Strange M14X Issue

[camerontweedle]

I've read through the last 10 or so pages of the forums and didn't notice anything that seemed exactly like the problem I've been having, so I'm hoping some of the more experienced members can provide some insight, as I've learned plenty just from reading through some of the stickys and general threads already.

Background:

This is my first gaming laptop, and so far the experience has been really positive. I had narrowed my search down to the M14x and was debating on some of the non-stock upgrades when I stumbled upon somebody selling a barely-used one on a local classified site. The comp was nearly new (he had ended up with an M17x shortly after, so most of the plastic covers were even still on). He had opted to go with the i7 CPU upgrade and 1666 mhz RAM, and had installed an SSD himself in place of the standard drive, and was selling for about the price of the default, no upgrades M14x. I was pretty excited about it.

About 2 weeks ago, I started running into issues, and I'm not really certain what's causing it, but with only 44 days left on the warranty, I'd like to get some feedback about whether or not to contact support to get them messing around with it.

The only way I can think to describe the issue is "extreme lag", since I haven't really received a BSOD from it at all. So far, it's occurred during a wide range of activities - from gaming to general web browsing. It also doesn't completely freeze, either. I can still move the mouse, and in some cases I can even open the windows menu, it just won't let me click on anything and doesn't respond to input. Forced restart is sometimes successful, but often I've noticed that it will continue again within a few seconds of booting up. The most consistent remedy has been to close the lid, wait for it to go into sleep mode, and then log back in. If that works, what will usually happen is input that I tried to give it during the "freeze" will catch back up. So, if I had tried opening a browser, it will have loaded. If I had tried opening the control panel, it's up, closed menus are gone, etc.

I've noticed that it seems to be somehow related to high CPU load (entering a new zone in a game, loading up a bunch of tabs in a browser, letting a video buffer while swapping back to another task, etc.). My first idea was to disable the turbo-boost. While I haven't tested it for long periods without turbo boost, I did notice that disabling it from BIOS would still leave me with the same issues when booting up after a freeze. As others have noted, my CPU temp seems to be running pretty high (mid-high 90s) but I figured that disabling turbo boost would have remedied that, so I haven't revisited that lately.

I'm at work right now, and don't have full access to my system specs, but here are some general ones:

-M14x R1

-i7 CPU (not sure which specifically, but it's 2.2 - 3.3 with turbo)

-Non-stock SSD

-Windows 7, 64 bit

-1.5 GT555M GPU

-A08 Bios version

- 8 GB RAM

And here's what I've tried on it so far:

-Avast Anti-virus scan (both from regular boot and from safe mode)

-Malwarebytes Scan

-Turn off Turbo Boost from Bios

-Updated all available drivers, most notably both of the GPU ones

-Defrag

-Safe mode. Seems to work fine here, even amidst crashes. IE. It will freeze while in Firefox/Chrome. I can boot into Safe Mode with networking just fine, open Firefox or Chrome just fine and continue with what I was doing OR poke around to try to DL drivers, etc. but when restarting and booting back up again in normal, it will still freeze.

-Last night I throttled the CPU down to 99% within the power management settings (this happens both while plugged in and on battery, BTW) and had a pretty successful night, even though temps did spike up to 97-98c a couple times. That said, it's been happening very sporadically, so I wouldn't assume it's resolved until I can go a solid week without any issues. I also would like to test some of the specific situations that were giving me trouble the night before (ie, Zone Swapping during Co-op play in D3) since it happened every single time I tried that on Monday.

Any thoughts? Liek I said, there's 44 days left on the warranty, but I'm not sure how I feel about shelling out nearly $300 to extend it another year, so I'd like to get some feedback about what the specific issue may be before having Dell fix/replace the wrong thing and ending up with some other faulty parts.

Thanks in advance for any ideas, help. If you need more information, let me know, and I can get more specific system specs this evening when I get home.

[svl7]

Hi, and welcome t T|I, the symptoms could be caused by a variety of things... what kind of SSD are you using? Samsung?

When you play games, are the temps ok? (GPU and CPU?)

Is Windows up to date?

[camerontweedle]

Hi, and welcome t T|I, the symptoms could be caused by a variety of things... what kind of SSD are you using? Samsung?

When you play games, are the temps ok? (GPU and CPU?)

Is Windows up to date?

Thanks for the response.

SSD is Intel, I believe. I can double check this when I get home again.

CPU Temps definitely heat up during gaming. (High 90's)

GPU temps come up, but not nearly as high (not usually over 80)

Windows is up to date.

As an update, throttling the CPU via the power management didn't seem to do the trick, so I completely shut off the turbo boost, and for the past 2 days it hasn't given me any troubles. I won't really feel comfortable until it's gone a whole week without doing it at this point, but regarding having Dell replace my CPU, can anyone give me some idea of what sort of mess I'm in for if I continue to have issues after the warranty expires?

[mw86]

along with what SVL7 mentioned what tewaks have you done for SSD and is this a fresh install by you or whatever he may have done is still as is from buying it? You could try updating video drivers to dells latest if it isn't already or use a version SVL7 might suggest? You could try SSD tweaker... but if your CPU is geting to 90s its already throttling. Since these cpus dont always throttle just from power limitation type throttle they throttle with clock modulation or chip modulation which is they are running same speed but internally each core has stopped processing by an lotted % by the manufacturer to lower heat during high load times that should if one should get to about 85c+... and each degee may drop it a bit more. Throttle Stop can be used to monitor throttling as well as HWiNFO and the entry is "clock modulation" if it doesn't always say 100% your cpu throttled. I

I would recommend getting an official change of ownership which you have to fill out a form at DELL I think or call in. Explain you bought it with the warranty. Once that is filed they can start to help you and you probably need the system repasted not necessarily a cpu replacement. Best bet would be to backup everything and restore it to factory config either by the backup partition or by reinstalling windows and using any supplied application reinstallation disks. Then proceed to update windows etc and check how its running without this other persons settings and pre loaded bugs. Actually it may be better to first make ownership official and call in, backup your stuff and complain of the temp probs, and lag issues... and push to have them atleast repaste your system and clean it out etc. Then with a clean bill of health and new paste plus parts or just paste... either way.. proceed to have the system reinstalled as it came from factory and update everything. follow the guides here you have been and hopefully you don't see such lag and overheating. If lag is at start before temps get high too it can also be the drivers of various hardware and or apps that may be causing problems coexisting with your system.

on a side note don't mention the hardrive is not stock. and if they go to work on it take it out carfully... we can help here to explain how and have them work on it as is. If they want to know why explain as ploicy states you are responsible for all data on a drive and any data lost is sole responsiblility of owner... so you would like to keep it seperate while things are worked on so your data is afe and as well as the hard drive. next if they do find out or know its not the original that is not a big prob... policy is this that harddrive would be covered by the original seller and or manufacturer and anything else in your system as long as its stock is covered by alienware. So no harm no foul there.

Edited June 1, 2012 by mw86

[camerontweedle]

As an update - symptoms appear to be lessened with TurboBoost turned off, but definitely NOT alleviated completely. Also, I've run the ePSA tests (both quick and thorough) and they didn't turn anything up, so it appears to be some sort of software issue. Any thoughts? Anything related to TurboBoost that would make sense to look at?

[mw86]

It's hard to say but if your cpu temps are hitting 85c with no turbo which I don't know it would cause your cpu to throttle. You can download hwinfo and check the sensor tab after you've had the HWiNFO program running with sensors window opened and minimized in the backround. After this lag occurs check your temps and see if "clock modulation" says anything other than 100% it means the cpu dropped speed to cover for overheating and when that happens systems can experience extreme lag. There are a number of other reasons lag can happen but you reinstalled drivers already.

Another chance to find what is happening is download the free DPC Latency tool to see if some hardware or software is causing the lag. Old optical drives have been known to cause that kind of lag when all the sata buses are being accessed, not likely for you but maybe it's the SSD drive causing the issues.

In device manager under the hard driver properties are the caching options checked if not check them and it may fix the lag.