M17x, 920XM, 4870 X-Fire stuttering

I'm just curious... does anyone have this configuration?

I've tried Dell's drivers, 9.12 mobility, and 10.3...

My games, even coverflow in itunes, will freeze up for a second, and then catch back up to their animation after a second or two.

This happens in counter-strike source a lot, and usually ends up in my death. It feels like lag, but its not... I know because my ping will be less than 50 when it happens.

It happens in crysis anywhere from in game to the main menu. You can be moving your mouse pointer around in the main menu (without even loading your game) and it (the mouse pointer and background animation of the earth) will freeze in place for a moment (while your mouse is still physically moving in circles) and then catch back up to itself after that moment of lag.

In itunes coverflow (i have about 600 albums, all with album art). when scrolling through them when they're loading into video memory, eventually it will freeze up for a good three seconds before flying past the point where I was. I know this isn't normal because this never happened when I had the 820 with 4870x2 even on the A00 bios.

None of this happened on that machine.

The issue seems to fix itself if I turn off turbo mode or disable crossfire. This leads me to believe that this is not an issue with any specific piece of hardware in my computer, but rather, that this new A02 bios didn't fully fix the problem it was trying to resolve (or inadvertently created a more elusive and less-noticeable problem in the process). I would like to verify this with someone else who has this computer and configuration before complaining to Alienware. It could simply be something wrong with my hardware (but the time to build a new system is what I'm dreading).

 

I've got the same configuration and there's no stuttering. The stuttering you mention usually occurs if you have some background application running like an antivirus program. If you don't have one running, try reinstalling your chipset drivers and video drivers (run driver sweeper after removing them).

 

I'm just gonna do another clean install (though this one is too).

I'm using I have no background programs running during this nor do I have any antivirus installed yet (this is a clean-install).

 

I'm uploading youtube recordings now...

 

No lag, no crossfire video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uicAZgD1cVE

 

just wandering, when you're running DPC checker, do you see spikes when it happens ?

 

Does it happen with only the turbo OFF?

 

stuttering video:

(sorry this link took forever, it was in the processing stage for a few hours, yet my first video processed immediately, go figure youtube)

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

@mfractal i haven't downloading dcp checker yet, i will do that next.

@aikimox when i turned off turbo mode, it happened much less often, but still happened sometimes. whereas disabling crossfire ceased it completely.

 

same problem im having with R1, appears in certain games only, like dragon age and RE5, perfectly smooth with GRID, all games running with SLI on.

 

Joker, after you format, you install the chipset, etc drivers... when you get to video drivers, what procedure do you follow?

are you installing dell drivers first and then installing overtop of them or just installing the drivers you want from the getgo?

also, which drivers are you using and are you mobility modding them?

I noticed that if you, for example, just install 10.3 without mobility modding it first, if you choose custom during installation, it looks like its going to install 10.3 drivers, when in fact, since you didn't mod the drivers, it merely says "current drivers are up to date" (when you click on the display drivers on the checkbox list) the current drivers being the microsoft ones that auto-install the first time you login to the computer.

 

You should not need to modify the 10.3a drivers or even the earlier ones for that matter. The .inf file contains all the info. for the Dell vendor id and should install right away. Go to AMD's website (I think it's underground.amd.com) and grab the 10.3a driver set and install it. The order I usually go in is as follows:

1. Chipset
2. Wifi
3. BT
4. Gigabit
5. Card reader
6. OSD
7. Alienfx
8. Sound
9. Free fall sensor
10. Video (last)

 

just curious is there a reason you install drivers in that order

 

Because he's a joker

General rule is chipset first and then the rest in no particular order.

 

did anyone have any thoughts on those videos?

 

try reformatting?

the freezes look like its either stuck trying to read the next contents or something.

 

Did u have a chance to run the dpc checker?

 

i didn't see any spikes above green.

I had one go yellow but it was right at the moment i unplugged the power supply and not during any of the video stuttering.

i even ran furmark at 1920x1200 with 8x samples, ultra burn, displacement all that jazz. stayed green the whole time.

I'm gonna try a format...

out of curiosity, what video drivers are you using? if not dell, do you install dell's first?

 

I installed 10.3 beta straight up and all works great.
you mentioned that it'd freeze for 3 seconds sometimes, I didn't notice anything above half a sec on the video.

 

counter-strike source does it. i'll record a video.

It may be fixed though since i flashed the bios (even though it came with a02).

anyways, is half a second normal either (considering i literally had nothing else running).

 

width='500' height="405"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YD_9RfVONEA&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YD_9RfVONEA&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='500' height="405"></embed></object>

i did have a slight freeze but your seems a little longer.

Did you end up doing a clean install + 10.3beta ?

 

since this was a clean install I figured another clean install would just be a waste of time.

I flashed the bios and it seemed to fix it (even though it was literally a02->a02) though I have a suspicion that, like joker getting the bios well before it was released, he obviously had to have an old version of the new bios... which means i may have too. it did do some updating, but only some.

perhaps everyone who's got their m17x shipped with the A02 bios should take the practice of flashing it with the most up to date version on dell's website?

anyways, I found that dells drivers and 10.3 both don't have the 1280x800 resolution (which i use for crysis, because it is proportional to 1920x1200). 9.12 drivers do, so im currently using those. Don't seem to have any problems yet. I'm benching high 18K's in 3dmark 06 and 12,000 in vantage. No overclocking of any kind.

 

edit: wrong thread

 

Does anyone using dell's drivers or 10.3 notice that 1280x800 resolution isn't available when using these drivers?

I'm using 9.12 mobility modded to have this resolution (as it is ratio proportional to 1920x1200).