*OFFICIAL* M14x Owner's Lounge Thread - READ BEFORE POSTING

sounds great lol, I ordered mine last Friday, and I'm hoping it gets here this week. Battlefield 3 just got shipped to my house this morning awaiting the arrival of the M14X. I can't wait!

Our M14X models are very similar besides my i7 2670QM, and 750GB hard drive.

how much better is the i7 from a standard P4 3GHZ?

 

It's like upgrading from a flashlight to the Sun.

 

Wow, you're just about the same as me 4 months ago, my old P4 desktop spec is very similar to you, except for the P4 I got the 3.4Ghz version and the Radoen HD 4670.

I can tell you that, on the first 2 month you own the M14x, you'll wish that you can have more space on the HDD and time in a day to play them all, it's like upgrading from a 1998 Toyota Camry to a Lamborghini LP670!!! Your old game that you use to run on, will be run at a very very high framerate (If you turn the V-Sync off), I can run the CS:S and CS:CZ at around 500 - 600 framerate and BF2 at around 100 - 150 framerate, and lastly one of my favourite game is Halo: CE, at 150 - 200 framerate.

Oh, it will be much much better, because the i7 is a Quad core CPU while the P4 is single, plus the i7 has Turbo Boost (not recommend to turn on because it will generate lots of heat). I'm not sure for your P4, but my old P4, it is a Hyperthreading version, which mean it add another logical core, so you will see 2 CPU in the Task Manager. As for the i7 you will see 8 CPU.

The reason I say i7 is faster is not it is newer, but because of the more thread/cores, because if you run a CPU test, the i7 will finish the test with less time than the P4, because it has 4 physical core and another 4 logical core to process while (my P4 version only) the P4 has only 1 physical core and 1 Logical core.

Here is the benchmark score comparison between the two CPU.

This is your Pentium 4 3Ghz, and I assume you order the i7 2670QM version

 

HOLY SMOKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm a huge Halo CE fan as well. I recently played Halo Anniversary on the Xbox 360; I highly recommend you play that asap.

Counter-Strike @ 500-600 fps
Battlefield 2 @ 100-150

My mind is now starting to implode in on itself!

I can't wait to fire up Unreal Tournament, or Half life 2. I'm going to be in for a real treat!

Already pre ordered swtor, and have World of Warcraft on standby. This is going to be one amazing transition compared to someone only slightly upgrading.

 

yep, got it from Dabs for £165. Fingers crossed it works ok, read some issues with SATA3 drives, happy to give it a go. Mine should arrive today.

ordered a 2nd power supply from ebay for £25 too. Official Dell 150w listed by the seller as compatible with the M14x - hopefully its all good.

Listened to some music for the first time tonight on it, amazed by the speaker quality sounds amazing with some Guetta.

 

Not sure for UT and WoW because I didnt play that game, I heard that there're some issue, the GPU issue in fact, but dont worry it is not serious, because M14x is a Optimus Machine, meaning is in that link. So you will have to whitelist (possibly) all of your game in the NVIDIA Control Panel, the instruction can be found in my sig.

For HL2, I manage to reach 100 framerate with V-Sync off, however I prefer to have it on because sometime you can see the random artefact (like black flickering) but even that the framerate will constantly lock between 50-60 because M14x's monitor is a 60Hz one, meaning 60 framerate is the maximum. I want to try the Anniversary Halo CE, but unfortunately I dont have a X360 , well I do have but I sell it for the M14x

 

Yea, regarding the gpu over heating, I'm not too worried about about that. In fact, I have been silently reading these forums for the past week to understand all the problems I may encounter. I know how important it is to Prop up the back of the laptop to allow more airflow, and I know that I should stay away from over clocking the CPU.

Your information, as well as your white list will definitely come in handy.

 

I would order the power adapter from Dell or Amazon. I got one of the cheaper no-name power adapters before and regretted it. The build quality is very different if you take them apart and look at them. You can feel the difference just holding them in your hand.

 

Hi All,

My first post so i spose you can call me 'new', however i have been reading everyones comments and thoughts over the past 3 months.

Just like to say a big thank you to everyone, you ahve all helped in my decission making and I have just put an order in for a new m14x

I am hoping in the future i can be as helpful to just one person as what you all have been to me.

Spec's:

Stealth Black
Intel® Core™ i7-2860QM 2.5GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM
750GB 7200RPM Hard Drive ( I have a corsair Force 3 120GB on its way to replace this though)
3.0GB DDR3 NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M
900p display

cant wait to get my hands on it

Cheers,

Scythe

 

I love my 14x, but I need a little more power, I was running BF3 yesterday everything maxed out and getting between 12-20FPS, lol, just to see what she can handle, I really like the GPU of the m17x and with the ivy bridge I think the 17x will be a beast, I worry that the m14x will not be able to handle bf4 or the next generation games. Thanks also I don't have any extended warranty I order my m14x on 11/28, fyi thanks for any input my fellow aliens

 

Well, what do you expect from a comparison between a GT and a GTX GPU, I ran at medium (except for texture is ultra and effect is high, no AA or motion blur) the avg fps is 30 - 45, in the Oceania/Australia region, the refund warranty is within 21 days from the day you receive your laptop. And I heard in US (not sure but normally it is like that) it's 30 day warranty from the day you receive your laptop.

And believe me, BF4 is still far away to go, because DICE used to say they did intend to release BF4 but not next year, because there is no developer on Earth can develop one full game per year. And sure M14xR1 will not handle BF4, but by the time BF4 release the M14x will advance to the next gen, say either the R2 or the R3 version.

 

There will be another Battlefield in 10/12, if they don't call it BF4 it will be called something else, just like the call of duty series they release games every year like clock work, The only problem I have with the m17x is the size, if they still had a m15x I would have purchase that model without question, IMO the 15inch laptop is the best size, idk why alienware/dell discontinued the m15x series, big mistake.

 

m17x is almost as small as the m15x. Its also not that heavy and I carry it out during the day. Size isn't really an issue as long as you get a good backpack.

 

that's what she said

according to my alien autopsy I can have up 2 16gb of ram, is that true? how expensive would 2 8gb cards be? on a side note According to my task manger, even when playing bf3 the most gb I used was 4.5gb so 16gb seems like overkill just for gaming.

 

you might wanna keep to one thread instead of opening a few but that's just me. as to ram, you can buy 8gig sticks for $100 each(on newegg). Only reason you would need that much is for rendering, hardcore benchmarking, or running more than one VM at the same time

 

yea I get a little thread happy

 

The m17x is a better value for the performance. The only people that should get the m14x is for budget reasons or they need portability with good gaming power. If you have the cash, I'd go for the m17x with the 6990. Did you try overclocking? The m14x isn't for everyone though, its a niche' laptop, a balance between portability and power.

Dell discontinued the m15x because of the introduction of the m18x. So they took out dual gpu support from the m17x and gave it to the m18x, and basically made the m17x like a bigger m15x. They dropped the m15x and added the m14x so the line up wont be crowded and wont be redundant. Would've gotten an m15x if it were still in production though.

 

Well, it maybe not BF4, but perhaps Bad Company 3, because just couple of weeks before BF3 release, DICE's Patrick Liu say that “we haven’t killed Bad Company”, follow the link to the short article about it.

He also said that

So that mean no annual release like CoD, and I wouldnt support the annual release too, because it will kill the franchise, just look at CoD, each time the game release, it is getting worse and worse.

The reason AW/Dell discontinue the M15x is that the laptop look nearly as large as the M17x, yet less powerful, and they want a laptop series that is fit the name of "portability & performance", and M15x is not as portable as the new M14x, for me I planning to get the M17xR4 (if it release anytime next year) however I do know that the M17x isnt really portable but I'm a kinda performance-lover so I like thing to run at its peak and the M17x fit the need of my need. It worth the exchange for me.

For the i7 2670QM or the 2600QM series Yes, it can hold up to 16GB, while the i7 2760QM or the 2700QM series or Higher can hold up to 32GB of ram.

 

Sounds like you're going to have a great set up. i7 2860, 900p display, and the force 3 ssd. All you need is a great mouse and a cooler and you're set.

 

2x4 Gb configuration Max. This is based on M14X official manual Page 102.

Please see pic. However I haven't tried more than 2x4 gig on my M14X.

 

meh thought it would work, but I guess not, at least according to dell. Would be nice if someone confirmed it though

 

15% percent re-stocking fee once it enters the build stage. You would have to had checked off the terms and conditions before purchase. It's explained in there.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

 

Hi,
I am looking into getting a new m14x nea the end of this year. However I live in NZ and wanted to know from other Kiwi's hoe Dell support is?

Any tips or worries?

 

Glad to see another neighbour I also live in NZ, and the tech support is mediocre, but so far I never actually encounter an English-born tech support, most of them are either Indian or Filipino. But no a big worry since most of them know what they doing, especially on the last time I called, which is relate to my HDD failure, and he instruct me to fix and find what cause the numerous BSOD and find out it is the HDD failure in just about 10mins. And the replacement of the HDD take few hrs (because I've also has other thing to replace), and the technician is a contracted person, it's like Dell contract the Geek on Wheels to come to fix the computer if you know what I mean.

 

Ok,
Does that mean it is all done in NZ?

 

Yes. 10 char

 

So you have never had any major problems with them?

Have they always fixed you laptop? Ever charged extra?

Thanks

 

Hi, yesterday I purchased the Alienware M14X and eagerly awaiting its delivery. I wanted a laptop that could handle some games, light video editing, watch movies etc. I received a tax rebate recently so I was able to splash a bit more money for something that I could game on

For games, I'm really looking at Star Wars: The Old Republic, Sim City 4, Civilization V, Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, Football Manager, Crysis and The Witcher 2. I understand that the Witcher 2 in particular seems to be problematic for running on the M14X.

Basically, I'm wondering if the spec below will be able to run these games. I understand loads of people would suggest the i7 processor but my budget couldn't stretch to it so I just stuck with the basic i5 processor. I'm hoping it should be good enough to run these games on medium/high settings.

Any advice? Spec is below.


Memory
6144MB (1x2GB + 1x4GB) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel

Video Card
1.5GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT555M

Processor
Intel® Core™ i5 Processor 2430M (2.40Ghz, 3MB, 2C)

Hard Drive
500GB (7,200rpm) SATA Hard Drive

Wireless Networking
European Dell Wireless 1000

LCD
14.0" (36 cm) Widescreen High Definition + (1600x900) WLED with TrueLife

 

It'll run those games alright, witcher and crysis probably won't run on ultra, but you won't have any issues with graphics power. If you play newer fps like bf3, you can still play on high settings, but that's the max the card can do really on high.

 

Alright so i ordered my m14x with
i7 2670QM
6gb DDR3
killer n wireless
bluetooth
and the rest is default

ordered it on the 8th went into production the exact same day only thing is ETD is the 26th, hoping to get it before that .

anyways ive read up on overclocking the cpu and gpu. is it something thats risky to do? im planning on playing games such as WoW, League of Legends, SC2, Diablo 3. will it even be needed for those types of games?

 

I just ordered one of these last night and i can't wait to get it.

 

Do NOT overclock the CPU, because the i7 is already run hot, if you want, just overclock the GPU, I use EVGA Precision because it gave me less problem than the MSI Afterburner, and do take notice of the temp, and dont overclock too much because there are some games that will not play well or crash before launch.

As for games you list above, I dont think it would even need any boost, however I'm not sure about Diablo 3 and WoW, but I can run it at stock clock on LoL, SC2.

 

cant really overclock the cpu, its multiplier is locked. But the turbo boost does provide higher clock speeds when needed. The GPU is safe to overclock at your own risk. But it depends on a lot of factors to how high you can go, like your room temp, elevated laptop, using a cooler, if the thermal paste is applied good, etc. Usually 750 on the core and 1050 on the memory is the highest i would go, don't let temps go over like 85, but i usually never go over 76. Use MSI afterburner to overclock the gpu.

 

I just installed the updates and as soon as I restarted my laptop, again windows is installing an update??? how is this possible??? Yes I have my update set to install automatically, but how could there be an update every single day, it annoying and its burning up my bandwidth.

Also according to task manger as the window updates are being downloaded I'm getting a CPU spikes from0 percent to 11 percent with no other application running beside firefox as I write this thread, lol

 

What does it update? Because I'm update everyday too, but what is it actually update is the Definition for Windows Defender and MSE. I use " Check for update but let me choose whether to download and install them", however you can always choose another option which is somewhat similar to your option, which is " Download update but let me choose whether to install them" then you'll get to see what it is actually download. And that if it actually keep looping the same file, then you can google the problem as well.

 

good advice +1 not much more to add until you figure out if its a bad update or not.

Edit: gotta spread some rep before I give you more

 

No extra charge, that is what the warranty is for, if you still charge even you have the warranty then what the point having it? As for in my case, they always call me to make an appointment, the only major problem I had is the HDD failure, and all I did was call them, and describe what's going on. That's why I'll try to get as many years of warranty as possible.

 

I get updates very infrequently. Other than the big (in comparison) update I got when I first switched on the laptop all I get now is definition updates for windows defender.

In fact, I'm surprised at the 'lack' of updates TBH.

 

alright thanks for the input. i guess il leave it as it is and turn turbo mode off, and if ever i see the need il look further into overclocking it. uhmm i i ordered it on the 8th and it went in to prodution the same day and the ETD is the 26th around what date should i expect it to come in? as from i read dell isnt too accurate with their ETD.

also is their anything i should know or read up on before getting my hands on it? thanks

 

Thanks Niko. Can anyone else tell me more about what to expect re: performance?

I'm beginning to think I should have waited and got the i7 next year but the order's complete now. I really don't mind playing games with the settings turned down slightly, I'm just worried that the laptop won't be able to play my games (particularly Star Wars) which is a big reason why I purchased!

Can anyone put my mind to rest!

 

Well I've had my m14x for almost a week, and I've loved the results for everything I've thrown at it. Though I have a few questions, mostly involving the physical memory usage.

As I write this right now, I'm using 32% of my physical memory. I have Google Chrome (with one tab) open, Steam, and the Windows Task Manager. I have 6 GB of memory (it came pre-installed with the deal I got) and it's currently using 1.94 GB. That seems very unnaturally high. Other than the things I've listed, the only things running would be Windows processes and the Allienware processes. My CPU usage, however, only goes between 1-4%. The Killler-N wireless card application seems to be a bit resource heavy, and it always runs in the background by default.

Second question: How effective is MSI afterburner? It seems to be popular for overclocking the 555M around here. I've played Killing Floor with it off and with it on (overclocked to 750/1500/1050, my current overclock) and it didn't seem to have make a huge difference. Also, does it have to remain open (or minimized, of course) to work? I've always let it run like that. And even though I save the settings, it seems whenever I restart my computer, the settings don't get applied at system startup and never save like I have them set to.

And since I've bee typing this, the usage has gone up to 38%, it was a 2.28 GB of usage for a second there. It just bothers me ever so slightly.

 

PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ i7 2670QM 2.2GHz (3.1GHz w/Turbo Boost, 6MB Cache)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit,
WIRELESS CARDS Intel® Ultimate N WiFi Link 1000 a/g/n 1x2
MEMORY 6GB DDR3 at 1600MHz
VIDEO CARD 1.5GB DDR3 NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M using NVIDIA Optimus™ technology
HARD DRIVE 750GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s
LCD PANEL 14.0" High Def+ (900p/1600x900) with WLED backlight
Internal High-Definition 5.1 Surround Sound Audio
BLUETOOTH Internal Bluetooth 3.0

I get only 2 and a half hours even on power savings mode, which doesn't seem to effect the battery life. I even tried to tweak the power saving options to no avail. My question is, how long does your m14x last with similar specs? and is this normal battery life for a new m14x?

 

That's around the normal, i usually get 2.5-3.5 hours of battery life. Maybe the core i5's get better battery life, but yeah, its normal, you're battery is good. It's the reason I stopped taking it to school.

 

i just restarted the computer with power savings mode and my battery life jumped to 4 1/2 hours. restarting definitely helped give me a proper reading.

 

Greetings guys,

I hope this doesn't come as a nuisance to you, but I would love some advice for my new Alienware M14X. It came in today, and God, I've never unpacked anything in my life so slow and delicate. I don't think I've ever been this glad with a material thing in my life. Honestly, I've wanted to have an Alienware since I was twelve, and now I finally do: couldn't be more happy.

Disregarding all that, I found these fora some time ago while browsing for my new laptop-to-be. I've seldom seen such a helpfull, enthousiastic and friendly community, if ever. Cheers to you lot for that.

Now I've browsed a lot of threads here, and gained a lot of insight. Thanks to some here I've refrained from going for the 3gig videocart, for example. Unfortunately, a day after ordering I noticed that most of you say that the 1600x900 upgrade is the most rewarding and essential one: unfortunately that has been to late for me.

Nevertheless I am satisfied: never have I had such a powerfull laptop in my hands. Loving the design, touch, finnish, everything.

Yet since I am in no way anything near a hardware/software expert, I would love to have some tips for making this machine run everything close to as smooth as possible. I did not open this thread out of sloth, for I have already upgraded my BIOS (which I've never heard of before) and Nvidia Drivers to the most recent version. Yet there are some things I cannot figure out.

For example, I have read alot about something called an "turbro boost" or something similar, and that turning it off reduces heat and increases fps. I tried to do this, but the manual which I found is still too vague to understand and follow. The same goes for whitelisting (if I'm correct) your games? I tried this but got so afraid to mess up the system settings and therefore refrained myself from that.

Now I'd really love if anyone here had an clean-cut, noob-friendly way of handling these things. I just bought Battlefield 3 and would like to make it run the best it can on this petite powerhouse.

Thanks in advance.

 

Hi guys, i have a quick question. I don't know which thread to post this but i think this is the most appropriate one.

So i ordered my m14x last dec 1 and the specs are:
1 225-0790 Alienware M14X - Stealth Black with Soft Touch Finish
1 317-8439 Intel Core i5 2430M 2.4GHz (3.0GHz w/Turbo Boost)
1 317-7514 6GB Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz
1 320-2228 14.0 High Def+ (900p/1600x900) with WLED backlight
1 318-0644 1.5GB DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M
1 342-2567 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/s

The unit has already been shipped and etd is dec 15. The problem is i'm from the Philippines(in asia, gmt+8) and this will get delivered to my uncle in Virginia which he will then bring here late this month. What i need to know is what diagnostics can he run on the system to see if the components right so we can still do something if there are problems. I've read a few posts about this but first hand experience from owners(esp i5 ones), i think would be the best. So far the only thing i have in mind is the windows experience index which should be at 6.9? Any other suggestions? What defects should be looked out for in the m14x upon delivery? thanks in advance!

 

Google chrome is a resource hog, I actually went back to ie because of it.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

 

Look for dead pixels also run folding to stress the CPU and components

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How do you protect your m14x's battery from charging?
I mean if its charged to 100%, or if you are using your lappy with AC, you cant pull the battery out.
So the battery will wear off fast.

Any solution, or a software that stops charging the battery?

 

Hmm. I was under the impression that unless it needs charging, the battery is not used when plugged in.

You could always turn it "off when plugged in" in the power settings?