Just bought older Alienware 17, Buyers Remorse settling in

I've been a long time lurker here and have received a lot of help on my m14xr2, so I just wanted to thank everyone for their time and support. Now for my concern. I went to a pawn shop and kind of had an impulse buy and bought a pretty good condition alienware 17. I haven't kept up too well with the newer technology as I should but I noticed it had a i7 4700 and the card (765 2gb) sounded good to me. I tested the HDD 750GB and everything else while I was there. I didn't noticed at the time though it had a 900p screen which is kind of a bummer. I paid 625 for it out the door. I believe the deal is still decent, just wanted some opinions about the card and 900p. Thanks again for everyone's time.

 

Sounds a decent deal to me.

Check this thread out for a great display upgrade info: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-17-m17x/758711-120hz-3d-screen-upgrade-alienware-17-a.html

Maybe there is a 60hz 1080 going spare as well?

Forgot, check out the service tag on the dell site. You might even have warranty still....

 

I forgot to mention that it still has warranty till January, so 1 month left lol.

 

That's cool, an even better deal since you get to fully test it .

you get to decide if to extend it. Probably not worth it if you're looking to replace the screen (and maybe the GPU at some stage?).

 

That's not a bad deal. It's worth more than what you paid.

If you plan to keep it, I recommend the following in level of importance:

• Extend the warranty. Once it expires, you cannot extend it.
  If you want to keep it and don't plan to upgrade, the need for warranty greatly increases, in my opinion.
• Upgrade the screen to 1080p.
  The 1080p screen is much better than the 900p screen.
• Upgrade the GPU.
  The 765M is going to struggle with most of the latest games. Lowering settings is an option.

If you need recommendations for upgrades, feel free to ask. :thumbsup:

 

Didn't know about the warranty extension. I'll look into that. I always say I'll keep things but end up selling them usually. Will I have any troubles extending the warranty even though I'm not the original owner and probably will not be able to get any information from the store. I'm going to try out the 900p screen for a bit, I would like to upgrade the card, anyone off the top of their head what kind I may be able to put in? I saw a post where the new 970 cards are coming out as well. Thanks for the helpful replies!

 

Transferring the ownership will be difficult. You will need the original owner's details if the original owner claimed ownership by filling out the necessary forms.

The 970M and 980M have claimed to be working in the AW 17 with certain tweaks and whatnot. The best card that will work is the 780M, as the 880M has some issues.

 

A 970m and 1080p display would really kick the machine into gear.

 

Hi Brad, i've just switched from 900p monitor to 1080p 3D 120Hz. It's another world, the 3D screen TrueLife worth all the money it cost. My suggestion is to read the 3D screen thread and make the upgrade.

Gpu: i quote J.Dre about the Gtx 780m. Actually has the best ratio money/performace.

 

So I sent email to Dell and I guess I'll see what they tell me about extending warranty with out original owners information. Next is if I plan on keeping it and upgrading, it probably wouldn't make sense to get the warranty anyways correct? Since it won't cover any of the newer things. The 765 will struggle it sounds like running the 120hz 3d? Thanks for the advice everyone.

 

You most likely will not be able to extend it without transferring ownership. They are going to assume you stole it, per their policy. You never know, maybe someone did steal it and sold it to the Pawn Shop for quick cash.

Anyway, you are correct! Upgrading practically all of the major components inside will make the warranty pointless, which is why I wrote (in small print), "If you want to keep it and don't plan to upgrade, you should extend the warranty." Upgrading is a great idea either way! The performance increase will be awesome.

 

Ok, I think I'll just bite the bullet on the warranty then. I knew what I was getting into anyways before I purchased. Next then on the list is what to upgrade first lol. I don't play very demanding games, just WoW and League of Legends which both can be ran pretty decent on integrated graphics. I do play Counter Strike which sounds amazing on 120HZ. You all think the 765 will be okay for a while with the 120HZ screen? Do people often game in 3d? Thought that was a gimmick but it seems cheap to add that if you are upgrading screen anyways.

 

People don't buy the 120Hz package for the 3D. They buy it for the upgraded panel, supporting 120Hz. It's a lot better than the standard 900p/1080p panel. The 900p panel is actually very bad in comparison to even the standard 1080p panel. Upgrading to the 3D/120Hz panel will be a nice change for you.

 

Gaming beyond 60FPS is just nice by itself.

 

I don't think there is any point extending the warranty with the upgrades your going to do...

I believe the 970M will probably be the best GPU to get as it doesn't seem to have all the quirks of the 980M and seems to work quite nicely and easily in most cases... a 120Hz screen might not work so an upgrade to a 60Hz 1080p screen would be a better idea...

 

Got it. Think I'll go with a screen upgrade first then since its pretty cheap. The gpu upgrade will have to wait as the 780 is much more than I can afford right now, and I can't even imagine how much a 970 would be. Thanks everyone for the help and quick responses.

 

Agree with J.Dre on the screen; having had both flavours of 1080p screens, the 120Hz is half a galaxy ahead of the regular 60Hz panel - the 3D pack is thus far still in its unopened box! The leap in screen quality is very noticeable, especially so having both the laptops side by side for comparison.

I must say regarding GPUs; I have the oft-maligned GTX880M and have suffered no throttling issues - although the second thing I did to my 17 after fitting SSDs in place of the spinners was a repaste with Gelid GC-Extreme...... compared with the GTX770M in the old machine it gives me noticeably higher frame rates.

Regards

Dave

 

I don't think you will have any problem as long as the machine has not been reported as stolen, let us know what they say.

I usually recommend the dell warranty, I've used it a few times with excellent results. The only reason I said it might not be worth it is that if a support engineer sees it is not the listed config they can ask it is returned to stock before continuing.

I would think your 765m will be fine for 3D. I had a 580m and a 675m and both coped very well with only some compromise in the settings. Usually the stuff I could hardly see anyway like max AA. This 680m, with a decent OC runs most games at max (but AA low) very smoothly. Reckon on an average of 30% FPS drop in 3D but something to do with alternate images makes this usually fine.

The 120hz and 1080 res are your real targets, The contrast and 'smoothness' are superior. 3D is a nice bonus (and I think it's great!) but the card HAS to be one that dell sold as a 3D model - something in the BIOS stops the 3D driver installing. 120hz works just fine though.

I would start with the display. You need to see how games play when the res is at max. Sometimes I drop down to 900p and run max AA to recover the 'jaggies' (only works on a 1080 panel). I cannot see any difference except way better FPS.

Good luck.

 

I was in a similar boat as you, I came from a m11x as my primary machine to the Alienware 17 with the same CPU, GPU, and screen as you report. I replaced the screen with a 1080 screen (ordered from laptopscreen.com, a great company btw) and put in an SSD. I love the machine, putting in the full HD screen was the best money I have spent in a while! The machine is fantastic for everything I do. Curious about the GPU upgrade, seems like a massive amount of money to order just that one part. Where do people usually get them? Ebay? I can't imagine spending so much money on a single part, seems to me like it would be better to put that toward a whole new machine.

 

That's where I'm stuck at. I just can't see myself spending over 400 for a laptop GPU when I can get a top of the line Desktop GPU for 300. I guess that's the price for mobile gaming. I have to say though, this machine is so much better than my m14x. I honestly had no idea laptops had evolved to being able to replace the GPU as easy as I saw on a youtube video.

 

how much is it to replace the built-in panel? you may as well get an external monitor which is bigger in dimensions and resolution and cost less to have the display changed out.

 

u can overclock ur gtx 765m like crazy check my thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-17-m17x/767523-india-my-gtx-765m-overclocking-review-now-equal-stock-680m.html
i too bought alienware 17 with gtx 765m but with 1080p
i bought it for 1250 $ with 1 year warranty

 

The screen is around 80 bucks, and the cable from my research seems to be under 20. So it's a pretty cheap upgrade.

I skimmed over that thread yesterday, so I just need to unlock the bios and crank that baby up? You think it will have any effect on lifespan of GPU since it seems like you OC quite a bit.

 

No not at all as long as its cool

 

No not at all as long as its cool

 

I got a 1080p screen for 90 with shipping, and a replacement cable for 30 bucks off ebay. I think its called a ranger? Not sure, the cable is very very easy to mess up on installation. I HIGHLY recommended unplugging it from the motherboard, seat it nicely into the replacement panel, and reassemble. It was honestly the best thing I could have done for this machine.

 

Crank it till it crashes then turn it down a notch.