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animatordc
7 Posts
0
18185
October 3rd, 2004 21:00
XPS Lockup
I've looked around for some conclusive material on this but nothing substantial has popped up. I have as follows:
Dell Inspiron XPS
3.4g w/ HT enabled
1g RAM
WIndows XP sp2
ATI Radeon Mobility 9700
Now I read the early XPS' would have hard lockups and video corruptions, well I don't have the corruptions, but I have the lockups during any sort of 3D game. I can run things like Photoshop and all fine, but any time I try and run a game a solid lock is a given. Time's are random, anywhere from 2 minutes to a few good straight hours. I haven't been able to document exactly what goes run as everything runs perfect the suddenly it all stops. Like hitting mute and pause on a dvd. Any ideas?
Note: I purchased this laptop and received it around early august of this year (2004). I had the same problems with Doom3's multiplayer but I figured that I had the graphic features set way to high.
animatordc
7 Posts
1037
0
Posted October 4th, 2004 15:00
Yeah, or something along the lines. I never bother placing a complaint since I've seen that I'm not the only one with the problem. Considering the XPS has been out for a decent amount of time I would expect this to have been resolved by now, otherwise why would they keep distributing a faulty product? To me that warrants an almost free upgrade of some sort. I love Dell, but this is unacceptable in my opinion. If you're going to sell a product solely for the idea of attracting gamers and that product can not function and work in that kind of environment, then something needs to be done and pronto.animatordc
7 Posts
1037
0
Posted October 7th, 2004 00:00
everything is as up to date as possibly. This issue is already two months old for me. I've just been dealing with it. I was able to push back the lockup times by activating the triple-buffer under openGL settings.- I've actually done a little research and it's actually an ATI issue with the Radeon Mobility 9700. I discovered that ATI has released the 4.9 update but Dell hasn't released anything beyond the 4.7. I was wondering why the date of my latest vid driver was 17 July...
The problem that I'm seeing is that Dell went into the agreement with ATI to be the sole source provider for the XPS (instead of offering nVidia cards as well) without really testing the their cards to see if they were compatible (or whatever). Both the 9700 and 9800 are having the same problems with the hard lockups on 3D games.
I told tech support about ATI releasing the 4.8 and 4.9 updates but they seem to be taking their time releasing them. Apparently, the dowloads from the ATI site is only for desktops, the manufacturers of laptops have to tweak them for their particular products...
For reference, the 4.7 update was released by ATI on July 7th, 4.8 on August 16th, and 4.9 on September 9th. Dell released their latest driver version on August 17th, basically a month after 4.7 was released.
If I'm wrong, someone please tell me. I'm at the point now that I can only play my old 2D games, which I could easily do on my old Dimension 8200 desktop. Why do I need this $2,800 paperwait then?
@CathDAT wrote:
I've actually done a little research and it's actually an ATI issue with the Radeon Mobility 9700. I discovered that ATI has released the 4.9 update but Dell hasn't released anything beyond the 4.7. I was wondering why the date of my latest vid driver was 17 July...
The problem that I'm seeing is that Dell went into the agreement with ATI to be the sole source provider for the XPS (instead of offering nVidia cards as well) without really testing the their cards to see if they were compatible (or whatever). Both the 9700 and 9800 are having the same problems with the hard lockups on 3D games.
I told tech support about ATI releasing the 4.8 and 4.9 updates but they seem to be taking their time releasing them. Apparently, the dowloads from the ATI site is only for desktops, the manufacturers of laptops have to tweak them for their particular products...
For reference, the 4.7 update was released by ATI on July 7th, 4.8 on August 16th, and 4.9 on September 9th. Dell released their latest driver version on August 17th, basically a month after 4.7 was released.
If I'm wrong, someone please tell me. I'm at the point now that I can only play my old 2D games, which I could easily do on my old Dimension 8200 desktop. Why do I need this $2,800 paperwait then?
Check out Driver Heaven (http://www.driverheaven.net/) for video drivers that will work on the Dell laptops. I'm running the ATI 9800 in my XPS with the latest ATI Catalyst (4.10 beta) drivers. The Omega driver set has been tweaked to provide better operation over the basic ones from ATI. They also have the Mobility chipsets (i.e. Laptop) mods already applied.
- Thanks,
A few days after I posted, I gave in and downloaded and installed the Omega driver. Everything works fine now but I'm still a little ashamed of Dell not providing them.
I shouldn't have to go to a third party website to get the drivers for my system. Then again, I here Alien and other gaming laptop manufacturers don't update their drivers either. I'm still happy with my XPS tho if Alien updated their drivers more frequently, my next computer would come from them... InspironXPS Gam
7 Posts
1060
0
Posted October 18th, 2004 14:00
Hi Folks,I've been having the same issue when playing different games like City of Heroes (very new MMORPG) and an older game Ghost Recon.My specs:XPS 3.4 w/HT60 Gig hd512 MB RamATI Mobility 9700Win XP ProBios and all drivers have been updated from Dell's website. Diags tests cleanI just wanted to know if installing the Omega drivers that was mentioned earlier work on the 9700 card also? Did your problem completely go away. I found these articles about this problem in the pastold post about this problem.I tried what this user posted:Only to find that it still didn't fix the problem. In the old forum the issue was finally resolved with a GPU replacement but I'm having almost the same issues. My system does a hard lock when playing 3d graphic intense games. I can play non-3d graphic intense games like Starcraft for a couple of hours with no problems.This kinda su cks because I bought this system specifically for gaming and I can't with this brand new system.animatordc
7 Posts
1060
0
Posted October 18th, 2004 15:00
Open your "display properties", then "settings" followed by "advanced"from here look for your OpenGL settings. Once on that tab click "compatibility settings".Check and see if Triple Buffering is turned off, if it is then turn it on. That should either fix or atleast delay your hard lockups, I downloaded the omega drivers and over-clocked my cards core and mem speeds and I'll see how it works out, I'll let you know if I get any hardlock with those settings.I have posted the same issue some time ago and am still having problems, I have spoken to dell and they refuse to sell me 9800 video at a discounted price (as it states in a flyer i got with my system "One time videocard upgradeto 9800 pro when it becomes avialable"). I have recieved very limited help from Dell with this issue, last i heard (about two weeks agao) they were send me a re-furbushied system. I have neither recieved product or recieved any information.
Dell is grossly negligent in support with this system. Seems like we got a "Redheaded stepchild" here folks.
Still waiting....BTW the game I am having issues with in "Call of Duty" I am very anxious to try Combat Vietman but i am afraid it would fry this system
jsdiff
5 Posts
1037
0
Posted October 4th, 2004 13:00
I am having the same exact problems. I have replaced sysem board once and the video card twice, but still locks up. I then put in 1GB ram and I still have same problem.
I feel if it is a video issue XPS owners should be entitled to a discount on the Mobility 9800 pro video card. (The card sells for 399.00 on Dells web site.)