*OFFICIAL* Alienware M17x Owners Lounge - Part 2

Hey guys, when i put my m17x to sleep then leave it for about 30 mins and then try to resume it the screen doesnt turn back on and the harddrive is inactive. i am using windows 7. anyone else had this or have a solution?

 

Hi everyone,

I've been trolling this site for about a month trying to glean as much information regarding a M17x.

Last night i placed my order. I thought long and hard about the 550 upgrade to the extreme quad. Actually i tried to call and upgrade today. However the -200 promotion would be lost. So i stayed with it. Maybe i'll upgrade down the road.

out the door price was 3550. almost 300 of that is tax, CA has high taxes.

what do you think?

1 224-5966 Red Metallic
1 317-0857 Intel Core2 Duo T9800 2.93GHz (6MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
1 317-0856 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz 2 x 2048MB
1 320-8140 17.0in, WUXGA,LCD,ANW,M17X
1 320-0762 SLI Dual 1GB GDDR3 NVIDIA GeForce (NB10E-GTX1)
1 341-0013 640GB (320GB x 2) 7,200RPM (xMB Cache) - RAID 0
1 330-3924 Name Plate Engraving
1 421-0720 ALIENFX RED
1 421-1400 Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
1 421-0360 Avatar1
1 421-0389 Window Style, DFT
1 410-1883 ADOBE READER 9.0 MULTI- LANGUAGE
1 313-8569 Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW)
1 421-1304 CyberLink PowerDVD 8.0 Software
1 421-1305 Nero 9 Media Burning Software
1 430-3558 Internal 300Mbps Dual-Band a/g/n 2x2 MIMO
1 421-0405 Automatic Updates ON
1 421-0398 Power Plan, BAL
1 421-0399 Time Zone, CENTRAL
1 410-0203 McAfee VirusScan Plus - 30-Day Free Trial
1 421-1724 Soft Contracts,Dell In Home,Alienware
1 993-8522 Next Business Day In-Home Service after Remote Diagnosis , 2 Year Extended
1 993-8582 Warranty Support,2 Year Extended
1 994-3660 Next Business Day In-Home Service after Remote Diagnosis , Initial Year
1 994-7017 Dell Limited Hardware Warranty Plus At-Home Service, Initial Year
1 994-3730 Warranty Support,Initial Year
1 950-3339 3 Year Limited Warranty
1 994-6858 Dell Limited Hardware Warranty Plus At-Home Service, Extended Year(s)
1 430-0628 Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR
1 421-1360 Steam and Portal Factory Installed
1 330-5087 RESPAWN DVD
1 421-0381 RSS Feeds,AW
1 330-5090 Thank You for Purchasing AlienWare
1 464-7516 DHS $50 EPP DISCOUNT MATCH


M17x - Mars Red
GTX 280m SLI | 1920x1200 Screen | 4GB 1066Ram | 2 x 320 raid 0| T9800 2.93ghz| Slot Load Blu-Ray Reader | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Desktops

Dell XPS730x RED
I7 965 OC to 3.75ghz (factory OC)| Hc2 ThermoElectric Liquid Cooling| 6GB DDR3| 300gb Velociraptor| DVD-RW and Blu Ray| GTX280| 28" monitor 1900x1200| multi card reader|Soundbalster Titanium| Vista 64 HP|

Falcon Northwest Mach 5
Falcon Mach 5 all aluminum case
QX6850 quad core extreme at 3ghz| 4GB DDR2 Dominator Ram| 2x 8800gtx ultra sli| 1tb hitachi| DVDrw| Dell Ultrasharp 24"|Zalmann cnps9700 cooler| Win 7 64 ultimate| www.falcon-nw.com

War Machine
Q9550 2.8ghz quad core| 2gb Crucial Ballistix| 500gb hd| DVD+rw| 768mb 8800GTX| XP Pro| www.projectwarmachine.com

 

I have also had this problem. Only a cold boot fixes it

 

I had this situation and I pressed the power button briefly and it came back to life.

 

Sometimes if you close and re-open the lid a couple times it will work, otherwise a reboot is needed.

 

That was a problem early on with nVidia drivers. I bet this issue is addressed in BatBoy's blog.

 

no one? Or how would I be sure that Stealth Mode is off? AlienFusion doesn't work for me nor does the Stealth Mode button, im running on my 260s, and my Windows Power Option is High Performance. It should be off right? I have also disabled CC and all the other AW software from startup

At least this one doesnt hard freeze like my other one. But does anyone know or think they know why it is sluggish?

 

Thanks Mandrake.I was just wondering because in the UK site,it doesn't cost anything to switch between the two,yet in the US site it's around $200 or something?To 'upgrade' from Nvidia to Radeon (those two that I mentioned).Should I go with the Radeon then if they both cost the same in the UK shop?

 

Yes. It's easier to deal with the drivers with the ATI cards.

 

Definitely. I went with ATI and it's awesome.

 

Could one of you with a GTX 260M post your video bios for download please?

thanks!

 

Thanks for the advice guys,defo going with the ATI Radeon then. Back to lurking for me until I get my M17X!

 

unfortunately batboys blog only notes that the sleep mode issue exists no fix as of yet apparently. thanks for the responses though. On a side note i am starting to get mad at this machine, Audio stuttering which batboys suggestions didn't fix and no ability to sleep.

 

Sleep not working was the No. 1 reason I let go of my M17.
The M17x was reason 2.

I remember having that issue with the stock drivers (it wasn't frequent, happened a couple of times), it went away as soon as I updated to 186.82, never had the issue again and my computer goes to sleep all the time. I turn it off once in a while, most of the time it's sleeping and unplugged. Can't beat the glowing/fading red Alienhead on sleep mode.

 

186.82 has proved to be the most stable driver in my book - also as WaR noted, waking from standby/sleep/hibernation has no issues with this driver. No more black screen. I believe I added that to my notes in my 186.82 write up. Give it a try. Its a sound driver for all around use. It won't be the best if you are a number chaser, but for all around gaming and daily use its the winner IMO.

 

today. I started my computer with 190.38 on the 280m and th 9400m wasnlt innstalled or on and it didnlt force boot with the 9400m.

 

Just for those curious, I had my CPU/RAM OCed to 1320 for the past couple of days, and today after putting the ram back to 1066 and the FSB to 1350, I BSODed after an hour. It was up to 3.51 GHz I believe.

 

BatBoy how about the temperatures? Which one retains lower temperatures overall? The 186.82 or the 186.64 ?

 

Disable Powermizer to solve your audio stuttering.

 

how is the 195.55 driver?

 

For me they are just fine. I didn't experience any freezes, I have the 9400 disabled so I can't tell you more about hybrid. I prefer them because of the latest CUDA support. Temperatures are the same with 186.64

 

nice. nice.

any performance increasement over 186.64?

 

I am sorry but I cannot answer that. I haven't run any benchmarks and I don't want to make any assumptions

 

not even benchmarks. i mean normal gaming where as one game sli didn't work them bam it's on....

i game also.

 

So far I didn't experience any incompatibilities, nevertheless the number of games I have tested so far are limited. Maybe there are games that will have problems with the SLI profile or performance issues, but I am not aware of any so far. But again only numbers will tell the truth.

 

been there done that doesn't work

 

So today I finally got sick with Win7 when it took 10+ minutes to boot up.

I went back to basics - re-RAID0'ed my drives and installed Vista again. Soooo much faster. Should've never jumped up to Win7 so soon. Oh well.

 

im still getting stutters when sli is enabled on 186.64 and batboy's sli patch for the newer games like l4d2.

when i use a single card no problems but with any sort of sli mode i get random stutters and fps drops.

i think i noticed that in the new nvidia mobie drivers(on their site) as well (195.55 i think)

is anyone not getting any stutters with sli enabled on the new games included in the sli patch(eg: l4d2 ,modern warfare 2 etc)

what drivers are u using and are u using nhancer?


oh and i noticed the stutters occur ONLY when im using the m17x's screen. at home im using an external 24inch monitor which is also 1920x1200 but i dont get any stutters at all.

 

it's your second card...

 

186.82. Not using nHancer.

FWIW, 195.55 = EPIC FAIL when paired with the M17x.

 

Has anybody noticed any difference in the colors when using the 195.55 or is it my idea?

 

are the 186.82 better than the 186.64 from Dell's site?

 

I received my M17x today. I'm still in the setup process but wanted to ask about the keyboard on the machine. Mine is very 'springy'. By springy I'm mean that there seems to be a cushion that the keyboard is on - the bottom of the keyboard module is sitting over a hollow space. When I apply a little pressure to one key, you can watch all the keys surrounding the one with the pressure move too.

Is this normal? I have a M15x too and they keyboard is nothing like this. ...curious.

Thanks in advance.

 

From Charles' very own review of the M17x...

"Keyboard and Touchpad
The M17x has a backlit full-size keyboard with number pad. The keyboard is quiet and has a durable matte coating. It feels slightly rubbery to type on which is not a bad thing. There is a slight amount of flex but it does not affect typing. The backlighting feature is convenient in darker environments."

The rest of the review is at the top of this forum thread. Every can now resume their normally scheduled activities.

 

but the stutters only occur on games with sli profiles in the updates from 195.55. others run smooth without problems. im guessing its a driver+sli profile mismatch.


@scook9

i find that the 186.64 from dell gives me better benchmark scores and lower temps compared to the 186.82.


@batboy

ive never been able to recover from sleep and hibernate using the 186.82 drivers.. why is that everyone seems to be doing fine with that driver.

 

I like 186.24 really for hybrid. Also then the driver is crap and dump it.

 

That is a very good piont. I am totally the same. All games run fine in single card mode. But in SLI i get stutter. But what i have notices as well is i have to play all games with V-sync enabled. Even on single graphics card. If i disable V-sync then the game is very choppy. Now on older alienware laptops i could play all games with v-sync disabled and not have any perfromance issues, ok you get some tearing, but the perfromance was usually much better.

With this screen the perfromance is very choppy, and the tearing is not like on other laptop screens, hard to explain. But maybe it is the screen that the graphics cards do not like?? And if playing on an external monitor gets rid of the stuttering maybe this is the issue. I can not try this because when i try to play a game SLI through HDMI i get bright white flickering. On single card mode it is ok

 

Hey, has anyone else gotten lip from Escalations for contacting Dell for concerns with the AW? It doesn't help that: there is no support line yet for AW; the wait time for AW phone support is upwards of 30 minutes.

 

YES! i have the exact same issue mate, borderlands with sli 182.82 bad fps lag, and when its off its smooth as butter =s not sure what to do myself =s

 

I played borderlands for 15 minutes and no issues. We'll see how it goes as the game progresses. I played Star Wars Force Unleashed and there was micro-stuttering with the foliage in the beginning. I turned off Crossfire and it went away. I didn't try a new driver since the game runs fine on one gpu at max res.

 

As I understand it Hank, we are able to go through the XPS Support line/folks. This was something I discussed with the folks who handled my replacement. I specifically asked them who I would be contacting for support on the M17x while still under my original warranty. Answer: XPS Support. Hit the XPS Support line, dont enter a service tag/express service code and then once you have an agent on the line, explain this was a replacement for your XPS M1730. Tell them you want them to handle the service call since you paid for XPS Support. Shouldn't have an issue. (I hope).

 

what drivers are you on? extnal screen with sli on via hdmi is fine with me and im using 186.64.. the .82 works fine as well for external.



edit: on 186.82 with sli patch now and i still get the random stutters on mw2.

are you on 186.82 or 182.82? i dont remember seeing a 182.82 driver.. if your on the 186.82, you get stutters as well? batboy said the driver works fine though.. maybe you arent that lucky im goin to try 82 with the sli patch later

 

Yeah borderlands is ok for me ever since they patched it.

 

ye sorry typo, im using 186.82, i updated it with bb's sli update 3 aswell but still getting issue with sli, fine with single gpu =s

 

Adrian, check your PM. I sent you a link to a test profile I put together specifically for Borderlands. Let me know how it works out. If it doesn't help, it could just be Borderlands does not want to play nice with SLI. We'll have to wait for another NV release and see if they add/change the profile.

I'll check the 195.62 driver release and see if they changed it. PM results of the test profile. Thanks.

 

er so you dont get stutters on mw2 or l4d2 with 186.82 with your sli patch??

any test profiles for those games?

its wierd that new games always have sli stutter problems with the m17x even if i manually add the profile and force afr2. my old xps 1730 dint have such problems. all i had to do was manually add the profile and change it to afr 2 on nvidia cp

 

COD:MW2 and L4D2 are both working fine running in SLI for me using 186.82 and my modded SLI Profile Updater as of 11/18. Did you try it?

 

those two games work fine for me two. i dont use sli updater but nhancer though to set sli etc. 187.66

 

yes i did and same problems. random stutters which cause fps drops with sli enabled but it only happens when im using the m17x's screen. on an external monitor it works fine.

 

Might want to do a clean uninstall and reinstall of the drivers.