*OFFICIAL* Alienware M17x R3/R4 Owner's Lounge Thread

That is precisely the one and I have! Got it off Newegg about two months ago for $119 and free shipping, and it works perfectly, extremely fast (faster than the M4) and also my first SSD purchase really!

 

I don't really care too much about the hype, but with the promo code it was selling for $89.99. Also being half Korean, I just love Samsung products, lol.

I'm now leaning towards this Amazon.com: Mushkin Chronos 120 GB SATA 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive (MKNSSDCR120GB): Electronics right now. I'm also trying to add Amazon.com: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 1600MHz PC3 12800 Laptop Memory(CMSX8GX3M2A1600C9): Computers & Accessories to the pot. Just gotta make my wife realize how much I need these, even though I don't.

 

So if I do the 3D kit with the 680m I lose Optimus right?

 

Precisely because the HD4000 doesn't work with the 120Hz screen and your 680m needs to be on all the time.

 

I have read all the forum and have ordered my own m17x from powernotebooks ( I recommend them the sales advisors are very helpful owuld recommend you to buy yours from the sale advisor Donal Straton)

Stats: I7 3610 radeon 7970 samsumg series 830 256 gb ssd 6 gb and 1080 p screen.

 

Nice system and welcome to the alienware club!!

 

Is the DVD Drive Connection SATA 1 like the M14x?

 

yes, sata 150mb/s

 

Hey All,
I am going to the BYOC @ Quakecon 2012 and had to get a laptop. Four of us are using a dinky hybrid to get to Texas and there is no room for our desktops.
After a lot of comparisons and research, I pulled the trigger on an M17x!
I want to post the stats so people can get a feel for the current pricing structure.

-Alienware M17X R4 with Soft Touch - Direct
-3rd Generation Intel Core i7-3610QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.3GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)
-8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
-17.3-inch WideFHD1920 x 1080 60Hz WLED
-2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 7970M - This is crucial!!
-750GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s -Installing my own SSD
-Slot-Loading Dual Layer DVD Burner (DVD+-RW, CD-RW) - Don't need blu-ray
-Killer Wireless-N 1103 a/g/n 3x3 MIMO for Gaming and Video
-Accidental Damage Service, 1 Year ~$49 for 1 year?? I'll take it.
-Next day shipping (Free)
-Alienware Orion M17x Tactical Laptop Briefcase - Need this for Quakecon!

Prices:
-$2348.xx after tax (built online/next day shipping)
-$1961.xx after tax (American Dell Sales Rep)

Savings $387

I recommend people to call in to Dell and get a U.S. rep to help you build the system. They are able to give to extra discounts that you wont get on the website.

Happy Gaming!
Brandon

 

^^^ thanks for sharing. You got almost 20% off which is a great discount

 

Great price!

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

Doesn't this darn notebook come with better login options than password we've been using since the beginning of computing!!? Maybe I'm missing something here.. I get that we don't have the biometrics (fingerprint) login option like the Sager, but doesn't ALIENWARE atleast have facial recognition login ?? Even my old ASUS has that.. !!

 

The first two M17x used to have facial recognition based login but it was ok 3 times out of 10 and inefficient in low light.

 

Well, aren't there any 3rd party programs that can get the job done? It's such a facepalm that the supposedly highest end advertised notebook doesn't have a better login system in the year 2012!! I expected all that otherwise pointless Alien crap that comes along with the system to have atleast this feature, which other brands including Dell's other systems provide!!! *sigh*

EDIT: Never mind. I'm trying a few from CNET..

 

Anyone know what type of display is on the Alienware 17x r4 (sRGB, AdobeRGB, NTSC)? Also, what is the color gamut % for the 17x r4 laptop?

Right now I'm debating which gaming laptop to buy. The Alienware 17x r4 or the Sager np9170 (with the 90% NTSC glare display) and knowing the type of color gamut both have will affect my choice in one of these laptops.

 

It does, AFAIK. I know mine does, I have the option of Facial Recognition or password when I boot up.

 

Alienware used to include a facial recognition software but they abandoned it a while ago for some reason.

 

Really? I recently just bought an R3, which was replaced by an R4 even more recently, and both had this software.

 

Then how does my R4 not have it?? Or have I missed it?? I take it you have the "AlienSense" software? Can someone give me the download link, please?

 

Prasad, log in here and you should be able to download it.

 

so dell finally booked in my replacement R4. took them 12 days.. but got it on speed order and 1 day delivery.
also swagged of a cpu upgrade from 3610qm to 3720qm..
again i made them pay for there insulting support..
was waiting a week on replacement of system board+cpu when some shaggy called me up and told me it could take another 3 weeks before parts were available. so called NBD support not to be found there so i made them to replace it with a new system, my faith was already gone with this one.
hopefully my new R4 will be not defect 8 days after delivery..

 

I just got my system. Right now I'm running diagnostics and stress testing it. It seems perfect so far. What version of msi afterburner do you guys use? On 3d mark 11 whats a normal score for a healthy 7970m with stock clocks?

It just scored a P5874. Everything seems flush and well manufactured. I've got my ssd and memory installed. I changed the sata settings from raid to the faster setting. Is there anything else you guys did on day one, or is it game time?

 

Congratulations on your new system. Do Windows update if not already done and go gaming. Mark11 score is very solid.

Take a look here to fine tune your SSD. The SSD Optimization Guide Redesigned - The SSD Review.

 

Hi all im very new to all of this and am about to lose my virginity to the world of Alienware!! Im not to tech minded myself and im abit worried about all the 'techy' stuff people talk about :/ ive just bought and am waiting to recieve my m17x r4, 3820QM, 7970M, 16GB ram etc how good will this laptop be? will it play anything i want? and how 'future proof' is this laptop? will i still be playing games on this system in 3/4 years time with good fps? With the accesories its £3000+ and to be honest ive never spent that much on myself ive always wanted a gaming laptop thats able to do what i want but im more of a plug in and play kinda guy so im hoping ive made a good choice and wont have to 'phaff' around to much? Any help, opinions etc would be much appreciated from some experianced guys!! Cheers

 

That is a great (albeit expensive ) build, and it'll serve you well for the years to come. Currently, it should be able to play any game maxed out; 3-4 years down the line, medium quality but good fps for sure no worries there, just keep it running well!

The processor, RAM and GPU you've picked guarantee that this will be very future proof. And hey, the forum's here if you need anything! Welcome to the world of Alienware

 

Thats good to know what is medium settings like is it substantially different from high settings like to the point of being at a disadvantage online on multiplayer games? Say if i was to run BF3 on medium settings but high fps would i be at a disadvantage? Im sure when i get my laptop il be posting alot as i have no idea about all these diagnostic checks which worries me about as i might have ran before i can walk with this laptop so to speak :/

 

All graphical settings do is make the game look better. By lowering your settings and playing at a higher FPS, you'll be at an advantage because you will less likely hit any lag spikes and dips in FPS that will slow you down. Depending on the game, medium settings will make the game far less "pretty" than high/ultra settings.

 

By High or Medium or xx settings here I mean graphical settings, and when graphics decrease the fps (frames-per-second) increases, because the computer is having to work a little less harder and can do its thing faster/easier and perform smoother (hence greater fps). But of course, a fps count above 45 is easily way more than playable and the R4 with 7970m can handle BF3 on ultra graphics at 45 fps or more. So no worries there.

What I meant was that down the road you will need to decrease graphical quality to get the same level of performance as more and more demanding titles release... A high fps count is way more important than graphics! By changing graphical quality you are only changing the way the game looks, and sacrificing/gaining smooth performance depending on whether you increase or decrease quality. But like I said earlier you have nothing to worry about at all for a year or more lol in terms of fiddling with settings.

And if you're playing online, the higher the fps count the better, naturally. So you most definitely will not be at a disadvantage there

Does that clear it up?

EDIT: Sorry if I took an extremely beginner-friendly approach there - I didn't know how to frame my answer

 

And as for BF3, you can comfortably play that maxxed out!! I have the same configuration btw..

 

Far less pretty as in theres no chance i cant spot that massivley pixalated camper in the window or far less pretty as in the general landscape of the map is still good but not as 'smooth'? Is the m17x r4 customisable/upgradable ie; in 3 years a bew cpu/gpu comes out can you take out the old one and put a new one in or does alienware somehow stop you doing that to kinda force you to buy a new upgraded model?

Ahh i see thats very helpful thankyou guys just cant wait to get it!! im hoping i get at least 2/3 years max settings then a couple of years after that messing around with the settings!! Just gta find some good games to play now was made to look like a massive noob in HMV an game earlier after i kicked off there was no titles for sale i was told 'you download games now' so with my tail between my legs i buggered off! Ive been out of the PC loop for along time!! The last time i was hammering the pc games internet cafes were all the rage and counter strike / medal of honour was considered the revaltion in gaming haha

 

Lowering the graphics quality only means the texture size is reduced, quality across various aspects such as lighting, shadows, etc. is dropped, etc. Even 2-3 years down the line, even if you HAD to drop down the quality for any game, does not imply you would have to lower the in-game resolution from your native screen resolution, which means the "pixelerated long distance camper" problem won't exist!

 

Guys urgent question: when clean installing windows on a new ssd on the r4, in the dell driver download page there is a bios section with one available driver download. Should i download it or is it not needed?

In short im downloading the deivers now and dont know weather to download the bios file/driver or what ever it is

 

Question: I noticed that AlienFX has a setting per lighting scheme, ie. Color/Morph/Pulse. I get the point of pulse, but what's the difference between color and morph? I couldn't notice anything...

 

With Morph, you can select two colors for one zone. Notice how the circle is split in two when you choose Morph?

That zone will change between the two selected colors at a certain rate after you apply the theme.

 

Hi Stzu. You won't need the BIOS file. This is the Basic In/Out System that all PC's have and is what allows the manufactures hardware to 'talk' to the components; hard drive, graphics, CPU, etc. New versions are released to either fix problems or more usually to support some new hardware that you might like to purchase.

When the Alienhead appears on startup you can press F2 to go into the BIOS and change settings, but (big BUT), you can easily cause problems if you don't know what you are doing so probably best to leave it alone - except on advice of experts here

You could for instance change the access mode of the HD BEFORE installing the SSD to gain a tiny increase in boot speed by changing the mode from RAID (if you don't have or want two drives in a RAID configuration) thus removing that first screen you see on boot.

Hope I haven't misunderstood and gone into far too much unnecessary detail in short - not needed

 

Awesome! Gotta check that out...

 

If you like that then you're gonna love the integration with windows media player Select in in 'visualizations' and watch your keyboard go into a music driven frenzy!

If you prefer iTunes then it's a simple DLL copy to have the option there as well.

BTW, I saw an segment on the BBC news last week at E3 where they spent some time at the AW stand. Described AW as 'The worlds leading game gurus' < Puffs chest >. 'I Got one of those!' Anyway, they showed the keyboard integrated into a game (believe it was MW3?) with it changing with game scenarios - gimic maybe but nice to see it getting airtime

 

+rep for the help! Thanks. Now im stuck again downloaded all proper drivers and files as listen on the dell site for my SKU, running and all but when i FN+F7 the screen looses resolution as if it has no drivers.. I noticed it only had me downloading 7970m drivers from the driver page.. perhaps thats why? Do I only have 7970m drivers installed?

I also want to update my 7970 drivers but have no clue what to do

 

lol That's loco!!

 

One other question is on the m17x r4 in the future say 3/4 yrs time can you take out the cpu and gpu and upgrade with a better current cpu / gpu to keep up with whats current rather than what youve got so you can ensure your still maxing out the graphics or does alienware prevent you from doing this to encourage you to spend on a new product? Oh and i havent ordered an SSD memory just a HDD wil this affect my system performance when gaming etc?

 

Guys, I take it the color on the alien skull (white) at the back of the screen lid cannot be changed with AlienFX ?

 

nope, that stays white has been this way since R3, I believe the R2s you could change the color

 

Any ideas? Any help wud be apreciated

 

depends, the R2 still is upgradeable but at some point it stops.

 

Shame, I noticed in the latest MX17 on-line advert Dell show it in red (and illuminated USB ports) Hmm....

 

S8V8GE, you can upgrade now if you like...no need to wait 3-4 yrs lol...

The only thing holding you back would be if the sockets on the CPU change and they come up with a MXM slot for the vid card that is different from what's currently there. So essentially, you'll be able to upgrade with parts that are compatible with your laptop currently which means MXM 3b compatible vid cards and IVY Bridge CPUs running on H77 chipset.

SSD is a great idea. Many of us have installed them and ram is another cheap but easy upgrade. THey won't affect yoru system in a detrimental way...the SSD will speed things up. The ram won't have any real effect on your system at all

 

I'm only guessing here (hopefully someone with the 7970 will answer) but I think you are probably on the Intel GPU and need to install the driver when the 7970 is selected?

 

weirdly the issue fixed itself.... Now I start after being Fn+F7 on only my 7970m.
everything seems to be working fine. Next step is updating the drivers and overclocking. Ill wait to get some help on the gpu update side but for now the overclocks seem pretty meesly, tried doing 935/1385, started metro and it never gets into the main menu. weird..

 

The best sort of problem

Good luck with the OC'ing, the CPU is nice and easy on mine - 3 presets take care of the settings but not of any use for gaming...

 

Can you turn the light off on it?