Does M11x r2 having BSOD's falls under warranty?

Since I've bought my M11x r2 some time ago I'm having BSOD's in certain games.

Most new games are running very well (considering what results I see on this board from other m11x r2 users). I get 25-34 FPS in Guld Wars 2 with most things on medium/high (even shadows on ultra) which is very playable. They run well up to a certain point, when BSOD happens.

So far I remember having BSOD problems with Guld Wars 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Skyrim and couple others. Both on high and very low settings. It happens in kind of odd situations.
I'm currently trying to play GW2. I tried to stress the system, jumped in a big event with lots of users, lots of stuff going on, my FPS dropped, cpu teperature raised a couple degrees, but no BSOD.
It happens during normal play, even when there's not much action going on.
It happens occasionaly, sometimes I can play few hours straight, sometimes it crashes twice an hour.

I tried various benchmarks, stress tests and nothing happened.

It's happening wheter I'm overclocking CPU or not. I got CPUID on most of the times to keep track of the heat, and it stays at normal temperatures, which is max 73 °C for CPU and 68 °C for Gfx, and something like 10 ° on each less when using a cooling pad. So I dont think it's because overheating.


My money is on Optimus messing things up or it's RAM, which gets kind of warm but CPUID doesnt keep track of RAM temp. so it's just a guess based on trackpad getting really warm. If I remember correctly RAM is positioned right under the track pad.


So untill people at Dell spend hours on playing GW2 or Skyrim they wouldn't find anything wrong with my system and I'm wondering if theres any point in returning m11x.

I'm really at loss here. I'm about to do Alien Respawn, but since those things were happening since the begining I dont think anything would help. I tried updating every driver, with clean installs and all. Nothing helped.


Thanks in advance for any advice. :thumbsup:

EDIT: I also recall a fast sound stutter as well as screen freeze right before BSOD.

 

one thing i use for crashes is Whocrashed,by resplendence its free and generally points in the direction of where the issue is as long as there is a dump file. for example, Nvlddmkm.sys is usually them most common when i get a bluescreen,

hope it helps you narrow it down a little

 

I think it would be better to go back to the factory settings or use the dell drivers to make sure that the optimus works fine. Also monitor the temps this way.

 

Thanks, I'll definetly try that before anything else.


Should I choose BETA or normal driver for NVidia card though?

 

If you're looking to stay on the safe side, the Normal driver seems the better choice.

 

Once you confirm it is the way Dell sent it you can pursue support for solutions (if under warranty). Start collecting data by logging temps but ask support what applications they want you to use to confirm if any hardware is faulty.

Games are bad for diag because you get into how they are coded, vid driver variables etc. A repeatable benchmark tool would make the case better for you when dealing with support. IF you have hardware that is borderline stable it will not likely get better with age. Catch22 though if only games are the trigger.

I too think its video related. Any artifacts? Tried UNDER clocking GPU? If you do and it works better then you have the same issue a lot of other folks do. I'm more stable under clocked on the R1 also.

 

My experience has been that when I called Dell and said "Game X doesn't work" they will get to a point where they will tell you that the game is not compatible with the laptop and tell you to go talk to the game's support team.

This happened when I was getting freezes in Guild Wars 1 - I spent literally 2 hours on the phone with Dell support as they diagnosed and remotely tweaked my PC. After that, I was told by the rep that it was the game and not my laptop and to talk to Guild Wars support.

I later found out that this freeze was caused by my shader clocks being too high, and was able to fix it myself... but yeah, unless you're really pushy they will probably offer a replacement simply on the basis that "Game X doesn't work"

 

shader clocks are common causes

 

I just stumbled upon this underclocking solution day ago, I'll definetly give it a try after doing a fresh respawn today.

I see this kind of error is happening kind of often with m11x. Such a pity.

 

its more of a gpu issue...

 

Is there any particular amount I should downclock GPU, shaders etc. by in this case? And if so should I downclock everything?
Or should I star dropping the numbers on everything and testing myself?


Anyway, thanks for the replies, it's helping alot.

 

mileage may vary... bump it down a notch and try. You can google up what others have had success with if you want. In my case I lowered both just a bit and tested.