2 issues - cleaning the wrist pad and is energy saving killing my software?

Hello there,

I have two issues with my Alienware 17, one of them I bet every owner has and that's keeping the rubbery like surface of the laptop free of oils from human hands! I clean mine every day with screen wipes but some areas just will not clean well and it's starting to make my laptop look a lot more used/older than it really is.

A colleague put his grubby fingers on the laptop the other week and no matter how many times I wipe it I can still see his finger prints!

Any one got any tips on how (if you can) keep these laptops spotless?

Second issue is, I'm wondering if there's some sort of energy saving feature going on that's killing secondary drives? I have an SSD OS drive and a SSDHD that's got all my work files (photoshop and 3dmax stuff, etc) every now and then I hear the disc make the same sound it makes when you switch the laptop on (a sort of zz-zz noise) and I know when I hear that I need to save extremely quickly because right after that, Photoshop and 3D max will close. No warnings or error messages, they just disappear from the screen.

If anyone has any ideas what this could be I'd be extremely grateful.

Many thanks for reading!

 

Hello,

I'm wondering if the problem could be the Link Power Management feature of the Intel Rapid Storage Technology.....

 

Disabling Link Power Management haven't had any issues since doing that.

 

I use Invisible Glass for the laptop surface of my Alienware

 

Okay for the first, I also had the same issue with this soft finish, I tried using alcohol and It doesn't help, the best way is to use bounty and dampen them enough to make the laptop's surface damp and clean it, use a dry bounty and clean off the water and done that should help a lot. Using dry bounty directly is good only if you want to just clean the dust off (If your room is super clean then no issue obv). The second option is to buy a skin (Brushed finish / Carbon fiber finish etc) I didn't use them because I like this simple look and I felt that using them might block the heat, plastic is already an insulator of heat and thought that would worsen this So I din't go that route, anyways that's my opinion.

For the DVD drive issue, I know that sucks big time and I removed the ODD from my machine made space for an HDD enclosure IF you really want that ODD, I still suggest you to remove that & get a portable drive, make good use of that SATA III port instead of that crap odd. And that's not any energy saving issue, It's a bad ODD I presume since It happens on my machine as well and It sometimes causes the scanning of all USB ports looking for pnp devices etc or some probable stupid call that makes some applications close, I beleive It's mostly the ODD and not the SATA port.

Hope this helps.

 

I used a light spray of 'Phone Sanitizer' and a gentle wipe with a new fine microfiber cloth of the type for cleaning spectacle lenses; be VERY gentle with the rubberised surface as regards fine particles as the surface is extremely easy to scratch.
The phone sanitizer I use is from a UK company called Ocean Corporate Hygiene and it's pink, and contains Isopropyl Alcohol amongst other things, and it does the job. Just be careful not to mark the surface by over-zealous rubbing..................

Oh; almost forgot - amputate your colleagues fingers as an example to others. One hand should be enough.