Problems and Questions when moving from NVIDIA to ATI GPUs - M17x R1

The R1 mobo DOES SUPPORT XFIRE The chipset is the 730i/9400 AFAIK, but the mobo supports both the SLI (260m/280m) and the CF (4870) setups.
So don't really listen to the techs, as most of them just read manuals on-line answering your questions and never touched or seen the system. Half of this forum members have the CF config. The R1 only has one possible mobo (even though the techs stated otherwise before).
So unless someone can correct me if I'm wrong (and I'll hate him )
- don't worry and definitely go for the CF.

 

of course it supports crossfire. how noob can someone be to say that when they offer crossfire on R1?
dpc latency is an other case. it may have to do with drivers (compatibility) and not support by its own.

 

Yep, it does go into the red while browsing and using pdf docs. I'm using the 10.3 drivers and they rock!

 

Thank you for that happy words... Crossfire here i come.... . But this is if they fix my freezing problems.. They have replaced my 4870 card and yesterday my motherboard... But the freezing is still there... So the question is, whil they ever fix this problem

 

ok as Dell-John-B directs to this thread about ATI issues we give them some simple steps to reproduce red spikes.

pdf scrolling.

open and close firefox as fast as you can, browsing ( refreshing webpages also can cause red spikes- those spikes are not due to the wireless driver) . the same may occur with win7 windows resizing but not always.

OF COURSE the reason for all those is the ATI driver as doing the same things but this time with standard vga drivers doesnt cause any red spike.

 

Lets be clear on this... any issues noted with DPC need to go in the DPC thread. This thread is for owners who are having issues with implementing the ATI cards on the R1. Meaning, driver install, process, settings, etc.

If you need additional clarification of what goes where, PM me and I'll explain it.

Thanks.

 

I am having problems getting the official 10.3 drivers to load in Windows 7 64-bit. Can anyone help on this?

Have not tried have disk method, and frankly, should not have to.....

 

ok you confused me m8. so dpc in the other thread. John-B Dell however prompts to this thread for any ATI issues. So?

i personally didnt use the have disk method as it was installed by its own

here is my driver now.


download this if you havent already. it then downloads the mobility driver.



http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/radeonmob_win7-64.aspx

 

I finally got the driver loaded

Where I went wrong was driver sweeper - which I wont be using anymore. I ended up reverting back to a 2 week old image of the disk and just installing 10.3 over the betas that were there. That seemed to work

 

Freezing will be there until you switch to the 10.3 drivers.

 

dont swear for this.. i personally called to swap back to GTX280s. i will try them and if they will be better with the new beta driver i will keep them.

 

Is this the right thread to post this?

I just got an M17x two days ago in exchange for the mess that was my M1730 beast (echanged after 4 mbs and 2 dead vid cards). The refurbished M17x has the ATI 4870s video cards. I haven't noticed any issues yet other than Windows 7 taking forever to load. I installed Lord of the RIngs Online and it works, but it does seem to lag from time to time. I've had it for 2 days and just discovered these M17x threads now.

I already upgraded the BIOS to A03. I am going to install the CCC ATI V10.3 drivers. I am going to run the DPC latency checker on it. If I have spikes, I am going to run Run the mass storage controller utility. (From http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2010/02/19/update-on-dpc-latency-for-alienware-m17x-customers.aspx
And then the Alienware wireless card driver. Does this sound like the right course of action?

After reading the forums for 4-5 hours, I am a bit confused. Can someone throw a newb a bone? I can't help but wonder if I jumped from the M1730 pan into the M17x fire.

 

Is the hardrive going constantly?

Do you have the Nvidia controller software installed? If so please just use the windows native ones..

 

Try removing the Command Center and see if the slowdowns disappear.
Also, it's a good practice to reformat and reinstall the OS.
How's the idle CPU utilisation btw?

 

Yeah the hard drive is chewing up at startup. I set Windows Update to check for updates weekly and that helped a lot. Windows Update Agent is the most nefarious software MS ever put out if you ask me.

I am keeping the Controller Software for now. I like the camera recognition piece for logon. When I get bored of it, I am sure I will uninstall it. In fact I did a RAID 0 re-install (with extra hard drives) and the AlienFX piece wasn't working so I put the original hard drive back in.

CPU utilization at idle seems nominal. I did install ATI Catalyst driver v10.3 and did uninstall the of the mass storage utility.

Audio files and acrobat run cleanly. The DPC latency does spike at 2000 ms when I am running acrobat, an MP3 and have a bunch of windows open.

I found Batboy's blog and installed a bunch of utilities. The machine seems ok. I must say, I am very impressed with the knowledge base here, you guys know your M17x'...

I would say, with my decent amount of computer experience (mostly servers) and the frightening experience of the M1730, that this refurbished M17x is working well.

 

Well expect to have those lockups for 3-5 min regularly until you remove the controller software and use windows 7 native ones.. Just letting you know it doesnt work well with win7. AFAIK you dont need the controller software to use the facial recognition... That is its own program with webcam and Alienware CC

 

My bad, I think I confused Controller software with the Command Center software here (I hate being the newb!). I did remove the controller software with that Dell utility. It definitely runs better today than it did yesterday. I am sorry I can't provide empirical data.

What this forum and you guys have done is nothing short of amazing in documenting this issue to give newbs like me a shot at getting the machine working the way it is supposed to. Kudos to all of you and thanks for helping me out!

 

No problem We were all newbs at some point...

Thats good that you removed it with that utility.