M15x Problem/Technical Question thread

Its a 3 day refurb from the outlet

I think i'll return it for an m4500.

First I'll check powermizer.

 

Ok. It's really weird... I think it's the GPU... a reinstall should've solved issues caused by software.

The m4500 is a nice machine imo, though something completely different than an Alienware, also the screen res is pretty low when I remember correctly... and the M15x is highly upgradable

 

Make sure you're running the newest drivers from Nvidia and are all patched up. Also make sure you're actually comparing exactly comparable settings.

But what you're describing sounds exactly like what I'd expect the CPU to do. There doesn't seem to be a problem.

 

Yeah thanks guys. That explanation with the clock decreasing when all cores are working seems to make sense. Yeah, the few guys who had the same CPU and video card as me were definitely getting more FPS in comparison. No sweat though since the game is still definitely playable with decent graphics. I'll check out Throttlestop though. As for overheating, I doubt that's the case as I recently got the Zalman NC-2000. Thanks for the response guys!

 

^^ I think what you are experiencing is normal. Had the exact same symptoms when I had a 260 running with a 740QM.

 

Is it possible for me to call dell and have them replace my m15x for a m18x for an extra fee? My warranty expires on 5/30/11.

 

I don't think they will be willing to do that. I tried to exchange my M15x with a M17xR3 for extra payment but they just wouldn't accept it. I guess you'll have to sell your M15x first and then order a M18x.

 

hey i have a problem with my M15x connecting to my internet. It started happening like 3 days ago and my M15x just wont connect to my internet anymore.this is the first time this has ever happened, and i have the DW1520 wireless-N WLAN Half-Mini Card. every other computer connects fine except my M15x.

 

Be sure you didn't accidentally brush against the hardware radio switch on the panel above the keyboard. It is the third from the right. I've done that myself, and it kills the wireless.

If that's not it, you might try running the diagnostics for the wireless.

Good luck,

Joe

 

I am having a strange problem with my 15x, and it came out of nowhere. Now, I have had my system since june of last year (So still on warranty, thank god), and always had minor issues. Lag while on my main screen (games were fine once I figured out about a special stealth mode ). I would open chrome, firefox, whatever, and it would lag, I could hardly even run farmville (yea yea, ). I knew something was up, but figured who cares since I can still game on WoW, aoc, etc. fine.

Now, lately it seems to be getting slower and slower, I have even formatted a few times and each time called Dell to have them manually get into my laptop and update it . Incase something went wrong haha. However maybe a week ago (Give or take), when I opened my computer, windows update stayed at 0% forever, until it finally updated and I entered my password - logged in.

Once I logged in, it took about 15 minutes for everything to load (I even got angry and rebooted to see, same result). During this "loading" I could open nothing. Even attempting to press the Start button would result in (explorer?) crashing. That bar where start menu is crashing, entire thing.

Then it started working for a few days after that, I figured whatever it happens. But then yesterday, I couldn't even log in. I enter password, get to desktop, everything is -slow-. It loaded fine, but everything just wasn't opening after (tried icq, msn, etc,). Would take say 2 minutes for ICQ to finally open, then another 2 for it to actually load contacts, couldnt do anything (and the start menu thing was crashing left and right anytime I clicked it, folders crashing).

^^^^^^^^ I formated. Now I can open the laptop fine. However, the lag is still there although not as bad. I click on my computer, c drive, whatever. Takes ~20 - 25 seconds for it to open. I ctrl alt delete it takes about 15-20 for it to even go to the blue screen section to allow me to select something. I still get the start menu freeze up now and then even with a complete fresh install (And everything updated from dell site). I try updating games, and game will freeze when updating, then nothing else works. Open chrome, nothing loads (internets working fine, its a lag type wont load if that makes sense).

I'm sorry for the terrible explanation, but its the best I can do with whats going on. I'm thinking it's a hardware issue... but I know nothing about laptops or computers so I'm hoping someone here might know a fix, if not I can get dell to do something about it maybe.

Thanks if you read trough my wall of text ))))


EDIT: I have a 4gb intel core i5-540m 2.53 ghz, radeaon hd 5850 . I hope that helps.

 

ok the switch on the touch strip isnt the problem. and now my M15x is able to connect to the internet at random times. any ideas of what this could mean? Also, the only time that it decides not to connect is when i turn the computer on or start it up from sleep mode. so i guess im gonna have to keep it on all day for the time being :/

 

Had this problem once. What i did was when it cant connect, i open Network and Sharing Centre. From there I navigate to change adapter settings (Network Connections). Then right-click on your adapter, click connect/disconnect. It restarts the connection of the card. Hope this helps.

 

Check under power settings - advanced. There is a setting that allows the modem to be shut down or receive reduced power on battery. I always keep it set at maximum performance. Also check the device under Device manager to see that it is set for maximum power.

One other thing to check - the lower frequency (2.4GHz) modes are affected by wireless phones. Sometimes changing the channel assignment at the router will help. You can also convert to the newer 6.0 wireless phones.

Hope some of these things help,
Joe

 

Do what Joe says, put the powerplan of WiFi controller in Maximum Performance first. Then Disable/Enable your Wireless Adapter from Network and Sharing Center. Power off your modem and power on again. And when nothing works out( I'd the exact same problem earlier ), go to Network and Sharing Center and put your connection in either Home Network or Work network. There is a option for putting it in Public Network as well but I'd avoid that option. This got rid of the problem for me. I know it sounds silly but it might work.

And while you are at it, you could also try to overwrite the WiFi drivers from Dell's resource site. Should do the trick. Let us know what happens.

 

thanks guys! it seems like its back to being normal after doing some of the stuff you guys suggested.

 

Glad to hear that.

 

Great ^^. It happened to me, tried the power drain worked awhile then back, then tried that restart adapter i suggested above and never happened again. It happened when waking from sleep.

 

My laptop has decided to do the dreaded 'Plugged in, Not charging' thing. When the Laptop hits POST (or whatever it is nowadays) it will say something along the lines of 'This is not the original 150W AC Adapter shipped with your system' (It definitely is). I would contact Dell, but I am waiting for my warranty status to update, as I paid to get two years cover just before my warranty ran out and it's still waiting to change.

 

No reason not to call Dell imo, especially since you still have warranty. I guess your PSU is saying farewell...
In the meantime you can disable the warning in the BIOS if it annoys you.

 

Video driver install help...

My son has a legacy m15x, purchased in June '09, right before the Dell buyout.
9800m GT, T8100 2.1Ghz, 4gb ram. Windows 7 64 bit, upgraded over OEM Vista.

I am having trouble getting newer video drivers to work. Any driver I install beyond 186.xx (which I had on it for some time) give a blue screen error as soon as windows starts. The last file I saw in the dump was dxgkrnl.sys.

Alienware's last "offical" driver was the 176.xx, and they said there will not be any more software updates from them. Dell wont talk to me, because its a pre-Dell laptop. So am I screwed here?

I just dont understand, I was able to install the 186.xx driver from Nvidia. But nothing since.

 

We can't really help you here as this is for the Dell model M15x. Yours is the Area-51 version so this question should go into the legacy forums. Sorry mate.

 

While it is true that you are likely to get more specific help on the legacy forums, you should try a complete uninstall of the video drivers, followed by a run of cccleaner or similar) in safe mode - then try installing. You might also check the Nvidia forums for help. This sounds like a video driver specific problem to me.

Good luck

Joe

 

Sorry, I just saw the m15x and thought it was the right place.
Thanks for the info.

 

Hi guys, I have a problem - whenever I maximize/minimize my Windows explorer or start a program such as Opera browser, there is a short delay followed by a very glitchy animation.

I goolgled the issue and did not find anything useful. My video card drivers and chipset drivers are up to date, I use the A09 M15x Bios and these are my specifications:

Intel Core i7920xm, 6GB DDR3 RAM and ATI5850m Graphics Card.

Any help/suggestion would be appreciated... It's been long and the problem is mighty annoying

 

Sounds like the window animation is not working correctly. You might try under sysetm properties, advanced,performance (right click on my computer to get there). There are settings for showing contents of wiindows while dragging, and animation of menus - see if changing any of these settings affects things. Also, I'm assuming you are running Win 7 - check to see if Aero is running.

Good luck,

Joe

 

That sounded like excellent advice! But it didn't work , anything else?

Here's what I found on Google:
Windows 7: Maximise Animation

Not helpful :/

 

When did the problem first occur? Although my laptop card is Nvidia, my desktop video card is AMD/ATI. Sometimes the newest video driver is not the best, i.e., in fixing problem A, they break something else. Might be worth a look on the AMD gaming/video board to see if anyone else has seen this. I had a stuttering problem due to an Nvidia driver - only showed up under stress.

WIll stay tuned.

Joe

 

I used to have an Nvidia card before I switched to ATI and I think back then it was alright... I don't know really, the problem has been there for long now. I'm really sorry for being so vague when you're trying to help

I tried uninstalling my drivers, used a registry cleaner and then reinstalled my drivers, the problem still persists.

 

I think it is a video driver issue. Try using video drivers from Dell's site and see if it helps.

 

Nevermind guys, apparently it's a Windows 7 bug/problem

YouTube - Windows 7 lag when closing windows

Thanks for the suggestions though

 

You are absolutely correct - a search reveals that lots of people have seen this "Aero lag" in various forms. Sounds like your is worse than most. I tried to make my m15x do it - while I get a very brief "hitch" at the beginning of closing and at the end of opening windows, I have to look to see it. Lots and lots of posts on the Windows 7 Forums Windows 7 forums - some people claim to have found fixes, but this seems very inconsistent to me. It will be interesting to see if it gets fully fixed before Windows 8. Sorry we couldn't provide you with a more definitive answer.

Joe

 

Yeah, I'm surprised that Microsoft hasn't done anything about it.

 

I'm having issues with the webcam on my nearly 3 year old m15x. Not showing up in my devices, and no chat program or Cyberlink recognises it. Tried fn + f9, nothing is happening. As I am nearing the end of my service period, and the last time I had to send something in to alienware required FIVE laptop returns before a fix was found, I will either fix this one myself, or just buy some cheap webcam until I inevitably replace the computer.

Does anyone have any idea why my webcam suddenly stopped working? One minute I was skyping with my girlfriend, then with my parents, and then the next minute it was showing up as diagonal lines, then as just the Cyberlink logo.

 

Hello, everyone, I'm new to this forum, so I apologise in advance for any noobism that might follow.
I've reinstalled Win7 on my laptop in feb this year. And since then I'm having a nightmare of a time with putting the machine to sleep or shutting it down or closing the lid. Shutting it down sometimes works as it should(only sometimes), but when I try to put it to sleep or close the lid - it freezes and the only thing that makes any impact is pressing and holding down the power button.
FX works fine btw.
Wonder if anyone has had any similar symptoms ?
Maybe someone can offer some advice on how to go about solving this ?
Any help will be appreciated.
(I've posted a version of this on the thread about the CC from the resource CD, but this thread seems more alive&more relevant).

 

Just to prevent people from losing time... I've spent a lot of time changing the power settings in CC and Windows alike. The settings apply perfectly well except they have no effect on the problem I described above.

 

My guess is that something with your Windows installation is wrong. Since you have this since the reinstallation of the OS I'd say reformat and try to clean install it again...

 

Thanks svl7 it worked a treat! Rebuilt the laptop yesterday, also flashed A09(had to type in Revelators command to flash EC) - sleep and hybernate functions only became available after I installed the driver for my ATI 5850. Guess this is where I'd messed up previously.

 

Hi guys.. Recently I've been facing problem with my M15X.. GPU's temperature is reaching up to 92 C recently while gaming.. Most of time Laptop goes Off and Restarts with a recovery point.. I'm using Nvidia 259 Firmware of Dell product itself.. But still I'm facing this problem.. And yes in the place I'm living currently is also as hot as 45 C.. So do you think this can damage or make the life of GPU less? Sorry for my English.. Thanks in Advance.

M15X/i7/460M 1.5GB/4GB/1080p/ BR ROM

 

45°C ambient temperature is seriously hot and results in higher temps. Is the CPU running that hot as well? Here some things that will probably help:

-Clean out the vents, make sure there's no dust in the system.

-Apply fresh thermal paste to the GPU (and if necessary the CPU as well)

-Lift your system under the screen a bit in case you're not doing this already, with a book or similar, this will really help. It improves the airflow and reduces temps.

-If you live in such a hot environment a cooler pad may be useful.

-and I also recommend using a new driver, for power efficiency and performance.

 

Cleaning dust from outside but not from inside yet..
Got no idea about CPU's temperature but can definitely say whole laptop is running very hot..
Still haven't applied Thermal Paste yet..Will work on it very soon..
Already using a Cooler Pad..
Thank You svl7..

M15X/i7/460M 1.5GB/4GB/1080p/ BR ROM

 

Here's a link to HWinfo32: HWiNFO & HWiNFO32 - Hardware Information and Analysis Tools - this program will give you an idea as to your temps. You could also use Throttlestop (by UncleWebb, here) - this program also can log temps, and can allow overclocking for mx processors. - you didn't indicate which i7 you have.

Joe

 

Thanks You Jdpurvis.. Works great.. btw i got i7 740Q

 

Hi Guys, My 15x Power seems to be stuck at 98% showing plugged in charging but its not going up? is it a bad battery or mobo or psu? what should i do?

 

I'm about to punch babies.

My Alienware M15X decided to have multiple issues pretty much like a big old domino effect after being flawless for 12ish months.

I am fairly.. hardware, etc challenged. I used to have someone take care of these things for me but now am on my own to do it.

So, problems started like this:

It started getting hot. Really hot. So I opened the panel to the fans and cleaned them, which cooled it down somewhat but then my battery just stopped charging. It';s sitting on zero % and if I knock the lead out, it just truns off. It litterally has no battery power. I have followed all the reccomendations for this problem on here, but am yet to find anything that works short of buying a new power lead from Dell, which is probably my next step. Then it would pull itself out of sleep randomly, or when I have my lid closed down on it, the screen would turn on by itself and of course, get kinda hot. I wouldn't leave it unattended in that state too long so I am pretty sure no damage from heat has been done. Now we come to today, where the controller panel has suddenly just quit working after having been perfectly fine, my computer has become laggy in it's response times, and my disc drive randomly makes noises although there is no disc in there. And now also have sudden unexplained dramas with software that has been functioning perfectly fine but seems to have started playing up when all this stuff started happening.

Obviously it's out of warrenty with Dell, and even so, I am hesitant to allow them to touch it, since this is a replacement one for the orginal month old one that the technician blew up. Does anyone have any ideas what would be causing all this stuff to happen? And is this a job for a technician?

Any help would be very very very very much appreciated.

MX15/i7-720QM/6 Gig/260 M


As a side note: I am looking to upgrade my graphics card but it's virtually impossible for me to find anyone in Australia stocking mobility cards. If anyone in AUs knows somewhere that stocks fairly current compatible cards or anyone that can point me in the direction of an international seller, would also be greatly appreciated.

 

• Heat: You cleaned the fans, did you also take out the GPU fan to see whether the copper fins are blocked by dust? (The GPU fan can be easily removed, it's a bit more complicated with the CPU fan).
  
  Anyway, it seems to be time to apply fresh thermal paste on the GPU and CPU. Here's a great guide from M15x guru Inap, it's not too hard. Can you post some logfiles of the GPU and CPU temps?
  
  
• What BIOS version does your system has? A lot of issues got solved by the more recent revisions. Also make sure your drivers are up to date.
  
  
• About the laggy system and not properly working software... may be caused by a virus or similar. It's also possible that a Windows update screwed up some things. I'd recommend reinstalling Windows completely as this should solve this problems. It's the fastest and easiest way. Also you will install all the latest driver during this process.
  
  
• Exchanging the GPU of the M16x is amazingly easy. You can call Dell and buy a ATI 5850 or Nvidia 460m. If you need/want more power check out the links in my signature, AMD 6970m and Nvidia GTX 470m are working as well in this system. You'll also find a exchangement guide as attachement in these threads.
  
  
  You can get cards online from ebay, eurocom parts site, rjtech.com and also the marketplace of this forum. I don't know of any Australian dealer, but an Australian Clevo reseller might have some cards as well (in case there is any).
  
  

 

Does the 940xm require more power than the 920xm? Just thinking about my future 920/940 & 6970 combo

 

No, it's simply a higher binned 920xm. This is the only difference, which leads to a higher standard multi (one more) and thus the 940xm usually can be pushed a bit harder in benchmarks (27x across all four cores should be possible, instead of the 26x for most 920xm)

 

Hey guys. I recently wiped out my hard drive and reinstalled vista. The GUI (on screen pop-up for volume, etc) wasn't coming up when I would use any of the touch buttons. So I downloaded the OSD from dell (as somebody else on this forum said to do). This didn't work. All it did was caused problems and made my keyboard stop working. So I deleted all of it and now the touch buttons aren't working at all anymore. Any suggestions?

 

I just had a issue where i was just watching a youtube video and uploading a couple pictures to Photobucket. a few seconds later my screen turned white and different shades in lines, and then it started flikering really fast and then the screen turned black.. everything was running fine but that. i restarted it and its working fine now, but now i have no sound... Ive never seen, or heard this issue. im also having fps spike issue where when i was playing Aion i went from 60fps to 30fps every couple seconds, it does this in all games. (no im not in stealth mode.)

Edit: I just plugged in my steel series usb headset and it made my sound work again. this laptop is acting really weird..

 

Is there any one has an electric shock problem near the left rubber feet?