m15x deep freeze / lockup issue.

* Plug the AC adapter in
* Update the Bios to A08
* Restart when done
* Turn Stealth Mode off using the soft button on the top right above the keyboard. This forces the PC to use the discrete video card rather than the onboard video card
* Test the game. If it still locks up, test the game with Stealth Mode on. If it does not lockup with Stealth Mode on, then the issue is either the discrete video card driver or the video card itself

As I replied to the youtube guy, my does this also.  Randomly freezes & forces me to do a hard reboot by holding down the power button.  I have the ATI 5850 and am waiting for Dell to update their driver files (Nov) which are supposedly a marked improvement over the ones on the website (Sep).  If you can figure out what is actually wrong, please let me know, can"t neither I nor Dell can.  Also have the weird response during the MMO Aion of when touching the stealth mode button that my guy runs & will not stop.  Its not the game, but driver because after I touch the stealth-mode button, my guy will run as soon as I logon (I can restart game several times) and will do so until I reboot.  Weird stuff.

The reason your guy will run is because for some odd reason when stealth mode is pressed, the W key is also pressed. If you press the W key while your guy is continuously running, it should stop. This happens to me in most FPS games as well.

As for the HD 5850 driver, you dont have to use the one on Dells website. Go to AMD.com and download the latest 10.12 notebook driver for the 5850 from there. That is the one I use. I always use the video drivers from the manufacturers website, never from Dell.

I've already updated the BIOS to A08, like it says in my op, and I usually play with the AC plugged in anyway. Should I do the A08 update again or will this have no effect? (I had the problem both before and after the update).

I'll try the stealth mode thing as soon as I can though. (It annoys me that there isnt a light or something that can indicate to me if stealth mode is on or off during fullscreen applications like games and such, there's just the popup when in windows)

Moved this here for gsmart248 -

I have had my m15x for over 6months, and this just started happening within the last month. I have tried re installing my 260m drivers etc... When I would freeze, some of the time it would unfreeze 1-2 minutes later or allow me to run task manager while the other times I would be forced to hard restart it. I just rebooted from a windows update and after login it went right to back desktop like it used to. For the last few weeks it would be at a blackscreen for 1-2minutes before loading up windows after login. I am running bios version A03 currently.
gsmart248

So far the games that previously froze and that I can run while stealthmode is on seem fine, no freezes; this might just be coincidence though as the freezes are random and not that frequent. If, however, it is in fact a problem with the dedicated gfx card, what would be the next 'step' towards a solution? Does anyone know if this is a software issue and all that is needed is a fresh install, or if it's a hardware issue and I have to send it in for repair/replacement?

I'll be testing stealthmode for a while longer, and then do a re-install if there are no new suggestions here.

Thanks

- Brygfjeld

Still no solution guys? Dell-Chris, do you aware about this ? What is the final solution for the flaky drivers on M15x for GTX 260M?

I posted this in another thread, but this is a very similar issue to what the M17x R1 users are having. With any of the Nvidia Verde (2xx.xx) we are getting random hard-locks when watching GPU accelerated movies (WMV, Flash) and 3D games etc...

We've been able to work around this issue by disable a BIOS setting called PCI Express Gen 2.0 which appears to make the machine stable, but halves the available bandwidth to the card. Not sure if your machine is Nvidia chipset like mine, or Intel, so not sure if you'd have a similar setting.

Earlier Dell drivers 18x.xx drivers do not cause this issue for us, only started happening with the Verde drivers, and is affecting *ALL* M17x users on the notebookreview.com forums.

I have a thread here about it but it has been ignored.

Hello again Krac.

I just try with verde drivers 18x.xx , do you have the drivers from dell (not verdes) for 18x.xx ? So maybe i can try it at M15x

Thanks.

Hello again,

Currently using 266.35_notebook_winvista_win7_64bit_international_beta.exe drivers for my Alienware M15x, the laptop still not freezing up about 30 mins or so. Trying to install Modern Warfare 2 right now. Will monitor this drivers and i will let you guys know after this.

Cheers!

No luck..still freezing