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227584
M11x Games Freezing
This is an ongoing problem with many users on notereview's forums having the same issue. The steps are as occurs:
the issue has been described many times but for last time sakes lets put it here:
-playing random game
-freezes in "x" amount of time
-alt tab (does not usually work) or control alt delete out of the game
-game does not close
-m11x is still functional in other purposes but again, the game is still frozen
-cannot shut down or reboot
-must press power button to power off to reboot again
-seemly does not have an effect based on whether oc'd or not. even if all oc'd settings are off, it still happens
-occurs in a lot of games (NOT JUST GAMES BY BLIZZARD)
-if your m11x is prone to freezing, pretty much all games will freeze
Like I said, I've tried OC on and off. I've tried clean installs of the 335m drivers both on dell's and nvidia. Neither of them fix this problem. I don't know what the problem is but there is over 20 pages of the same situation. Is there a fix yet?
BiiF
14 Posts
0
January 31st, 2011 05:00
We really need some attention here.
Wether or not this is a driver-issue the type of behaviour is unacceptable in a computer. Hanging a process and forcing the user to Cut power to get out of it should not be a possible outcome of a software-issue.
Some people has found workarounds to this problem but its till NOT a solution. No type of game-settings or Nvidia drivers should cause game crashes when no other computer crashes with the same graph card, settings and drivers.
Dell has to face that this is an issue that is local to the M11X. If you dont fix it at least tell us something!
blown9350lx
11 Posts
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January 31st, 2011 11:00
I own an MX11 R1 I did format and installed Win 7 pro the day I got it and installed the latest drivers including Nvidias latest. I installed a bunch of games the newest one Transformers WFC works perfect no issues freezing anything at all. In the bios I have it set to overclock the cpu and I disabled onboard video and just running the 33M. How many of you all formatted your machines and installed windows fresh? I believe its driver issues causing all these problems.
Truckstop
5 Posts
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February 1st, 2011 00:00
Your experience is with an R1, not an R2 - it's the R2 that's exhibiting the problem. And, as I said in my post, I plugged it in right out of the box, got the WoW updater that was ALREADY INSTALLED ON THE MACHINE to download the latest patches and started playing. I did not update or change drivers at all, and the driver that came on the machine was the latest one available from Dell's site. There is nothing that I have done to this machine at all other than fail to be able to play a game that came installed on it because the nvidia card locks up at random intervals.
BiiF
14 Posts
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February 1st, 2011 06:00
Interesting fact about disabling the Intel graphics in BIOS.
There is a theory that the Optimus switching between graph cards is causing this freeze.
Could you go over the steps to disabling Intel graphics so that we all can test that.
blown9350lx
11 Posts
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February 2nd, 2011 11:00
Im not in front of my laptop but in the bios there is a setting for video I believe is Discrete. Once you put that the Intel video card is gone from Device manager and your running on Nvidia only. Yeah it might use more battery power but works great and runs all games with no issues at full settings.
Vegas771
42 Posts
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February 2nd, 2011 12:00
I have an R1 and was experiencing random lock ups in game. I turned off the overclock function in the bios and haven't had a lock up since, so it may very well be an optimus issue on the R2.
As a person said in another thread, it's shameful that Dell promotes this overclocking function and then when there's problems they say they don't guarantee OC.
darkdomino
2 Posts
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February 3rd, 2011 16:00
I'm having exactly the same problem. Freezes on both the stock dell drivers, the 260.99 nvidia drivers, and the 266.58 drivers.
Guild Wars freezes after 5-10 minutes like clockwork. Only way to close it after a freeze is to CTRL + ALT + DEL and attempt to shut down the process.
Windows 7 won't be able to shut it down and you'll have to restart your PC to fix it... however once you try to restart, it'll go to the "reboot splash screen" and get stuck indefinitely.
Only way to fix it is to reboot with the power button.
I'm really at a loss to try to fix this problem on my Alienware M11x R2.... It has made gaming almost impossible. These freezes occur whether your overclocked or not, and occur regardless of any settings you may have in the nvidia control panel.
DELL please look at this! Many many people are having this problem!
warcraftplayer2
8 Posts
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February 7th, 2011 06:00
Because the original thread on the notebookreview forum got too large (33 pages, 325 replies) a new thread was made with a more analytical approach. As of yet that thread has not rendered a fully confirmed solution either.
Here is the stickied thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/552509-m11xr2-issues-gaming-lockups-crashes-discussion-thread.html
Because several motherboards have been replaced already (in some instances twice per netbook) due to this issue (without providing a solution, the freezes still occur), I hope Dell/Alienware give this issue the attention it needs.
DELL-Chris M
Community Manager
Community Manager
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54.3K Posts
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February 12th, 2011 09:00
So is the conclusion that reducing shader in the games video settings stops the freezing? If yes, in your opinion is that a game or driver issue? The reason I ask is we cannot replicate the issue using our video card driver, all default GPU settings (i.e. no tweaking with the EVGA Precision Tool).
BiiF
14 Posts
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February 13th, 2011 16:00
No conclusive way of stopping this issue has been found.
Reducing ingame settings only slows the frequency of the freezes.
What some of us are trying atm at Notebookreview.com is downlocking the GPU using EVGA. This has proven to work for a lot of users.
We are trying to find the optimal clock settings but one test was run on a pretty harsh downclock that hacked the performance down 10%, that setting worked long enough to be conclusive.
Whats causing this is still unclear, but downclocking seems to help.
BLUESGRRL
12 Posts
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February 13th, 2011 21:00
yeah, maybe most people can plug in a desk top for gaming but i need a laptop..i live off the grid and need a laptop for gaming .I have gamed on a laptop since '91Thinkpad used to make a good gaming laptop but they went business.i need to find a new reliable laptop0 for gaming and everything else..my dell xps m1730 is dying..all this anti dell and anti alienware concerns me ..what else is out there? I read the tech stuff and it's dry..
BiiF
14 Posts
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February 16th, 2011 05:00
Still no Dell activity here, makes me sad.
Forum-ppl at NBR are reaching a conclusion that downlocking the GPU using EVGA Precision Tool is a viable working workaround.
If someone has missed the thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/552509-m11x-issues-gaming-lockups-crashes-discussion-thread-19.html#post7164981
We have also seen examples where new replaced hardware shows the same issue as before the replacement. This leads us to believe that this is not an issue caused by usage of the hardware, but more likely a factory fault or a pure software related error.
Again, there is no set of drivers that makes this work. Specially shown by all the people that has performed full Respawns to factory defaults.
Its really time for Dell/Alienware to get their hands dirty on this issue and start cracking on what may cause this.
What causes the M11XR2 to require a downclock of GPU to work properly on gaming?
DELL-Chris M
Community Manager
Community Manager
•
54.3K Posts
0
February 16th, 2011 06:00
What causes the M11XR2 to require a downclock of GPU to work properly on gaming?
* They are not downclocking the video card GPU. They are lowering/disabling Shaders in the game. In fact, we asked them to restore all of the EVGA Precision Tool settings and only adjust the in-game setting of Shaders. To us, this seems like a game issue. We cannot replicate the issue on the games we have in the lab using our video card driver and default PC settings.
BiiF
14 Posts
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February 16th, 2011 08:00
The only ones that have gotten around this problem is using EVGA. There is NO other way, i assure you.
Many have tried fiddleling with ingame settings but have at most slowed the frequency of the freezes.
As i said the only workaround as of now is downclocking the GPU core using EVGA.
Not all have these issues so it might be tricky to replicate but there is still A Lot of ppl reporting and sharing knowledge on this issue at notebookreviews.com.
Its quite clear that it is NOT a game issue since it affects around 10,15 different games that ppl have reported. And you can fix it by downclocking your hardware, with no changes to the game settings.
So everything you have heard about lowering/disabling Shaders in the game can be forgotten. It has been confirmed, by many many users, that this does not fix the issue.
BiiF
14 Posts
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February 21st, 2011 08:00
Ping!
Just to update. More and more people are switching over to the EVGA workaround and with great success!
We have seen that different games need different downclocks but the most common one is:
427 core (downclock)
1080 shader (default)
790 memory (default)
The games that need different settings are always requiring more downclocking. So lower clocks, more stable laptop.
Having this workaround does satisfy most of us, since we can play now! But we still need an actual Cause and Solution to this truly wierd issue.