Weird power problem? Possibly GPU as well.

Firstly, thanks for checking my thread out. Really appreciate it.

Alright. First thing to note: I'm running my lappy without the battery lately.
Everytime I play TES: Oblivion, I get this weird problem where my power brick turns off by itself and thus the laptop turns off prematurely when I'm ~2 seconds in-game (everything was fine in the start menu). So I tried playing Oblivion with the battery loaded this time around but the same thing happened! The power brick died again but then the fps dropped to 10~15 fps and it was running on battery mode which I am well aware of the normality of the situation. In light of this, it surely wasn't the battery's fault. I tried everything I could in my power to fix this (checked nvidia control panel, running oblivion on the lowest setting and tried different plug sockets around the house, updated to the latest GPU driver and a few more) but obviously.. was unsuccessful.

Also to note, I have 0 problems with skyrim. Playing that game with sli on, highest settings and running on 54~60 fps for a solid 2 hours of awesome game time.

Any ideas on what's causing this? Faulty motherboard? Internal cable? PSU itself? GPU? Overheating (most unlikely because playing skyrim didn't pop out any problems)? If any, what should I do?
Prompt reply is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

IMPORTANT UPDATE!:
So I tried to work my way around the problem. Instead of playing the game whilst charging, I tried playing Oblivion with just the battery at first. Plugged in the wire for ~5 minutes into the game. It worked perfectly. The PSU is not powering down, 50~60 FPS and another ~5 minutes into the game, it happened again. But that's not the one that caught my eye. Guess what? I went to check the NVIDIA control panel under SLI configuration and it was on 'Disable SLI'. I strongly assure you that my settings were on SLI before I started playing the game. Why did that happen? Any thoughts and solutions to this?

 

When you say power brick shuts down, does the light on the power brick turns off aswell?

Usually that happens when motherboard gets short circuited. It might be just a faulty power brick, just dying on heavy load or something wrong on the motherboard, in power circuitry.

 

Yes. The green light slowly fades to black as if I'm unplugging the jack out of the power socket. Short circuited? Forgive for my little knowledge about electricity but if the motherboard short circuits, wouldn't the screen blinks or the system lose power and functionality instantly? Because that isn't the case with what's happening to my lappy. Thanks for your reply though.

So what do you recommend? Call for tech support? Can anything be done alone w/o the hassle of tech support?

 

Have you tried a different outlet? Sometimes that can be an issue. Also I would call tech support and have them send out a new brick as a first step. If that doesn't work then the next thing to try is replacing the motherboard.

As for the fps drop on battery, that's normal. That battery can't supply sufficient power to the system for gaming.

 

I've tried plugging into different outlets around the house. None of them resolved my problems. I'll try to replace the power brick first and let's see what happens by then. If that doesn't do jack, then tech support it is. But that has to wait until I return home from vacation first. I'll keep this post updated in the mean time.

Anyone else has different solution in mind that I can employ as opposed to the mentioned ones from previous replies?

 

If you are in warranty, contact tech support to have the brick replaced. They can send one out to you and it will be waiting for you when you return . at any rate I hope this gets resolved soon for you.

 

what system specs you have ?

 

The system specs are included in my sig below. Thanks for checking my problem out.

 

I'm thinking about an issue with the power brick, have you tried to play around with the cable? Perhaps you could find some specific movement that will make it disconnect.

 

This happened to me about 3 weeks ago, I'd be playing a game and the power light would go out or the computer would just start running on the battery and wouldn't recognize the power was connected. A new power brick solved my problem. It's been fine since. This usually happened when the brick was hot.

 

The cable seem to be tight and firm most of the time. So that shouldn't be the case. Even when I'm running the laptop with the battery loaded, there is no sign of sudden power cut caused by movements of the cable. And yes I tried to play around with the cable vigorously lol.
Thanks for the answer though. I'm beginning to suspect that the PSU itself is the culprit to all these. Maybe it can't take extra power in anymore.

Your previous problem is very similar to mine. I'll try getting a new power brick first thing when I get back home. Seems like everyone is suggesting that the power brick itself is faulty. Appreciate your contribution mate. I'll keep this thread updated.

 

Power circuits doesn't need to be completely short circuited, just overheating mostest on the charging circuit can do weird things.

But as advised first step is to eliminate charger as the issue, second step is motherboard, third is gpu's and so on.

 

Can anyone recommend a trusted source to me where I can buy a genuine 330w DELL power brick for M18x? A link maybe? I've been browsing for it through Amazon and eBay for 2 straight days but none of them seemed authentic to me. I would buy from Dell but it's too expensive! About 40 bucks more than most in Amazon/eBay.
Maybe i'm a bit paranoid but hey, I want the best I can get for my laptop. Please help! D;

 

Bought a spare from this seller for $32 last month. Seems like prices have gone up since.

Amazon.com : NEW GENUINE Dell Alienware M18x 330W AC Adapter Y90RR DA330PM111 W/ CORD : Computers & Accessories

There seems to be a few revisions of the AC adapter, but whatever works, works for me.

 

That's cheap. Considering i'm from the UK. Most eBay sellers put a £50 price tag on it which is bloody expensive compared to yours.

What do you mean a few? Is it the 0XM3C3 (my current PSU code ) or the 0Y90RR? Could you recommend one of it to me (if it matters)? I'm not really aware of the significance of said revisions.
Also, I don't want a rigged PSU as it could potentially damage my laptop. Better be safe than sorry.

 

Check out this one it seems legit,

NEW Genuine Original Dell Alienware M18x A/C Adapter 330W Charger XM3C3 0XM3C3 | eBay

 

The one that came with my 18 says ADP-330AB D (0Y90RR). The one that I bought says ADP-330AB B (0XM3C3). Obviously there might be a revision to D.

It's not rigged. Just revisions. If it works on my 18, then you have no reason to worry.

 

UPDATE!:
Turns out when I try a different approach to the problem, the system automatically disabled SLI. Tried playing with just the battery in and everything seemed normal again (high FPS, no PSU power cuts) until ~5 minutes into the game. I checked out NVIDIA control panel to find out that the SLI has been disabled automatically and the light on the PSU is not lighting up. Why did this happen?
FYI: Check out my first question of the thread under IMPORTANT UPDATE to get a better picture of this problem.

I apologize for double posting but this problem needs to be addressed ASAP since I've a lot of other stuff in hand and classes are due to start next week so I have little to no time to research and figure this problem out by my own. Hope Mr. Fox reads the thread and write something. I really want to know his insights about this problem. Maybe he has dealt with something like this before.

 

When I ordered my AW 18 , I also ordered a spare PSU to leave at my home office. The PSU that came separately had a different code than the PSU that came with the lappy. They both came from AW/Dell ...both work fine (330w units)

 

Hi Brother Trance003. Yes, I have run into this before. You need a new AC adapter. That should resolve your problem. Mine has been replaced a few times. The circuit breaker inside seems to get weak over time and they start turning off when they get too warm.

The M18xR1, M18xR2, X51 and new 18 all use the same AC adapter , and F0K0N, 0XM3C3 and 0Y90RR are all valid/usable 330W AC adapter part numbers, so no worries there. There are different part numbers for the 330W AC adapter depending on which system it is associated with as a service part, but they are interchangeable and all work exactly the same. The pair that I purchased on Amazon for $30 each for my dual AC adapter mod were brand new, genuine Dell/Alienware parts.

Sometimes running on battery can disconnect SLI. I doesn't happen all the time, but it has happened to me a few times. You can mod the NVIDIA driver (NVDMN.INF) to allow SLI-on-the-fly so you don't have to reboot.

 

Google didn't show anything so I will ask here. What do you change in the INF file to allow SLI without rebooting?

 

Simply open the NVDMN.INF file in NotePad and change the zero (0) to a one (1) in all of the HKR,,RmDynamicSLIAllowed,%REG_DWORD%,0 strings. Use the "Find" feature to find the first line of code, then use "Replace All" to change them all in one click. One you do that, run the driver setup. You can also open Regedit and change the all of the keys for RmDynamicSLIAllowed DWORD values from zero to one and accomplish the same thing. I don't remember how many keys there are, but there are quite a few. If you use this method, use the Regedit "Find" feature or a utility like RegCrawler to make it easier. Otherwise, you will miss some trying to find them manually browsing through the registry. You have to reboot for this to be enabled after editing the registry.



Credit: Although I figured out you can do this by modding the INF, I give 100% of the credit to johnksss first for letting me know about this trick by changing the registry DWORD values from 0 to 1. Thanks Brother John!

Edit: I added a link to this post to the index found here: [Resource] Index of Links to Helpful Threads and Posts for future reference.

 

Sorry for the late update. Delivery got delayed till the next day which was very inconvenient. And guess what?

PROBLEM SOLVED!! Turns out it was the PSU all this while. Though a high temperature while playing video games did give me second thoughts before. Again, thanks for checking out my problems and giving solutions. It really helped me a lot and I appreciate it.