Alienware M17x R4 : First Impression and a few questions.

So i got my Alienware m17x r4 finally. I have to admit it is amazing. So I thought id give u a few reviews on things what i felt were good.

Keyboard:
The keyboard doesn't have such bad FLEX... its almost negligible for me. The screen is amazing, Just need to adjust the text size of my chrome (its just too small). The keys really feel soft when you type on them. Since this is a non chicklet keyboard well i love it .. it feels like a normal keyboard, this is amazing cuz it doesnt slow my speed of typing unlike my sisters laptop that i used where i had to see and type every letter so that i dont make a mistake.

Touchpad
The touchpad doesn't seem to have multitouch functions like other laptops which can be lived with. The buttons on the touchpad are soft which is feels nice while clicking.

Backlit:
The back-lights on the keyboards are just amazing. I love the red color specifically. The are bright and just look amazing.

Screen:
I am using the 1080p(60hz) screen which looks amazing.

Battery Life:
Battery Life for me ... well its been 3.5 hours since ive had it without the power adapter and I've been downloading drivers and surfing around and it still shows 40mins of power remaining. which i think is decent enough to survive 1-2 lectures in college.

Look and feel:
The rubber touch is just AMAZING. I mean it is soo smooth just feel like sliding my hand over it everytime . The front panel is amazing and doesnt feel like cheap plastic.

Heating and fan sound:
In Idle non-gaming use it doesnt heat up.(I will soon get the temp readings.) and NO FAN NOISE which is amazing. Will update you guys when i play a game on it (which is very very soon)

Sound:
Sound is decent ( for some reasons when I turn the THX pro off its LOUD but then it looses that quality). Will soon try it with my creative 2.1 and update this. Moreover im not used to the speakers being in front which i think is good as it gets the speakers closer to the listener.

Now for the upgrades.

As soon as i got the laptop the first thing i did was create recovery disk using Alienrespawn.

PS:- I screwed 2 of my dvd's running the recovery disk at first reason being i did not plug in the charger (dont know why that happened but yes it did.) PLUG IN THE CHARGER BEFORE YOU CREATE A RECOVERY.

here are the things i upgraded.
addition 6gb ram
128gb SSD
Killer n 1202 wireless card.

Opening the system was fairly easy thanks to the owners manual.
I had a few problems with the drivers for killer n 1202 and one of the screws that just refused to unscrew.

SSD installation:
I have heard people complaining about restoring from the alienrespawn recovery disc But mine just installed very easily without any issues or errors saying that the SSD space was too small. I am using a Samsung 830 128Gb SSD.

While installing the new setup i never put in my stock drive in HDD BAY 1 and once i was done with my SSD I installed my HDD to HDD module 1.

Ram installation:
The simplest of all.

Okay so yes I love my BEAST ! But now the porblems i faced.

Killer n 1202 :
For some reasons i got the driver which was a 144mb download. I could easily install the Driver for the WIFI. But for some reasons it couldnt install the Bluetooth Specifically the VIRTUAL BLUETOOTH SUPPORT and it would give me a blue-screen every time i would do it. Well after a few tries and restarts it did start working as it could recognize my blackberry through bluetooth. Havent tried transferring things. So installing the ATHEROS Bluetooth Suite CAN BE A MESS.

That one screw:
While opening my laptop up. There was this one screw under the keyboard where the RAM is installed which just refused to open up. I tried to open it up but well the Cross on the screw head got destroyed (yes it weared out while i was unscrewing the damn thing) which was really annoying But i managed to install the RAM. So guys please dont apply pressure on the screws they might wear out for you guys too.


Driver:
This whole AMD thing is really annoying. I press fn + f7 .. My system reboots and i get a 800*600 res. Which i dont get. When i disable my intel hd 4000 from device manger same issue. I try updating my graphics driver to the one on the Dell website .. and after the reboot i get a message saying no AMD driver found. I Just dont know why am i getting these errors. I try to use the autodetect software from the AMD site It doesnt run at all. I do not know why all this mess. I really need help on this. Please HELP.

Another Annoying thing
Okay so when i opened my back cover of my Alienware m17x I found out that one side of the cover which was hid inside the battery was ... BURNT . Now this has really pissed me off. I mean its a freaking $1800 machine and they still end up giving me burnt back cover. Here is the image. . Please suggest me what to do.


Overall
Well Overall i am really happy with my m17x .. But the cover has got me really pissed. Also the driver issue if some one could help me out with it. Thanks.

 

The R3 have it so I'm sure R4 should have it too. I configured it on my R3 before I was able to use it. If I remember it correctly, you just have to enable them as its disabled by default.

 

yea ill try doing that .. what do u think about the burnt thing that i linked in the image ??

 

Get a hold of customer support and ask about them sending you out a replacement. Should be as simple as that.

 

AMD's auto detect software really doesn't work from what I heard, at least on the notebook front.
Try installing driver 12.8 Link: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...t-12-8-8-982-0-july-27-amd-official-whql.html

Does Catalyst even show up in your programs?

 

This basically, anyhow skylinelvr im also from suffolk! what a small world

 

Well had an issue with getting the CCC working. What i did was used device manager and updated my AMD driver to 8.973 and then right clicked the desktop and went for configure switchable graphics. I added guildwars2.exe to the list of "High Performance" and i was done. Getting FPS around 70 for highest settings which can be more if i go for 12.x driver. Which i will do sometime later.

 

Yeah you have to turn the multi-touch stuff on. There should be a Synaptics Pointing Device icon in your taskbar. Double click on that then go to the Device Settings tab then click on settings. Make sure you expand all of the options. It has some pretty cool features. I have it set up so when you hold three fingers down at once, it launches my browser. You can also set it up so you can swipe three fingers to go Back and Forward in the browser. Lots to play with, been a really pleasant surprise and I use it more than I expected and like the change from a mouse for non-gaming use.

 

So in conclusion, the laptop is amazing??
Sorry, I was just skimming through your OP and must have seen the word 'amazing' about 6 or 7 times.
Have fun with it!

 

I have had my R4 for about a month now, and I will attest that this is by far the best pc I've owned so far, including ones that I've built (almost all of them). I have always been hesitant in buying a $1700-$2000 computer, but with this R4, I think I'm sold on Alienware in the laptop arena. I travel A LOT (7 days on-7 off) and this rig has allowed me to do anything I want while on the road. I am confident that in 1-2 years when it starts to show its age, I will be able to upgrade the processor and GPU and get another 1-2 years out of it.

I also love the red AlienFX scheme, it is all I use since red is the best color for night vision. I have only had 1 problem so far and that is the left speaker blew out. Alienware promptly shipped me new speakers to install (they arrived while I am on road). They also called me today to inquire how the installation went. I am very happy so far with the customer service aspect of their business. When the speakers were working properly, they are amazing for a laptop!

I also am in love with the soft texture of the paint. It makes me feel less worried that I will drop the laptop from the desk to my backpack. The only thing that concerns me is the longevity of the paint in the area below the keyboard where my left hand rests while gaming.

All-in-all, I would recommend the R4 and variants to anyone who needs a POWERFUL mobile platform.

Now where is my commission check?

 

Just thought i'd let you know a good trick for stripped screws.

Remove a Stripped Screw with a Rubber Band