency was rather high all the time. It's gotten much better with the occasional spike at idle. Strangely enough, I've found that I get spikes whenever I type into Internet Explorer - with the worst spikes being if I hold down a key so it repeats. I've disabled tons of other devices to see what would happen - most of the bluetooth stuff like hands-free audio for example. I'm thinking part of the problem is bluetooth/wifi/lan. I also had lower latency with the GPU's disabled (go figure).

I also installed the audio drivers and it seems to have done nothing to help w/audio stutters... Additionally, I removed some of McAfee's stuff, only leaving virusscan installed. That definitely helped. Disabling McAfee completely does not yield much for results, however.

I'm wondering if getting an x-fi sound card would fix the audio stutters completely? Seems kinda sucky if I have to disable a ton of devices in order to get decent-sounding audio...

Attached is my screenshot at idle.


Edit - Attached is another screenshot, this time with longer period and also me typing in this edit. Note how typing screws up the latency...

 

Thanks Zach, that is what mine looks like as well .

I really hope that Dell/Alienware makes a fix/update for this..

 

Wow, Lord_Zath, that's actually pretty good latency there, compared to mine. My M17X is constantly over 4000 every other bar and often well over 16000 (actually off the chart, it seems). I'm not experiencing any audio or video stutter issues, though.

 

Also in the same group as Glzmo. Same spikes but no audio or video stuttering.

 

Stuttering's almost completely gone now which makes me happy. I'm using Windows Media Player.

A couple notes - I did not install Command Center. nor did I install On-Screen Display.

I could potentially get the latencies down more if I wasn't using a slideshow desktop background and custom sounds. But I just finished creating a transformers theme and don't want to ditch it now

 

That could've been a big part Zath - I don't use Winamp (and do use WMP), could another reason why I have had zero audio issues.

 

I still had *some* stuttering in WMP, but not nearly as bad as winamp. That was before doing all this. Now I'm not hearing much stuttering at all either way. Of course, I did remove a ton of winamp plugins which may help, too...

 

Ok Ive got latency too. Grrr. Come on dell fix this with a bios update

 

Dont hold your breath Nick - they never fixed it on 'The Beast' either...

 

Fortunately, I got it to the point where it's not a major bother anymore. Unfortunately, a bunch of my drivers are disabled!

 

i think that most of us if not all of us get this stuttering when we use a web browser. anyway something tells me that this dcp latency is due to the Dell wlan card and incompatibility with chipset or manufacturing problem. it would be good if somebody tried to check this latency without installing the wlan card. when i say without installing i mean completely dissasemly from the chipset.


in general dissasembly something and try the dcp latency checker is the only way we can finally find if it is a hardware problem and which device it is. i know this is difficult on this laptop but it doesnt seem to be an other way

 

Can't remember - can it be turned off in the BIOS?

One thing I miss about the 1730 was the BIOS was so customizeable.

Also, I wonder if running RAID hurts latency as well, since the RAID controller is software-based. Almost makes me want to try popping in another hdd and trying it out. Maybe it's a good excuse to pick up a SSD

 

I tried that already. Took out my raid. Popped in a single 7200RPM drive, Loaded Win7 64bit and did the available updates. I then installed only the Ricoh and CO processor driver via pointing it to the folder rather then running the install. Ran the install on video drivers posted on the dell site. Disabled UAC, Windows search, etc.etc. Rebooted and then turned off Hybrid Video and Integrated video.

Installed World of Warcraft and did the updates and Immediately had chopping video and stuttering sound.

I've given up on win7 for now.

 

I really don't see the point of RAID In a notebook. Especially when you have such limited real estate that 2 seperate drives is such GOLD as far as i'm concerned compared to the small performance increase you get from RAID. its not a server.

RAID SSD is even worse, you get SSD for SEQUENTIAL WRITES, and Raid with SSD is way overkill. One is going to give you really good performance, I would much rather have the flexibility of changing my 2nd hard disk bay to whatever I want than this strange software RAID that everyone is on about.

 

The sound stuttering is horrible and noticed mostly when playing online games



This is how it's suppose to look like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOI5U2uGBQs

 

Jesus. . . . . .

I was thinking of trying Win7 again, but after seeing the post here, no thanks...

Dell/AW really need to fix this thing..... we didnt pay $4k for a gadget to crap out like that.

 

Just uploaded a demonstration video on what triggers the sound stuttering.. It happens when i bring up the wireless window :S

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nrfw8sH5Zog&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nrfw8sH5Zog&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='560' height="340"></embed></object>

 

If it helps, on My XPS M1730 2x200GB RAID0 HDD 7200rpm), Dell Wifi 1505 card disabled in device manager :



WiFi card enabled gives this:



Is someone disabled WiFi card in M17X to test?

 

I did experience a stutter twice while playing Borderlands. Wondering if it was because I was overclocked, rest of the time was all good though.

I've attached a pic of my latency with all drivers and features turned on/configured in windows 7 (alienware software, all components on, stock dell driver install)

 

I'm experiencing the latency issues as well. I've tried Vista Ultimate 64 and I'm currently using Windows 7 Ultimate 64. I can't find what driver or device is causing it after SEVERAL hours of enabling/disabling hardware and reinstalling drivers. I've come to the conclusion that it's the bios. I'm really sick of wasting time on the phone with tech support. I think this laptop is going back. $4,700 laptops shouldn't have serious issues like this.

here's my system specs and a screenshot of what's happening. Maybe one of you guys can help.


M17x
2x 256gb SSD RAID-0
2x GTX280m SLI
QX9300 @2.8ghz
4GB DDR3 1333
1900x1200

 

Sorry for the double post. Here's another screenie of JUST audio going. This laptop is worthless right now. FIX this dellienware <_<

 

Yeah it's pretty bad. For a flagship product to have this issue is pretty unfortunate. I swear moving from M1730 is like going from one issue to the next, different bag of tricks.

Stutters mid game is kind of annoying, Spikes to 998975 cause like a full second of DURRRR sound freeze.. not really cool. Why didn't they give this thing a 3mb BIOS to handle the hardware calls properly? seems like short sightedness, especailly when they cram very expensive graphics cards instead of making sure the motherboard can handle them...

 

I remember someone here saying Dell/AW will be releasing a new BIOS that fixes this problem. Can anyone call them up and ask about that?

 

I've been in frequent contact with the senior tech at Aw/Dell. The bios was supposed to be finished last Friday. He told me that it us taking longer to fix than the engineers anticipated. They are still working in it.

Btw... They are fully aware of this problem.... They are even monitoring this thread. I hope they get this fixed this week. I've had this $6k laptop since late July and still haven't been able to use it for anything proaudio or video wise!

 

That's really good to know and would mean they stand behind their product, but I wonder if they arent just telling you that for the sake of getting you off their backs!

 

thats something we shall never know nick.

 

I've tried disabling wifi and bluetooth via bios. No real help there.

I'm going to try a fresh install of Win7... again. A guy in the M17x and Win7 thread posted his dpc latency checker and it was really good. I'm going to try un-RAIDing my drives. I have a feeling the software controller may be an issue.

I was also thinking it could be the overclock like others posted. I'll try rebooting first and resetting bios OC to normal and see if it helps...

 

wish I had more answers for this, but I can assure you we're not sticking our heads in the sand.

 

good to hear, because otherwise this is a very tight product that was put together. But this is a serious issue..

 

Same here , hope they make a bios fix soon enough before someone goes and blends it!! :S

 

So frustrating. Brand new system. 1 hour of gaming at a time.. max.

 

OK so I have formatted and reinstalled Windows 7... again. I disabled RAID and set the drives to AHCI mode w/the optional BIOS loaded (hope that's the right setup).

In any case, I have taken a screenshot of my latency at each step of the way - after each driver install and reboot. I waited approx. 1-2 minutes after each boot to ensure that I was getting readings at idle.

1. Post Win7 Install.
2. Post Chipset Drivers.
3. Post Chipset (2nd restart).
4. Post GPU drivers. Note the crazy spikes. Also note that my pc has experienced several BSOD's on startup - most of the time twice in a row - before finally loading Windows properly. Looks like I'll be updating drivers soon!
5. Post OSD.
6. Post Wireless.

 

1. Post Audio.
2. Post Bluetooth.
3. Post Touchpad. Interesting - I had long suspected touchpad drivers were at fault, but it doesn't seem so...
4. Post Ricoh.
5. Post IR.
6. Post Command center.

 

1. Post AverMedia TV driver.
2. Post Webcam (Vista).
3. Post Windows tweaks - Power plan high performance, turned off Windows services (superfetch, fax, etc). Turned off Windows features. Created partition on 2nd hdd for virtual memory.
4. Post BIOS tweaks - turned off bluetooth, integrated graphics.

 

Also, here's a screenshot from my "improper replacement" - which is running Vista 64-bit. wow.

 

This is pretty ridiculous. For such a high end system and for as much as we paid.. why are WE more involved with the troubleshooting process than Dell?

 

Here's a long-term test. About 30-45 minutes.

I'll bet the high latency was due to going to screensaver mode.

 

I've also been in direct contact with Dellienware and they are assuring me that the A03 Bios IS in the works and will be out soon... So we can all stop mindlessly reinstalling windows and disabling features to no avail.


I hope.....

 

Lol, you just know this is going to be quoted after the A03 bios come up .

Here's my earlier graph posted in the M17x Windows 7 thread (had one spike that hit 59xx, but rest were fine)...



Here's a brand new one - this was taken while Steam was downloading L4D2 pre-cache (500kb/s).



Was my 1st install on Windows 7 and everything went pretty damn well.

Clearn Windows 7 install
Installed Dell chipset, sound, GPU & Ricoh drivers (rest were left as Windows 7 defaults).
Installed OSD and Command Centre
Have 9400/hybrid and bluetooth disabled in BIOS, have wireless disabled in device manager and have face capture disabled as well.
Have these services disabled to: SuperFetch, Windows Search and any Media Server services.

Why has everything gone well with me? No bloody idea. Only issue I had was my Microsoft Keyboard has a bug in Windows 7 and I'm no longer using it.

 

@KracsNZ,
I have no issue using microsoft reclusa on windows 7.
I saw your sig said that you are currently running SSD in raid 1. can you post the raid 0 one with all features on?
Cause i am going to buy m17x if there are no issue...
thanks in advance.

 

Sorry Andrew, not in a position to reinstall. My development PC (use it for everything, dev, gaming etc...) and have everything including Visual Studio 08 installed. Haven't got the time to do a reinstal sorry mate.

 

@KracsNZ: while your latency spikes aren't nearly as bad as mine, they are still unacceptable for a machine of that caliber.

I posted a screenie of what normal dpc latency should look like. This is from my wife's HP Pavilion DV6. (2.2ghz Turion ultra x2, 4gb, 500gb HDD, ATI 4650m, vista 64 home premium)

 

go back to page 13 and look at my screenshots. Those are with 2x 256gb SSD's in RAID-0.

 

I completely agree. I hope Dell/AW come up with a BIOS revision to fix this issue. I'd love to see all greens during a DPC check, though I'm a little doughtful they will be able to.

But that's the long term solution. For the short term, it is at least as usable as it was for me under Vista though, which I've noted allot are not getting.

Here's a final one during streaming an HD Flash video from VoodooExtreme, bit more erratic but no major jumps...

 

Here is a shot of me moving 26.3 gigs of movies over my network. Same latency as when idling. I've heard alot of talk about the WiFi card causing the issues. Lies i tell you. The only thing i can confirm is that enabling SLI does significantly increase the latency spikes. I do not receive an audio stutter at all with winamp while running on the 9400m. The screenshot i posted back on page 13 was winamp with SLI enabled.

 

I'm watching a 30 min divx and the sound stutters for about 1.5 seconds every 40 seconds. Not awesome!!!

My netbook plays movies better than my M17x

 

Can you try uninstalling the sound driver and instead let windows update do the deal with the driver? Please let me know asap, because mine works.

 

I've tested that with no real improvements. There's only so much you can do with a 640kb bios... if you want to make movies and music playable, run on the integrated graphics for less latency spiking. If you want to game on it, you'll have to just cope with the stuttering until A03 comes out.

On a side note, I'm understanding that a larger bios would fix the problem. I remember someone mentioning that Dellienware should write a 3mb bios for the M17x. Can anyone elaborate on how this affects the computer's performance and latency?