Alienware Aurora Intel Core i7 920, 9GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB

Question

Hello, I wish to detail my experiences and welcome/request any feedback/help with my problems. I have had my AlienWare Aurora system for over 6 months now.  I had a less than ideal experience when I first received it and have lived with the solution presented to me by Dell Support since.  I got my system and was immediately overwhelmed with the initial quality and performance of it.  I can see why 'most' people purchasing similar systems rave and love their systems.  My system was not 100%.  My original configuration: Intel Core i7 920, 9GB DDR PC1066 Triple Channel RAM, 2x500GB 7200RPM HD (Raid 0), Windows 7 Home Premium 64, 2xATI Radeon HD 5770 CrossFire, 875W PSU. Note: I have never nor plan to ever overclock any component of my Aurora. I often experienced significant artifacting and corruption of my display both in Windows under low system/graphics load, while playing videos of any type and resolution/codec using any media player (WMP, VLC, Winamp, Quicktime) under medium load, and then in games like World of Warcraft, Dragon Age: Origins, and Civilization IV under high load, not to mention visible 100% of the time in the ATI Catalyst Control Center application in preview mode.  Oddly the system never actually crashed (BSOD, GSOD, hard lock) when playing games or surfing the internet, etc.  I called Dell's technical support and after a month of wrangling received an upgrade of 2xATI Radeon HD 5870 video cards because apparently the 5770s were having problems.  I was pleased at this unexpected upgrade in potential power, etc. though I made it clear I would gladly have taken cards of similar value if it would solve the problem.  The new cards did not solve the problem entirely, though it was improved.  I have lived with the problem since as it stands. The strangest thing is when the issues are NOT or MOST visible.  If I have had my computer off (completely shut down) for the night and boot it up I will often get moderate graphics corruption once it has fully booted into windows (never, ever in the BIOS or loading windows).  This corruption will often disappear from the desktop once the system has been running for a while or effectively if I reboot it after a half hour or so.  I always let it fully load the OS and perform startup checks/updates before using the system (5m or so).  I will continue to get artifacts when playing videos as detailed above.  However, if I launch a utility like FurMark or a graphics intensive game and then simultaneously play a video and corruption during playback disappears entirely without fail.  In other words, the problems completely disappear when the card is maxed out using a benchmarking utility like FurMark (the temperature never exceeds 85F, well within norms) and I have left it at that load for hours without fail) I usually do not get corruption in games like World of Warcraft when the system is 'warmed-up' but ?newer? games like Dragon Age: Origins are badly corrupted and I cannot find a work-around.  All the while I have never received a BSOD or hard lock related to playing a game or watching videos or surfing the internet, just the artifacting and corruption. I have tried numerous things to fix these problems myself over the past few months short of contacting Dell Support again and probably having to replace some other component or RMA-ing the entire system.  I have of course tried disabling CrossFire support in software, removed one of the cards entirely, switched the cards around both in CrossFire mode and not, reinstalled the ATI graphics drivers completely using the DriverSweeper utility, updating my system BIOS, tried hundreds of combinations of settings in the ATI Catalyst Control Center (CCC), disabled the CCC, updating/reinstalling drivers for other system components and updating with Microsoft Update, restoring all factory default settings using the recovery partition utility, running memory/HD/sub-system diagnostics both inside windows and out.  The only thing I have not tried and finally will have time to do in the next week is to reinstall Windows 7 64 fresh NOT from the recovery partition but from the OEM DVD I received with my system.  I will not use the Command Center/Alienware Resource DVD as it seems to be vital I instead use the website to download all drivers. Thanks for your consideration!

DELL-Chris M · Answer

Did you test this Beta driver?

Tesla1856 · Answer

What ATI CCC driver version are you running? What kind of monitor do you have? How is the monitor connected? Do you still get corruption if you turn off Windows Aero desktop feature?

demarlie · Answer

I have been having the same problem and the exact same PC set up you have since Feb. Posted here about a month ago, They told me the same thing, I have done everything on here, still have mult issues BSOD, Grey lines, ect. The new WOW patch came out yesterday and Im getting like 4fps. Not something I am happy with after i bought a 2500 alienware. I wish they could fix this or replace my 5870.

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