M17 R1 DPC latency issue

I've been struggling with this for the past few weeks now so I hope I've turned to the right place. I have an M17x R1 that I purchased back in 2009 when I first got it I had some stuttering problems but Alienware had me upgrade to the B14 Bios, which I'm still running now.

I would still have stutters.. usually for the first 2 - 3 minutes in the game, and it would go away, so I didn't mind. But the past two months have become absolutely insane I can't even listen to music without it stuttering, and games will go to an absolute crawl. I did some searching and found out about DPC Latency.

I ran DPC latency checker (sorry no screenshot) and if I open music or a game i would max out all bars and my absolute Maximum is listed as : 223246us

I downloaded the windows 7 SDK and ran xperf and I have the below information:



I've read forums (this one included) and tried a lot of things that helped other people but nothing has helped me so far. This past week I did a complete re-install of windows 7 and installed only one driver for my video cards the 8.75 version and the problem persists.



Things I've tried so far:

-Disabling Catalyst A.I
-setting all ATI controls to performance
-Creating a new power scheme in windows that sets my CPU min and maximum to the same, as well as setting everything to run at maximum if plugged in or on battery.
-Disabling all devices in device manager (one at a time) leaving only the laptop keyboard and mouse and video functional
-Reformat and reinstall of Windows


Currently since I formatted the only game I can test is WoW but before my format I could change a game to run in 800x600 with all settings set to low and I'll still stutter. This problem persists if I open up my zune software and play a song it'll begin to stutter and the audio crackle.


I've made some upgrades to it over the years my current specs are:

Alienware M17x R1
Windows 7 ultimate 64bit
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9000
8GB Ram
1 64GB OCZ SSD
1 500GB WD
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2

my currently installed Applications:
Chrome
WoW
VLC
Windows 7 SDK (Performance monitor tools only)
Zune 64bit Software

Like I said this problem of stuttering and audio popping started about 2 months ago, although in hindsight I think it's always been there just not constant like it is now. Please advise on what I should try next.

 

What driver version are you running for your 3870s? Some basic troubleshooting steps I'd try are disabling Crossfire in BIOS, and disabling integrated audio in BIOS to attempt to isolate the problem. If either of those has an effect then I would do some digging into the drivers for those (try to find older / newer versions which were working for you). Did Windows update push something that might have caused this?

 

are you sure this is Dell's M17x R1? I thought the M17x R1 from Dell only supported the HD 4870 (and lately HD 5870)

 

You must be thinking of the M17x R2, not the R1. If I am not mistaken, the M17x R1 never shipped with 4870M or 5870M because they were released with the R2. Fudgemaker17 must have the R1 because of the Core2 CPU. The R2 also shipped with i7 CPU, not Core2.

 

This method i used long long ago and it worked for me.
check the screenshot i showed to my friend in our alienware-club.

1. Try install the wireless controller (find and connect to a signal) from dell, and use it to manage the wireless connection instead of windows default !
(it was long ago so i may forget the name and the laptop is not here with me)

2. Go to device manager to disable the “Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery”
you can alway re-enable it again to check the battery meter when needed.

3. press Windows + R and type in : "regedit " (Run > Regedit)
Ctrl + F to find this line
"0cc5b647-c1df-4637-891a-dec35c318583"
Modify the "ValueMax" from 64 to "0",

Now turn off and power it on again ! go to powerplan, set it to "high performance"
See the result !

[IMG=http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/2416/samm17xdpcfix.jpg][/IMG]

Good Luck

 

Currently running 8.75, when the issue started occuring I was running 8.63 which was listed as having "a known problem" while running with 8 gb's of ram so I thought upgrading would have fixed it.

My bios does not have the option to disable Crossfire, and I have tried to disable audio and it still happens.

This laptop was purchased BEFORE dell fully took control of Alienware, I have no service tag or identifying numbers on the machine.

I've followed your instructions and the DPC has improved.. however it is still horrendous. Looks like we are getting somewhere though

 

that's insane !

more suggests :

- check your ram! test it with memtest.exe
switch it with ur friend's ram ..
try the 1066 and 1333 ! see inside ur laptop
if your ram are mixed between those..
take out all of them then only put 1 into 1 Ram slot and run latency checker.

- use "throttleStop" and check both box "Clock modulation" and "chipset clockmod"

- (for SSD) update your IRS driver
update the latest firmware of your ssd.

- turn off your wifi > run the latency checker

- try run single graphic card mode,
- try run it in safe mode > run the latency checker

any luck ?

 

Just to get rid of the confusion, the OP's system is a M17 or a m17x-R1, a pre Dell model not a M17 x, there is no such thing as M17x R1.

The M17x did have the mobility 4870 as an option, just like the M17x R2!

@ Fudgemaker17: browse thru these threads and see if any fix works for you.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...tuttering-lich-king-video-looking-advice.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...s/368282-m17-ocz-whitebook-quad-problems.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ems/518035-m17-qx9300-stutter-fixed-good.html

 

I would be interested in finding out what that "Unknown" thing is on Line #3 of your screen shot. I don't like the numbers it is showing.

 

A quick update as I'm still running through all the suggestions that have been posted.

I ran memtest and saw no issues, I have the original 4 GB of ram that the system came with (2x2gb sticks) I installed those and ran the DPC checker and it's still spiking.

I've also tried turning off (completely disabling the Wifi AND the on board NIC) and it still spikes.

I apologize for the confusion on my model, but it's like katalin_2003 said it is a pre dell model.

I'm still running through all the suggestions that the other forum posts have listed, will update later today.