M17x Order Status Discussion - Part 4

Greetings, all!
I've been reading of all your trials and tribs as you await your new machines. Here's hoping for early, safe deliveries for one and all. I ordered mine on Saturday, 6/23. By that Monday, Dell had overhauled their "build your Alienware laptop" page to push a whole new set of variables and I was already feeling a bit obsolete. Ain't that the way?

Here's the basic stats on my order:

Alienware M17X R4 with Soft Touch - Direct
3rd Generation Intel Core i7-3720QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.6GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)
16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
17.3-inch WideFHD1920 x 1080 60Hz WLED
2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 7970M
32GB mSATA caching SSD
750GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s

I'm a performance machine neophyte, so I have been reading these forums pretty voraciously in the hope that some of your collective wisdom will stick and I'll be able to make better use of my laptop once it arrives. This, btw, is my first laptop, having only ever had desktops in the past.

My EDD is 7/18. I've seen a few posts suggesting one can hope for delivery to happen as much as a week sooner than estimated, so of course, that's where my hope lies. In the meantime, I'm delighted to have company during the seemingly endless wait!

Afterward, I fully expect to have a ton of questions to ask. Brace yourselves!

 

Hello! And welcome to 'the big wait'!

If my order delivers on the 4th as per the email I just received then yes, I can confirm that is exactly one week earlier then the EDD I was originally supplied with.


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Good stuff . Does sound a little optimistic but now you can watch it on it's global tour. Adds to the anticipation refresh, refresh, refresh...

 

Haha, you know it!



Well that is kinda exciting! Still be impressed if I get a knock at the door Weds!!


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It really is exciting! You'll have to share as updates happen. This is a holiday week in the States, so I hope that's not a factor that would slow your delivery down at all.

 

Nope! China to UK is departure and arrival locations

Ahh happy independence week!


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Yeah, happy 4th

 

Hi all,

Long time lurker, first time poster!

Been mercilessly trawling these threads in preparation for placing my order...

...finally did it!

Alienware M17X R4 with Soft Touch - Direct
3rd Generation Intel Core i7-3720QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.6GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
17.3-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 60Hz WLED
2GB GDDR5 Nvidia GTX 675M
750GB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s
Blu-Ray Reader/Multi DVD
Killer Wireless

System price £1609.52 (after much haggling!)

On way upgrades:

Samsung 830 256GB SSD
16GB Corsair Vengence

Bits £220ish

Basically got this for almost £100 less than the same system with the AMD 7970 card - thought hard about it but it will suffice until funds can allow the inevitable 680M upgrade.

What do you think guys?

Expected delivery 07/13 - (when I'm in bloomin' Egypt - can't wait to get back and play )

Kam

 

Great price for the UK and since you're going for an SSD later you have all the bases covered. Shame you didn't go for the 120hz screen though. Keeps your options for AMD open but I love the 3D.

Now it's the waiting game for you. Good luck!

 

There was a 10% discount for alienware (for like 3-5 days) but it ended today, so how often do they make discounts like that? I wanted to place the order this week but now it seems I have to wait.

 

Now leaving Korea.

Damn, my laptop is more well travelled then it's owner lol


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Hello All Im out in Australia
Bought a m17x r4 and cant wait! but its been stuck on Work in Progress for over a week and is due to be delivered early next week,.....
from peoples experience from Dell in Oz is this normal? (my logic is that shipping and transit takes over a week meaning it wont be delivered in time!)

Let me know how you guys have gone with order status and delivery times

Thanks
!

 

Not such good news now




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Aaand back on track!



Also, had a phone call from an American guy from Dell who I have been in contact with via email. He rang to confirm delivery will be tomorrow!


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Sounds like you have been on a rollercoaster! Im trying SOOOO hard not to think of my order until it arrives although I admit to checking the order status page daily!

Order date: 22nd July
Order Processing: 27th July
Pre Production: 29th July
In Production: 3rd July (today!)

Hopefully it wont take too much longer now. EDD is 16th July. I'm also in the UK by the way!

I opted for the 7970m in the end...

I gotta get myself one of these to fast forward my life 2 weeks!!!

 

Don't want to worry you but Germany should have been after Kazakhstan . Maybe this is what caused the 'exception'? Where is it now?

 

LOL! Yeah I would do but am currently awaiting a phone call from Dell's order team re: my alternate delivery address!?

On holiday (vacation) during the expected delivery window so asked for it to be delivered to my office (24/7 goods-in facility), now they need further details...hope it doesn't delay the build

 

Could someone tell me from the Specs below should l be able to run Battlefield 3?
__________________________________________________________________
Intel Core i7-3720QM, 16GB 1600MHz DDR3, 1TB Raid 0 7200 RPM, AMD Radeon HD 7970m, Killer Wireless-N 1103 a/g/n 3x3 MIMO.

What Website is better to order from? l'm in Australia but should l be buying from the US?

 

Are you serious? haha! That is arguably the best mobile graphics card available and the gap between this and the last generation graphics cards is bigger than it has ever been. Monumental performance!

So in answer... Yup! Max it out!

 

I think they get customs clearance at the first port of call in the EU, but AHEAD of it's actual arrival there, to speed things up. If you get my drift.


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Ahh, makes sense, I was going by my route shown earlier . It looked like yours went in reverse

 

Done some calculations (yes I'm that bored and impatient lol) and I reckon I'll get another update around 1730 GMT. Looked at your tracking details and from Kazakhstan to Poland it took about 6ish hours. Mine left Borat land at 1137 GMT.


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LOL. Dziekuje (although why Borat says 'Thank you' in Polish I never understood).

Still, having access to tracking far better that 'it's on it's way, please wait up to 5 days!' And the winner is....

Edit: You're probably going to have to do some more calculations though - all times are show local to the package

 

Bad news my end. I have just spoken to my rep who has confirmed a delay with no ETA on the parts! Not a happy bunny! I might cancel and order an M18X R2!

 

When did you place your order and the specs?

 

Sorry dude - sucks

What parts did they say were a problem, the whole thing?

 

Nope! Was that sad I factored in the 'local' time differences lol

And now look:







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Mate, they said the exact same thing to me about this time last week. By the end of the week though, the parts were in and my order status updated on the Fri-Sat. On Sat it ha shipped! It's due to arrive tomorrow.


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Well you're not alone in the 'sad' stakes Looks like it could be out for delivery tomorrow with PL being the last leg on mine before the UK.

Still weird it shows KH between DE and PL, With DE being the EU point of entry this should precede PL . Mine at least made sense geographically but who knows what flights are going where when they move these things about.
Now, does it matter, am I as sad for checking this stuff and even commenting?????

Fingers crossed for tomorrow...

 

My understanding is, it arrived in Kazakhstan and for one reason or another that seems to be a last processing stop outside the EU for UPS parcels en route to the EU from China. Meanwhile the 'package data' is sent in some form (digital I expect) to Koeln, Germany ahead of the package itself. I'm again assuming this is to speed up customs clearance. So that when it does arrive in Germany, it can continue without hold up. The package data process step is just there as an FYI, and it's not the actual location of the parcel at that point.

And we're now in Europe



Slightly OT for a minute...

While I wait, I've made a couple of purchases in preparation!



I kid you not. I ordered this from Ebuyer YESTERDAY after 3pm and chose their free delivery which had an EDD of 9th July. It arrived THIS MORNING! I'm going to use it as a cache at first and see how the M17X performs.

Also got this:



Picked it up in Argos for £30. Using it now with the iPad on the sofa and it's perfect. I intend on modifying the mouse area as its simply not big enough for my Razer Naga Epic mouse. Also want to get the Coolermaster U3 to stick between this and the M17X.

Excited much!


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Thank you for taking the time to explain and ease my confusion

All I can say is xxxxxxxxxcelent You are all ready to go, IN STYLE!

I do have a question - What do you mean by 'as a cache'? I'm seeing this used by Dell with the MSata offering but from what I am reading it's just a smaller (cheaper) boot SSD

 

i read that usually the EDD is 1 week earlier mine is ordered on 22 June and EDD will be on 12th July yet my order is still work in progress. i tried contacting my sales rep by email but there is no reply =(

 

Well, I couldn't afford to put larger SSD drives in the laptop. This is like a poor mans stop gap type method of getting SSD like speeds out of your regular HDD. Explained better here

Boom!




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Thanks, it seems to only offer the advantage of a single drive letter and automatic management of where things go. Since you have to reinstall windows, I'd prefer to just have 2 drive letters and manage it myself as to what drive I put things on, but hey-ho, each to his own.

Not sure this is how Dell are doing it as I was working with a guy that had an Msata 64GB SSD from new and he was complaining that it was almost full - would expect to see both drives as a single unit in win reading this
Sry for going OT!

Ha Ha - Sitting by the front door time

 

I don't know if Dell were using Intel SRT or a third party piece of software. Some SSD manufacturers have their own software that does this.

I'm not too bothered about reinstalling Widows, but I see your point! Intel's SRT is 'supposed' to have a degree of intelligence (rise of the machines! On independence day! ). I read some comparisons which put speeds somewhere between a 7,200 WD Caviar and OCZ Vertex 3 SSD only. If I see similar results then I'll be happy.

Still not delivered yet!


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Just be glad you're not in the States with no deliveries today! Mine got stuck for 4 days because of the jubilee

I waiting on a new TV 'out-for-delivery' but not as keenly as you for your AW!

IMO, getting windows load times down to a fraction of a second after the logo assembles is worth the cash and effort. It's all a smaller bonus after that -

Still not there?

 

Got an email from dell this morning, my order is delayed due to component shortage at the production line.
The new EDD is 16th July!! I feel numb now.
Chris,
Have you got yours?

 

Not yet. It's still 'out for delivery'. Going on previous UPS deliveries to my house, I tend to be late afternoon to early evening on the delivery drivers round.


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Often the case with UPS, they like to leave residential addresses till last in the hope you're in...

Still no TV, isn't this fun

 

Rawr!



Now I just need to get from London, Euston to home


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You're new baby awaits! Easy on those other commuters, they won't understand

Had a thought after reading that paper on the caching system and I think you might be able to just install the drive and activate the caching in RST. (combing the boot drive with the new SSD)

Your machine will already have RAID mode set in the bios so windows won't complain about a change. And RST drivers will also be already loaded. Just a few restarts to let it know the OS is frequently accessed and your away - maybe?

No windows reinstall until you are ready to dedicate the SSD so you can get on with the more important stuff - GAMING

Safe journey...

 

Order date: 22nd July
Order Processing: 27th July
Pre Production: 29th July
In Production: 3rd July (today!)

EDD is 16th July. Im from the UK too.

I opted for the 7970m in the end...

No confirmation on which parts are delayed yet - had no contact today despite the promise of a call to at least let me know how far back the delay might be.

Oooohhh I hope the same applies to my order to!

 

Seems like I've been waiting an age for my M17X (ordered 24th May). I've been told it's in Limerick - is this possible? Everything I've seen suggests these things don't go through Limerick. Any ideas guys?

 

Something doesn't seem right. Once your order goes to the status of 'shipped' you should have received a tracking number to follow it. Assuming you are in the midlands Limerick is a bit of an overshoot from the normal cross-europe route, but stuff can sometimes go by strange routes. Check your order status on dell's site or call dell and get the tracking number. If it's not in a status of shipped by now then give them hell

 

Cheers buddy, that's what I'll do.

 

Guess I should join the group of impatience...

Ordered Date: 7/2/12
EDD: 7/18/12
Shipping Method: 2nd Business Day
Status: In Production

 

My laptop was due for delivery tomorrow in UK, but received an email this morning saying that delivery had slipped to the 17th due to "the demand for the product you have ordered has exceeded our forecast"

On checking the Order Status I found that it has actually shipped. Dell Customer Support have confirmed this and said that the automated emails aren't always correct.

 

I made them understand

Yup I slapped the SSD in and the Intel software picked it up straight away. Works a treat. Probably easiest performance related upgrade I'll ever do. One day though, I will purchase a large SSD funds permitting and dedicate it to the OS and games. For now though, it's definitely made a noticeable difference.

Good luck to all still waiting for deliveries!


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I love it when a theory plays out

Great info for other new purchasers +rep!

Thats's all that matters, you see a difference, not a number thing

 

You do understand it's a seven-step programme? Been there done that, got the laptop

Fellow impatient'ees can ease the pain

 

That's two-for-two in the honesty stakes though

Good luck!

 

Oh the wait is agonizing!!! I wish they would provide more feedback on the order progress. I seem to remember that before Dell, Alienware actually provided more detail on the status of the build.......

M17x R4 (replacing the M15x in my sig)
Order Date: 6/27/12
EDD: 7/12/2012

I have already ordered one of these:
Razer Orochi Black Chrome Edition - Mobile Gaming Mouse | Razer Online Store

I expect the mouse to get here before the laptop...

Does anyone know if the old Alienware Origin Case is big enough for the M17x R4? Thanks!

Rich S.