Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge, *Part 3*

Yep
I wasnt able to detail the entries correctly in the window because im using a foreign os (italian), therefore i was going with on the fly translation.
But thats it, you found it tho. Just manually update everything specifying the path, but before that you may want to try the -overall switch as Mag hinted. Then in case use the manual installation.

@Mag: turns out that the newer drivers i posted above are Really good for our desktops as well since youre using sandy bridge too. Update them, i noticed a good improvement

 

Yep will give them a try for my desktop

I am considering buying another GTX 460 for my desktop. Hell those are damn fast in SLI, faster in most games than a GTX 580

 

Yeah thata true, im extremely happy with my gtx570, i cant even imagine how a dual gtx460 can do in games with proper sli!

 

Hey guys, do you turn off powermizer with your overclocked cards?
I'm looking more into my system freezing issue.
Right before it does fps goes down to 1-2 fps and the EVGA monitor shows the clock down to <200mhz.
Could it be the powermizer kicking in by i don't know what bug and messes up everything causing a cash seconds later?

 

Hello.
Some fan on my M1730 is almost always on and really loud. Is there anything I can do about this? It is driving me crazy while I am trying to do homework.

 

@totostar: powermizer is one of the worst thing you can have enabled. Its unstable beyond imagination and yes we have it off always.

@mjsk: if you dont have an x9000, then your issue is with the temps. Run hwmonitor and check the temps of both cpu and gpu in idle.

 

@kingpinzero Are you using a software (i.e powermizer switch)or just the manual registery method to disable powermizer?

 

I use powermizer switch software if actually it finds the entries. If it doesnt, then powermizer is likely not running at all.

If you're under XP, be sure to disable it under NVCP. If you're under 7 or Vista, just set the power management option under NVCP->3D Options to "Prefer Maximum Performance" and you're good to go.

However if you notice that the cards downclock or crash after a while, Powermizer is throttling the system.
But it happened before to me a weird thing. When the card crashes, check if the blue led on your AC adapter shuts off.
If it does, then something is wrong with the voltage of the cpu or the whole system.
Turns out that i had carefully set the cpu voltage to not being excessive, its a fine tuning thing, specially if you're overclocked.
Then its all about finding the sweet spot on gpu clocks, assuming you sorted out the powermizer problems.

Anyway, i had time today to look into performance problems of Crysis 2.

What i did:

- Grabbed the intel chipset drivers i linked above, latest ones;
- Made a shortcut to the Setup.exe adding the line "-overall" as Magnus adviced;
- It installed every component
- Ive then manually checked the components by giving the exact path of the "All" folder to see if it installs anything newer, turns out that the "-overall" switch takes care of everything
- Installed 267.24 beta along with Sli Profile patch for Crysis 2

So, Kade Storm will be happy to see this, heres the results:

XP:
Gamer: Min. 29 Max 68 Avg 55 (Skyline map) 45 (Pier 17 map)
Advanced: Min. 26 Max 55 Avg 45 (both maps)
Hardcore: Min. 26 Max 50 Avg 35 (Pier 17) Avg 40 (Skyline Map)

Surprisingly Windows 7 reports the same values.
BTW its strange to notice that enabling Vsync keeps the framerate smooth, maybe because the drivers are in beta and the SLI profile added with the patch is some sorta of Hacked Crysis 1 profile. Under XP however you can disable the Vsync without having so much stuttering, so i guess its fine. It applies only on 7 thought.

Other tests i made where NFS 2010 and Cod:BO.

CODBO - 4xAA - Maxed Out - 1200p:

XP: Min. 45 Max 125 Avg. 90 (WMD Map)
7: Min. 35 Max 75 Avg. 45/50 (Crysis Map)

So the situation is still Scewed for BO under Win 7 althought it runs. Being a game made with 60fps in mind, anything belows it brings a huge disadvantage in multi sessions, therefore stay away from it.

NFS HP 2010 - Maxed Out - 1200p:

XP: Avg. 56-60
7: Avg. 35

So this is another game which suffer from the lack of support for older cards under Windows 7. The gpu usage under 7 is the same as XP but the game doesnt scale in sli at all, and it has been like this for 4 drivers now. The only way to get a proper framerate is to use a custom sli profile, the one we talked about a few pages ago. Still its not a solution. Add this game to the long lists of games that doesnt run well under 7 and you'll get the picture.

However - doing a consideration - those DX10 or fairly optimized games like Crysis 2, Just Cause 2 and a bunch of others runs ok under 7 as well as emulators that take advantage of the 64bit os and newer architecture.

Anything else belongs to XP since our cards are getting older now, so their raw power really benefits only from XP in the majority of the cases.

Thats all, now i can put the beast at rest since i wanted to update it and to test it a bit more since im not using it alot, due to my new desktop, but seeing the performance in Crysis 2 im quite happy now.

 

Powermizer says it's off on a/c but if it were, shouldn't the clocks remain at max all the time even idle?

 

Nope, thats why there are 4 profiles in the nvidia drivers. One 3D, one 2D, one low profile and an extra profile.
The fact that the cards downclock in idle is normal and it generates less heat.
Powermizer acts only when the heat is excessive on extra clocks. So if it downclocks all of sudden while gaming thats a sign of it working.

 

would 72C be considered excessive heat? cause that's the max i ever got with oc cards and did lead to sudden downclock and then crash.
By the way I'm going to download the exact same drivers you use, i would love those extra fps

 

Nope not here at least. Im able to reach even 80c under furmark without throttling.
A question: have you updated both xps bios and gpu bios? There are both available via dell and i advice to upgrade both.
If they throttles around 72c prolly the gpu bios have the throttle value around 73c like it happened on my fx 3700m.

 

I wanted to do that, but i'm not sure i have a blank cd laying around, besides when I read only corrects yellow tint I kinda let go of the idea, but will look for a cd.
edit : ok found one, will update bios now.
edit2: I get an "I/O error cannot open file 92gtxs110.rom" and update fails :/
Did you use nvflash?

 

My max temps so far were under 70C for both the CPU and the GPU. Then again, I didn't stress them too much.

I should run 3dmark for the heck of it...

 

Those are very nice results but even when installing the exact same thing I'm not quite there yet.
for Crysis 2 demo on windows 7 64, Hardcore I get fps:
min 24 and max 42 (looking at the sky) for an average of 29 (skyline map)
Oh and by the way i got my Notepal X2 this morning, very nice good cooling boost for heavy gaming

 

Probably because youre using 266.58?
Try latest betas, 267.24. Good boost in crysis 2 and in a few more games.

 

nope 266.24, just like you
Tried NFS HP and I get 26 fps avg with everything maxed out (note here that cards are at 50%)
clean install with any trace of old drivers gone.
still couldn't figure out how to update gpu bios though

Edit: sli profile for NFS is total crap, changed settings to run on single gpu, now i get an average of 55 (54-60) fps with everything maxed on win7 64 (omg played half the game on 26 fps..the change is so awesome!)

 

I still dont get it, why your cards doesnt oc like ours, and mostly, why they lockup your system?
Since the bios upgrade reports that problem (which translates in "you already have the latest bios") the only thing i can think of is some sorta of hardware failure on your second card.
We cant really test the cards to see if they got problems, beside the OC method (till they crash, but locking up the whole system doesnt make sense).

Try to download OCCT. The program is a stress tool, but also it have some good tools to test the gpus. Now beware, dont attempt to stress tests the gpus using OCCT as it will burn them, pronto.
Instead theres a function that enables you to test the Gpu Vram to see if its defective.
Try to run the test on both cards, see if something happens.

Also about NFSHP under Windows 7 probably you missed my post above, the one about Crysis 2. Theres a few comparisons with NFS and COD:Bo as well. As you will notice NFS runs crap under 7 because SLI doesnt scale at all, its not working. It keeps the card at low usage running about 13 frames per card.

Under XP, however (its a DX9 game afterall, it BEGS for XP) the SLI works beatifully and you can get 56-60 fps with 75-80 gpu usage on both cards, which is awesome.

As you discovered, however, you can get rid of the SLI profile and run one card only, as it does perfectly fine.

 

thanks or your advice kingpin, i will have a look at it.
What difference do you exactly make between crash and lockup.
when i speak about lockup, frame drop to almost 1-2 fps, then system freezes completely with of course sound being stuck in loop. Today I did get a bsod after a small oc of the cards, but not sure if the cards were at fault, i was on desktop at that time.
In OCCT, you were referring to memtest i presume, i leave it at 10 pass and then press OK right? (you got me real scared with the cards burning thing )

 

I dont remember exactly the setting in OCCT, but there should be a way to test GPU VRAM only. 10-15 Cycles are adviced as its based on linpak (like IBT for Cpus).

The difference between crash and lockup:

- Crash: a driver crash, mostly it recovers itself leaving the cards in 2d clocks.
- Lockup: system freeze or BSOD with a code error of 0x000124 or 24 (which means GPU Adapter and GPU Video Driver). In both cases its an hardware failure invoked as first (124) and invoked by the driver itself (24)

Are you completely sure that the cards are working perfectly fine? In my experience i saw similar issues which led to a fatal death of the second card. It can be a premonition, althought im whishing is not, because that will sux hard.

 

well I wouldn't exactly say perfectly fine.
the cards did act in a suspicious way when i played Mirror's Edge
video : YouTube - xps m1730 with 9800m GTX graphics issue
But that was almost a year ago, and have been playing a lot (and I mean a lot) since with no trouble. Except when i overclock of course.

 

So youre Starfighter? I watched alot of your videos.

Well the bad news: thats VRAM glitching. So basically im almost sure that you have an hardware failure and if my guess is right, its the vram itself.
Granted, it can be invoked by drivers in a way, but that merely happens in a software way, like an error or no textures, but not with on screen problems like that.
The Overclock itself its a way to push the chipset above their standard limits, which are always "in the middle" of the real chipset possibility.

Therefore a 10% overclock is well within the safe margins, to make an example. Try to see what OCCT reports as i adviced, but since i saw your Mirror's Edge video a few times, im sure its a Vram problem. Some games uses the Vram and voltage in a way that others dont, keep in mind that. A good and healty card behaves the same in every situation.

Anyway something just come up in my mind: even if OCCT doesnt report any errors, try Furmark or Kombustor. First with standard clocks then with your stable Overclock. See if starts to glitch when put under stress even on stock clocks. Because if it does, we know its the card itself, even if at this point im almost sure of it.

 

That is no GPU error for Mirror´s Edge. It has to do with certain drivers only. I had that issue in the game menu myself with some drivers. Nothing to worry about.

 

I guess so as Magnus said, cause watching that video just made want to play it again (yeah i'm an addict), and well after 15 minutes of play, still no traces of that good old glitch
By the way can't see nothing speaking about nvram in OCCT, gpu memtest tests your gpu memory, guess that's it but i'm not gonna fire it up before i get the green light lol
Ok, i couldn't wait so I started the memtest with 15 passes, but no way to choose gpu 1 or 2.
gpu 2 was at 99% all the time and gpu1 0% so i assume it tested gpu 2 memory only, 15 passes and no errors (yay?)

 

Looking for a m1730? I am selling one of mine here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/not...8800-gtx-sli-t9300-4gb-640gb.html#post7254178

Feel free to give me feedback on the sale, fair price?

 

Good to know, but sill we have to figure out his inability to oc and his lockup problems. Any ideas?
Also if occt is positive then the only thing left to do is a stress test with furmark, using the multi gpu exe.

 

Ok, downloaded it, could you walk me through how to use it (noob mode on) ?
still creep'd out about the cards toasting lol

 

Hmm chipset drivers can be the culprit for the overclock. Try different ones.

 

Dam I'm pissed, I overclocked the cards 600/1500/900 and ran mafia II followed by 30 minutes of bulletstorm (nice 57 fps avg by the way with AA turned off ) all went fine even when the cards were at 74C.
Then came Crysis 2 demo..started a game on advanced, everything was smooth and 30 seconds later i look at the sky, hit 52 fps and the next second boom lockup the cards were at 66C at that moment :'(

 

Are they downclocking?

 

I don't know, forgot to check :/

 

I take that point, but my Nvidia-based experience still says something. Because my Crysis 1 performance is about the same as your systems, only a couple of FPS better. What else could it be? Aside from the DDR3 RAM, my M17x is quite closely matched by your systems, save for the quad-core feature.

 

Old post kade althought my point about cfx is still valid in a way or two.
Check the previous page, ive tweaked the xps a bit, you may find Crysis 2 performance curious

 

I`m getting Metro 2033, any special settings or configs i should be aware of?

 

Iirc nope, since DX11 high setting is locked out for obvious reasons.
Crank everything to max to take advantage of DX10 enabled features, or just play the game in DX9 if you're under XP.

But on a DX10 Os it really shines, trust me.

 

It runs pretty good with dx10 high settings aa off

 

I'm still on XP and no way am I installing a different OS for a game...

 

lol seriously? Come on Win 7 is really good, dual boot at least

 

Metro is fine in XP eleron, you would have to see it in DX11 by the way. Well that isn´t possible on our GPU´s but I play it on my desktop DX11

However the game stinks Stalker all the way, nothing wrong with Stalker though it was much more fun than Metro 2033 is.

They say they use another engine for Metro 2033, however the funny thing is that the config file is the exact one as Stalker engine uses. So I call it bollocks, they use a modified Stalker Clear Sky engine for Metro 2033 with added on effects. Why would the config else look exactly like the one Clear Sky uses?

 

Yeah I run NFS Hot Pursuit on only one GPU and I have 55-60 fps 1920x1200 maxed out settings in game

 

Yeah I always imagined the sli as unbeatable on our gpus no matter the drivers/config so i never tried the single gpu thing, turns out it was a huge benefit for NFS

 

Yes other games that likes Single GPU on our XPS is Starcraft 2 Runs better with a single GPU than with SLI enabled I noticed

 

Oh man ! thanks a lot for the info I will try that as soon as I'm done testing Assassin's creed brotherhood

Ok well it seems to work slightly better in sli for me where i get an average of 31 fps everything maxed (with a giant army covering screen and fighting) agains 28 with single gpu.
But in any case sli profile stinks, cause gpus never work at max potential

 

Keep vsync disabled if youre using it, as it halves the gpu usage.
But i suspect the sli profile sux anyway. Seems that you can use ACII sli profile with it, just add the exe.

 

GPU not holding overclocks with nvidia inspector.

I've wrestled with this for a few days and thought I'd messed-up the 'save' of overclock settings, but now I can't figure out what's wrong. After a re-boot, ONE of the GPUs reverts its clock settings to default, while the other keeps the settings. I realise I have to make the changes to both GPUs, but then for each I hit 'apply clocks and voltage' followed by 'update startup shortcut'. Despite this, one of the GPUs always drops back to the original 500/799/1250 after a re-boot.
Yes, of course it's me (!) but can anyone shed some light as to keeping the settings please?

Cheers, Andy

 

Nvidia inspector needs to set clocks separately for each card.
Your best solution is to remove any autolaunch nvidia inspector clocks and stick to msi afterbuner for it, with apply at startup checkbox thicked.
Keep inspector only for sli profiles editing, anything else afterbuner is bliss.

 

KPZ, You're the MAN! Thanks for helping me out yet again. On afterburner (now with settings that don't change) is the hardware monitor's GPU usage a good indication of actual load? I'm asking because in Flight Sim X with as good a set of graphics/scenery settings as I can get, the CPU is maxed-out but the GPUs are only running at less than 20% each. Is this a classic case of CPU bottlenecking even though my x9000 is running at 3.8Ghz?

Cheers, Andy

 

With MSI Afterburner, when I try to 'apply overclocking at system startup', I get an error message:

RTTSH.dll:Add task failed with error code -2!

Doing a search reveals this has been an issue with EVGA precision but I deleted my copy of that and I still get the error, even after a reboot. Any ideas?

Cheers, Andy

 

Yes, it sounds like a CPU bottleneck. FSX still a very demanding game with an optimized support for Quad Cores. The bottleneck you're experiencing means that your cards are fine and more than enough, but cpu cant keep up with the level of detail you're running.
Also MSI/EVGA monitoring is flawless, so take them as good ones.
Just remember that under sli you need to follow these rules:

- No Vsync exepct for rare cases
- Crank AA and AF at max to increase gpu load
- Good Sli profile - search for better sli profile for the game

If everything is good, try to scale down settings a notch to get a desiderable performance. Also afaik FSX isnt Windows Vista/7 friendly and it works beatifully under XP, you may want to google a bit for it. Search "FSX poor performance windows 7" or "FSX poor performance SLI". It may help you out.

Be sure that Precision is completely unistalled. Check if there are remnants in Program Files and in Auto Run entries.
Unistall MSI Afterburner as well.
Get CCLeaner. After you removed both, run CCLeaner and clean the registry 1) then check auto run entires 2) and see if theres something corresponding to both programs. If there is, delete it. Also when unistalling dont keep saved settings or clocks, be sure to be clean.

If the problem persists, update the .NET Framework and VS2010 runtimes (BOTH x86 AND x64 are NEEDED!). You can find the web installers on MS site.
Hope it helps!

 

Hey guys I don't know if that test reveals anything, but I've tested running in single gpu and dedicating the second to PhysX.
Using Batman AA, i got at a certain point ~40+fps with gpu2 for physX
and ~30+ fps with gpu1 for physX.
does this mean gpu 2 is faulty? or are there other factors that make this test inconclusive?