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    Got my new M17x today!!! and.... bad RAM :(

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by aoliver, Jun 4, 2010.

  1. aoliver

    aoliver Notebook Enthusiast

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    That's right, after waiting an eternity (aka 2-3 weeks) I finally got my M17x today. I was so excited while unboxing and setting it up. I turn it on and... caps lock is flashing. Sure enough, after looking up the error code and some troubleshooting by reseating memory and trying each stick alone in each slot I was able to determine that one of the sticks is bad :( Dell is sending a new one but that still means trying to play games over the weekend with 2GB of RAM. Guess we'll see how much they rely on system memory vs video memory...
     
    aoliver, Jun 4, 2010
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  2. kenichols29

    kenichols29 Notebook Evangelist

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    Dell is quick about sending new parts. They overnighted some parts for mine to me.
     
    kenichols29, Jun 4, 2010
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  3. mfractal

    mfractal T|I

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    Says a lot about dells qa procedures...
     
    mfractal, Jun 4, 2010
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  4. SirRogers

    SirRogers Notebook Consultant

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    Every company makes mistakes. I'm sure HP, Lenovo, or Sony are no better. I'm actually very happy with Dell. Their customer support is on a whole different level.
     
    SirRogers, Jun 4, 2010
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  5. mfractal

    mfractal T|I

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    Customer support IS very good, qa on the other hand is nonexistent. This is not a one time thing, cases like that have been happening too often lately.
     
    mfractal, Jun 4, 2010
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  6. Aikimox

    Aikimox Weihenstephaner!

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    If bad ram is the only problem - you should be thankful ;)
     
    Aikimox, Jun 5, 2010
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  7. aoliver

    aoliver Notebook Enthusiast

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    Actually, I'm a Sr. Systems Admin and we use all Dell hardware so I'm quite familiar with their support (and compared to HP, Lenovo, Asus, and Toshiba it's the best by leaps and bounds!). My Dell support experience has been really good with few exceptions. I definitely prefer the chat option though.

    I decided to get everything setup even with 2GB of ram so I can play around and I'm shocked at how well it's running. Don't get me wrong, I had to play around with drivers and ended up installing windows twice. For some reason I had trouble with the Dell Win 7 disk so I installed Win 7 Enterprise (we have a surplus of licenses at work) and I didn't run into any issues. I did have to track down the CCC 10.4 version but that wasn't too bad. I've been playing COD:MW2 all night in 1920x1200 and couldn't be happier. It's funny, I completely forgot I was running on only 2GB of ram until seeing this thread again ;)

    All in all, despite the setbacks, I'm really happy that I traded the m15x back in for the m17x. It's not really that much bigger and the performance difference is noticeable. Also, I didn't think there would be that big of a difference with the RGB LED but man was I wrong... the only downside is now my desktop monitor looks like total crap to me!
     
    aoliver, Jun 5, 2010
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  8. EviLCorsaiR

    EviLCorsaiR Asura

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    Hey, 2GB of RAM isn't terrible. I permenantly run 2GB of RAM because I'm cheap, and can't be bothered to pay out £70 for 4GB when my 2GB runs fine and when I could spend that £70 on games instead. :p

    In all seriousness I think 2GB of RAM is still enough, even for gaming. Even intense games make not much of an impact above 1GB on system memory, and with some good tweaking I can get my core Windows RAM usage to about 700-800MB, giving me plenty for a game on top.

    Although it does sometimes lag a bit coming out of a game, rendering it unusable for about 15-30 seconds, that's still fine for me.
     
    EviLCorsaiR, Jun 5, 2010
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