Possible M15x issue that has me stumped.

This may or may not be the game so I am posting it here to get feedback from other Alienware owners to see which.

My friend has a M15x:

720qm
5850 Vbios OC I did 725/1100
6gb ram
320gb hd


Now he is getting random slowdowns in Diablo 3 that are massive. 2-5fps in battles @ 1024 resolution with everything turned off. 30 FPS out of battle.

When he first enters the game it's usually maxed out at 125 that he has it set to. After so long 5-30 minutes it takes a nose dive.

Temp do not go above above 75c for the GPU. GPU load usually doesn't go above 70%. I have datalogged using HWinfo and GPU-z.

Things we have tried:

Check DPC latency
Selective startup mode to insure nothing is interfering
Updated the drivers to 12.6
Set Core affinity
Throttle Stop
Windowed mode
Resetting the Pref file
Deleting the application profile
Restarting the game
Re-installing the game
more that I cannot remember


Now we can open most games and they run fine i.e. Skyrim plays on max detail and Crysis. My issue is with the hardware, do any other M15x owners have issues with Diablo 3 with the same hardware? It mat be a driver issue I don't know all I know is I am getting pretty angry not being able to track it down

 

Send us an email: AWsocialmedia at dell.com, I'll take care of your case

Just write my name, your NBR user and of course a good phone number to reach you

 

I've got the one step up CPU and 2 gigs less of ram. hard drive doesn't really matter. I'm running in 1600x900, I notice some minor slowdowns, nothing that extreme. It almost sounds like a memory leak not sure of what.

 

Not a memory leak. I am only using 1.5 gig's at most when Diablo 3 has been running for hours

 

Did you ever run ThrottleStop with the Log File option selected? You can not fix a problem if you don't have a clear record of what the problem is.

A massive drop in FPS is usually throttling related. Copy and paste a log file to Pastebin.com and I will be happy to have a look at the numbers for you. Power related throttling problems that have nothing to do with the CPU or GPU temperature are common.

Luis seems to know about this issue and is willing to take care of it for you so let him.

 

Have you done a total driver wipe using driver sweeper afterwards in safe mode before trying to install new drivers?

 

Yes before ugrading from 11.12 to 12.6 and then again from 12.6 to the 12.7 beta driver.

All with no luck.

I tried reinstalling and uninstalling without driver sweeper as well on 12.6 and 12.7

 

Hear anything? I'm having the exact same issue. My m15x (8gb, nvidia 260m, i7) crushes specs, but on everything with the lowest settings it gets unplayable.

One thing I noticed, when it gets real bad i can toggle stealth on and off and it improves for a few seconds. Dont know if this helps

 

why not just toggle stealth off and leave it off?

 

Dude its happening to me too. Like 30mins of playing any game really.. CSS, max Payne 3, Skyrim.

 

Hey man. I ran a game with ThrottleStop log file on. Didn't change anything on your program. It showed that the chipm dropped down to 25% before i exited the game from being tired of playing at 2fps.

So if I check mark cmod and chipm to 100%, will this not happen again?

Also... this is relatively new. Im running with just 1gb free on my hdd for the last week because i was having trouble switching to my new one. Could that be the cause?

My laptop has i3 @ 2.13ghz, radeon hd 6570m/5700 series, and 4gb ram on win7 64bit.

 

If the log file shows CHIPM at 25%, put a check mark in the Chipset Clock Mod box and make sure that is set to 100.0%. Your laptop is not using the other type of clock modulation so there is no need to check the first Clock Modulation box.

You can put a check mark in the Set Multiplier box and maximize the multiplier value and then click the Turn On button and that is about it. Minimize ThrottleStop to the System Tray while gaming.

This used to be a common problem. Are you using the latest bios and have you thoroughly cleaned out your laptop recently? I wouldn't recommend using ThrottleStop to force anything until the basics are taken care of and hard drives need some free space to work correctly.

 

Ok. Ill do that.

I am not using the current bios. Just found out that there was a new one anyway when I was looking into upgrading my cpu/gpu.

I cleared out Max Payne 3 from my lapop for the time being... freed up 30gb so that should be good.

 

You ought to upgrade your i3 soon if you intend to do serious gaming with it The M15x has good CPU cooling capabilities to the extent where it can handle the 920xm at over 3ghz on all 4 cores! That puts it in performance territory somewhere between the 2820qm and stock clocked 2920xm and therefore even the latest 3610qm processors.

 

Yeah im going to do that soon. Max Payne 3 is regularly killing my pc lol

 

Same here. Can't even play starcraft 2 on any graphic setting. I get literally 1 fps. Even on LOW.

 

Have you downloaded throttlestop and ticked both clock modulation and chipset clock modulation boxes and then set both options to 100%? If you have then update to latest A09 bios.

What are your specs? If you have an i3 like gta above then it will suffer on a modern game anyway although not quite 1fps!

 

I can get Skyrim to play real good on high settings. and I have a 6570M/5700 series. Max Payne has been killing it recently though, even though all on normal/low.

I just get into trouble because my cpu drops to just 25% for some reason, although i bypassed that with throttlestop.

Then of course Saints Row 3 slows to like 10fps from 25 for some reason if you play for like 20mins. Even with throttlestop,

 

have you checked your temps as well for the gpu and cpu you could be overheating

 

Max they hit is like 90.

 

90 on an i3, and the same on your gpu.... i would advise you to do a deep cleaning and a repaste of the the gpu and cpu.

 

Ok ill try that.

edit: lifted the back of my laptop for the time being to ease the temps. Working pretty well too. Only hit 80 on skyrim.

 

Cleaned out the fans. I tried to lift out the heatsinks, but those things were stuck tight. Didn't want to force it so i left that as is.

Working pretty nice I figure. Like 2k rpm on idle for the fans, hasn't reached 80+ much while gaming.