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

That's a sweet configuration! Am sure it'll serve you very well!

 

Installed my Samsung 256GB SSD and the speeds are so incredibly fast to boot up that it is mind blowing. I am used to a minute plus on virtually any PC I've ever used (and some machines were probably multiple minutes). I just timed mine with a stopwatch and total time from pressing power button to a usable desktop is 22 seconds...and that includes the time for me to quickly type in my password, too. Haha, just stupid fast!

My first SSD obviously.

 

Anything improved besides load times, which I keep hearing about?

 

Well, to be honest I haven't done much on the machine as I've just had it a very short time. Browsers open instantly upon hitting the icon. I have Firefox customized with quite a few extensions and it has always taken several seconds (sometimes 10 or more) to come up on every other computer. On this one it is up as soon as I click it with those same extensions.

I have gamed just a little, NBA 2k12 and Crysis, but those are installed on HDD. They look fantastic, though.

Everything is very responsive and "snappy". Don't know how much to attribute to the other equipment and the fact it's a new machine with very little on it. A few seconds here, a few there...but that start-up time just blows me away. Granted, perhaps not everyone would view these things as worth the price of an SSD. I would consider it worthwhile in my case.

 

Absolutely! I remember 10 years ago when I so desperately wanted a high-end machine like this; it was absolutely impossible back then. This config wasn't necessarily cheap, but compared to what something like this WOULD have cost even a couple of years ago, I couldn't be happier!

Now, if the darn thing will just hurry up and get here...

 

A couple of years ago you couldn't have gotten something that powerful

 

Indeed, but even just the 32GB of RAM would've cost an arm and a leg two years ago, lol.

 

Well a single 4GB DIMM was ~$750 a few years ago. 32GB / 4GB = 8 * $750 = $6,000. The only problem is that there aren't 8 RAM slots so that price would be a lot more as you would need 8GB DIMMs.

 

Mine was 1786 before tax and shipping and about 1928 final. Plus about 300 dollars in gift cards. Is the 1790 without tax/shipping?

 

No, the 1790 for him and 1740 for me was AFTER tax/shipping.

 

What is the tax where you guys live? I contacted reps on the forum and one said he could only give 100 off as it was already super discounted on the site from student discount and I talked to another guy and he said they could only do 75 and I told him about the 100 and he said to take it cause he can't do that much and doesn't know how the other guy can.

Should I return it and try again lol

 

I live in NY where tax is a beeech. Your reps lied to you plain and simple to increase their profits. I remember pricing out my system online and saw that tax would add another 150-200 bux, its crazzzyy. The problem you have is if you cancel they will always send you back to your original rep. Another guy on here tried that with my rep and she said she couldnt sell to him because he has a rep already.

 

But if I return it and purchase another system isn't that different? I've already received it so it wouldn't be a cancel unless it's the same thing.

 

Not sure all i know is he ordered then cancelled, called to reorder and they sent him back to the same rep and wouldnt let him change reps.

 

I personally would just be happy with what you have.

 

Yeah it's just such a price difference lol.

 

Ordered my M17x R4 yesterday!

i7-3610QM, 6GB RAM, 1920x1080 WLED, 7970M, Killer Wireless-N 1103

Also have a 64GB Crucial M4 collecting dust that I will finally put back into use.

 

So my fellow NBR's...Finally got my hands on my new toy!

Arrived while I was away on holiday to my workplace as planned...but 2 days early! Nice one Dell.

Almost immediately popped in my SSD and RAM (as in sig) and did clean Win7Ult install and am half way through the drivers installs.

Just that to finish off, Win7 and SSD optimizations (as found through this forum) then install any additional bits of software I want. Already running like a dream.

Coule of questions:

1. How are people finding the keyboard flex? It's not significant, but noticable.

2. It's come with a fairly up-to-date version of PowerDVD which is handy as I'm intending to burn a lot of holiday HDD camera footage to DVD - is this any good, or can forum members recommend anything else...?

Kam

CURRENT: Alienware M17xR4 | Win7UltimateSP1 x64 | i7 3720qm | 16GB Corsair Vengance | Samsung 830 SSD 256GB (Primary) 750GB HDD (Secondary) | Nvidia GeForce GTX675m | 1080p 60Hz | BluRay + Multi DVD | Killer WirelessN

 

I don't even notice it because I type pretty light. I did press down hard once just to see it was there.

Is it normal for one fan to blow harder than the other? I noticed the right fan was blowing much harder than the left one and this is when I'm facing the screen. Just trying to make sure everything is working properly. I'm definitely loving the performance I'm getting.

 

What type of graphics card do you have? That's the GPU fan that you hear running. I would check your temps under load and see what the temp is. I wouldn't be to worried about it though.

 

Yes, I did notice some keyboard flex as well (and it is visible when you just push down hard on the keyboard). However, like destructo10, it is not noticeable for me at all when typing on it.

 

I have the 7970m. I was playing the witcher 2 since I got it on the steam sale but I forgot to get gpu-z so I couldn't check afterwards. I just was unsure if the fans were supposed to be able to run at different speeds. I can totally understand why the GPU was working so much harder than the CPU. I'll be sure to check the temp next time I play though.

 

Hello Everyone,

New here, I have been lurking around for a couple days before actually ordering my new M17X R4.

I really went through lots of posts and its amazing to see how much information you can find on here, just awesome

I do have a quick question though..
I ordered this HDD : 1TB RAID 0 (2x 500GB SATA 3B/s 7,200 RPM)

I want to know if it's possible to just keep one drive and then use an SSD as a secondary drive on this machine ?

Thank you !

 

yup thats easily doable. Your gonna have to break the RAID array though so make sure you back up all your stuff before you do that.

 

Since I don't even have the computer yet it won't be a problem
I'm suppose to get it somewhere next week !

Thank you very much for your info

 

Congrats on your purchase I think you will be very happy with it.

 

Sorry forgot to ask! Will the 2.5 crucial m4 9.3mm will fit in the m17x or do I need to get the 7mm ?

Thanks !

 

I personally have the 2.5 inch, 9.5mm Crucial M4 and it fits perfectly into the HD caddy that came with my r3. I think the 7mm drives are more for ultra books where space is at a premium.

 

I think I might have a couple dead pixels

 

That's not good..... I would call dell up and get a new screen assembly shipped out.

 

I'm hoping to get mine this week but fo have a question I have an old acer that has 32bit win 7 on it and I downloaded steam to download games while I had internet for the weekend and was wondering if I could transfer them to my new computer when it gets here and if so how?

Sent From My Rooted EVO 3D

 

You need to re-download them. Just download steam onto your new computer, sign in with your username/password, then in the 'my games' list it will have all of the games you own there, but greyed out. Just right click and download, easy peasey.

 

You could also copy the App the Steam apps folder out of steam and paste it into your steam folder on your new machine when it gets there. Wayy less time.

 

Install Steam in your Alienware ,copy the folder common c\program files\Steam\steamapps\common from your Acer and place it in C:\Program Files (x86)Steam\steamapps\ or what ever drive you choose and install the games.There is no need to re-download.

 

I'll have to look into it. It looks like one was just a spec of dust or something but one in the lower right corner I am nearly 100% is a dead pixel. I'll have to check again in the morning when I'm not as tired.

 

I just got my R4 and it seems that the right fan is utilized far more than the fan on the left side... is this a common thing with the R4?

 

Hello all!

So i received a m17x as a gift from my girlfriend today and i am a little bit intimidated by the whole laptop. I'm not the brightest person when it comes to computer so i am still reading as much as i can to learn.

I don't plan to do any over clocking or playing with the laptop parts at all because i don't want to ruin such an amazing gift. I do plan to play some games on it like Diablo3 and MW3.

I read a few stories that made me cringe so i just want to make sure i test as much as i can to make sure everything is OK. I would greatly appreciate if some one can take a look at these score and tell me if they seem decent or is there something wrong? (Thank you very much in advance)

MSI Kombuster

Wavy Plane (GL2) Preset720 MSI Kombustor - Wavy Plane score (OpenGL 2.0 benchmark)
Wavy Plane (GL2) Preset 1080 MSI Kombustor - Wavy Plane score (OpenGL 2.0 benchmark)
kMark (PhysX) P-score MSI Kombustor Competition (Dec 2011) - KMark score (OpenGL 4 and PhysX benchmark)

3DMark 11 Performance score AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3720QM Processor,Alienware M17xR4 score: P5828 3DMarks

and my Window Experience Index scores is 7.6 base score the gaming graphics and graphics is 7.9

My GPU temperature was around 61-68c during those test and my idle temp is usually around 51-54c

Just want to say thank you to anyone who actually read my post, if you can provide me some feed back and any other test i should run that would be much appreciated!

Hope you all enjoy your machine with good health!

 

She must be one awesome girl for her to buy you a beast like this despite you not knowing much about computers haha

And ignore the scary stories. The only reason you read so many negative stories is because nobody really posts about good experiences so the community is saturated with problem posts.

Sent from my Evo using Tapatalk 2

 

Awesome man congrats. That card you have will bring games like Diablo3 and MW3 to its knees. Enjoy it.

 

Thanks guy! do those test score look ok? There so many different number to compare it to i am not even sure which one to look at haha

 

yup that's completely normal. means your GPU is getting warmer than your CPU.

 

Moved to a separate thread.

 

I couldn't afford one of the new R4 versions, but I was just able to snag a 17x R3 with an 6990M from the outlet for $1188 after coupon and tax.

I hope it all goes smoothly. I just have to add to the 4gigs of RAM that it has.

 

Hello Everyone,

I am a new owner of the M17x R4 , and have had it for almost a week now (a week tomorrow). Unlike my previous Alienware systems, this one did not come with a manual. Normally this is not a problem, as most laptops work pretty much the same. However, in this case I have a couple of questions as it pertains to the video, and am unable to find any "official" answers (as would be documented in a manual). So, perhaps some folks here can shed some light on my ignorance

My M17x came with the AMD HD 7970M 2 GB video card. This is fantastic! However it also features "switchable graphics" and came out of the box running the Intel HD 4000 video card, and would not enable the AMD card. So, I pushed Fn F7 to switch to the AMD card. From what I understand this is supposed to force the AMD card to be 'On', but the wording of the prompt that comes up is ambiguous, and says the same thing no matter which card is being enabled. Anyway, when I did this, it asked to reboot and came up, with no driver loaded. This is not too surprising as I had read of others here having the same issue. I have to wonder how this gets through Q/C?

So, on to my questions(s). When I have the AMD card 'On' I get the epxected performance and it works, but the Intel card is disabled. When I switch it to the other mode, both cards are "available" and can be used, except that I get an error about the HDMI audio being 'dissconnected.' Plus, even 'High-perfomance' graphics are not up to the speed of the other mode. Again, this is something that I had read others mentioning. So my questions is, is this 'Enduro' or some Alienware specific hodge-podge implementation? Does anyone here actually use their M17x with 'Enduro' on, or do most disable the Intel card? I have no intention of OC'ing, I just want my computer to be stable and play my games at the best framerates. Thanks!

Rich S.

 

Hi LinkRS,

Welcome to the Alienware Community!

For starters, here's the M17x R4 Owner's Manual.

About the switchable graphics preference, when it comes to gaming it's better to have it switched to discrete graphics only. The M17x R4 disables the discrete card when it's switched to the Intel. Even though both cards appear under the device manager when running on the Intel card, you will notice a big performance drop as the discrete card will be "inactive".

Any further questions don't hesitate to ask


Happy Gaming!

 

I ead hopeing for this as I said i won't have internet when I get my computer haha

Sent From My Rooted EVO 3D

 

Ran 3d Mark 2011 and got 6276 as my score. That good??

 

Not really quite sure. I know your not running on intergrated as you smoked my old 460m score, but other than that, I don't know how it compares in the grand scheme of things.

 

Hi Luis,

Thanks for the response! I had found the link you provided, and that seems to be a tear-down manual, and not a User's Manual. Does such a thing exist? My previous Alienware computers came with very fancy printed manuals in the box. In fact my M15x came with a leather bound one Thanks!

Rich S

Hi CSHawkeye81,

You seem to be scoring right where it is expected. The average score for the 680m has been advertized at ~P6300, with the 7970M ~P5900 (both rounded). You should be able to go to the ORB and do a search and compare to see for yourself:
Sign in

Good luck!

Rich S.

 

Hmm, how about this one? If you still can't find exactly what you need send me a PM and we'll take it from there