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DELL XPS M1730 SLOW SLOW?


Guest Bill

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I have had the Dell M1730 for about a year and I am not impressed. Lately (the past month), it has been crawling along. It has no virus or spyware, which lead me to think the NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT. So today I ran 3DMark06 and here is what I got (SLI is enabled).

Using 176.78 from Dell Drivers (1280x1024)

3DMark Score - 2494 3DMarks

SM 2.0 Score - 1145

SM 3.0 Score - 1341

CPU Score - 471

GT1 - Return To Proxycon - 9.390 fps

GT2 - Firefly Forest - 9.687 fps

CPU1 - Red Valley - 0.148 fps

CPU2 - Red Valley - 0.239 fps

Processor - Intel® Core2 Duo CPU T9300 @ 2.50GHz

Processor clock - 2494 MHz

Memory - 3072 MB

Using 182.05 from Dox (1920x200)

3DMark Score - 2408 3DMarks

SM 2.0 Score - 1039

SM 3.0 Score - 1317

CPU Score - 473

GT1 - Return To Proxycon - 8.465 fps

GT2 - Firefly Forest - 8.860 fps

CPU1 - Red Valley - 0.149 fps

CPU2 - Red Valley - 0.240 fps

Processor - Intel® Core2 Duo CPU T9300 @ 2.50GHz

Processor clock - 2494 MHz

Memory - 3072 MB

Now I don't know much about all that but I do know that the 3DMarks score is LOW for this maching and card???

Anyone have any thoughts or analysis that many help. I'm thinking about wiping this baby again and start from scratch. Have already done so once but doesn't seem to help.

Thanks ALL!

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That looks... horribly wrong. Try disabling powermizer.

You should get 8000 points with that setup, not 2000.

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That looks... horribly wrong. Try disabling powermizer.

You should get 8000 points with that setup, not 2000.

That is what I was thinking Blacky. HORRIBLE. Oh I should have stated...powermizer was disabled when I ran those 2 tests. Unreal. I don't even know what to try next...

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Call Dell ?

I really do not understand why they would go like that. Have you check with GPU-Z what are the specifications there? The PCI-E x multiplier should be x16 or some other high number.

Try disabling one card and running the test and see what happens.

Edit:

Where did you get the laptop from ?

Edited by Blacky
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This is CONFIRMED~~

My XPS 1730 has 8800GTX SLI on..........

I tried every driver I found and test them with several games......So far as I know,those modified driver just not as efficient as offical 179.48....

So....Yes,offical driver is the best choice at the moment.......

PS:A few games do get better FPS on those driver.....

Edited by Roderna
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This is CONFIRMED~~

My XPS 1730 has 8800GTX SLI on..........

I tried every driver I found and test them with several games......So far as I know,those modified driver just not as effection as offical 179.48....

So....Yes,offical driver is the best choice at the moment.......

Confirmed by yourself, doesn't mean it'll apply to anyone else.

What score did YOU get in 3dmark 06?

I'm using dox's 182.05 drivers, they are working a treat.

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Confirmed by yourself, doesn't mean it'll apply to anyone else.

What score did YOU get in 3dmark 06?

I'm using dox's 182.05 drivers, they are working a treat.

In fact.....I do get better FPS with 182.05 in DDO,but sometime it cause texture missing or effect missing.........

So,I abandon it.......

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Call Dell ?

I really do not understand why they would go like that. Have you check with GPU-Z what are the specifications there? The PCI-E x multiplier should be x16 or some other high number.

Try disabling one card and running the test and see what happens.

Edit:

Where did you get the laptop from ?

I have no idea Blacky. Like I said, I may just start from stratch and wipe everything and load all driver in order again from Dell - chipset, graphics, Physx, network, quickset, sound, wireless ,LCD manager. That is it. I may start with 176.78 from Dell OR offical 179.48 (which is a beta) from Nvidia. Who knows. BTW here is what GPU-Z shows:

gpuz.gif

I did order from Dell and the bad thing is it only had a 1 Year Limited Warranty - which means that I received it on 3-18-08. Just over 13 month. Sick. I'll keep at it before I ultimately go for the wipe. Damn this is crazy.

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Guest Vagrant Guest

The reasons for your slowness are extremely obvious and the cause is two-fold.

1. your CPU is not running at fully speed and appears to be extremely throttled as if it were set for aggressive BATTERY MODE power savings...for your reference a plugged in T9300 processor achieves over 2000 for the CPU score, you have only 400-ish and this is unrelated to your graphic drivers.

2. because your CPU is running so poorly, your SLI cards are not operating at maximum effectiveness....i.e your is CPU is performing like a single core Celeron processor and therefore your graphics are CPU bound...nothing will change until the CPU is working properly....

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The reasons for your slowness are extremely obvious and the cause is two-fold.

1. your CPU is not running at fully speed and appears to be extremely throttled as if it were set for aggressive BATTERY MODE power savings...for your reference a plugged in T9300 processor achieves over 2000 for the CPU score, you have only 400-ish and this is unrelated to your graphic drivers.

2. because your CPU is running so poorly, your SLI cards are not operating at maximum effectiveness....i.e your is CPU is performing like a single core Celeron processor and therefore your graphics are CPU bound...nothing will change until the CPU is working properly....

Ok thanks Vagrant Guest for the "obvious" cause. Now any thoughts on a solution?

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Guest Vagrant Guest

1. you need to run something like cpu-z which tells you that your CPU is actually hitting 2.5ghz and not 800mhz or something like that; you need to be sure your power plan (located on windows task bar) is at High Performance setting on plugged in mode and any user-enabled battery optimizations are disabled.

2. get into the Sensors tab under of GPU-Z can check that the speeds are running at the Default Clocks reported on the screenshot you posted.

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1. you need to run something like cpu-z which tells you that your CPU is actually hitting 2.5ghz and not 800mhz or something like that; you need to be sure your power plan (located on windows task bar) is at High Performance setting on plugged in mode and any user-enabled battery optimizations are disabled.

2. get into the Sensors tab under of GPU-Z can check that the speeds are running at the Default Clocks reported on the screenshot you posted.

Vagrant, thanks buddy...getting a bit better. Here is what I did. Wiped out OS and reformatted drive and reinstalled XP Professional - went in and installed the drivers from dell in order based on what they had on thier site for the M1730. Installed no other applications what-so-ever. Then went in and ran the 3dmark 06 and here is that results (keep in mind...these are older drivers from Dell for Nvidia and Physx:

Using 176.78 from Dell Drivers (1280x1024)

3DMark Score - 8774 3DMarks

SM 2.0 Score - 4041

SM 3.0 Score - 3721

CPU Score - 2276

GT1 - Return To Proxycon - 32.343 fps

GT2 - Firefly Forest - 35.007 fps

CPU1 - Red Valley - 0.718 fps

CPU2 - Red Valley - 1.154 fps

Processor - Intel® Core?2 Duo CPU T9300 @ 2.50GHz

Processor clock - 2494 MHz

Memory - 3072 MB

I would say that is a bit better. I also ran at 1920x1200 and it was around 6300. To answer your question regarding CPU-Z...here are the results (I am using XP Professional so the power settings are all correct):

cpuz.gif

If the core speed is what I am suppose to be looking at, it's at 1596? Never used CPU-Z before. Maybe you can take a look and let me know what you see.

I may try some updated video drivers now just for comparision. Let me know what you think.

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You could use something like RMClock or Notebook Hardware Conrol to keep your CPU at max speed.

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That core speed is normal at 1.6 Ghz, you get that when you are not utilising the CPU and the CPU automatically downclocks itself to save power. Try putting the CPU to do something a bit more intensive and watch CPU-Z core speed, it should jump immediately to 2.5 Ghz.

Also, even if you were to run or system on battery with power saving mode, your score will still not be that low on either the graphics card or the CPU. It was something else throttling the system but I guess now it doesn't matter what it was :) . You solved the problem 8800 in 3dmark06 is a good score for your setup.

Edited by Blacky
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That core speed is normal at 1.6 Ghz, you get that when you are not utilising the CPU and the CPU automatically downclocks itself to save power. Try putting the CPU to do something a bit more intensive and watch CPU-Z core speed, it should jump immediately to 2.5 Ghz.

Also, even if you were to run or system on battery with power saving mode, your score will still not be that low on either the graphics card or the CPU. It was something else throttling the system but I guess now it doesn't matter what it was :) . You solved the problem 8800 in 3dmark06 is a good score for your setup.

Thanks Blacky and all...yah who knows what was causing the system to perform so poorly. I ran 3dmark06 a couple more times after the wipe and it is comes back with 8300-8800 on three different tests. The CPU score is 2280 give or take a couple. I think I still should upgrade the card to the 8800m gtx sli. I guess thats the good thing about the M1730, it is upgradable. :-)

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Thanks Blacky and all...yah who knows what was causing the system to perform so poorly. I ran 3dmark06 a couple more times after the wipe and it is comes back with 8300-8800 on three different tests. The CPU score is 2280 give or take a couple. I think I still should upgrade the card to the 8800m gtx sli. I guess thats the good thing about the M1730, it is upgradable. :-)

WHOOPS...I guess I spoke to soon. So I installed COD:WOW and CuteFtp (both legit copies before anyone asks) and just for the heck of it ran 3dmark06 again and what do you know:

3DMark Score - 2526

SM2.0 Score - 1168

HDR/SM3.0 Score - 1350

CPU Score - 477

Now I was mystfied...I checked CPU-Z and all was still the same as the earlier screenshot I posted...running at core speed of 1596 at idle. I uninstalled both and still get the same result. Now I am at a complete loss...

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Run RivaTuner monitoring on the background so you can see all clock frequencies after testing from the logs or graphs and find the culprit.

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Run RivaTuner monitoring on the background so you can see all clock frequencies after testing from the logs or graphs and find the culprit.

Thanks Zipper...never used Riva before but I downloaded and ran in background and ran the test again in 3dmark06 and here is the screen shot of the results. Now I don't know what it means but I got the same terrible results from 3dmark06.

riva.gif

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Your CPU clocks don't show up; GPU is probably OK.

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Your CPU clocks don't show up; GPU is probably OK.

If the GPU is ok and the CPU is showing normal in CPU-Z (1596.1 mhz) idle...then what could be causing the current #'s in 3dmark06. After complete format and fresh XP Pro install - 8700+, after installing COD (and not even running it) - 2526? So strange. Like I said, I even uninstalled COD just to see and it is still showing terrible not only for the 3dmark score but the CPU score is showing 477. ???????????

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sounds to me like you need to look at the computers power scheme, sounds like your proc, etc. are using a power saver mode.

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sounds to me like you need to look at the computers power scheme, sounds like your proc, etc. are using a power saver mode.

BINGO Exile1975. Thanks!!!

After wiping out XP again then running test it was still terrble. So I went into BIOS and look at battery and it was showing the battery at 100% but for AC Adapter is showed:

AC Adaptor = Unknown Device Installed

There in lies the problem. So still in the BIOS, I unplugged the AC (which then showed NONE) then plugged back in which took it back to the AC Adaptor = Unknown Device Installed. Then I restarted and immediately went back into the BIOS. Now it showed:

AC Adaptor = 230W

Booted up and ran 3dmark test and everything normal back at 8800+. Went back into BIOS and it was the same thing everytime - if I unplug, unknown device. If I reboot and touch nothing and go back into BIOS, shows 230w.

Which leaves a couple possibles.

-AC adpater is bad (which if anyone has seen the M1730 is a big AC adapter but the light is always on)

-The port is bad

-The motherboard is bad

Hard to pinpoint exactly what it is??

Anyone every heard of anything like this?

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glad we could find the problem, but i dont really know the solution... :)

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glad we could find the problem, but i dont really know the solution... :)

Stupid Dell. Nice 3k laptop. There are a lot of posts regarding this issue on the Dell forums and most of the solutions that helped was a new motherboard. It is a fairly known issue. Dell sends out a new AC adapter first then that doesnt help then sends someone out to change the mother board or sends the CPU in. What is not good is this laptop is exaclty 13 months old and out of warranty by 30 days and Dell is not willing to help so much. I hate calling there and talking to someone for 45 minutes and they are clueless. I'm getting so sick of Dell. No idea what to do now. I guess keep calling and complaining until I get a "good" CS rep.

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Bro

Dell is pretty good, talk to the manager and tell them this problem and what u have found online about other people having the same solution with a faulty motherboard.

Buy an extended hardware warrenty, it is worth it. I have 4 yrs and trust me I would never buy it without. Dell go to the end of the earth for their customers. they might give u a bit of grief if the warrenty ran out, just speak to someone higher up. there is other ways of complain like on www.hellopeter.com but I would only go that route if everything else fails. I feel your pain.

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