Do you take your laptop to class?

As I'm waiting for my new laptop to arrive, I was wondering do any of you guys take your m14x to class? The only worry for me is that I really don't want to be distracting to anyone, as far as the glowing alienhead goes (can you turn this off?). Of course I'd have Alienfx turned off and such. I don't like sitting in the back of class and would feel kind of awkward if anyone found the laptop distracting. Has anyone come across any annoyances when doing this?

 

I take my laptop to class, and I dont care what people think of my laptop, sure sometimes people tell me that it looks neat. But overall its just like any other laptop really. You cant turn off the White alienhead in the back of the screen.

But really i bought it with my money, so i don't care what others think of it. Plus most people have macs with the apple lit up and its not distracting.

 

If you keep the lights off I don't think it will really be a huge issue. I have brought mine to school the last two years and the only people that really say anything about it are the people that actually know what an alienware is.

 

Cool, nice to see it's not a huge deal. Mostly the problem would be talking to anyone at my school in general rather than them asking about my laptop
Too bad I can't turn off the alienhead, but shouldn't be a problem.

 

I bring mine to class, turn on alien fx for a bit then look round and see them all staring memorisingly at it. Then I turn it off and they all look startled and start paying attention again. Great trick.

 

I probably will, when I actually get it back, because it's now the only properly functional performance notebook I've got lying around.

Just f.y.i. for people who don't know, the lid's glowing Alien head uses the main display's backlight, which means it will glow as long as the screen is on.

 

Plus, the glowing eyes are a lot smaller than a glowing apple.

Sent from my SGH-T999

 

More menacing as well.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 running Resurrection Remix

 

I should have figured it lights up from the screen, thanks. Worked fine in class this morning too. Only thing was that when it initially turns on, or wakes up, the fan starts blasting. It goes away in about 20 seconds, but it's a little loud while trying to listen to a lecture. Overall, not bad!

 

I know people who actually lug m17x's and razer blades to class. Usually they attract a few days of interest from other students, and then it settles down. An m14x with the lights off won't be an issue.

 

Why would you want to turn off the alien head anyways. That symbol is what separates alienware from the herd. Its like you want a ferrari but not the horse logo.

I have used it countless times in college lectures. Never did anybody objected to it. But yes, i can see people turning green with envy when I power it on

As far as fan issue goes, why dont you create a new power profile with CPU utilization at 5% both at maximum and minimum. this way, CPU barely clocks above 1.17 GHz keeping it pretty cool for MS office/ web browsing stuff.

 

I was actually a bit shy to bring my m14x to lectures. But when i did bring it, not a damn person cared except for one girl who said "wow can you change the lights?" People don't really care and you can turn off the lights with no effort.

 

They do care. They are just too jealous to admit it .
Trust me. When i carry my laptop to collg, my frens are like whoa.....they dont comment much. but whenever i see their faces, they are still scanning this machine. lol.
twice, my professor asked me which laptop was i carrying and stuff. This laptop was born attention seeker. hate it or love it.

 

For sure, much better fit on the flip out desks than my older 17" Vostro (although that actually weighed a bit less heh) and my friends love the lights. Battery life has been great, can easily get 8-9 hours and probably around 10-11 if I really wanted to.

 

How do you get so many hours? I probably get 3-4 hours.

 

Power Saver, AlienFX off, HDD turns off after 1 minute, WiFi on, 1-2 notches above minimum brightness and ThrottleStop power saver mode with multiplier set to 11X (this way it downclocks to 810 when I don't need it and boosts back up when I do). I don't notice any performance hits really (I just use Word/OneNote + Chrome in class).

I average between 6200-7200mW discharge rate with this set up.

With the above + WiFi off, brightness at minimum and Word open, I have hit a 4800mW discharge (5500 being the average).

 

Damn that's a lot of tweaking lol. Thanks for the tips!

 

Haha, well the only reason I'd want to turn the alien head off would be if it were too bright with class lights off, as my profs usually show a few videos during class. Funny, I was shy then brought it yesterday where it went fine and today my prof asked me to put it away lol. Apparently we're not allowed to save paper at my school

As far as battery life, mine has been great so far! I haven't used it off the charger too much, but when I had it seemed to do great. I'll continue to tweak, right now I had my CPU max at 50%. Are you saying that putting your max at 5% is the way to go?? That would seem really low, but I'll give it a shot! I'll also look into some of your tweaks skyler, thanks!

 

At 5%, CPU runs at lowest clock rate which is 1.17GHz (approx). Its not actual 5%, but the OS tell the system to run at lowest speed possible hence cutting down on power usage.
Also, turning off aero means less gpu usage and more battery life. you can try that too.

 

What is aero and how would I turn it off? I've been using my laptop at 5% max processor state, alienfx off, gpu off, brightness usually all the way down or two notches up, and basically just web surfing, or writing for class. Getting great battery life. On full charge it says 10hrs.. of course I'm sure that's not true, the most I've gotten was about 5-5.5 hrs. Although, this wasn't exactly the most precise test as I turned off the laptop and let it go through sleep mode and such.