Performance issues with Alienware m15x

[Pharaxion]

Hello,

Hey guys. I bought an alienware gaming laptop around august last year. I seem to remember being able to play Battlefield Bad
Company on high settings for quite a while, but lately I've been having multiple issues. I am now forced to run the game on low settings in order to not get too many fps issues.
Other than that, it seems that when the server changes from one map to the next, my performance is guaranteed to drop - Wtf is up with that?

Another thing is that for some reason, World of Warcraft won't allow me to turn the graphics up beyond "Fair" in the default bar. Everything beyond "Fair" is marked in red so that I can't move the marker anywhere past it. However, with settings at Fair as a max, I have a constant 80+ fps, so no complaints there. Also, I've changed the graphic settings in the Nvidia control panel so that its constantly at "Balanced" in order to not put too much stress on the card.

But really, with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 260M, I should not be having that many problems with BFBC2.... I have the latest DX installed, and I've updated the BIOS on the pc aswell. I recently formatted the pc back to its factory default image, which seemed to help the graphics card a little, as I was starting to have issues even in WoW ..... Maybe it had something to do with the HDD being filled 90% ?

I tried updating my graphic card drivers before the format, but it only seemed to make the problem worse. HOWEVER, I only uninstalled the Nvidia Drivers, not all the additional apps like performance monitor, control panel etc. Because I wasn't sure whether or not it was important to remove ALL apps before installing the new drivers? Another thing to add is that I was told by my nvidia control panel that I can't use regular drivers for some reason. I need specific drivers from Dell, due to something about compatibility issues?

I thought maybe the pc was overheating which is known to cause issues, especially in laptops. So I bought a docking station for it, with 2 fans built in to help cool the system. Seemed to help a little, but not enough apparantly. I cleaned out what I could from the outside, but I am not comfortable with opening up the laptop as I haven't opened one before.

My specs are as follows:
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_gdr.101026-1503)
Language: Danish (Regional Setting: Danish)
System Manufacturer: Alienware
System Model: M15x
BIOS: Ver A07 1.00
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU M 520 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 4020MB RAM
Page File: 2487MB used, 5551MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
DxDiag Version: 6.01.7600.16385 32bit Unicode

 

[Coagulation]

At least I'm not the only one having a similar, if not the exact same, issue. I' also have the same d and operating system as you. Wish I knew of some way to fix this debilitating problem.

 

[Pharaxion]

I'm really at a loss.. My personal theory is dust building up inside the pc, but like I wrote ^ - I am not comfortable with opening up the pc to get it out. I have no problems opening desktop pc's as I am very familiar with it, but laptops are a different story.

But in any case I'd love to get some fresh theories and ideas from the people in here to help us find a proper solution for this issue as it is getting quite annoying.

 

[Coagulation]

Ok, a friend of mine has a theory. Did you recently (Yesterday/a couple days ago) a windows update? As of yesterday I got 20 updates installed when I restarted my computer. As I think about it, it wasn't until those updates installed that the issue resurfaced. Just trying to use the fact that we're having the similar issue as the same time. We might be able to use this to figure out the problem.

 

[Pharaxion]

Well, I've had my problem for a few months actually. It was just recently that I decided it had to end. But yeah after the reinstallation of Windows, I too got alot of updates. However, I didn't test my games before I installed them, so I really can't tell whether or not they had an influence.

 

[Telegraph]

Hey,

I had the same issue as you, almost thought wasted money on m15x. Browsed the net for awhile.
I am not sure if it will work for u guys, but try unplug-plug your ac cord.

With all this talk about the stealth mode, eventualy decided to check if i got it on (dont remember doing it though =/)
so how to switch it off? yes unplug-plug ac cord.... It actually worked for me. Must've activated stealth mode while wipping the sensor panel..

hope that helps

 

[Pharaxion]

I'm well aware of the stealthmode "accidents", so that is not the issue for me atleast :/