M15x Problem/Technical Question thread

I just got my M15x in June 2010 and its already blue screening. And so far all other options have not fixed this issue as it blue screened twice today. I'm going to call Technical Support this week and try to sort this problem out. I really think this a defect in certain laptops as some users never had this error while other users get this very frequently. Ill keep you all posted.

 

im having the same issue at completely random intervals. i called alienware support today, they said it could be a failing video card or a bad LCD cable. we ran some tests that eliminated the video card (maybe), but they made a suggestion, when this happens try hooking it to an external monitor and see what happens. this will help to narrow down the problem. it hasnt happened to me in a while so i cant try it now but i will post back with results. the sad thing is we cannot duplicate this problem so its hard to track down.

 

trying the 197.16 drivers. Also you can use this link to download it
Download NVIDIA GeForce 197.16 Drivers for Notebooks - Softpedia

I used Driver Sweeper (run on Safe Mode), CCleaner (Safe Mode, too). And installed 197.16

Someone tell me it's work. I have tried for 2 days, and have not seen any problem yet. I tested to open ton of videos in the same time. Another test to make some videos with 1080p by Movie Maker of Microsoft.
Good luck

 

I have this problem with external audio. Files 1 and 3 . mp3 havent got music just to listen that its not problem only when playing music and 2.mp3 got music... Original music file is here(to compare) http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11499694/02 We Are Beyond (Beyond the Real Life Soundtrack).mp3

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11499694/3.mp3
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11499694/1.mp3
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11499694/2.mp3

Im not sure if its the same problem as "crackling" one
any idea?
btw already called 2 times to support and didnt get any good answer. I didnt send them those files but they replaced my audio board, done diagnostics etc.
I'll be grateful for any answer

 

Take a look at this: Resplendence Software - WhoCrashed, automatic crash dump analyzer. I have found it useful for identifying the cause of crashes/blue screens. At least gives you a place to start.

 

Dfinitely not the best solution when you want to play recent games...

 

i agree. it would be nice if this problem were something we could duplicate easily because it would be much easier to track down the cause. half the time when it grey screens on me and i check the event log i have no traces of it happening which makes it even more frustrating. the next time it happens i am going to try to hook it in to an external display and see what happens though. it would be nice if my card were fried, i sent it in and they hooked me up with an ATI card instead

 

Guys, i got a problem with the lightings. When I start windows, after a long time shutdown, the most left side of the lightnint of the keyboard flickers and then dies off, the mousepad, the soft touch keys and the front speaker keys does not light up. After i logged in and few seconds later, it all comes on as if nothing happened. I tried the power drain trick once but doesnt seem to work. Any idea, its only 1 day old -.-. I did i system restore but doesnt seem to work too.

 

AlienFX is "a bit" buggy, I don't think there's a simple solution for the problem when the power drain didn't work, it may be annoying but it doesn't really matter when it works as soon you're logged in.

 

Thank you so much Svl7, assured me ^^ But the rest of the system (sorted some other problems) is alot snappier and luv the speakers, it freaking beats my dad's surround speakers. The graphics is damned nice. I dont think so I will look back on any other laptops. Love it!!! Btw, im using the rainbow theme. Maybe issue with that, but other times seem fine, juz prolonged off makes it like that. And got warranty for 1 year so should be ok. ^^

 

Yeah, it's a great machine! Usually color changing themes are most likely to cause problems... but it seems to work pretty good for you (except while booting).

I higly recommend extending the warranty for at least another year before it runs out (usually Dell will contact you about two weeks in advance and asking whether you like to buy another year or two)
It's really worth the money... pretty much any hardware fail will you cost more than a year warranty and in addition save you a lot of time searching for cheap spare parts.

 

+1 for extending warranty. on high end components i highly recommend getting at least 3 yrs warranty, these lappies are powerful and run hot.

 

Hey.
I've just started playing starcraft 2 again after a 2 month break. Before I took the break it would run at 60-70 fps when managing my base, and about 30 fps in large battles.

Now when I started playing again after my break i still does 60-70 fps in base, but about halfway through a game (10-15 min) it will drop to about half, and in big battles it will be down to 1-5 fps, which is really annoying.

Does anyone have a solution for this?

 

Check whether you didn't accidentally activated stealth mode....

 

does this happen with any other games, sorry i don't play sc2. but i do have it, hahahahah
hmm does anyone want it, its activated already, played a few times but never got into it.

 

Havent noticed with any other games, since everything else I play is singleplayer fps, and I only complete them once, and usually in a few days...

 

Ty inap and svl7, Its a beauty, I juz installed NFS:HP and it runs CRAZY fast with crazy astounding graphics. Thank you ^^

 

Hey, pm me your EA name and I'll add you

 

also try using a basic theme like this one:

Download REDYELLOW BASIC.ath from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

still colorful but alot less glitchiness.

 

Ty Inap, i'll try that, also try to mess around to create new themes. My fav is purple and I will try to make a basic all purple theme to c if it affects it. Using the rainbow theme also, it seems that after prolonged sleep, it does the same thing, but recovers much quickly, at the login page instead going in side of windows.

 

Guys, when using HWInfo32, in summary, my CPU all four cores jumps up and down back bout every 4-5 seconds. Is that throttling?:S

My bad, it does like that when I run the sensors together with the summary, juz the summary alone, some jumps at like 15s-30s, slipt second jumps. Temps are around 50~ C.

 

Hey guys I am new to the forum. I am a new owner of this laptop and I have a small problem. Booting my computer after it being on hibernate for more than 2 hours, it would go to the log in screen then the screen would go back and reboot again. It is nothing big, but I wanted to know if anyone is experiencing this and if there is a solution to this. Thanks!

 

*the screen would go black and reboot again.

 

Inap and svl7, I solved the alienfx lighting problem, it was the theme, too much stress morphing on rainbow i guess. I think its all good now ^^

EDIT: Narrowed down the problem, it seems that themes with morphing style in it causes the problem.

 

Hey guys.

I've got this problem where the two rubber things on the palmrest have fallen off. This has caused some scratching of the screen. Will dell just swap the palmrest, or will they also give me a new screen?

Im still on warranty and have next-day inhouse service. How does this work? Will they just come to my house and change the parts on site or what have you experienced?

 

you just have to call dell about, i think they will replace the palmrest and screen for you.

 

Hi guys, im currently having another problem, probably not a big deal but it is annoying. after a shutdown, when i start up in battery. Then i plug in the AC, the screen goes to full screen then back to lowest brightness. I wonder why coz it supposed to stay at full brightness when i plug in. However, when i manually turn up the screen it stays ok and bright (fn + F4). Havent yet to try power drain trick.

EDIT: Also when i am on battery, the screen would be at low brightness, then i crank up the brightness to half brightness, but after few minutes of using, it drops back to lowest brightness. Is this normal? This only happens when I am watching movie in windows media player.

 

So my logo on the back of the screen doesnt light up, nor does the power button. I've read some threads about changing theme, or holding down the power button without the power or battery connected, but nothing worked. I therefore removed the panel to see if any cables were dislodged, but everything looked fine. Now, when I've replaced the panel its started creaking when I touch the area with all the controls (sound, stealthmode etc). Any ideas as to how I get the light back in the logo and button, and how I get rid of the creaking?

 

To get rid of the creaking, try to remove and place the panel back. Maybe its not fitted properly.

Did you do the power drain trick properly?

1. Shut down the pc
2. Remove battery and AC
3. Press and hold the Alienhead start button for 10-20 sec
4. Put the battery and AC in
5. Start pc

If this doesnt work, try changing ur theme to all basic theme. Like all red including your head and the back logo (thats the 1st n 2nd zone). Then restart your pc.

If it still doesn't work, hmm, probably the led fried. Alot of different possibilities, AlienFx is a little buggy.

EDIT: Is there any light that indicates that the harddisk is working? Thats the light which lights up at the alienhead start button eyes when harddisk working.

 

Dunno what happened.. for some reason its working again Thanks for the help anyway

 

Hello all, first time posting and I searched the forums for a bit but couldn't find anyone with the exact same issue. I apologize if somebody has already asked this....

I just got a brand new M15x (Win 7) and am having two problems with it.

First, when it goes into sleep..hibernate, whatever mode it is (screen off, lights on keyboard still on), it won't come out of it. I'll click and press all buttons and mouse but nothing, I always end up having to hold the power button and shut it off incorrectly. The wierd thing is, my Acer did the exact same thing, also when it was brand new out of the box. Am I retarded or do I just have bad luck with laptops?

The second issue I'm having is that it won't shut down. When I do try to shut it down properly, it says "shutting down", it updates, the screen goes blank, but the lights all remain on. Then when I press the power button, nothing happens, so I have to hold it to shut it off. The one time it did shut down, as soon as I closed the lid, it powered back on. Pretty sure my laptop is possessed.

I'm sorry I dont have all the specs, I just know it's a M15x with Windows 7. I don't have the latest graphic card update so could that have something to do with it? I tried the Power Drain thing and it didn't work. Other than those two issues, laptop runs fine.

Thanks for any help!

 

I had never encounter those issues before. M15x starts back up when you close the lid? Sounds like a possessed laptop to me. About the shutdown, I believe that your windows is new and it tries to get updates from internet. It does the same to me, but i left it for a long time to make sure it properly shut down. It does have the light on for a few seconds before it completely shuts off. Now it is ok except during shutdown it always show some background program still running. Juz let it shut down, let it take its time. When all installation are made and done properly, then it will be back to normal. About the lappy not regaining "consciousness" after sleep or hibernation, i heard some people are having the same problem. Hope this helps

 

Guys, all of these power settings and options can be controlled from the Power Options screen. Easiest way to get there is to right click on the Battery/AC icon in the TaskTray and select Power Options. From there, you can select various settings from the options in the left column:

*Choose what the power buttons do
*Choose what closing the lid does
*Choose when to turn off the display
*Change when the computer sleeps

These have to be set for each power plan individually.

Another way is at the main Power Options screen, select Change Setting (for each plan) and select/adjust options presented. You can go into further detail by selecting Advanced Power Settings.

I think all of your issues can be easily resolved by adjusting these settings to your preferences. Unfortunately, occasionally some of these settings get reset, particularly the sleep related choices, presumably in connection with a Windows update. So you need to recheck these settings if you starrt experiencing strange or unexpected behavior.

 

I have played with the power settings to no avail, as well as given in time to shut down...it stayed on all night, so I'm givin it plenty of time. Nothin in the power settings offers any suggestion on why it wont come out of sleep mode, and there is no reason that shutting my lid would start my computer up after it had been shut down.

 

Sorry I couldn't help.

 

Your computer isn't in hibernate or standby when the keyboard lights are still on. The only thing that's still on during standby is the alienhead, which will light up periodically.

When you choose hibernate all lights will turn off in the end. It always takes a while until everything is off when you go to hibernate, as the system has to write everything that's on the RAM to the HDD first. Your laptop screen will be black, but the lights on the keyboard are still on.

When you choose shutdown it may be similar, especially when Windows is configurating some updates... your screen may be black but AlienFX lights are still on for a while.

Sorry for this stupid question, but how long did you wait and see whether the system shuts down / hibernates / goes to standby before doing the hard shutdown?

 

Well I appreciate the attempt

As for how long I wait: I hit shut down, then went to bed. Next morning it was still on

 

Hmm, that's a slow shutdown... Seriously, I have no idea what could be causing this...


Edit: It may be a driver or service which doesn't shutdown properly and causes the system to "hang", check out this article from Microsoft, this may help. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135/en-us

 

Maybe the best thing to do is a fresh re-installment or call Dell if you still have warranty ( or if it is new, return it and ask for a new one if you are still within the 14 Days customer satisfactory).

 

They won't exchange it afaik... it's a software issue. They will tell him to try a fresh install.

 

Anyone managed to use the IR port in the M15x? In Device Manager, there is a device ITECIR Infrared Receiver (EC) (As I understood this is the IR port) - but none of the phone could not see that the IR port. I want to use as a remote control set XBMC.

 

There are some remotes which should work... this ugly thing is the official remote from Dell, and this is supposed to work to with the correct drivers (which are posted in the same thread)

I have never tried to use a remote with the M15x... but it should work.

 

i want to ask

1. Which one is better:
1.5GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 460M
or
1GB GDDR5 ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5850
i already bought an alienware with the 1.5GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 460M but after i saw the thread about scoring the game graphic,why my GeForce just got 6.9 and the ATI Radeon got 7.4 or 7.2? is there some application that not installed in my Alienware or the ATI is greater than GeForce?

2. Is it okay if i plug my AC power with my battery still attached every day??even the battery is full

Thx all..

so sorry if my english is bad

 

1. Im not sure, I have ATI and it seems to do pretty good in gaming. Nvidia is more towards graphic rendering, CAD and such. The WEI is not accurate. There are other benchmarking tools out there.

2. I do that all the time. I took it out only once to do the power drain. When your battery is full, press FN +F2 2 times to disable your charging while using windows. While shutdown or sleep mode, im not sure. I only plug in when im using.

Check this thread for more info http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m15x/549289-battery-info-help.html
^.^

 

The 5850M scores higher because it's faster, particularly when overclocked,, but if you already have the 460M, the performance difference does not justify the cost of the upgrade for most users.

 

Those Windows scores are pretty meaningless, and aren't really for people sophisticated enough to be posting in a computer related web site. They're just a SUPER general guide for people who know nothing at all about hardware.

Anyway between the two I'd prefer the Geforce GTX 460 as Nvidia usually has better drivers (it also works better for non-gaming related stuff like Folding @ Home and video stuff, although that's not a HUGE deal to me).

They're roughly comparable though in terms of performance. If you already had the AMD part I'd say keep it unless you were already running in to compatibility issues, but...yeah, keep the GTX 460.

Yeah, it should be absolutely fine. Works as a UPS! Strictly speaking you might get a slightly longer battery life by pulling it, but I've had mine in my notebook for 2 years now and just leaving it in like that doesn't seem to really affect it. Any competently made notebook won't keep charging it, so it shouldn't hurt anything.

 

Howdy All. I just found this driver update out there. When I went to install it I received an error message saying that a previous version exists that needs to be uninstalled before this one can be installed. Would someone please advise on how I should proceed. Thank you!

 

Click on Start/Control Panel/Uninstall a Program (below Program), then right click on OSD Setup and select Uninstall, etc.

 

Thank you!

 

Glad to help. Welcome aboard, DallasPhil.