Possible issue with stealth mode/GFX mode on m15x R1

Greetings everyone,
I'm new here so please go easy on me. I'm no noob when it comes to desktops and laptops but my m15x is perplexing me. I've recently upgraded from Vista to Win7 64. I upgraded to 186 drivers (not official but modded) and firmware x36. I did the heatsink clean and re-paste maintenance, but over the last few months the laptop is having a hard time playing games new and old and the performance has been horrible. I've used the nvidia/Ati/Riva utilities to watch and test whats going on and it appears that the card is running normal temps 55c - 65c(for an m15x) during benching. It never gets hot or crashes or reboots EVER.
Last night it occurred to me that maybe it's running with the Intel onboard and not the dedicated. So I booted with the right mouse button down. All looked the same as far as I could tell. I ran a game, yep poor performance. Then I did the fn+f8 or whatever it is, sorry i'm at work and can't remember; anyhow, it made some hard drive noises and seemed the same. I ran a game (Just cause 2) and it ran decent at 45fps at 1440x900 res. I rebooted and it started chugging again. I looked at the settings and I can't see what it's using.
So, my question is. Is this thing running in stealth/integrated graphics and is there a way to tell from the OS? When I look at my utilities, it shows the GPU and clocks and appears that it's using it. I can't see where there is a glaring Intel or 9800GT in use. What gives?

Specs:
m15x R1
Intel Core2 2.2 Ghz
4GB ram
9800GT 512
200 GB HDD
Win 7 64bit

Thanks in advance

 

theoricaly in the device manager it sould tell

 

Yeah, that was the first place I looked and it shows 9800 GT there. Originally I was supecting heat being the cause and then it might be throttling down, but I can't get it to heat up. It's the inconsistent behavior that has me stumped. One day it seems okay then the next it's awful. I've eliminated all background activities and disabled AV when thinking it was a memory hog. I might go back to the driver issue. Just not sure where to start. It's all of the alienware fx drivers that i'm worried about because of the specific order they have to be installed in.

 

order is not suposed to kill that much in window 7 64 it can gum a little perf but not that much

that problem is kinda odd maybe you wqould need to update driver nvidia drivers

 

The frustrating thing is that this baby was running great even after the upgrade to Win 7 and then it just started slowing down. I remember installing and playing Mafia 2 right when it came out and it was smooth and pretty and then 2 days later it just slowed to a crawl. And the wierd part is that no matter what resolution I'll set it at, it has the same effect. That's what's bugging me the most.

Yeah, i'm gonna try and see if those nVidia drivers are at fault. It's just that I had the BSOD issue like everyone here until I found those on that driver forum that worked so I left it alone.

 

the driver might have been corrupted to so maybe they only require to be reinstalled i seen this happens on an nvidia machine befor but it was with the 7 serie card

 

Thanks granyte. I think thats the problem. Everything else looks fine. Last night I noticed that my driver version was a revision off from what was on laptop2videogo's site. I downloaded 186.91 with the .inf but didn't get a chance to install it. Too busy chasing kids around the house. I will tonight and see if it helps. Thanks again

 

Okay, I think I got it fixed. Updated the drivers to 186.91, was at 186.81. Still not sure if it was a corrupt driver but it seems to show more activity heat-wise when gaming and i'm now averaging around 40fps in most new games. I'm happy with that as this is my living room game machine. If I have to have super fast performance, i'll get on my dedicated desktop gaming PC that's pretty beefy and play there. I'm still up in the air about whether I should fork out the dough for a 260/280 or save for a new laptop. If my conversion of the Euro is correct, then MXM upgrade is asking around $600 for those cards. That's alot for a video card.

 

What clock speeds are you seeing? This should give you an indication of whether you're in stealth mode or not.

And as for where to find out if what card you've got etc. try GPU-Z:
GPU-Z Video card GPU Information Utility

 

I do have the GPU-Z and it showed the correct clock rates for the card, BUT it did show that they were running lower than what the card was rated at. I thought that this was do to an idle state. I'm going to run it again tonight and see if it's hitting it's max clocks. I remember temps creeping up but not getting very hot. I'm still not satisfied that this issue is fixed at this point. It runs great in Far Cry 2 but other games it's horrible. Also of note. I ran the FurMark demo and leaving it on, the card doesn't get hot. It stays at 65 +or- 5 degrees. Shouldn't that demo make it burn up and cry for mercy? Although the framerates show 10fps. LOL

 

Update. I hate to double-post but here goes. So I forced my lappy into Intel GMA mode. Booted into Windows and GPU-Z stated it was indeed in integrated video mode. Did a full shutdown and then powered back on and got a popup that it was running in external (high performance mode). Checked GPU-Z and it showed 9800GT.

Now the troubling part. My clocks are showing:
Core-200
Memory-100
Shader-400

After launching a game and then quickly exiting, it shows clocks at:
Core-275
Memory-301
Shader-550

Then they immediately drop to the lower numbers, understandable throttle.
I looked up the specs for this card (9800m GT) from nVidia:
Core-500
Memory-800
Shader-1250

What gives????????

 

i don't know, I just know that for my system once I got it running I saved the image of my HDD so that should my HDD die or if I upgrade or get a new HDD I can mount that image onto my new drive. Setting up this system is quite painful sometimes as getting OSD and Alien FX to work properly on windows 7 can sometimes be a difficult and daunting task. I just know that when I'm on my intel FPU it shows the INTEL icon on the lower right hand corner and when you right click on the desktop background it lists the Nvidia control panel if it's engaged or not.

 

Okay, well that makes sense and I may do that once/if this is fixed. It's upsetting that the design of this laptop is such that it's a nightmare to get it back after a rebuild. I did have trouble with Alien FX and got the dreaded blacked out keyboard issue. I fixed that and I did run the OSD driver install but seeing as there are issues with Alienware's own drivers and this system I may re-approach the OSD. I've definitively eliminated the issue of what mode it's running in, just can't figure out why the clocks are so low. GPU-Z seems to let me adjust the clocks with a slider but it doesn't actually increase them. Sometimes after adjusting them they flop back to the low settings. Something's underclocking the card and I can't figure out what. At least my perception of a performance deficit wasn't just paranoia. I've also ruled out the heat issue as it never ever gets above 65c. I guess I know why the switchable graphics didn't catch on with the industry. LOL. Needless to say, if I can get it running the way it was meant to, i'm sure i'll be happy with it as it's basically close to an 8800GT desktop card as far as performance comparison goes. I ran one of those for awhile in my desktop before going to a GTX460.