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Alienware 9700 Choppy TF2 Play - Page 2

post #21 of 37
10/24/07 at 8:16pm
Thread Starter 
I bought two sticks. The funny thing is that when I used 3dmark05, it says they're at 400mhz. When I check them under cpuz, only 200mhz.

One thing I just did my 3dmark05 tests and got some pretty low results.

With SLI: 5567, Without SLI: 4xxx(forgot to write it down)

What the hell?
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post #22 of 37
10/24/07 at 8:23pm
it must be recognizing that they are dual channel RAM which would explain the 200mhz apiece which would add up to 400mhz... Im running 667mhz RAM in my laptop but CPUZ says my sticks are running at 333mhz...which if you add them together you get 667mhz... that is the only thing i can come up with....
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post #23 of 37
10/24/07 at 8:24pm
well ram will under clock itself sometimes.
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post #24 of 37
10/24/07 at 8:39pm
DDR = Double Data Rate, meaning CPU-Z will report the actual clock of each stick individually. So littlefrankus was right, they double to 400 Mhz. It could be one of the sticks has gone bad. Have you checked them with a memory test program of any kind? How much RAM did the original system come with? Maybe you should test with that and call AW and ask them what your 3DMark05 score was when they sent the system (I think they have that info).
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post #25 of 37
10/24/07 at 8:41pm
Thread Starter 
Ok I thought that the lady from Alienware was wrong, she was insisting that it was supposed to be at 400mhz. The original system came with just one 512 stick, which I replaced with those two 1gb sticks.

What memory test program do you recommend?
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post #26 of 37
10/27/07 at 12:32am
It is so easy to remove one stick, why not remove one and test. then replace it and remove the other and then test. that would be a fast and easy way to see if either stick is bad.

dt
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post #27 of 37
10/27/07 at 12:57am
if the program is picking up your stick then it should be ok...
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post #28 of 37
10/29/07 at 3:25am
I just have to wonder how long this laptop worked with the new memory before it failed. Did you game for a year before it failed?

I see this as a matter of trying to save $100-$150 by getting the RAM cheaper and then paying the price in reduced performance. There are some things (like hard drives) that you can get away with upgrading with generally no ill effect, but memory is a very critical part of a high end system.

To me, I would rather buy the lowest amount of memory from AW, then pay the lower upgrade cost to get the right memory from AW. You'll still pay more than getting from NewEgg.com, but you can be fairly assured of it working long term.

Hopefully.

Either way, good luck getting your system back up. Do you have your 512 stick that you can swap back in as a test?

Russ (Pissed off because my computer was shipped 5 weeks ago and still ain't here yet) Chewning
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post #29 of 37
10/31/07 at 10:04am
My Audio studders for Half Life 2 and TF2.

So with that concern I went checking if it was just the games and nothing else...Went ahead and put a video on the laptop to see if I would get a short audio/video that last for about 2sec~5sec that seems to come in 5-30min intervals and yup does it for my videos too

Thought it was out of date audio drivers so I went ahead and checked it for newer drivers and found that wasn't it..So I went ahead with a total scrub of the harddrive and see that'll solve some issues. Wondering if really my HDD is failing. Thing has never seen temps above 50deg (by what NHC says) but its flashed a SMART error every time I install NHC
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post #30 of 37
10/31/07 at 1:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by scarface818 View Post
I just called Alienware today regarding my system. They had me run CPUZ and told me that my memory was incorrect. I bought this ram from newegg which was recommended by users here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...pk=CT12864X40B

but under cpu z under memory my frequency is only at 200mhz. She was saying that it should be running at 400mhz. I know I bought the correct ram, it says PC3200 but why is the max bandwith at 200?

PC3200 is DDR 400. It runs at 200MHz, but it's dual data rate, so that means it's equivalent to 400MHz.

CPUZ reports my memory as operating at 200MHz.

The tech you spoke to is wrong, your memory is reporting correctly. It may still be malfunctioning, but I'd suspect something else, either vid card or SLI chipset/cable.

Does it work alright with the memory AW sent with it?

You can run memtest for memory testing, and also try running the laptop with one stick of memory at a time.
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post #31 of 37
10/31/07 at 1:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by littlefrankus View Post
it must be recognizing that they are dual channel RAM which would explain the 200mhz apiece which would add up to 400mhz... Im running 667mhz RAM in my laptop but CPUZ says my sticks are running at 333mhz...which if you add them together you get 667mhz... that is the only thing i can come up with....

No, it's the dual data rate that makes the memory that opperates at 333MHz actually produce 667MHz...
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post #32 of 37
10/31/07 at 1:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rei86 View Post
My Audio studders for Half Life 2 and TF2.

So with that concern I went checking if it was just the games and nothing else...Went ahead and put a video on the laptop to see if I would get a short audio/video that last for about 2sec~5sec that seems to come in 5-30min intervals and yup does it for my videos too

Thought it was out of date audio drivers so I went ahead and checked it for newer drivers and found that wasn't it..So I went ahead with a total scrub of the harddrive and see that'll solve some issues. Wondering if really my HDD is failing. Thing has never seen temps above 50deg (by what NHC says) but its flashed a SMART error every time I install NHC

Try disabling the wireless and/or bluetooth in the device manager and see if that helps. Could be an IRQ conflict maybe...

Also, use NHC to set the processor to "max performance" and try again. That will stop the processor from kicking down in speed and might be what is causing your issue.

Do you have the latest CPU driver installed? I think it's 1.3.2?
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post #33 of 37
10/31/07 at 11:00pm
No I shouldn't have the latest CPU drivers at all ATM.

I just reinstalled windows with the drivers that came with the system. Then I went and installed a few software that I use a lot (VLC, Media Player Classic, and CCleaner stuff like that) then I'm going to go ahead and hunt for the newest drivers that I can find for the system.

Intel has this listed for the newest chipset drivers
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/filt...4&submit=Go%21

While Alienware is
http://support.alienware.com/Support...anu=8&item=887
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post #34 of 37
11/1/07 at 5:01pm
I also had stuttering for HL2 and I used an ATI card, wonder if its a driver issue, then again I think HL2 was designed around ATI's series.
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post #35 of 37
11/1/07 at 5:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ghazgull013 View Post
I also had stuttering for HL2 and I used an ATI card, wonder if its a driver issue, then again I think HL2 was designed around ATI's series.
Looking Valves softwares you can say that with the big ATi logo on the back of the orange box:P About the only company that I know that strongly support ATi to nVIDIA. Either ways the system finally let me upgrade the drivers to 7.10 video drivers but this is the last time I go ATi
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post #36 of 37
11/1/07 at 6:37pm
yea it seems nvidia has taken hold over ati
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post #37 of 37
11/6/07 at 5:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hammerhead View Post
Try disabling the wireless and/or bluetooth in the device manager and see if that helps. Could be an IRQ conflict maybe... Also, use NHC to set the processor to "max performance" and try again. That will stop the processor from kicking down in speed and might be what is causing your issue. Do you have the latest CPU driver installed? I think it's 1.3.2?
I dont have Bluetooth so that doesnt matter. After doing 2nd install like I said I only installed the drivers from the CD given. I did a test by installing Klite MegaCodec pack and watched the video that gave me the studdering problem. No such problem this time around. Got back to installing everything I wanted and played some TF2. No studdering this time. Install NHC.....studdering in video. Go and set CPU to max performance on AC power. Studder studder. Uninstall and run a video test on the same youtube video that gave me a studder (hellgate london trailer 1). No such problem to report, watch a few more videos off youtube and now watching Gundam 00 and report no studdering.
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