XPS M1730 unknown Issues

Hi Guys

I have owned this Dell XPS M1730 for 2 years now without a hitch

M1730
Twin 9800M GT cards
8 Gig ram
Intel 2.8 chip

Originally I bought this machine from NDC in the UK as a refurbished model and all ive done is put the 8 gig of Dell ram in it.

Anyway I recently got BF3 and eaglery installed it over xmas. It played ok albeit with lower settings but it played ok and I enjoyed it. I came back here to Switzerland (where I work) and now it wont play even with all settings on low. CPU wacks to 100% and I get mega lag, stuttering. Initially this change of location sent me down the path of network router issues as you can imagine. BUT I am on 100 meg fibre here and after much testing, pinging and prodding my line is ok. Heck I dowloaded Bf3 in 25 mins!!! Wish I could do that on my uk BT line ROFL

So now im thinking that perhaps something hardware has bought it between xmas and my trip back here and or is still working but not as it was before. The laptop works fine as a laptop for surfing etc and I played RUSE last night but had to turn some of the options down to prevent stuttering but it did play.

So any ideas please? What can I check? How can I check it and with what tools. Should I strip it and clean it or Overclock it and if so how?

Your help will be greatly appreciated as being in Switzlernad in the week on my own im a bit of a gaming addict LOL

PS
I am considering changing now to an Alienware M18, would you recommend that?

PPS
I also noticed that the latest Nvidia drivers have physx in them and this is now assinge dto one of my GPUs? Does that make my dedicated physx card now redundant? Do I disable it?

 

It could be some program using up all your CPU power. When it's performing poorly, open up the task manager and see what's using up all your processing power.

I'm sure re-installing Windows would fix the issue. Is it running Vista or 7? If you're still on Vista, I suggest upgrading to Windows 7, it's a lot better than Vista.

As for upgrading to an M18x, that depends on how much you game and which games you play. The Nvidia 9800M GT SLI is stil pretty sweet. It scores 14000 in 3DMark06.


http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-9800M-GT-SLI.11356.0.html

 

That's it right there then. I just ran 3D Mark and scored only 6000 with latest drivers and 5700 with old 190 drivers! Cards must be fried then. I just ordered a pair of 9800GTX from Ebay and will install those this weekend.

Mark

PS
I game a LOT and play

EVE
Battle Field
COD
RUSE

Will get Skyrim

 

Actually looking again at those benchmarks

NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GT SLI - Notebookcheck.net Tech

I used vantage so my score is comparable although a bit lower. I will run a 3D mark 06 tonight and see what that comes out with. Still moot point now as I have bought hr new GTXs LOL

Mark

 

lol, but if they were fried they'd artifact, not just run slow. Does the seller you purchased from have a return policy? I think a clean install of Windows 7 would make this laptop a good bit faster

 

Hiya

This is my 3d mark 06 score

3DMark Score11185 3DMarks
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SM2.0 Score4832
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HDR/SM3.0 Score5736
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CPU Score2394
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GT1 - Return To Proxycon38.0 FPS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GT2 - Firefly Forest42.53 FPS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CPU1 - Red Valley0.76 FPS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CPU2 - Red Valley1.21 FPS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HDR1 - Canyon Flight67.99 FPS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HDR2 - Deep Freeze46.73 FPS

is that any good? It tells me my score is lower than expected for this type of confg?

This is my vantage score.

3DMark Score6099 3DMarks
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Graphics Score7298
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CPU Score4086
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jane Nash20.22 FPS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Calico22.58 FPS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AI Test578 operations/s
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Physics Test5 operations/s

I already did a clean install of win 7 and latest Nvidia drivers. Yeh I can send the 9800 GTX back if I want. I also stripped the laptop and gave it a damned good clean out and cleaned all the fan blades etc.

Mark.

 

A score of 11000 doesnt sound like a fried card. One thing to check, i take it you've made sure your still running in sli?

 

Yep checked that. One thing On the new drivers the Physx now is handled by one of my cards but I have a physx card in this machine? Does that not degrade my cards performance somewhat?

Can you have a degraded card or CPU somehow? Not totally borked but on the way out? I am at a loss because I keep going back to that it did play Bf3 and now it does not at all even with all on low. I am normally pretty good at wading through issues but this one has got me stumped.

What about HDD degradation somehow? I shall run memtest tonight just to check my ram is ok.


Mark.

 

Can you not manually configure if a card is dedicated to phsyx? As with a dedicated physx card your not essentially using sli rendering on both cards. I think what you have is 1 way sli with a dedicated physx card but what i think would help is to have 2 way sli rendering and physx acceleration on both cards. For example with 1 graphic rendering and 1 dedicated physx card on the go no 1 will be working the hardest but the physx card will only work when physx acceleration is nessceary so you really have one card on standby not doing very much.

But with 2 way sli rendering and physx shared acceleration i think you'll share the rendering load more effectively in graphicly demanding games like bf3. Producing more fps.

I dont know much about sli but thats my understanding of it anyway. There is also a program that can defragment individual folders, so it might be worth trying that for the bf3 folder. Sorry cant remember what its called.

This basiclly helps explain my point http://www.slizone.com/object/sli_physx.html

 

I agree with you but the thing is the new nvidia control panel allows me to assign the Physx to one GPU or the other or to CPU but NOT to my dedicated physx card! I find this odd. The old drivers and im talking back to 197s here allow me to assign to my physx card. You cant play BF3 with drivers that old though as it tells yopu to update them.

 

So do you have 3 gpu's? as in two 9800's sli and a different physx dedidcated gpu? as if you do i belive you would need 3 way sli for the nvidia control panel to pick it up but if your old drivers allowed you to pick your physx dedicated gpu then im stumped. Does your physx dedicated need seperate drivers? if yes try updating them.

I would also try dedicating physx to the cpu and see what the performance is like. You could also try leaving it on auto select and see.

 

Yes 3 GPUs with one being the physx card. I have always had to install the physx software first before the nvidia drivers or it gets confused. In my hardware I can see at the top of the list the physx card as seperate to the graphics processors. This is the last physx release I believe.

NVIDIA DRIVERS 9.11.1107

Although this one does not say 9800m only 9800

This is the one I am using at the moment

NVIDIA DRIVERS 8.09.04 WHQL

As it suggested (AGEIA PhysX processors users should use and install older PhysX system software such as ) so I took that to mean dedicated card?

I think the new drivers from Nvidia are bypassing now the physx card and just assigning to the GPU direct or CPU.

I tried selecting CPU but then it wacks to 100% and is even worse than if I select GPU1 for physx.

I should add that if I dont install this physx driver I can then see the device as unknown in hardware. Oddly I DO get a better 3d 06 score with the latest drivers than with the 197s LOL

I am very confused with this machine LOL. I will run memtest tonight and try the 197s again with 3d 06 and see. Ill also run some tests with CPU selected for physx on the 290s and see what that score is like. Be intersting to see what the 9800GTXs come out at when I install them this weekend!

As an aside do you know what software I should use to clock the cores? I want to try a software overclock now I have new cards coming

 

That is a confusing setup lol. I hope the new cards work better otherwise its going to get even more confusing in trying to find out whats wrong!

For overclocking i use MSI Afterburner as do many others, probably the most popular one.

 

Memtest reported no errors. I did a sofware overclock last night and at 630/800/1525 I got an even worse score of 9000 in 3d06 LOL. Temps rose to 95 and then dropped to 90 ish at that level. Dropped clocks to 600 and got a comparable score.

Will be intersting to see what happens when I drop the new cards in on Saturday

 

Yes strange you got a lower score with a overclock. If new cards doesnt solve it, i think you'll need to have another play around with drivers and keep going back untill your configuration works best as it did.

 

So last night I updated the Bios to version 11 and then downloaded and installed Skyrim off of steam and promptly played it with settings on high with anti ali off and the other anti off also. Game looked good, temps were around 70 all the time with no lag, clocks at 630 again and cpu at 3.4.

I am beginning to think I have been going down a blind alley here and am back to weird network issues for the original BF3 issue in Switzerland.

This weekend will be the real test as I am back in the UK so I will test BF3 again on my UK network before installing the new cards. Also going to paste up the CPU and new cards before putting them in too. By the way how do you bake a card and what does that do exactly? Also has my machine got the best CPU in it? Dual core X7900 2.8 with bios overclock to 3.4?

 

I think the best cpus are the x9000 series, i saw someone with a 4ghz overclock! Look here for some info http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...31-question-about-x9000-es-cpu-xps-m1730.html

Also havent heard of baking a card before, not sure why'd you want to do that.

 

Hmm im sure mine says x7900 I will check. I read about baking here

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/475415-baked-my-fried-area-51-m17x-9800m-gt.html

Mark

 

By the looks of it their only baking to try and reflow a already fried card, so you dont need to do it. I did a similiar process on my ps3, i used a heat gun to reflow the cpu and rsx gpu chip with flux. It basiclly remelts the solder giving a better connection and fixes any cracks on the solder joint that were caused by overheating. I also repasted them onto the heat sink with arctic silver 5. Its working fine now, btw it had the ylod.

 

Well there you go. NETWORK! I just got in and tried BF3 from Peteborough on my crappy 6 meg line and it works fine, albeit at lower res with medium settings etc but it works fine. This means that I must have some weird network issue on my 100 meg line in Bern but what though? Ports, the line itself? The router or router firewall?

Any ideas?

 

Dam lol, 6mb is faster than 100mb then LOL. But anyway it could be any of those things you said. I take it you did a speedtest?

 

Yes Damn indeed. I have spent hours going down a blind alley here and also bought new cards for £400 too to boot! Big DOhhhh. I just refused to believe that my 100 meg line which works perfectly could be just affecting one game, even now I find that odd. Yes I did speed test which you can see here

Speedtest.net - LordofDeth

As LordofDeth

Ping tests are good and coming out in the A range. Once I had done those two I thought ok network is fine and went down the hardware route! I have a Thomson cable router in Bern and I have heard bad reports about them, trouble is not many people make cable routers as all the routers now are either lan cable or adsl. I will see if I can find one on ebay. Could cablecom somehow be blocking the ports used by BF3. It is not my machine or my AVG firewall otherwise it would not work in the UK. So either Thomson router or line itself somehow.



Mark.

 

Mark, Have a look in the bf3 manual and see what ports it says to unblock and try and unblock them manually via your router. Most online games usually state what ports they use in case of network trouble.

Other than that i dont know what to suggest except try a different network cable to connect your laptop to your router and if all else fails maybe a different router. Dont see why cablecom would block bf3 ports but its prob worth trying what i suggested above.

 

Just dropped the new carsd in and also repasted the CPU. 3D 06 at 11600 now, much better. Not clocked either. Talking of clocking I have some questions?

1. How do you know when you have reached the optimal level?
2. Do you clock and then run 3d 06 and monitor temsp or some other program like a burn in test with furmark? Agin what are you lookign for here?


Mark

 

1. As long as you dont get any random ctd's, bsod's or artifacts (game freezes unusual screen tear) then you should have a stable clock, just keep going untill you experience any of these and then bring it down by 10hz. But monitor temps!

2. Yeah clock first then run 3d 06 and see what increase you get, find a stable overclock first though ^^

 

These cards are MUCH better! Fixed BF3 by opening up all the ports in the router! Simple as that. It now plays and much better than before with the new cards with some settings now on high. My CPU is using less now it seems and is also much cooler after repasting.

Talking of clocking I have noticed two of the sliders are linked but the memory clock is not? It is set at 799 standard, what should I increase that one too when clocking the other two?

I tried 550 last night and it was stable with memory clock at 810.

Mark.

 

Thats good to hear. Try increasing the memory clock untill you get any ctd's etc then bring it down a bit. Thats what i do to all 3 sliders

 

I tried 630 / 1575 / 850 and it gave me an awesome 3d06 of 12000 but then the screen pixelated, is that called artifacts?

If I move the two linked sliders to say 600 how much should I increase the memory clock from its standard setting of 799 then? Do they not have to step together?

 

Yes the pixelated screen is from the overclock. I dont believe they do have to step together but use your judgement and increase it say 10 or 20 at a time in relation to how much you move the other two.