M17x "All Powerful" General Information Thread

you should be able too.

And I would recommend it, look at all the M1730 owners getting upgraded to M17x's, that can be us in a few years getting the newest and greatest for free

 

how do i run both cards at once to maximize graphics

 

automatically does it if your game supports it

 

Few questions if I may:

1. How well does this system cope with playing PC games with the physical disk for hours on end?

It just wasn't possible with my last laptop. Also, I'm left handed. My right palm sits comfortably over the num pad for my main controls meaning my wrist rests over the CD drive. Will it ever get hot?
And again also is it noisy?

I would just pick up the game I want to play from disk from EA but the Amazon pre-order version nets you a free item -cough-

2. Every time the sound kicks in when I'm using my headphones it makes a slightly irritating 'pip' noise. The sound can be off for ages until I click something in Explorer and it has to actually make the 'click' noise.

This happened with my previous laptop. Is this normal for laptops these days or could it be my headphones?

 

G'day all,

New to the forum. Just ordered my M17x last friday the 18th (DEC). And I had a few Q's:

1) Does anyone from Australia have any idea of the order time over x-mas? I'm still waiting for the "Estimated Delivery Date" to show and I'm some what impatient already lol?

2) I've selected Raid 1 and I understand its purpose but the one question I had is 'if' one of the drives does fail, how do I go about rebuilding the drive? Is that done via the Bios or after boot or such?'

3) hmm.. well I guess that's really all the Q's I've got at this point. The system I ordered is:

M17x
T9600 2.8Ghz C2D (I play a mix of older and newer games so the Q9000 just missed out )
4GB 1333mhz Ram
2x 500Gb HDD (7200rpm in Raid 1)
2x 260m (Almost got the 280's till I realized the price-to-performance ratio lol)
This came to AU$3309 after discounts. Australia prices are dodge but oh well lol.

Does anyone have the same setup by any chance? And do you love it or love it? Any other answer will be ignored

 

its the best bang for the buck system and you will pay any game maxed out no problem


RAID 1 allows you to entirely remove one drive and keep going

 

If you're in the city you get it quick, the boonies, not so quick. 1-4 weeks from now either way, so many factors can speed it up or slow it down.

RAID has it's own settings opening prompt immediatly after POST, it will say "press F10 to open RAID setup utility".

 

Ah ok that's pretty cool!

So if the 2nd drive is corrupted, you can't attempt to rebuild it? Or do you simply buy a 3rd identical drive and swap it in?

 

no just have to format it then the raid utility should rebuild it after you set it to raid 1

i can't verify it because i don't use raid

 

I'm planning on setting up a RAID 1 soon on an m17x and I'll be happy to "simulate" putting a replacement drive in to see exactly how it happens if nobody who's done it chimes in.

 

Why raid 1?

 

The drive I usually used to back up the raid 0 is too full of non-backup related files at the moment. Need to be safe untill it's sorted (on vacation in a strange land).

 

Raid 0 isn't really worth the risk if your travelling especially.. Does anyone know how well the Drives hold up after an unfortunate fall lol.. I'm not familiar with the anti-shock measures these drives have, but I imagine 5+ kg of M17x hitting the ground can't be great

Hey Wraithbane how do you find your system runs.. I've never played with SLI before. I know that SLI improves performance at greater resolution but how does it handle things like particle and volumetric effects etc.. e.g. You can run at high resolutions but it'll still lag in high intensity scenes or does it run smoother all over?

 

The free-fall protection is pretty effective, it basically rests the drive head in a safe place everytime it detects the laptop is moving. I often hear the drives go silent when I lift a laptop with free-fall protected hard drives. Hard drives, especially laptop ones, can take some pretty intense G-force when the head isn't on them. The key here being that last part- the drive isn't being written or read to.

Still, the free fall protection usually does a good job of making sure the heads are docked during movement.

Or you can get SSDs; no moving parts.

 

Yer I almost got the M15x so I could afford SSD but I'd rather the 260m sli and the 17" screen. SSD looks real damn appealing though.

I know the laptop specs don't recommend it but has any one operated the M17x in 45-50c Degree heat? My guess is that it won't hold out to well in those temps but ya never know lol.

 

it would hold out just fine

 

You can always get a cooler such as the cryo lx.. it dropped my temps DRASTICALLY!

Alex

 

Guys - the QX9300 just arrived. I swapped it out about an hour ago. Thanks for your guide "The Moo"

 

I'm going to do that in a week as soon as my QX gets here. Can't wait to get it done. Right now I'm contemplating playing with OCing the P8600

 

You'd be surprised how much a laptop hard drive can take, even without freefall protection. My netbook with a WD 160Gig has survived multiple falls off of my bed (~1foot), off my lap on the couch (~2.5ft), and even a couple of tosses on to my bed (from my bedroom door, so ~5ft horizontal) when I forgot the computer was running (in closed clamshell mode, I thought it was asleep until I saw the lights flickering )

The SMART status still shows all green, the spinup times are fine, no reallocated sectors, and the seek time as reported by HDTune are pretty much dead nuts on the factory spec.

Now, will I be so much as breathing on my M17x while it's on? No. But it's a heck of a lot more expensive than my 300$ netbook.

 

Agree 100% there lol. Just seen the forum post of someones M17x that fell 20m.. long story short the Free fall protection ain't perfect haha!

 

that story is a scary one o.o

I don't think ill be over 20 feet off the ground with m17x honestly.

 

lol it's just lucky it didn't hit anything. An M17x from 20m is the equivalent of a 20 kt nuke 25 if the power pack went with it!

I have a question for the ppl of the forums.. How long does it take for the building in progress part of the laptop to be finished.. It's been 4.5 business days since my order went in.. I'm impatient beyond all imagining at the moment lol.

 

But did the hard drives still work? 'Cause that's all the fall protection applies to. I understand this might be hard to test when the laptop is in pieces...

My order took exactly one week from when the order was made to transition to "shipping".

 

my order was made on 7/31 and arrived on 8/11

 

Mine should be here on the 8th of Jan! Woot! Shiny nebula red too! I never thought waiting could be so hard! At least now I can get some Ork Swarm Mod Co-op time by finally having two not so dodgy computers! lol.

 

why is my usage ubove 50% when i look at task manager. i only have the graphics boosted and only base processes running. Any ideas why it is running so high?

 

kill any alienware processes, remove touchpad drivers, remove wireless and bluetooth drivers

then check

 

Free fall protection is overrated, they need impact protection. It's the sudden stop that causes problems Same mentality when I ride my R6

 

the impact is what causes the problem. That is why the drives are rated with G forces, this is the instant deceleration when the drive goes from in motion to stopped

 

Yeah that instant acceleration is what does the damage. All hard drives actually float on a cushion of air over the platter, so if the air was even a little too thin the head would contact the platter and the drive would crash.

 

If you want to be pedantic, the Seagate drives installed in the m17x can withstand 300Gs of force when the head is over the platter and 900Gs of force when the head docked away from the platter.

Free fall protection is moving the head out of the way during a fall, so therefore the impact protection is between 300 and 900Gs, depending on the success of the free fall protection.

Since the head is always docked when the laptop is turned off, you can put the protection at 900Gs while you're traveling with the laptop in a bag. Keep in mind that 50Gs is usually enough to kill a person, so you probably won't be able to damage the hard drive while the laptop is strapped to you in a backpack. Not without killing yourself anyway.

 

meeowth, So I can go skydiving while on a video chat? sweet!

 

Just hold really tight when you pull the cord.

 

Thanks for the advice Lord Zath, but just in case my weakling arms are not strong enough, I'm going to dummy cord it to me with a 10 bungee cable

 

Yes, cording it would be a good idea, don't want it to slip when the parachute comes out. Don't turn it on too soon afterwards, wait for any high altitude moisture to evaporate.

BTW, people have been found dead in car crashes with their laptop still running beside them. Just goes to show, don't game and drive!

 

Huh - would one survive a black hole sucking on it I wonder ?

 

Hmm, black whole sucking on it would definately keep it cool for overclocking...

 

hi i just got my computer and was wondering how i turn my fans on not to look like an idiot

 

If the fans aren't running then there must be something wrong. As far as manually controlling the fans, posts on this forum usually say "don't".

The screen will get a reddish tinge while it's near the black hole though, might be a little annoying depending on what you are using it for.

 

Tha fans are controlled by the computer based on temp of the CPU and GPUs. If it reaches a certain point they kick in at 30%, under heavy load they will go full full throttle. If your computer is getting really hot and there are still no fans, theres a problem.

 

Hey guys, i was just wondering what type of RAM is in the M17X (like what kind of pin etc?). Im on newegg right now and was considering getting more in the future.
Thanks in advance!

 

When will they offer a single NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 280M ? I'd think that would be more popular than a NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 260M or even Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 260M SLI.

Does the FSB speed still determine what speed the memory runs at ?

 

huh.. i hadnt thought about it.. Thats a good point. Im very happy with my 260's though

Alex

 

The M17X uses 204pin DDR3 1066MHz or 1333MHz RAM.

You can run the Memory and FSB unlinked essentially running at differant speeds. If you have them set to Auto, I believe the memory will run at whatever speed the memory is. So 1333MHz RAM will run at 1333MHz. When overclocking it's best to keep a 1:2 ratio so if your FSB is set to 1280MHz, then the RAM should be set to 1280MHz as well for most stability from what I've read and seen as far as my overclocking goes. I'm currently playing with ratios myself seeing what I can find.

 

Cool, thanks!

 

No prob, now as far as the single GPU, you can buy it with SLI and then just sell the other GPU and SLI cable. Not sure what the market would look like for that, but it's an option, I'm sure there is somone who would be willing to pay to upgrade.

 

Hi DR650SE. Thanks for the idea. I hadn't thought of that before.

 

Not a problem

 

Hey all, I have a quick question.

I've read that the M17x is about eleven pounds. I'm considering getting one but am concerned this is too heavy for transport via backpack. Would you say it is reasonably heavy, too heavy, etc. Can anyone say aye or nay?