All owners of Mx438G take a look at here!! - Page 2

Then its no longer an option to buy this computer before christmas :/

Could someone comment on what Lemke is saying in message #8 of this thread:

http://www.notebookforums.com/showth...77#post1535977

What drivers is he talking about because I went to laptopvideo2go and found no drivers specifically for Mx438G. Is he perhaps talking about the new Forceware that should fix the problems in video performance? Could someone please tell me exactly what drivers is he talking about?

Also, my M3438G has these performace glitches as well. In regular use (non video-application) everything works fine apart from the notebook sometimes 'freezing' for a couple of seconds in Firefox for example as if it was loading something big. In games (well I only play CS and HL2) it has become somewhat regular that my notebook completely freezes (everything stops, the game picture freezes and usually a constant sound comes) and there's no other choice but to boot. This happens maybe once or twice a day.

Don't have a 3438 right now, but was thinking about it. That's why I'm just keeping an eye on that performance problem.

I saw on the German forum a thread where the recent update of the nvidia 8.12 drivers on laptopvideo2go, solved the performance glitch for the nvidea 6800 graphical card. Not sure if this is the same problem we talk in this thread but thought so.

Can't find the thread nomore.

So for those who have the problem, just install latest drivers with the modded inf and check if the problem still occurs. Then I can buy the 3438 also ;-)

Many thanks
Lemke

PS. Sorry for the post in the other thread.

definitely not! Drivers dont fix that issue. I have that driver installed. The lags still occur.

Okey, no problem. Well, I don't have the lags in games at all, but I do have the freezes which are really annoying since you have to boot and start XP again. BTW, I currently have Forceware 81.95 with modded INF. Are the newer Forceware any good?

Heard anything new from FS about it?

Dangly dang. That's a pitty.
Thanks for the test and feedback BorKar

Lemke

I want this freakin' laptop without any problems in it!

I have got my problems smaller by removing LAN connection, closing virus checking, automatic backups, email etc. when gaming and keeping the drives defragged. But not totally got rid of lagging and audio corruption, but it occurs once - twice in 5-10 mins. Just Race Driver 2 and Flatout tried on 4438.

I'm not a gamer but I'm getting a similar problem when trying to track audio (I'm a musician/sound engineer/producer).
Especially when graphics are moving/animating, I regularly get 'spikes' or dropouts when using my audio programs. It happens nearly always when graphics are moving, like if an audio waveform starts to scroll (in the program Steinberg Wavelab v5), or if you use a web browser and scroll down web pages while listening to audio in the background. Although my virus checker (Avast Personal) causes dropouts when it scans files in realtime in the background (I have to de-activate it when tracking/mixing audio), there are still dropouts/spikes when the various graphics are animated as mentioned. (For the music techies out there, this is unrelated to soundcard latency, as it occurs under all latencies. Admittedly this only concerns Steinberg Wavelab, I think.)
The spikes/dropouts I've been getting in my audio recording programs are in the order of milliseconds each, but enough to ruin an otherwise good take, or simply being a major annoyance when playing other stuff back.

There is a documented issue regards PCI-Express graphics hogging the so-called 'switch', toggling between the PCI-Express busses (namely PCI-Express graphics) and the older legacy PCI busses (firewire/usb/PCMCIA cardbus, etc.), but am not sure if this is causing my/our problems.

Regardless, I would really want this to be fixed. I never had this problem with my previous desktop computer, a truly archaic 700MHz Athlon.

I'm not a big gamer, but I've played a game where it's frozen or locked up the screen for say half a second, missing out vital frames, so you lose control once the display catches up. This was on the game Ford Racing on both the v2 and v3 demo versions, but wasn't sure if it was just limited to these games, as it happened particularly when I was passing through the checkpoints in the game. However, if I had a web browser or similar running in the background (but not necessarily downloading anything) the gameplay tended to stutter dramatically, too, so I had to game without anything else running.
I don't think I ever had it lock up on me for 2 whole seconds. It was around the region of 1 second or less.

Yeah this is truly sad.. i hope to god they will fix this.
Im about to buy me a external soundcard to use with Cubase and Logic. But i know for a fact now cos of you that this lag problems will be there even in those programs.
Man isnt it amazing that they sell this computer with a major bug like this? I mean, how could they have missed this? Im 100% sure they knew all about it.. and that pisses me off.
Anyways.. still waiting for that bugfix, hope it works and comes out fast as hell.

In saying that, Bass, the "graphic animation causing audio glitching" issue only tends to be more pronounced in Wavelab.

I have a Motu Traveler soundcard (firewire) and am learning to use Cubase SX3, but haven't noticed anything on the scale of the probs with Wavelab.
I'll have to do more tests to document it properly.

It bugs me, because the system is otherwise great. The firewire chipset is made by Texas Instruments, which is the best and foremost recommended manufacturer regards compatibility for firewire audio cards, and the laptop gives up some great latencies when it works (3ms in Cubase SX3) with fantastic low CPU usage values (good for running loads of plugins). It's just these nearly unpredictable glitches that kinda bug me. The glitching even happens when playing audio via WinAmp and surfing the net.

Hi.
A workaround to that bug: Install critical applications on external USB hard drives. That might work.

Will this problem still be there if I have 1 HD and 1x1024 mb RAM instead of 2 HDs and 2x512 RAM?

probably yes!

Awwww!

Couple of days ago, throw the problem on a dutch forum.
Got some feedback, but a 3438 owner did not have any freezes on his system.

Seems to depends on which HD you have installed. If a samsung or seagate HD installed, the NB suffers from the problem, but with a 100Gb 5400rpm HD from fujitsu it doesn't.

Now that's some good news.

If there is more info, I let you know. But this is some news. Strange though that a specific HD could trigger this problem. Or HD interfaces are not that compatible and compliant. So that makes me wonder if it's BIOS related.

Greetz
Lem

I have not any feedback of 100GB HDs. But it seems that the bug is more obvious on systems with samsung HDs and less on systems with seagate. Fujitsu HDs are somewhere in the middle.
It is January 2006 and the countdown runs. I will provide you with information as soon as i receive them.

Well I do have 2x80Gt Samsung HDs, so I guess that is the reason why my notebook doesn't work perfectly. I do not have the lags in games that some people have but I do have lags sometimes when I open, say, a webpage.

The freezes (when the screen completely freezes to a frame and often an annoying sound occurs, and the only option is to emergency-boot the laptop) so occur in games, but I have found that newer Forceware help to make the freezes occur more seldom. For example, the Forceware that I'm now using, 81.98, is way more stable and better than the older Forceware 81.95 drivers.

Also, I have found that when you start up the laptop and begin to play, say, CS: Source right away, the freeze may not occur at all. But if you first surf the net, play a little music and maybe right something on Word, there is a good possibility that the freeze occurs. I guess this is HD-releated, though.

Otherwise, I think this is a top-notch notebook and while these freezes are annoying, I'm still happy that I bought this notebook. I saved space by not buying a desktop and money by not buying an Alienware-laptop (the appearance of which I don't even like).

Ya.. well when i first bought this notebook i had one 80Gb HD and i dont think i had the bug then. But i returned it and got me another one but with 2x 80GB HD. And now i got the bug all the time. When i play mp3, viewing movies or playing games.