M15x Problem/Technical Question thread

check this out:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/463382-stealth-mode-indicator-9.html

 

Add it to your startup so it turns stealth mode off when you boot, problem permanently solved .

I got the idea from someone else here, I can't remember who though.

edit: Sometimes when I play a game it'll seem to lag for a little while, then go back to normal. It's starting to occur more often and for longer, I thought overclocking when gaming got rid of it but it just happened again . Even at menus the mouse will seem to be jumpy and laggy. I'm currently trying to play MW2 (max settings I think), however it's stopping me from playing because it can start to lag.

 

Double tap the stealth mode button. I dunno why but sometimes on start up the link width changes from X16 to X1 and it slows the crap outta everything, but it fixes it self after you double tap stealth mode.

 

So turn it on and off? I'll try it tomorrow when I go on MW2 again, thanks.

 

gotta love the subtle self promo there Wattos.

 

My BT 370 (Rev A00) card is also defective. Tried two different Dell BT Travel mice and syncing my Blackberry and sporadic performance if it managed to sync at all. Updated firmware, used newest broadcom OEM drivers, the works, and barely functioning.

Swapped in a 410 BT+UWB card to test (rev x04), and work like butter of course. Swapped in a rev x03 to test and it worked fine too. Of course the UWB portion is useless (for what it's worth) without a proper Win7 driver....

So defective ethernet controller chip and bum 370 card, nice....

 

Aww that sucks. Call up dell and have em send up replacement parts. I haven't tried out my bluetooth after 3 months of owning this thing, so I better get to it.

 

What does this mean exactly? I've been thinking of getting the M15x with the 740QM and the GTX280M but that sounds kinda bad. I've been very concerned about the apparently low speed of the various quad cores but lots of people I know have, pretty much based on heresay alone and "oh it's an i7" told me that a quad will beat a high end dual (eg. i5 540m which is another option).

Above all I want to play sc2 smoothly smoothly so any advice would be appreciated greatly.

 

What this means is that there is currently an issue with Dell alienware M15x's with any i7 and the gtx 260m. What happens is, when a sytem with both these components is put under stress (meaning both the CPU and gpu are under full load, most apparent during benchmarks but also during some games) there is a bug that causes the system to lower the clock speeds of your gtx 260m and your i7 clock speeds, as it should do only when your system is overheating or something, making gameplay choppy and unplayable. This isn't becuz your system can't handle the game, but is just because there is some conflict that causes this, and possibly becuz of the power req. Of the gtx260m and i7. Dell is working on a fix ( a year later) but there's no telling when if and when that'll come out. Save yourself the trouble and get yourself the ati 5850 which outperforms the nvidia BY ALOT, is cheaper, and most of all, doesn't make the system throttle. STAY AWAY FROM THE 260m!!!

As for quad cores... Well you see your i7 isn't your typical quad. Most quads have one clock speed that runs along all it's 4 cores which are often lower than the clock speeds of dual core sytem. So becuz most apps use only 1 or 2 cores nowadays, and VERY FEW use all 4 cores, most often than not a dualcore would be faster (assume a 2.6ghz dual core vs a 2.0 quad core). The quad would only come up on top if the application uses ALL 4 cores (again vey rare) which would mean its processing data at 4x2ghz= 8ghz, which is more than 2x2.6ghz=5.2ghz.

Now where the i7 is different, is that it's a "smart" quad core... Assume we are talking about the i7920xm ...when an app only uses 1 core, it'll raise it's clock speeds to 3.2ghz. When an app uses 2cores it'll run at 2.8ghz, 3 cores at 2.4ghz, and when all 4 are running at 2ghz each. ( correct me if I'm wrong about th exact ghz at each core, haven't looks at the spec sheet in a while). So basically the i7 runs at the highest clock speed possible depending how many cores the app you are running uses, making it much more versatile and caters to many diverse situations. It takes the benefits of a dual core + a quad and combines gem into one mean machine. On top of all that, it has hyperthreading technology which runs 2 threads on each core, making it as if it has 8 cores ( when you go in task manager you will see 8 screens).

So there you have it. I would recommend anyone to buy an i7, as they are extremely fast, and more future proof than i5s, since i5s are dual cores. As more programs and applications in the years to come will make better use of all 4 cores instead of only 2, the i7s will be faster in the log run.

Basically, you cant go wrong on an i740qm coupled with an Ati 5850. It'll more than RIPPP through any game you throw at it. You'll be able to run sc2 at MAX MAX EVERYTHING, and gameplay will still run as smooth as butter.

Hope this helped

 

Thanks, that's an interesting read.

That said, I'd pretty much sold myself on the nVidia 260m because SC2 has had a lot of issues reported with ATI cards and in general inferior nVidia cards just seem to be ripping superior ATI cards apart when it comes to SC2 in any case. Would the i5 then be better with the 260m?

With regards to the i7 740QM vs the i5 540M as far as I understand from a little research yesterday:

540M (2.53ghz):

1 'active' core - 3.066ghz max turbo
2 'active' cores - 2.799ghz max turbo

740QM (1.73ghz):

1 'active' core - 2.93ghz max turbo
2 'active' cores - 2.53ghz max turbo
3 or 4 'active' cores - 1.86ghz max turbo

I understand that they both will intelligently try and keep their speeds as high as possible, so that it won't drop my core speeds all to 1.86ghz for the sake of running msn messenger on a separate core or something, when I'm running SC2 which I believe supports 2 cores (threads? I don't quite understand this bit yet, still working my way through all this technical mess)?

It just seems to me like the quad core will only really outperform the dual core if I'm actually using all four cores, and even then only with an application that supports four cores?

 

If you're determined to get a 260M and love SC2, I'd recommend a i7-620M dual core. SC2 has been shown to be dual core optimized.

You get to stick with Nvidia with no throttling and you get a processor that will outperform everything but the 920xm/940xm for dual core gaming.

 

Yes you are correct, nvidia cards handle SC2 very well because of PhsyX, which transfers some of the physics calculations (usually done by your cpu) to the gpu and ATI does not have Physx. And as sc2 uses ALOT of physics, PhsyX helps the game run smoother, so yes again, even slightly older Nvidia cards (in general) play SC2 very well.

However, i once downclocked my 5870m to 5850 speeds, and it again, ripped through the game, playing it at much higher FPS than other members reported with the GTX 260m even though it has PhsyX. And i'm talking about a good 15-20fps higher than the 260m on MAX settings, if not more.

The 5850m, will just outperfom the gtx 260m in ANY game in ANY scenario, hands down, no questions asked, no matter what. I should know, i owned both, and experienced them first hand, in real-time gaming.

Plus its GDDR5, vs the gtx 260m being the much slower GDDR3.
Plus its DX11 compatible, the 260m is DX10.
And there are soo many more pluses on why to choose the 5850m over the 260m (not counting that the 260m throttles and will give you a bunch of headaches.)

The ONLY time the GTX 260m will come up on top, is if you are a heavy user of a program that depends on heavy physics calculations or something that makes use of CUDA and PhysX, like AutoCAD or something like that.

In any gaming situation, the 5850m, will always dominate the GTX 260m. and we are talking about at stock clocks. starting overclocing your 5850 and it'll unlock the beast within, completely demolishing the latest games, whereas my gtx 260m, even overclocked, coucldn't give me the same FPS as the stock 5850m during gameplay (ok maybe sometimes just barely matching it.)

I cannot stress this enough, if you are only gaming, get the 5850m. Everyone on this site who has owned both like myself, will tell you the same.

As for the i5 vs i7.

yes for gaming, the i5 will be better.

For everythings else, like encoding, compressing, converting, multitasking etc... the i7's will come up on top.

That being said, you won't really notice a diffrent between the i7 and i5 during gaming, only benchmarks will give you slightly higher scores maybe, but thats about it. Once over the recommened processor requirements for a game, the rest of the performance relies heavily on the gpu, not the cpu.

Also, throttling is only reported with the 260m on the i7 720/740qm, i7 820/840qm, and the i7 920/940xm ... The i7 620qm (a MEAN Dual core) is reported to not throttle with the gtx 260m. And while i'm not 100% sure about the i5's and i3's, if im not mistaken i believe they do not throttle with the 260m either. but again, i cannot stress enough, Just get the 5850m if you are only intrested in gaming. There has not been one instance with the 260m beating the 5850m in gaming. And let me just say this. I play sc2 with my 5870m at stock clocks ( which the 5850m can match VERY EASILY by flashing or AMD GPU CLOCK TOOLS), everythign maxed,1080p, at 45-60fps, dipping down only to like 30fps when things get crazy.

Its up to you to take or leave my advice, but i'd say i7 740qm all the way. You won't notice much, if any performance increase with the 540m while gaming over the 740 in real life situations. ANDDD, your future-proofing your system for a time when ALL applications will use multi-cores effectively and efficiently.

But if your set on a dual-core, get the i7 620, the MEANEST dual-core of them all, that will probably show the greatest difrence while gaming ( maybe a couple fps more? if that?)

 

One of the main reasons for my desire to go for the GTX 260 is is the ESL Pro Series deal/promotion. The M15x in this promotion comes with the 260m and that's that, no option to get the other cards. And this is just ridiculously much cheaper than getting the same specifications normally through the dell/alienware shop. And unfortunately cost really is rather critical for me right now.

I'm on a tightish budget unfortunately. The difference between the i5 540M and the i7 740QM isn't large (£20) but the i7 620M is significantly more (£130) so that is unfortunately pretty much out. The significantly lower speed of the quad core when it's using 3+ cores is the thing that's really scaring me and pushing me towards the dual core (which also is a little faster on 1 or 2 cores anyway) as well as my other favourite games, the X3 series, Reunion and Terran conflict which are both single core games and are incredibly CPU hungry, usually just maxing out one core of their very own.

I suppose at the moment I'm just procrastinating and worrying that I'll be buying something that will end up as a horrible waste of money. Maybe I've over-researched this all too much and driven myself a tiny bit crazy

Edit: Thank you both so much btw for helping me.

 

Still got a bit a palmrest creaking no matter what I try to fix it. Is there supposed to be creaking on most peoples systems or did I just get a system with a crappy palm rest?

 

Is using oced 260m gtx at 650/1650/1100 running at 80ishC with cooler okay for gaming?? clocks seems to be stable

 

85 is like the max you should go for temperature so you're sort of pushing it

my 5870 runs at 60-65c when gaming without a cooling pad

 

Wow 65 max for.5870 is awesome, I never got those kinds of temps, my best is 75 max.

 

Yeah well I'm using stock thermal paste. I ve only seen it go as high as 82'c so im not too worried. So you think as long as I don't exceed 85'c I will be ok?

 

Mine used to creek then i just got my palmrest replaced cuz i lost the litle rubber foot like a couple days ago.. now this one doesn't creek but the trackpad color dont match the rest....theyre all off so theyre sending me another one. Try reseating your palm rest and maybe tightening the two "p" screws...not too too much though, cuz everythings plastic.

All you got to do is remoove the bottom plate and unsrew the two p screws on either side of the HDD, then slide the palmrest forward. Probably wont solve anything but i don't know i guess its wortha try since its a 2sec procedure...

PLaying what games? mine starts around that and creeps up to about 68....afer hours of gaming goes to 70ish...Actually i dont even remeber i havent gamed in forever LOL... ima fire up a game right now actually c yaa

 

those temps are fine for a gpu... but the cooler anything runs, the better... as although the gpu is made to handle temps over 100*C.... other components within your laptop aren't. This is especially imprtant in laptops since everything is crammed together...

first thing most effected... your battery... batteries start to degrade after temps of 45*C....kinds sucks but its true.... so if your gpu is 85ish... your battery im pretty sure is well over 45*c....

Then theres the HDD which western digital rates at around 55-60*C if im not mistaken....

ANd then theres a bunch of other components that just dont like high temps...

that being said... im pretty sure nothign will fry at those temps... but keep in mind that components within your laptop wll be running over their temp threshold.

I'd try honestly buying sum aftermarket thermal paste like ocz freeze, shin-etsu, mx-3, icy diamond etc... ( my fave being ocz freeze).

Theyre really cheap and work wonders..

What are your ambient temps cuz those temps seem a little high... also, are your running it OC'd?

 

Yeah, the screw thing worked at first and then it started again...

 

WOOT SCII hovers around 62-63 actually better than i thought

 

The previous owner (Themarkness) was one of the first ones to do the 5870 swap from what I understand, and he did an excellent job with the cooling pads and paste in the M15x.

I'm really happy I got one that was really well taken care of. The 65c was from playing SC2 for over an hour in a very heavy environment (hundreds of units all the time, gg tower defense lol)

I played wow for a full ICC raid and my temp stayed around 60c, but it's never using full GPU load for that game

 

guys..can any1 explain how my warranty works??

I don't know which package i am..i bought this laptop at retail dell shop..I dont have any email about my warranty..i already do retail registration and dell replied my details had been submitted..and what is POW, NBD and 24/7 phone support?? Is it all under my warranty support..

 

Is this an AlienFX bug? Sometimes, instead of showing a red alienhead or touchsensitive bars, it shows a pink/purplish one. When I got to alienFX and change it to a random color and back, it fixes itself.

Also, sometimes some areas in alienFX won't light up for a period of time.

Are these just software glitches?

 

I've had that happen. It got to be too often, so i just changed all the lights to Pink

On a different note, has anyone else noticed that the Intel 5300 WiFi card seems unstable? I have 12mb/s internet (so around 1.5MB/s download speed), and with the 5300, it will go up to the max speed, drop to like 100KB/s, then jump up. Often, it disables my wireless router's wireless connection entirely. When I use a USB network adapter (only G+) or an ethernet cable, it works perfectly, with stable speeds.

 

Are you on the latest drivers?

Maybe you got a faulty card? Mine never does that...

 

You guys are starting to sell me on the 5850 (I'm sorry if I sound reluctant to accept your almost certainly expert advice, but I'm just reluctant to spend the money period) are all the dell 5850s the GDDR5 version? It seems like from a little reading around on the subject that with the GDDR5 this card is far superior, is that right?

Having a read around the Starcraft 2 Technical Support forums (well the American forums tech forums actually because they are actually staffed, the Europe tech forums get one blizzard staff member during his lunch break every Wednesday, if he can be bothered) it seems like while there does appear to be problems in general with SC2 and ATI cards, especially some issue with Alt+Tabbing there are also a load of issues with various nVidia cards too. From my experience with a few other games I kinda feel almost inclined to pass most of these issues off as just driver related and stuff. These days most modern games seem really tetchy about drivers and all that stuff.

My bias towards the nVidia card is kinda stemming from this perception that SC2 just works better with nVidia cards in general (plus the apparent problems with ATI cards in general) coupled with a bit of personal experience. My desktop is an Alienware one (though not one of the current gen ones, this is nearly 2 years old now) and it has a nVidia 9800GT in it which runs SC2 fine on Ultra ~30-40fps (I play on High though usually because even on my 22" at 1680*1050 I can't really tell the difference between ultra and high and I gain quite a big chunk of FPS by going down to high, and on ultra things get choppy in large endgame battles and team games). It seems like the GTX 260m is pretty similar to the 9800GT, I think?

But if the 5850 is just flat out better, well, it's hard to argue with that.

Sorry to keep on about this;I just feel very hesitant to make the step and spend you know? I'm not on the largest budget and I can't really be spending ages returning it and getting a new one and haggling with tech support or whatever if I make the wrong choice because well, going weeks without a computer is pretty damn nightmarish. As a university student if I'm having a night in (often unfortunately after the first month where I blow all my money, drinking is expensive ) the laptop is my entertainment - dvd player, tv, games machine etc. Since I'll pretty much have to sell my old junktop to finance this it means that I really feel like I have to make the right decision first time around. This combined with the large cost (though I'm so glad I found this forum and discovered that people have experienced getting unadvertised discounts over the phone) means I'm incredibly hesitant to commit until I'm sure.

 

Hey, yes the ATI is just a lot better (performance wise). If you need CUDA, then go for the nvidia, otherwise for all gaming ATI blows the nvidia out of the water.

Additionally, the 5850 is cheaper than the 260m and the ATI runs SC fine. I completed the campaign on Ultra (at 1920x1080) without any hiccup issues.

 

This is true. There really is no comparison. Not to say the 260M doesn't provide a great gaming experience, but the 5850 is just better. If you're an Nvidia fan, you won't be disappointed in the 260M, but if you truly want the best performance and DX11 compatibility, the 5850 rocks.

 

i'm one of those who swapped the 260m for a 5870m (clevo) after unsuccessfully trying to convince dell to swap me a 5850.

if your game of choice is SC2 you won't notice a difference, both cards handle that game very well. the biggest difference (apart from higher fps in general) is running games at high resolution and getting input lag. for example, running just cause 2 at max settings (nvidia specific bokeh+gpu water disabled), would cause the 260m to have noticable delay in mouse aim and movement. the 5870/5850 has no such delay because of the gddr5 faster clocks. it happens in other games too, usually with FSAA enabled.

oh and i've noticed much less of a performance hit when enabling FSAA on ATI.

 

Hi, so after I am unable to watch .mkv file anymore (video and audio isnt going together), I decide to do fresh install of windows 7. After updating everything, I install cpu-z to see if my processor works properly. I have an i5-540M, and the cpu-z list my core speed at 1.1k-1.5k MHz under the clock section. Is that normal for the cpu? shouldnt it run at stock clock of 2.5 GHz?

 

is it showing those speeds while trying to play the video?
if so you may have stealth enabled.

try toggling stealth on/off
ensure high performance mode is enabled.
try using throttlestop to force clocks.

 

yes, it is the stealth mode that causes it. I have always turned it off, so never though it is the problem.... Thanks

 

All the dell 5850's are the GDDR5 version? Acording to notebookcheck at least the GDDR5 one is significantly better than the GDDR3 version. Insert out of context quotation:

Thanks again

 

Why can't I install .NET Framework 3.5? When I double-click the installer nothing happens.

 

Just done the system diagnostic test and received a couple of errors on my brand new m15x:

OS checks: passed
Disk checks: passed
System center tests: passed
System service checks: failed
Hardware Device and driver checks: failed

Error 1 which I guess is related to system service checks:
"A service is reported as having an unexpected error code"
Service Name: Sysmain
Path: C\windows\system32\svchost.exe -k LocalSystemNetworkRestricted
started:false
state:stopped

Error 2 is due to "FastAccessVideoCapture" being disabled. Something to do with the webcam?

I'm guessing these aren't really major issues and when I sort out the network and start using the webcam it will get sorted pretty much by itself?

But just to be sure - doesn't hurt to put this info out there. Thanks for the help!

 

FastAccess is your AlienSense app. If you have AlienSense set to disabled this might be the reason for the failure.

 

Ahh thanks for the info! Sorted it!

 

http://i34.tinypic.com/2vaf8rt.png

How do I fix this?

 

Using nvidia 260gtx....somehow my m15x keeps crashing randomly whenever I'm browsing...

I had this problem around two months ago and downloaded nvidia 258.96 beta. Problem went away until last week. My laptop would crash randomly whenever I'm using Google Chrome.

And I never encountered errors whenever I'm gaming..I suppose that could be a good thing...

What graphic drivers do people use for nvida 260gtx?

 

AlienFX is buggy as hell. It just scared the crap outta me when I kept on trying to get red but only blue came out... Fixed it by changing it to orange, then to white, then to blue, the to another random color and back to red. Whew.

 

Hey everyone,
So whenever i start up my M15x only the 3 right keyboard lights come on. Typically if I set it to a very basic alienfx theme (one solid color) its usually fine, but who likes to stick with one color? I've tried the battery trick but it didn't seem to do anything. Should I just reinstall command center or does anyone have a proven fix for this? Sure its not a huge deal but I need everything running at 100%, especially my Alien aesthetics .. Thanks.

 

Nothing you can really do about. It's just a glitch it has when you have a morphing theme. I would even say that's normal.

 

Whenever I'm playing MW2 my framerate will just DROP to like 8 - 15, and stay there for a few minutes, then it might fix itself. Happens every hour or so, I didn't think my setup would throttle.

How can I fix this?

 

can you check the temps while this is happening?

also, is it a low frame rate or like a stutter?
reason i ask is because punkbuster is infamous in my books.

 

It's definitely low FPS, I'll have a session now and check my temps. What software should I use? Someone told me but I forgot lol.

 

Looking to get the AW m15x with GTX 260m
does it have any Stutter issue ?
or anyone can suggest which graphic card has less Issues

do we need to MOD Nvidia drivers also before installaing(Ati is a pain to install)

Whats the Best BIOS i should get with it
so it runs smothly


Please

 

the 260m issue seems to be resolved for now, but the ati 5850 is still the better card from gaming.

if you are still going to choose the 260m then you will have to use the A08 bios. and you don't have to use any modded drivers.

 

Thanks
all im worried about is the Stuttering when i play games
or watch online Movies

I have m17 it sucks lol