Got my new m17xr3 =)

Hi Peeps,

I got my brand new m17xr3 on Aug. 3rd. I have been working some long shifts and wanted to play on it a bit before posting my thoughts.

My first impressions taking it out of the box was WOW
It looks sexy, the lights are nice etc. Had no raised media bar or damage of any nature that you occassionaly read about here. Also keyboard flex is not an issue for me or at least not apparent. It feels good.

I found it extremely easy to do basic upgrades (like put in my new Crucial M4 SSD). 2 screws and the bottom comes off.. too easy.
I did have an issue trying to flash my SSD's firmware (it was v0001) because it would never find my SSD when I booted from the ISO image provided by Crucial. I tried both ports in the laptop and tried ATA,AHCI, and RAID without any luck. I had to eventually just put my SSD in my tower in order to get the firmware updated to 0002. Afterwards I installed windows with the dell hard drive left out to insure the boot record didn't go on the 320GB from dell. Also went with AHCI in bios as per suggestions that I have read.

I'd like to thank Batboy for his great post http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/556721-how-clean-windows-7-install-driver-install-order-guide-alienware-systems.html on doing a clean install of windows on your alienware. It made me alot more confident setting up everything.

Performace wise I was quite skeptical about how fast this thing really would be. I have an aging desktop rig with the q9400, gtx 260, and 8GB DDR2 and it was having a hard time running bad company 2 on decent settings. I am relieved to report that Bad Company 2 plays really well on this laptop. I use all settings on high but leave MSAA at x 1 and AF x 4 and HBAO off. This gets me anywhere from 60 - 100 fps. If I max out all settings I can bring the fps down to high 20's and up to 50's depending on what is happening on the screen. So it's not bullet proof but quite good performace for a laptop.

I also learned you gotta be sure the vents have enough clear space behind the laptop or you're going to see throttling. They need cool air so don't put ur laptop's back side too close to a big box or whatever like I did.

Anyways, there's a pic. of my new toy. Think i'll have fun with this one.

 

Nice setup you got there. Loving your GTX580M so far?

 

Congratulations on the the new R3! I play BC2 on those exact same settings which are perfect for me, I don't notice a difference between those settings and turning AA/AF to max with HBAO on.