Newbie m14x questions

Hi All

I have not really been keeping up to date with hardware/drivers etc over the last 4 years or so and i recently got the m14x as a gift off the wife .

Spec is the i7 2.2ghz
500gb 7200 SATA
4gig ddr3 RAM
3GB Nvidia GT555

I think i have been rather unlucky and noobish when it has come to this laptop however so let me explain.

Firstly i have started to get issues with the built in Microphone - All of a sudden for no reason it has just started to sound really tinny and people are unable to hear me.

Second issue - The other day i went to switch the laptop on to be prsented with a post beep (7 long beeps) and the laptop not switching on. Funnily enough when i was on the phone to Dell about this the device then decided to boot into Windows and has done ever since. I am curious to know if this will cause issues in the future or do i need to get Dell out to change the motherboard asap?

Third issue: Now when closing the lid on the laptop it will no longer come out of hibernation/sleep and i have to switch the laptop off by pressing the power button in and switching it back on. Now i have checked and changed the power settings but nothing seems to have resolved the problem at all.

Now i have recently updated the NVIDIA drivers only from the Dell website, i have not looked at any other settings at all as of yet. The laptop is not crashing from what i know (has not done so on me yet).

Am i doing something wrong here?

On a final note any suggestions on driver updates to perform game performance overall and system performance would be appricated but any insight to the issues i have poseted would be great (i have been looking at the problems thread).

sorry for the long post all

 

There is a post about it on here where a dell representative said that muffled sound through microphone was due to a manufacturing defect as some foam was covering the mic and this resulted in not-so-good voice. He also said that dell would replace the screen of users affected by the said problem. so just contact dell and ask them for screen replacement. After a lot of searching i found out what the dell rep said:

So just contact dell tech.

Most of the users that had 7beep problem usually had a dead motherboard which was replaced. but since your laptop booted up again, there is not much dell will do about it since it is working. i would suggest you to keep using your laptop as usual as long as it does it again. unnecessary opening up of laptop is a pain. plus most of the times, tech guys usually end up making your laptop look worse with scratches and whatnots, so its my opinion that you avoid it until you face the problem again.

I dont think it comes out of sleep just by opening the lid. you have to press the power button once to wake it up.

you can download the latest driver from nvidia website and it works just fine on alienware m14x. Dell website conatins the old version and is not as efficient as the new drivers rolled out by nvidia. you do not need to mod .inf file or anything. simply download and install.

 

Wait, I could have sworn I had a post here first. Was it removed? ADMIN?

 

haha.. i remember you posting something about pchelp. maybe its against the rules or something

 

Thanks for the replys all, am in the process of updating drives at the moment so hopefully i will start to see some changes . I am certainly finding this site quite helpful and have started to read alot of the sticky posts about performing upgrades etc.

 

Yes....If you need help after I would suggest looking up a particular driver called pchelpforum , it is very helpful in fixing problems.

 

it would seem that the wonderful 7 beeps is back to stay this time , laptop will no longer boot up looks like its time for dell to come out to repair this and the microphone..

Only after 3 months too..

 

Meh, just look at this way. If you owned another brand (cough Asus cough MSI cough), you would have to send it in to a repair depot and you wouldn't get it back for over a month. At least you can get it fixed at your home within a couple business days Let us know how your encounter with the tech goes.

 

Yeah, i must say even though it has happened i am still very happy. I have followed the Alienware brand for many years even after they sold to Dell and i am glad i made the purchase.

Certainly glad i have found this site also due to all the support and advice on upgrading, nothing i would have even thought about previously.

Just need to select the RAM/SSD i want to upgrade too

 

I upgraded my RAM to 8gb rather cheaply via crucial.co.uk. May be worth a look

 

Tech is coming to change the motherboard and microphone on Friday (hopefully) so we shall see how that goes. Going to familirise myself with the layout before they come so at least i know what to expect