*OFFICIAL* "All Powerful" M17x-R2 Edition Owner's Lounge - Part 2

Sniff... they didn't give me a mousepad...
I want my mousepad! Oh well. *grabs a sheet of paper as substitute* >.>

 

tell them to send it to you. it should be in the box

 

Ya and it is a really nice mousepad!

When my M17x arrived, it still had a Q9000 in it. First thing I did was overclock that to 2.4 GHz lol, I then loaded all my programs then tore out the Q9000 and put in the QX9300. Have not looked back since

 

If you like some serious speed yeah. Maybe it's just cause of my mouse but my hand was flying all over it.

 

No it is nice. I noticed a big boost in performance with that over a generic foam and cloth one

 

^^ Would like to know this as well...

 

I just got paid today....maybe I oughta pick up SC2 and let you all know how an R1 runs it lol

 

Runs great on Ultra, fullscreen, getting 50+ constantly. The only downside is that it's only using one card.

 

there is no CF profile for it?

Have you tried renaming the .exe as 3dmark.exe to force the 3dmark profile to load? it is something at least lol

And how do you like the Incredible so far? Loving mine and can't wait to get some Froyo on it

 

Oh one card ey?

What are your specs? Cheers.

 

no haven't tried that yet. locked out of starcraft atm...
Yeah its amazing! I'm putting movies on for my trip tommorow

Nebula Red | i7 720QM | Windows 7 Home Premium | 250GB 7200RPM, 80GB Intel x-25 | 4GB 1066 MHz | Crossfire ATI Mobility Radeon 5870 | 1920x1200 RGB LED

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...formance-tip-native-resolution-high-aa-5.html

 

The Starcraft II Tweak Guide – Improve your graphics performance | Tech Spotlight

 

I apologize if this has been asked before, but are the flickering issues apparent with everyones R2's or those that have upgraded to 5870's? Basically what is causing the flickering issues?

Again, I apologize if this has already been asked and resolved or in question in another thread.

 

Hi,
any known issues with the M17x with CF ATIs5870 and Dell stock drivers and the game "Napoleon: Total War" - looks interesting but before I order it, I wanted to know if it will work without flaws on my M17x-R2.

Thanks

 

I've heard that while performance is good, games from the Total War series (including Rome) suffer from horendous lag times (in single player mode, more so than online etc..).

I believe it has been decreased slightly with the release of the 10.7 drivers for the video cards, but gameplay performance should be good.

Again I can't confirm this myself since I haven't tried (but would like to), but I've just got word of mouth answers for you.

 

I'd pretty much go ahead and say crap Dell drivers? CF issues with Alienware laptops? Ever since 10.7a drivers came out, there has been less flickering issues reported than before, god know's I haven't seen much since I upgraded.

It's not too bad, but certain games still do flicker with the Alienware's.

 

Hey Guys!

Newbie here! After months of reading whats what in the owners lounge I took the plunge and have purchased my first gamming laptop Specs are space black, 920 XM, 8Gb 1333, 1Tb RAID 0, 2 x 4870's (on the hunt for 2 x 5870's any tips?!) Bluray burner and Win 7 x64 Ultimate. Huge shout out to Joker. Based on his posts i bought Just out of interest, first game I've "purchased" is CoD WaW and the graphics are hellll gluggy. I've tried all the usual - is it possible I've missed something? FRAPS is saying 25 frames, I've done latency test and all is well

Cheers all,

Steve

EDIT: And a shout out to Jubbing - read a few of your posts too

 

Wonderful, welcome to the club! (and for the shout out lol)
That's a nice looking machine you got there, I'd hope to see you post some benchmarks soon

As for your game, try and check if stealth mode is on (sometimes the simplest of problems haunts us.. it's happened to me) (It's the button on your touch sensitive buttons to the far right that looks like a speedometer). Tap that and make sure its off.

Also try to update your drivers, that always helps (video card mainly)

And remember to check this Alieware M17x wiki for all your needs! (guides on how to update drivers here as well!) - Alienware M17x Wiki

 

Thanks Jubbing for the response, I am trying to figure out why my stock system doesn't show any signs of flickering aside from the barely visible lines that I do see when disabling vsync and triple buffering as 5150Joker has suggested? When I say barely visible I mean I can hardly tell that its actually there, and this is with crysis, crysis warhead, fallout3, L4D, and alienswarm. I just think its strange that majority of those that have similar specs are experiencing this horrible issue?

 

Anyone know how to make the colors in starcraft (the original one) show correctly in windows 7? I have had them show up all messed up with both ati and nvidia, is there a workaround for this?

 

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

We hate that when we lan.

No, nothing you can do. The menu screens are borked. However, in game only the water is rainbow colored.

Doesnt affect games all that much.

-Ash

 

Ya it is really annoying lol

It also messes up the cinematics which I enjoy

 

So I'm feeling even noobier than before... Basically uninstalled CCC and drivers thinking that was the issue and have spent the entire day try to get CCC to reinstall so I can enable Xfire...

Cut a long short got it installed (used the version on Dell's site) and couldn't work out why I was down to like 15 FPS even with Xfire enabled.... Sure enough Jubbing was right.... I hit the frigging stealth key! Once again I owe you beer mate!

If anyones intersted heres the story behind my laptop:

I bought it from Dell for AU$2100 including shipping (what I was going to pay for an 720qm refurb anyway) It was sold as seconds with the fault of "not turning on" (sounded like the whole needed a power drain issue thats associated with this config or worst case mobo) As soon as I got it I could see that the last tech that worked on it had no idea what he was doing (screwdriver marks in every little gap, screws missing/long screws where there should be short. CMOS battery unplugged, touchpad ribbon cable and plug totally butchered - new one ordered) pulled the whole thing apart and found that the screen wasn't plugged in! A BIOS flash later and I have an amazing laptop

So I'm thinking with the cash I've saved I'm going to get the system re-certified and try and hunt down 2 x 5870's and an SSD

Will be sure to post up some benchies ASAP

-- Steve

 

If it works perfectly, I'd say you got a good deal then. If there are minor problems, I'm not sure how much of a bargain it was lol. (and you can buy me a beer anytime lol.. I'm so broke at the moment )

2 x 5870's will be expensive man.. so I'd watch out for that. SSD's.. that we all know are too expensive to be a sane buy.. but since when does anyone sane buy Alienware's

 

you knock the ssd, but once you use one everything else is ruined for you lol because it will be so slow

 

Yeap, going from a fast SSD back to a HDD seems like watching a movie in slow motion

 

I'll never go back to a regular hdd for my operating system and online fps games.

 

Can I get some clarification on something? What is the most powerful laptop currently?

 

The R2 in terms of gaming performance but it doesn't have the absolute best cooling. The D900 has better copper sinks but it has to since it uses a desktop CPU. Clevo overall employs better cooling (thicker copper and more of it) but the difference isn't dramatic either. I've owned a Clevo w860 before and while it had nice cooling, it wasn't leaps and bounds better than what I see in Alienware.

 

OK. Thank you good Sir.

 

Yeah, I have to say, now my cooling is fixed and the 10.8's are in process of release... I really cant be happier with my R2.

Its just lovely.

-Ash

 

Well it may not be an entirely rosy experience with the 10.8 release coming tomorrow. People on the desktop side reported problems with StarCraft II and loss of performance in bad company 2. We'll see if Dell had ATi made any tweaks to address these problems but I doubt it since ATi is on 8.763 at this point or even further along. Still, beats the hell out of being stuck with the current 10.1/2 release.

 

I've pulled the trigger and ordered my M17x from Dell. There's almost no way to get any kind of discount from the Aus/NZ sales reps, so I'm happy enough with the 1.5% I managed to squeeze from mine. Spec is in my sig, with 2 years on-site warranty + 1 year CompleteCover. Cost me $NZ4400 (roughly $US3200). I have to finish paying next Monday, and then comes the wait for it to be delivered.

With regards to the mouse pad that comes with the system, is it hard or "floppy"? I get the feeling I may spend a lazy weekend or 2 sitting in bed playing games, and if the supplied pad is OK then I won't need to invest in something like the Razer eXactMat.

 

The mousepad is sorta inbetween actually.

You are best getting the exactmat.

By the way, when I ordered mine (im in melbourne) I got it very fast. Like, weeks early.

Dont take note of whatever delivery time they give you - its useless

-Ash

 

I have to say, the price you paid for that config nzgeek is not that bad - at least not in my opinion......

 

Hey peeps just wanted to ask about the Blu ray drive in the M17x systems.
How are people finding it? Any bugs or faults?
Just wanted to know your thoughts and experiences.

I am thinking about getting one now.

Cheers.

 

My blu ray drive has worked great for me from day one

You will also get an OEM license of PowerDVD 8 Ultra which facilitates playback and works well with surround sound. The only catch is it can only be installed on Alienware systems (I think it checks the BIOS to verify this)

 

Soo..I see a new BIOS out for the R2. Not bad, I download and install in. Next thing I know "No OS found message" on a black screen... ??

So, since I have my system set up in RAID and all the BIOS options get reset, I dutifully go and change all the settings back, Virt on and RAID in BIOS and boots again.

Would be nice if Dell would respect changes made......Just sayin.

 

I've used the mouse pad in be beside me or on the couch but its got enough flex it needs to be on a semi hard surface.
For example you couldn't lean/prop it against your leg and have a smooth surface.

 

It would be nice, but it is pretty standard practice to go into the BIOS and check everything right after doing a flash to check for just those sort of things

 

On the A06 bois, I did not have to reset me raid settings like on this one. Oh well it's a standard practice for me now

 

Questions;

Has anyone experienced the interior alienhead not lighting up upon boot and then turning on in desktop?

Also, anyone experiencing start-up sound at login only playing partially?

I know that these are very minor but annoying at the least, any feedback would be appreciated thanks.

 

Are most (or even all) of the reported flickering/wavy line/general glitchy type display problems with the 5870s just for the Crossfire setup or the single cards too? If I buy I'm probably only going for one card anyway so just wondering if I would likely avoid those headaches with just a single 5870.

 

Just updated to A07 and didn't have to switch out of RAID back to my non-raid. I'm using AHCI if that makes any difference from what you're using.

I use to run into the powerbutton alienhead not lighting once in awhile on my R1, not sure if I've ran into that yet on my R2. Same with the startup sound, use to run into it only playing partially or not at all once in awhile on the R1, can't say I pay much attention to it anymore to tell if it happens on my R2.

 

Thanks for the feedback Rockwell, just wanted to make sure I wasn't the only one experiencing this issue though minor.

It's strange cuz this happened today after the new bios and 5870's beta's dropped?

 

Starting to notice that some are experiencing issues with the new beta and bios update, are the benefits worth the update/install?

I'm still on stock drivers and am unsure about updating though I like to stay current. I've heard as a general rule that one shouldn't update as long as they're not experiencing any major issues, is this true?

 

This was a bug with bios 05 and the Command center. There was an update to address the CC with alien head not lighting up. I have the next to latest Command center and dont have that issue anymore with the alien head. I am still on A05 bios.

What version of command center are you on?

 

@Predator4rmMars
I'm using the new beta drivers for the ATIs from the Dell site, have not noticed any issues yet. Using A07 now as well if the supposed issues are linked. About the only "issue" I've found is I need to figure out and re-tweak my colors with the RGB screen, the reds are far too bright again.

 

I remember reading about that a couple months back, but I recieved my R2 early July. I'm running A05 bios and I'm sure the CC is updated to current by Dell, however this issue just began happening today? If I'm not mistaken CC is A07.

Thanks for the feedback Rockwell! I think I'm gonna give it a bit before updating just to be sure because I am honestly not having any real issues with the stock drivers from Dell.

This is OT, but the one issue that I am monitoring is high gpu temps but then I heard that this is normal with 5870's.