m15x Extremly high latency. Which driver is to blame?

http://files.filefront.com/m15x+x32RC1zip/;10023022;/fileinfo.html

here ya go. Thank lessaj7, she gave this link in other thread.

And i just found my old cd with x32 instaled and now I'm back to average 1k latency.

EDIT: while playing with that latency program i found this thing. Look at the graph and push a button, let's say, letter a. Keep pushing it and you'll see latency rising! stop pushing and it goes down again.

 

After doing some guesswork at the Alienware server I found hat they store the old updates as well. This link worked fine for me:

http://support.alienware.com/Support_Pages/Restricted_Downloads/Mobile/m15x/BIOS/m15x_x32_BIOS.zip

lessaj7's link points to the Release Candidate. Mine is for the final.

 

:O seems a have rc1 instaled on mine. Will try the final, but could you please upload that to somewhere else? I can't get to american site cause i'm in Europe and don't find it in our site.

 

Pain in the arsenic being in the uk you never get their **** updates eh
(But yes i have rc1 too and trying final would be good)

Tom

 

Here you go, m15x X32 BIOS Final:

http://www.gigasize.com/get.php?d=2r4zwwo4tvb

 

Thanks Fr33m4n. Have you allready instaled that? What are the results?

 

I am very pleased to inform you all that the X32 BIOS is working wonderfully and I now never spike above 1000us, and I can get latency all the way down to 130us now. This is truly an amazing improvement.

However I am going to continue to do some probing with xperf to see if I can improve on that number. Remember that a correctly configured system should hover around 50-100us while idle and we are still not seeing that.

Vista will actually start logging errors when you start hitting 1000us and many "slow Vista" complaints can be traced back to this issue. You can check if its having an impact by clicking; Start-->(Right Click)Computer-->Manage and finding: Event Viewer/Applications and services logs/microsoft/windows/diagnostic-performance/operational.

But as a conclusion I think we can definitely say that the X34 BIOS is completely fubar and that Alienware royally screwed it up. Hopefully they will fix it in a future update.

 

My experience:

X34 Bios
Vista: avg. 12000
XP: avg. 12000

X32 Bios
Vista: avg. 1000
XP: avg. **35**

Drivers installed on the XP partition:

6,627,328 m15x_Touchpad_XP_10.1.8.0.exe
364,544 m15x_Bluetooth_XP_6.0.1.5100.exe
2,310,144 m15x_Chipset_XP_8.3.0.1014.exe
26,214,400 m15x_Audio_XP_5.10.0.5466.exe
190,331 m15x_F6_RAID_Driver.zip
25,538,560 m15x_Camera_Vista_1.0.0.1120.exe
2,842,624 m15x_MediaReader_XP_3.51.01.exe
5,042,176 m15x_RAID_Tool_XP_7.5.3.1001.exe
1,996,511 m15x_Users_Manual.pdf
18,128,896 m15x_VGA_Intel_XP_6.14.10.4859.exe
5,042,176 m15x_Network_XP_10.39.0.0.exe
11,210,752 m15x_OSD_XP_V00019.exe
71,176,192 m15x_VGA_NVIDIA_XP_165.32.exe
31,292,268 WIFI_XP_11.5.1.2.exe
88,509,921 CommandCenterBundleSetup-Mob-1017.exe
807,646 m15x_MMB_41.zip
762,505 m15x_X32_BIOS.zip

 

I'm not an expert, but does this mean both bios and drivers are affected (cause xp uses other drivers than vista)

 

The bios had the biggest impact to both O/S's. Under X32 the difference is possibly either a combination of the O/S and/or drivers.

 

If I understand you correctly then the answer is yes, both drivers and the BIOS will have an impact on your latency.

Also, thanks a bunch to linuxguy for that post. It really proves what we have been saying, that the X34 BIOS is fubar and that the X32 BIOS is actually quite good. It also gives an indication that Vista and the drivers are mostly responsible for the latency with the X32 BIOS because he gets such amazing latency with XP. And as a bonus he also told us what drivers to use! Way cool!

I'll continue to probe some more into the latency in Vista. Hopefully I can get it down from an avg of 1000us.

 

****, my laziness actually saved me this time. Pretty much the only reason, up until now, as to why I didn't upgrade to X34. This is pretty bad though. I hope Alienware takes a look at this.

 

why would vista be an issue? does it not operate on the same basis as xp? send and receive commands, execute, terminate?
i am kinda lost as to why the OS would be a factor?

(i was told why the bios could be.... )

 

Because the O/S usually talks to the hardware by means of a driver. If the driver is not coded properly it could introduce latency.

 

ok
(and this makes the rest of the 10 char)

 

big thanks to Freeman and all the original X32 BIOS uploaders.

 

So it seems like the X34 BIOS did more than it fixed huh. Not definitive yet but I'm guessing the X34 BIOS causes all of the following:
1. Audio spikes during streamed videos (via youtube or elsewhere.)
2. Bottlenecks.
3. Audio popping.

Apparently the X34 BIOS were supposed to fix the following:
1. Fixes Multimedia Board buttons not functional after sleep when opening the lid. (V41 multimedia board firmware?)
2. Default profiles for screen brightness set to AC 100% and DC 40%.
3. Fixes CPU speed profiles.

Can anyone check if reverting back to these BIOS would reintroduce these problems? And if not, how were you able to resolve these issues without the X34 BIOS?

 

Double post. I'll be doing some testing between X32 and X34 to see if it's worth switching to X34. I'm kind of curious what kind of other problems rose from the X34 BIOs. Anyway, for some reason, I've been getting higher values with the X34 BIOS than what I had before. Instead of getting 11k us with the X34, I'm now hovering between 16k-27k.

Edit: Oh wait, that's because of CPU-Z. Nevermind. Now getting my values back to 11k.

In any case, you should forward this information to Alienware, or better yet, Roswell. I'll be posting some screenshots between the two BIOS so that you can use them as evidence if need be.

Here we go.

With X34 BIOS. --

The values were higher with CPU-Z on, but I'm only using this to prove that the BIOS I am using is in fact, X34.


Without CPU-Z. X34 BIOS.


X32 BIOS. --

Getting much more beautiful numbers this time.

Again, the values are higher when CPU-Z is on, but it's only to prove that the BIOS I am using is X32.


Resetted without CPU-Z.

 

Triple post. Not trying to crowd this thread with posts but I do want to keep my ideas kind of organized.

Did some testing with the X32 BIOS. Was streaming a 30 minute video that I was watching yesterday (with the X34 BIOS) and I'm relieved to find out that the decreased latency has fixed the audio spiking issue that comes from streaming videos off the internet. When I was watching it yesterday, I would get an occasional audio spikes once every 30-40 seconds of the video but now I don't get any at all. Today when I watched it, I have had no audio spiking issues at all.

Also, the touch controls are still as responsive as they were before the X32 BIOS flash. I don't know if the multimedia board firmware is independent of the BIOS but I'm guessing since the V41 multimedia board firmware came included with the X34 BIOS, I was expecting that there would be some impact on the responsiveness of the touch controls from downgrading to X32. I guess perhaps they're independent of each other.

I'll be doing some temperature checks tomorrow.

 

Oceanus, while I was getting same readings with the x34 bios, I'm not getting same ones with x32. Your maximum is 456um and I always get about 1k. Could you please post the drivers you are using ?

 

Yeah, wow, consistently below under 500. I'm still averaging 1000us. Basically, all I need to do then is find problematic drivers and fix them?

 

Certainly.

The updated drivers I've installed are the 177.92 NVIDIA graphics driver.
Intel Pro/Wireless 4965AGN v. 12.0.0.82.
Broadcom 1693 v. 10.78.0.0.
the Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager v. 8.5.0.1032.
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Windows XP v.14.36.1.4977.
Realtek High Definition Audio version 5.10.0.5683.

Getting the Realtek High Definition Audio driver to function correctly was quite difficult to do. Before I reformatted this computer, the driver worked but for some reason, it had caused my built-in mic to be really weak. After speaking to Roswell for awhile, we were both convinced that the driver was not installed in the correct order (meaning something that was installed earlier may have been conflicting with it).

Since I was planning to reformat anyway, I thought I'd give it a go and reinstall XP with the correct driver order (mind you, this was when I started testing out each and every driver to see whether it would have any effect on the latency.)

The only driver that had really impacted the latency was the 177.92 graphics driver. Anything else either gave a really tiny latency improvement or nothing at all.

If you want to install the updated drivers, I do not recommend installing the updated Realtek High Definition Audio unless you plan on reformatting the computer and starting from scratch.

I have a feeling the OS has something to do with it also. I think that the drivers installed on XP or Vista may work differently from each other.

 

Was anyone actually able to figure out he RATTv3 program Freeman linked earlier? I tried clicking the link now but it says the page cannot be found. I'm interested in using it to help isolate my problem. It would expedite the process greatly.

 

The link works for me. If it doesn't for you, I suppose I can upload the program for you on my server.

http://www.audicracy.com/RATTV3Setup.exe

 

Awesome. Reps for the upload.

Edit: Boo it won't let me rep you until I've repped other people enough apparently!

How do I use this to isolate problematic drivers?

 

I think you just let it loop until it finishes and it should provide a log file. There should be a readme file that explains how the RATTV3 works in the RATTV3 program folder after you've installed it.

 

Right you are. The help option assisted me with my needs.

 

Sorry, totally missed this post here. Since you're using Vista, I think Freeman suggested using this program instead.

 

Here's my accumulator report if that helps.
http://audicracy.com/accumulatorreport.txt

 

Thanks for posting this Freeman.

I clicked on the link in your first post and got 10k+ latency as well. However, I am not really experiencing any problems with every day use of the laptop.

What disadvantages does having latency bring about? Sorry if it sounds like a stupid question. I just want to know if it could harm the PC and make me switch back to the old BIOS.

 

its just that the high latency is what we are thinking is making the popping audio sounds. so once AW releases a new bios to fix the problem you shouldnt need to downgrade unless you actually notice problem. since you dont it shouldnt be a problem. i dont notice a problem so im keeping x34.

 

Unfortunately, across all systems I have seen, vista always comes out as slower then XP, but never by as much as we have in our case. There should still be some performance gains to be had, so I am continuing to look.

@Ennea: RATTv3 was discontinued while MS was working on Longhorn, the codename for vista. MS found out while developing vista that the new driver implementation would cause trouble for some developers and for that reason they built in some additional debug flags into the kernel. To take advantage of these they made a whole other performance toolkit.

Windows Performance Tools Kit

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/perftools.mspx

I'll give a quick and dirty explanation of how it works for those of you who wants to try it.

1: Download and install the package in the link above. Mainly it will put two files on your machine that are of concern to you. xperf.exe and xperfview.exe

2:Go to Start-->All Programs-->Accessories-->Right-Click on the Command Prompt-->Run as Admin

3:Navigate till you are at wherever you installed xperf.exe, usually it is:
C:\Program Files\Windows Performance Toolkit\

4:At this point make sure you are not running any other apps or it will show up as unnecessary noise on the result.

5: In the command prompt type:
xperf -on Latency

6: Watch paint dry for at least 3 minutes

7: In the command prompt type:
xperf -stop

8: From the start menu fire up "Performance Analyzer" (it is not a cmd app)

9: Go to: Trace-->Open--> and find the kernel.etl file that was created at the root of your C:\ drive.

10: Once the file is open scroll down and you will find a graph that is labeled DPC CPU Usage.

11: Right-click on that graph and chose Summary Table.

You need to do some research to get the most out of this graph cause there is no quick way to explain it but, Max Actual Duaration [ms] records the single highest value for any one item and should be the most interesting right off the bat.

REMEMBER! This app uses a different value from DPC Latency Checker. ms VS us. You need to multiply the numbers by 3 to hit comparable values.



I don't know if anyone has alerted Alienware to this particular discovery, but I was thinking about sending a little email their way. I'm not sure if the Roswellcrew is the best place to send it because though they may be competent in problem solving I don't know exactly how much they have to say in the BIOS development. What do you guys think?

 

Good work man! Interesting discovery indeed. As far as getting through to Alienware. I would just private msg Alienware-James and let him take it to the people who need to know, unless they already know, and are working on it as we speak.

 

id say shoot roswell the info anyway, but you may want to pm AW-James and/or AW-Armando on these forums...
they can redirect to the correct places as well.
you may also desire to send the info to [email protected]

and thx for all the info again...very helpful

 

how do I update my GPU drivers to 177.92? My current is 167.55 and the UK alienware site doesn't list the 177.92

 

You have to get the drivers from www.laptopvideo2go.com.

For a more direct link to the drivers, click on the link below:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showforum=94

Remember to download the modded INF file as well. Copy the modded INF file to the folder where you extracted the driver before you install it and overwrite the original nv4_disp.inf file with it.

I think throwing an email to Roswell wouldn't hurt. You could also forward the information elsewhere, but I honestly think Roswell will help redirect the information to the technicians sooner, since they have closer ties with them. Like ryujin said, I also think it might be a good idea to throw AW-James and AW-Armando the information too. I don't think anyone has alerted Alienware yet and I don't plan to do so since I wasn't the one who brought it up. You should get credit for the discovery.

 

It's averaging around 1000us on the m1530 too using the A09 BIOS with Windows Vista.

 

Guess it may be the norm for Windows Vista. Can someone check the DPC Latency with Windows Vista on a desktop?

Update: Decided to do a follow-up on the current testing with the X32 BIOS. Guess the X32 BIOS didn't entirely solve the audio spiking issue (this is entirely different from the audio popping issue, mind you). I ran into some hiccups today while streaming videos off of CNN. These hiccups tend to happen more frequently as I watch more and more videos and it's noticeable when it happens. The audio on the video tends to spike for half a second then returns to its normal state. Not sure why though. I'll be tracing this with RATT as I continue to watch more videos on various players to see if it could possibly be a specific driver's fault, the video player's fault, or the BIOS itself.

Also note that I did a little changing on my system today so maybe that may be the cause for it arising again. I uninstalled the Alienware Command Center and the OSD drivers then reinstalled both of them to fix a minor lighting issue from flashing to X32. Turned out my Command Center touch key lights weren't turning off unless I opened the program then exited from it. I was able to successfully solve this issue today but who knows, maybe that had something to do with the audio spikes appearing again.

Anywho, I'll continue to test and will provide some results later.

 

This is the result from vista home premium 32-bit on a desktop. As you can see it's not as great as XP but it's still quite a bit better then what we're seeing.

 

I am using vista ultimate with bio verison x34
my latency is around 12000
with the absolute max of 811696
I have something interesting
when I was changing my smart bay battery to the blue-ray drive,
after I put it in, the latency drop to 500 for like 5 or 6 seconds
then go back up the 12000~
I am planning to go back to x32 and see if there is more problem
since I have the audio popping issue too

 

Ok, I'm sorry if you guys already discussed this somewhere along this thread... BUT... can this latency be responsible for keyboard unresponsiveness?

Maybe people reporting keyboard lagging or missing keystrokes (and I know some people have been saying this regarding the new clevo) have a too high latency.

 

It has been discussed but not fully investigated. It certainly is possible and I would not at all be surprised if we saw DPC spikes occurring every time a letter was dropped.

 

On my 4 years old Acer Aspire 2026WLMi, my latency is hovering between 50-100 and spiking now and then at 6000. Great machine!

@Fr33m4n- I'm going to ask some M860TU owners that reported this key missing to perform this test.

 

Ah, interesting. I'll have to look into that one.

---

A little update from my last post. My audio hiccups are gone and I made sure of it this time. I managed to find this really handy program that finds outdated drivers and provides me with updated ones. It's a free scan, though you have to pay in order to get the updates but it is a bit more accurate than driveragent in terms of telling you what updates to get.

 

Good stuff. I'll try this out myself.

 

The X34 is the problem. i downgraded to the x32 and my latency runs any where between 300-1100 and a rare spike of 2200 but its fixed my audio issue i was having also.

 

Oceanus, did that tool end up doing anything for you? I downloaded the trial, but quite frankly found it suspicious. It didn't tell you what later version it supposedly found and I'm not about to pay for the tool if it can't prove its actually doing anything.

N

 

It did help actually. If I were you, I would just figure out what drivers it wanted you to download, go to the manufacturer's website then find the drivers that were supposedly outdated. It's a bit of work, but it does spare you some money.

Anyway, I had Roswell have the engineers take a look at this thread. I received this email not too long ago but eh, guess they're working on something.

 

thanks for the info Oceanus. I went back to the x32 version of the BIOS.

 

I guess that's not a solution for owners with the Extreme CPUs. Did anyone report this to AW's Tech services? Or better yet... where are AW's reps?