Please Help For My M15x

Recently I received my M15x, (after 2 month waiting time); for reference my m15x has the Intel Core Duo 2 X9000 2.8Ghz processor with the Nvdia 8800 GTX GPU and 4mb installed RAM; checking all the little stuff that makes this machine apart from the others I saw a file at the desktop that says, My Alienware PC Information, when I opened the file I could read all sort of information about my m15x, and what interested me the most was the benchmark section, it reads, Doom III: 215 fps and 3DMark06, 10,487 marks (all information tested before shipping the unit). Well, I’m familiar with 3DMark06 so I installed my licensed version and ran the test, to my surprise the result was 6,200 marks!. So, next step was to contact technical department from Alienware, at first they told me to verify if I was in stealth mode with the Intel graphic adapter enabled when running the test(!?), of course I wouldn’t be running the 3Dmark06 with those options enabled the result would’ve been much lower, so after several in and out emails with AW, I decided to send them my 3dmark06 result file with also the “MY AW PC Information” file that came with the machine, now they are telling me that to make sure I don’t have a damaged NVIDIA card they will replace it with a new one.

Ok, I’ll stop all the chit chat and maybe you can please answer some questions,

1. If I have been running Crysis, (20 to 30fps average with High settings) and COD4 at 1440x900 with almost all options enabled (45 to 60 average) can it be possible that my GPU is damaged, or are these number too low considering the laptop configuration? Thermofan software does not report temps above 77 degrees on my GPU temp.
2. Maybe I haven’t tweaked my GPU correctly?
3. What else can I be doing wrong?
4. Or yes, I should replace the GPU ASAP?

Thank guys for reading and helping.

Regards,

 

you are experiencing something similar with MrDJ.

 

3dmark also takes the processor into account for the score. it might be that your processor downclocks during the test when it is being stressed. im just guessing it downclocks since everyone with the xtreme processor gets downclocking unless they undervolt it.

its really hard to reach 10,000 in 3dmark. i never reached 10000. my latest score is 9965.

 

@Exiled, The CPU scores at the end of the test show similar results to other systems that achieved higher results, also, after running the test I check with thermofan to review temperatures and CPU shows no more than 75 degrees.

Thanks

 

Thanks Nirvana, I read the 33 page thread from MrDj, If I had read that before buying I would definetly cancelled my order. The 6,200 marks I'm posting that my machine achieved was with 1024x768 resolution, at 1280x720 the scores gets down to 5,600 marks, quite lousy.

 

@Exiled,
One thing I have being seeing is that everyone with the 2.4 and 2.5Ghz cpu gets above 9000 marks with no problem, maybe it seems my x9000 is having trouble keeping the voltage. Is there a solution to this without going into AW contact? (really painfull!)

 

i doubt it's the CPU since your temp was below 75C. I think there are few things you can try to determine your problem.
1) try to use RMclock to record your CPU voltage, speed, etc.
2) use HWmonitor to record the peak temp you have.
3) update the GPU driver

 

Just a odd idea. Why not install a unlicensed version 3DMark06 Basic I think that what Alienware uses and see if the score changes.

 

hell my system gets that and I have a lesser cpu and GPU than you

 

sorry to hear of all the problems JPSika
my problem turned out to be a fried motherboard.
on the first day i was getting 9800ish (i think) and after 2 weeks it had dropped to 3500, thats with a 2.5 processor.
taking into account the first score from AW was 10,487 its always best to knock roughly 500 off that. so lets say a score of 10,000 dropped to 6,200, my advice send it back for a new mother board.
as posted on another thread yesterday:when i sent it back i received a phone call from AW saying there was nothing wrong with my computer. after explaining about the jpeg pictures of the 3Dmark scores i had left on the desktop and the email i had sent explaining everything they knew nothing about these and had not checked them. i then receive an email a day later explaining that the motherboard had been replaced.
they are defanately bad readings especially while using the 2.8 processor so time to pester tech support.

they use the full version cos they left a folder on my desktop with the full version in it (thanks AW)

good luck JP and keep us posted on the outcome.

time to do some work now

 

i have the 2.5ghz CPU (and 4Gb RAM and the 8800m, obviously) and i hit 10006 in the free version of 3dmark06. did you check you didn't have stealth mode enabled etc? and your power plan?

 

cool lucky you MrDJ. It was just a idea.

 

JPSika... very sorry to hear from you.
I think that whoever is spreading across this forum that the new laptops are problem free, should read all these reports a bit more throughly.
It's really sad people like you have to go through all this hassle and pain.

As MrDJ says, you will do well sending it back. Also... the extreme processor you have will not work properly, overheat and downclock.

Good luck.

 

no good to me now i only get a score of 990 on my fujitsu

 

Wow so people are still having problems with the m15x??

That's just ridiculous!!

 

JPSika,

Please allow me to look into this, send me a PM with your account number.

Thank you.

 

Well, I ran RMClock test and the log results are good, no problems with voltage lowering at higher temps when core runs at 2.8Ghz, I checked memory and ran all tests also in Everest Ultimate, no problems either; also what makes me questions is that if my GPU would be damaged why I haven't suffered any freezes of glitches on my screen?

Ok, called alienware representatives today (Round 1), they told me that why did I installed 4Gb of RAM with XP if this OS can read up to 3GB maximum?!, why in the first place they didn't tell me that? also, they installed before shipping the computer the Alienware fusion software, guess what, the representative told me that the software could run only in Vista?! are they paying attention when assembling these machines? go figure.

So, after conducting lots of tests (Everest, RMClock among others) and seeing that all my buttons (volume, BT, WiFi, CC and Stealth mode) are working fine I''m guessing that maybe the motherboard is ok; next step, migrating to Vista, it's a long shot but hey, I need to try everything, at least it gives me hope , and now with Vista I will have all my 4Gb available (maybe not, Vista takes eitherway 1Gb of memory, lol)

 

vista also only takes 3.2 gb of ram. you can use all 4 if you upgrade to 64 bit os.

 

@Alienware Armando,
Sorry for the Noob question, what's PM? and what's your email so I can send this info?

Thank you

 

PM = private message

click on his name in the post and then choose from the menu send him a private message (option 2)

 

Thanks Exiled

 

Ok, finished installing Vista and all drivers from AW, good news, 3DMark06 is reporting 10,015 mark points!!!, I don't know why but the machine understands with vista. Amazing huh?!.

The thing now is that my machine's alienware lighted name is off and I can't seem to turn it on even when the machine is restarting, every time small problems, also I got a message from vista that two updates cannot be installed,

 

now i wonder where AW got that first score of 10,487 if you had xp installed and you could only get 6,200
then you install vista and you get a score of 10,015
this makes me very suspicious of the true reading of the score in the "my alienware" document.
could one of the alienware reps explain how they come by this score.
is it done before an operating system is put onto the computer,and if so why, because i thought the scores were a true reading with OUR COMPUTER and that is why we see so many different readings.

 

Could be that after 2 months your computer was clogged up with useless programs etc, plus bad drivers etc which slowed down your computer. Probably programs and drivers that didnt work properly with 3dmarks as you had no problem (and good fps in games) with games and other performance.

Did u urself install windows xp or did it get shipped with that OS? Very good to hear that you sorted this out! Thanks for keeping us updated, now we know if anyone else gets the problem.

 

he has only recently received the m15x and the 2 months was the waiting time for it.
when did you actually receive it JPS

 

I think Alienware runs the 3dmark06 at 1024x768 because I got the same equal score (well, only 4 points more) to the one in the document on that resolution.

 

aahh, sorry about that read it wrong. Wrote it before my morning coffee...never a good thing!

 

no worrys Svarto
im like that until at least 15.50 going home time.

 

@MrDj, I sent several emails to support asking them how the achieved this result and which parameters the used in 3DMark06, but there answer was, "to be sure your GPU isn't damage, we will go ahead and replace it". So, no answer on that side, even so, the representant who is attending me told me "I personally ran some test in similar systems like yours and have the same 6,000 marks result than yours" ?! hahahaha at this point I rather laugh about it.

I ordered the machine on May 10th, recieved it June 23rd, it was a little less than two months, but the big delay was backorder items from AW, at least I managed to get the Skullcap design

@iElSayed,
I ran the test at 1280x720 with standard configuration.

@Svarto,
The machine came with XP, I installed Vista and rest of drivers.

 

interesting JPS
sounds like we wont find out how they run their 3D scores.

lets hope its the GPU otherwise you will get it back with the same problem.
as the tech that is helping you said he ran some test on another system and got the same scores then i wonder if changing the GPU he still got the same scores or they were back in the 9-10,000 range.
only time will tell. good luck.

 

Just to update you all COD4 now runs from a 45 average FPS to 80 average FPS, it's a whole new experience with Vista.

 

nice one. hopefully you wont have to go through the hassle of sending it back for repair.

 

Also, made a second attempt with 3DMArk06, now score was a little higher, 10,185 instead of the 10,054, woot!

 

This thread made me curious so I checked my alienware doc:

3DMark Score: 9,824.00 3DMarks

So I got even more curious and ran the 3D mark program and got 13883 3DMarks. I am not sure why though. I ran it at the default settings (1024x768).

 

danwkeeper, the default configuration is 1280x720, at least that was the default when I installed the program.

@MrDj, did you finally kept your m15x?

 

Mr DJ would never live with himself if he kept the m15x it brought him too much frustration. i wonder which laptop hes looking at now. perhaps the m860tu

 

nope, sadly it went back for a refund. i do miss it but as exciled mentioned i had so many problems that i couldnt live with it. if i had done it would have spent more time in transit being returned for repair than it would have done been on my desk.

 

Sorry to hear that MrDj, have you seen the sager machines? I heard they put quite a challenge to all other like XPS's and m17x also.

Now, the problem I'm having is that the lighted Alienware name under the screen went off and now doesn't lit, I have tried everything in command center but no luck, well here goes Round 2.

 

Perhaps the 3DMarks have something to do with DirectX 9 and DirectX 10. If that's the case, maybe that's evidence of a large incentive to upgrade to Vista?