M17xR3 First Impression

That's spendy

Shame it is not playing nice

 

There is no reason it would not work. It makes no sense. Could it be damaged for some reason? I don't understand why in terms of hardware it would not be compatible.

 

It happens sometimes when you are playing on the bleeding edge of technology. SATA 3.0 for notebooks is still in it's infancy. I'll be able to test more once I get my platter drive up and running the OS.

 

wish i could give exact instructions on how I got mine to play nice. honestly it may not even be an ssd issue in my case that kept causing crashes. Thought it might be memory incompatibility, but the 320GB drive works fine with it, thought it was the 6300 drivers but again, the 320GB drive worked fine. So finally I just did a fresh install on my SSD and did trial and error, installing drivers in different order until they were all installed stable. even after doing this, I got 3 or 4 more BSOD events, but everything appears to be working ok now. Played a few games (Oblivion, Mass Effect 2, Black Ops), watched some 3d blu rays. probably going to make a backup image of this current install before I screw things up again.

3dMark06 scrore with SSD fresh install and 8GB Memory Upgarde: 14383
No improvement that I can tell, think the GFX card is holding this thing back obviously.

Let me know if changing the bios config helped you, mandrake.

 

How was 3D BluRay? May be doing this in my htpc soon

 

will do. Between now and the weekend I have more time to play with the system so hopefully I will get it figured out.

 

This is not a thread to discuss anything unrelated to Mandrake's review. Stay on-topic. This is the Alienware forum, not the Dell XPS forum.

 

i saw an intel video saying that u had to instal first the chipset driver as it is the one that recognizes the hardware on the pc! just sayin

 

does the lack of the wirless hd thing is because of hardware or software?

 

Lack of wireless HD AKA WiDi is because Alienware hasn't released the hardware required to run it, the SiBeam WiDi Card. The dates I saw on release were February or March.

 

Ran into a new issue tonight, BSOD every time I installed the Dell nvidia drivers. I downloaded the 266 drivers and everything seems well now. I have also upgraded the firmware on my SSD so I'm hoping that fixes that issue but I won't know until I reinstall again.

I will be posting internal pics tonight. Keep an eye out for it as I complete the hardware upgrade of my system.

 

Can't wait to see internal pics . Hope you get that ssd issue sorted. Have you tried contacting ocz?

 

i thought it was diferent than widi

 

Nope, because I have not done a FW upgrade on the drive I'm sure that would be the first thing they would suggest.

 

Have you tried running any games in 3D yet? I'm wondering how the 460M holds up, if you have what kind of frames are you getting?

 

Nope, been struggling getting the OS on my SSD. On that note I just reinstalled Windows after the FW upgrade and it reinstalled much faster this time....good sign.

 

New pics linked on the first post...enjoy!

 

Wireless HD = Widi.

 

I really like the internal layout of this laptop. Liked the M15x but this takes that idea and does everything about it better

Who do you think the ODM is? Still FlexTronics?

 

Nice! How do you like the CM Storm cooler?

Did you get the USB 2.0 or the USB 3.0 version?

 

Compal, there's even compal in the name of some of the devices.

 

Drake- Great internals. I like the original size pics on flickr. Thanks

 

Nice pictures. You're a great photographer! That triple heat pipe is pretty sick. No room for a 2nd GPU anywhere in there either. I hope you guys enjoy those R3s. Not for me though. Again, nice photos Mandrake.

 

awsome, it doesnt look that hard to upgrade the ram!

 

couldnt tell in the pictures but can you see if the fins are copper or aluminium?

 

Thanks!!

/10char

 

It was easy.

Right now I'm reinstalling all the software. Will have to do it later.

 

Interesting. Alienware has been burned by Quanta (the Area-51 m17x and m15x) before. I know that HP switched from Quanta to Compal as well.

 

Mandrake I gotta say your camera is insanely impressive

 

Great pics Mandrake, that is some impressive camera work, those pictures alone are making me buy one

First time Alienware user for me so i have one question about your comparison to the M15X

* Screen quality equals the M15x.
* Noise levels equals the M15x.

^is that a good thing or a bad thing?

 

OT but why are you selling your W860CU for an R3? I think a 6970M has already been tested in a W860CU so it might be cheaper to just upgrade the graphics card + PSU than to buy a new laptop.

 

Yeah, I believe they are still the number 1 computer manufacturer in the world. They just got a little bigger.

Thanks! The internal shots were all jpeg. Didn't get a chance to do any shots in raw for review.

I think it's a good thing but I'm sure you will find people who don't think so.

 

Yeah I forgot to remove that from my sig, I sold most of the parts in August, before I heard about the 6970M and the Alienware R3 . I also didn't like the build quality of the W860CU, i can't stand the chiclet keyboard, and the chassis quality was terrible imo, no where near as good as the M860ETU. And from what i head the build quality of Alienware laptops is amazing.

 

Fair point, I wasn't impressed with the W860CU/Clevo chasis either when I owned one. The M17x-R3 should be a step up from that somewhat.

 

Thanks Guys sorry about the RAM issue I was confused myself and now everything makes sense So I was thinking about 3D but now I've seen the results for the 6870/switchable graphics doubles battery life. Which is awesome. I don't know why it would not be on 3D models.

Mandrake have you used the speakers are they tuned well like they say or are they still stock sounding.

 

There is some depth to the sound but I haven't tried gaming yet. I use external speakers anyway.

On that note everything is finally working correctly.....here's hoping it stays that way.

 

Mandrake great pics but i still have one question. Where are the other two slots for ram? I only saw where you replaced the original ram and looks like theres only two slots there.

 

Oh my....


M17xR3 by Mandrake Photography, on Flickr

It's almost like they read all my previous posts regarding memory manipulation and put this in just for me. lol

 

another two under the keyboard. as you can see in the pics

 

Thats awesome. So whats next? This is a stupid question but I'm learning novice at upgrading hardware on my own. Now are there different profiles for laptop ram to Desktop? What is supported in the R3?

 

Two more under the keyboard.

 

Try some 3D gaming....just takes some time to download my games.

"Now are there different profiles for laptop ram to Desktop?"
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Simply put if you buy XMP compatible memory you can pretty much set your own memory settings however you like.

 

Thanks and sorry i missed those in your pictures it all looked the same to me. Appreciate the info it has inspired me to return my xps 17 and grab the m17x.

I'm unsure about the 3d screen as it adds $350 cad to the price and can't justify it. I have wathced 3d at the local electronics store and wasnt overly impressed. Does anyone have input with the Nvidia 3d vision? Is it worth the $350 it adds to the price?

 

I am currently debating buying it. My brother is in teh navy, and if I buy tonight (we have a little under 3 hours to buy it if the aafes 30% deal really ends on 1/27) so I'm considering getting the R3. Only thing, is that if I try to configure it with the 3D bundle, it's only 20% off for some reason, and the Dell rep at AAFES isn't there right now, so i have to call tomorrow ! AHHH! Please advise, yall. this is too exciting/stressful! 6870+IGP is what's attracting me! Is the 3D even worth it, if I don't even buy blu-ray movies?

 

From what i heard 3D is worth it, there's a video of someone playing a game with it on. COD4 was getting 25-40 frames, which i don't think is the greatest considering COD4 is a very old game.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ItsThaaAzn

 

I would go with the 460

 

460M + 1080p screen? or 3D? Man so many options so little time to consider! I dont play many graphics intense games. the only thing I require is the battery life and SC2 on ultra, and a good enough cpu for pcsx2/dolphin, which I think this pretty much will do fine on.

Just debating if I should spend the 1346.80 for the equivalent of our beloved 1699 bundle, or just stay close to stock and spend 1154.30 for 1080p+6870?

Also, do I even need to upgrade the cpu or not?

 

it seems like 3d really eats away at the FPS. so i think you'll need something like the 485m to really enjoy the latest games in 3d. there a guy on youtube who did a review and he was getting 30FPS in COD4 3d and about 100 without. so even if you did get 3d bundle it would be only for movies probably.

 

What games do you play?
Check them against this

http://www.nvidia.com/docs/IO/801/GeForce_3D_Stereo_Games_List.pdf


Honestly though now that I checked the 6870 is a solid GPU similar to the 5870 if you don't care about 3d and dont need/want physx/cuda I would honestly take the 1080p screen and the 6870 ,get the best warranty you can(this is a must and should be done) as far as CPU goes the 2720 is kinda beast I would go for that and call it a day

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

 

Only play SC2 and occasionally emulators (pcsx2 and dolphin). Mostly SC2 though of course. So which Cpu do you think is fine for me (the cheapest plz??) They don't have warranty options through aafes, so can we buy them afterwarD?