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    Making Windows 7 *feel* better, more responsive

    Discussion in 'Alienware 14 and M14x' started by Coflash, Oct 1, 2011.

  1. Coflash

    Coflash Notebook Consultant

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    Hello

    My M14x kinda feels crap to use with general use.

    This is strange considering my Macbook Air ran it nicely without the same feeling of lag, my desktop is of course the same. All three have SSDs, and the one in my M14x should be the fastest (minus the SATA III thing of course)

    Just doing simple things like opening Firefox, loading emails, opening folders. Sometimes it will just sit there as if it had crashed but it'll eventually respond again. It makes no sense, especially in comparison to my old Mac running the same version of W7.

    Does anyone else feel the same? Is there anything you can do (without disabling all visual performance options) that makes it any better?

    Games are fine if that helps, performance is top notch.
     
    Coflash, Oct 1, 2011
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  2. dekka007

    dekka007 Notebook Guru

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    Was there not some talk of SSD incompatibilities on the M14x on here recently about which models are ok and which are not.
     
    dekka007, Oct 1, 2011
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  3. Coflash

    Coflash Notebook Consultant

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    I'm not sure. There's so many conflicting pieces of information that it's hard to know what's factual and what isn't. There was a lot of talk that the model I bought would be fine too, which I made sure to specifically check before I bought it.
     
    Coflash, Oct 1, 2011
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  4. dekka007

    dekka007 Notebook Guru

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    I haven't got my M14x yet but I know there has been some issues with the Crucial M4 on the mac osx side of things.

    I will be putting an Intel 510, Vertex 3 or OWC Mercury Pro into mine end of next week when it arrives will let you know.

    There is no way you should be getting poor performance in windows 7. Games probably are running correctly in that once it has loaded there is very little disk activity.

    The way you describe the freezes certainly sounds like a disk based activity problem. Can you get hold of another SSD or put a HD back into it with a clone of the current windows 7 installed? Using acornis product or similar.

    This will give you the information whether its related to your particular SSD drive.
     
    dekka007, Oct 1, 2011
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  5. Coflash

    Coflash Notebook Consultant

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    I have a OCZ Vertex 3 in my main PC, but it'd be a huge pain to swap them over :/

    Surely somebody else with an M4 can comment, someone who can remain objective about it all
     
    Coflash, Oct 1, 2011
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  6. dekka007

    dekka007 Notebook Guru

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    dekka007, Oct 1, 2011
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  7. Coflash

    Coflash Notebook Consultant

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    With an i5, there are a lot of issues with i5's but I don't have one

    Plus I already did that
     
    Coflash, Oct 1, 2011
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  8. flybass

    flybass Notebook Consultant

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    I wish this forum did a better job of helping buyers out. If you want an ssd with no problems buy the samsung drive which would have come with the system if you got the dell option. It is fast enough (albeit overpriced) and you won't have to deal with the SATA 3 incompatibilities. If you go another route, avoid the intel 510 (it gave me nothing but problems) even though it is incredibly fast.
     
    flybass, Oct 1, 2011
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  9. DVSman

    DVSman Notebook Consultant

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    I've got a M4 with my 14x and no problems at all. I used the cloning software and cable that came with it and just copied the stock 500gb regular drive entirely. Everything works great and it's noticeably quicker than it was with the stock drive, despite having all the same settings.
     
    DVSman, Oct 2, 2011
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  10. killbeagle

    killbeagle Notebook Geek

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    You might experience even better results if you do a clean install on your new SSD :)

    @Thread opener: Did you do a clean install of Win7?
     
    killbeagle, Oct 3, 2011
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  11. Brabostaan

    Brabostaan Notebook Deity

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    What firmware are you on? 0001 has problems. Latest is 0009.

    Did you do a clean install or just cloned it?

    @DVSman: Run CDM and post your results.
     
    Brabostaan, Oct 3, 2011
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