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

90 degrees is now 80 degrees.
anyway this is runiing intel xtu and stressing, try it yourself and see what you temp is.
if i play starcraft it wont passes 67 degrees and my cpu idles on 46 - 52.

if i lower my boost with xtu my temps drop to like 72 on intel stressing now so i think teh 500 mhz is a big difference

what i mean is lower with 500mhz boost

 

I'm actually very happy that mine came with Windows 7, even though my rep told me it's coming with Windows 8

About the throttling... how do I get rid of it? I downloaded Throttlestop but damn that looks confusing... tips?

 

What type of throttling are you experiencing?

 

I haven't experienced any throttling in game, so that's alright. But when I applied an overclock on msi afterburned and ran Kombustor, I was getting 40+ fps. A couple tries after that, it dropped down to less than 20fps and I saw that GPU clock was at 300 something :S temps are fine though

 

I am far from an expert on laptop heat protection safeguards or anything but when I spoke of possible throttling this was the situation I experienced.

In the BIOS under Performance I have Extreme Edition set to enabled and put the ratios at 40, 39, 38, 38. My understanding is that this means that my CPU will run at 4.0 Ghz when 1 core is being used, 3.9 GHz when 2 cores are in use and 3.8 GHz when 3 or more cores are in use.

But when I run Prime95 on all four cores, none of them go above 3 GHz. The temps do spike above 90 degrees sometimes though so some of the other forum members said the lower clock speed may be due to throttling. It may also have to do with the i7 processor and running 8 threads at once as well though, I'm not sure.

I do know that my Windows Experience Index did go up a few notches after setting the overclock though but I think it does more of a single core test as I do hit 4.0 GHz when running it.

 

you check with intel xtu? if so intel xtu drops your multiplier somehow.
so download a other app to monitor and try again.

 

NV dropped the option a couple of driver revisions ago - it's not on win 7 now either. I saw a few complaints over in the nvidia forums but no explanation from NV.

 

Hmm well I haven't been bothered to go messing with the BIOS just yet and I'm mostly interested about the GPU

Whats your Windows Experience Index? Mines 7.9 and we have very similar specs

 

Might grab a 2920xm here at some point soon. Seeing some for around $400 on ebay. A lot cheaper than they used to be.

 

It's amazing what Power Saver can do. Got frustrated during a game when the motion was stuttering. Took a few minutes to realize it was the power plan. HA!

It's good that it came with Win7. Now you can purchase an upgrade to Win8 PRO for $15.

I'm in the process of getting mine set up right now. Enabled UEFI. Got OSD drivers installed. Downloading the rest before I install Command Center from the included disc.

 

Why would you get a 2920xm?

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processor-comparison/comparison-chart.html

The 3840qm is like $350 isn't it? And it's plenty faster than the 2920xm, it's the same as the 3920xm... but with lower power draw.

 

wouldn't fit in my lowly r3. Plus I wanna have some fun and toy around with some CPU overclocking

 

Hmm yes I should take advantage of the offer now... But I'm not sure if I want to move to Windows 8 just yet, don't want issues with driver, game, and program compatibility.. I'm feelin pretty comfortable with Win7 atm. Should still buy it so I can upgrade when I want.
Hows it running for you?

And yeah hahaha the power plan xD I forgot to switch it back from power saving... and I was like I thought the 680m was a beast.... Switched it to High Performance nearly sh*t my pants

Aw man you can't get Ivy Bridge? /:

Oh well the 2920xm has gotta be a great OC enjoy

 

Buy the upgrade anyway. Use it when you want. I'm doing it on a clean install. Seems to be fine so far. Dell has done a good job at releasing a bunch of updated drivers. Even got one for the Free Fall Sensor, which was the only one people couldn't get before Win8's formal release.

I'm sad that I won't be able to use the trick to make the taskbar thinner while on the side, as can be done in Win7. I HATE that it cannot be made narrow. No, I don't like it hidden, and I don't like it on either the top or the bottom. Grrrr... It's my only real gripe. It was one of the first things I tested out on my spare HDD before making the switch to Win8 on my SSD.

 

Oh well /: can't have everything right?

Hmm, that made me think. I am using my 512GB OCZ Vertex 4 right now for OS and everything... My 750 hybrid drive is empty. I could install Windows 8 to that right, change boot order.. and see how I like it. Am I correct in thinking if I don't like it, I can just reformat the drive.. and I won't have any problems installing/activating Windows 8 later?

 

Something like that. I'm not very familiar with dual booting and how to remove the 2nd OS. But, yet... I originally installed and activated Win8 on my unused OEM HDD. It's now activated on my 512GB Crucial M4.

 

to remove the second OS you just need to format that drive. Easy as that.

 

You might not even have to change the boot order. Depands on how win 8 installer works but when I opted for a clean install to a diferent drive in win 7 it automatically created a boot menu (dual boot) to chose which copy . Took a little research to get rid of it though once I removed one of them - the menu still came up even though one option would fail

 

Argh!!!!

Made the mistake of using a win8 "compatible" partition tool to shrink c. It ruined almost 4 hours of work. Starting over.... This time setting up partitions in the install environment. Have to dl ALL the drivers again. Will wait until I have access to a better internet connection tomorrow. Crap!

 

I download everything over night or something like that i put my hard drive to copy my 150GB steam games onto my M17x before I left to work will get to try Metro 2033, Crysis 2, GTA4, Dead Space 2, etc as soon as I get home

 

Special new AMD driver update
http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...5715-new-amd-catalyst-12-11-beta6-driver.html

 

Nope, no mods whatsoever, but fans are on @ 100% with Speedfan (dell option enabled inside). I barely notice the sound with my fish tank in the corner, on a waterfall-type setting.

o0o! I'll definitely give stress testing a try I haven't stress tested this laptop yet, I did on my L702x though! Will report back with full load temps afterwards.

EDIT: I went through a 15-minute stress test, so far temps are at 67C with Prime 95 on maximum heat maximum power settings. I also think the temps are like this because it's ice cold at my house too hehehe.... No mods, factory heatsink compound, and no supported fans.

I think when they speak of throttling, they meant once the temps get so high, the system automatically throttles your CPU+GPU to run slower, to bring down temps temporarily. Your type of throttling is perfectly fine, using throttle stop I'm installing it now to show you how to use it a bit, i've used it previously before on another laptop like three or four times and that was it heh...

EDIT: If you want to disable the throttle, as in throttle from the factory (for example) 2.3Ghz to 3.3Ghz (once again an example). You simply hit "disable Turbo" and it should stop from there, now the rest of the options are just simply down-tuning your CPU, Adjusting those will make your laptop, OVERALL, run slower. As in going from your STOCK 2.3Ghz, to.... say 1.5Ghz? You can go as low as 700Mhz, give it a try! (You'll definitely experience lag if you're running multiple tasks lol!). Just simply turn down clock modulations, chipset clock mod and set multiplier down, and then hit "turn on" and it should downclock your CPU.

Hope this helped!

QUOTE=anseio;8932996]It's amazing what Power Saver can do. Got frustrated during a game when the motion was stuttering. Took a few minutes to realize it was the power plan. HA!



It's good that it came with Win7. Now you can purchase an upgrade to Win8 PRO for $15.

I'm in the process of getting mine set up right now. Enabled UEFI. Got OSD drivers installed. Downloading the rest before I install Command Center from the included disc.[/QUOTE]

It happened to my during Borderlands 2, i was PISSED, thinking my system wasn't strong enough (supposedly being the strongest GPU in the market for laptops). And it couldn't handle something small like BL2!

I was just surfing for that the other day and was gonna tell him about it.... 350 via ebay, right? or is there some other place you'd purchase? I'm unsure if I want to purchase that chip because i'm afraid there might be a r5 update or something and if this laptop ends up taking a dump on me (knock of wood) I wouldn't wanna be stuck with a useless chip

Crysis 2 is nothing, GTA 4, if that's teh edition of GTA I'm thinking, will your card, Dead Space 2 is nothing, and Metro 2033 is decent. This is all FPS-wise Gameplay, GTA 4 is boring IMO, Crysis 2 is the shizz, Dead Space 2 is scary, and I stopped playing after a little while, and metro 2033 is decent in gameplay too

 

xxgokouxx Yeah I understand throttling, but since temps are so amazingly cool I'd love to do a nice overclock without it throttling down whatsoever... (GPU that is)

Ahhh the m17x is running like a BEAST! The 3D Vision is 100 times better than I was expecting

 

I repasted the cpu becuase when i stressed my cpu without overclock it would already go to 90 degrees, so the first thing i was thinking repaste that damn thing haha.
I really needed to make a photo for sure because there in china they made a real ty mess....
Looked like a child of 10 pasted that cpu of mine... lol

 

Did you say that you dropped your temp by 10 degrees doing the repaste? I think I might try it myself to see if it makes a difference. Is IC Diamond the standard go-to these days? I think I have some Arctic Silver MX3 or 4 kicking around somewhere.

 

I just gave up on Win8.

At first, I was digging it and thought it could hbe fun to work with. I noticed a few performance enhancements that were nice. So, I spent my afternoon installing the Win8 drivers and getting my data copied back to my SSD, to then start installing my necessary programs. All the while I'm thinking that I really should be working on my desktop customizations (slight window mods, font styles/sizes, and whatnots). Each time I decided to wait until the end. Big booboo. The most important part of things for me is always the visual aesthetic. I have my desktop set in a way that's always pleasing to look at. Well, in Win8, one cannot change the fonts in windows/titlebars or desktop icons. Sure, I can resize the icons, but I cannot actually adjust icon spacing. These "little things" are what I have to look at day in and day out. They mean more than a better optimized OS. Thus, they are a deal breaker for me.

Back to Win7 and am taking the opportunity to start it over. Was having a few software issues that I wanted be rid of.

 

My desktop has nothing but an empty trash can. That's all I ever need...

 

This should give you an idea of what I like my desktop to look like. I have little more than the Recycle Bin on my desktop as well. It's the size of the icon and its spacing to others that matter.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...bar-thinner-when-side-screen.html#post7857233

 

Why would you want the Windows task bar on the side? I just never get why people can use that. I used to use rainmeters quite heavily. But it's just time-consuming and I tend to change the design every weeks. So I go back to minimalist.

 

Taskbar on the side, cuz it's more efficient for the way I use my eyes. The human eye sees the most detail in the center, not in a panoramic landscape. So, I don't do anything full screen, but have my programs centered between the rainmeter skins. Taskbar on the bottom gives less vertical viewing space and adds to the wide angle visual aesthetic. My desktop emulates a 16:10 display, but with useful stuff on the sides.

I've spend entire weekends rewriting my rainmeter skins, but have finally settled on a look that I'm very happy with. The music control on the upper right is actually a sligthly modded Rainify skin for Winamp. Fits in with my overall look.

 

How often do you change your desktop design??? I usually spend a good 5-6 hours design my rainmeter screen only to change it a week later. I figure I spend more time on games and firefox than just staring at the screen LOL. I know how to appreciate a nice desktop screen, just don't think it's worth spending your time on it.

 

I no longer make changes to my overall desktop design. I've spent so much time on it and am happy with its appearance and function. That I cannot come close to getting the same desktop in Win8 is an issue for me. I don't mind the different Start screen, but I do mind the other obvious things that should be changeable. Perhaps a future update will make these options available. Then, I'll switch to Win8.

I understand that you may not think it's worth spending my time on it, but I don't think it's a waste of effort at all. This is a difference in how we perceive the use of our computers and what matters more. To provide a better vision... I pick my cell phones based upon design aesthetic first, then function second.

 

very nice setup!! Wish I had the patience/time to do something similar.

 

this is correct, idle temps nothing changed much but @ load it's a very big difference.
First i overclocked to intel turbo boost and Always get near 95 degrees in like a minute and would throttle down.
Now my cpu doesnt throttle and overclocked it will stay near 85 degrees, but even this will take 10 minutes to become this high.

I used noctua paste anyway, becuase after alot of reviews and i thaught this one is the best for chips.

 

Oooo, sorry, I must have misread as I was tired all day yesterday

As for the throttling, just make sure your temps are safe and your OC won't throttle. I'd try to use a program like speedfan to keep the fans on 100% at all times while under a good OC to prevent heating up.

I know how you feel, Dell doesn't train their people the actual consensus of how to paste, MOST use thermal pads for lower end GPUs/CPU's. I got a tech to come ot my house, he forgot to bring thermal paste so I gave him my MX-3 thermal paste. I've used it probably 5-10 times and I had 3/4th's of a tube left. It took the tech one use to spend up almost half a tube on ONE CPU and ONE GPU. I was soo dissapoitned and mad at the same time. I took it apart after he had killed my system, and the whole CPU/GPU area was caked with thermal paste..... His ideal statement behind it is.... The more the better.

P.S. my GPU temps with watching HD videos so far and surfing the net, just general usages.... 30C and my CPU's are down to 35 now. Pretty cold weather for FL right now.... I might turn off the fans running @ 100% now lol.

AS MX-3/4 is still better than O.E..... IC Diamond has been my reccomendations as i've seen their testimonials vs noctura or noctua (sorry I forgot the name). So far a FEW degrees lower. Both were having same break-in periods and put under exact same stress situations.

Picky picky man.... just like me LOL.... Everytime I do a reinstall, I have a certain way I do things. I also setup things in a certain way for customers to keep their PC's up-to-date and virus free... So far only 10-20 out of the hundreds of customers have come back to me with complaints ( surfers and the ones that like to install programs with I.E. add-on spyware).... Ask me how I know

MY desktop is the same, although I have to admit.... Icons slowly make it's way onto my desktop (I save anything I DL to desktop, so i can delete it afterwards). Once or twice a month i'll delete unnecessary items and icons and for the programs I dont use I just simply uninstall to make it go away. Helps keep system clean and organized.

Have you considered the Noctua paste vs the IC Diamond paste? I ask because I'm curious of how it stands up to AW owners

 

Hello, so i received a refurbished m17x r4 with the 680m 3d screen and the 3820qm about 2 weeks ago. I ordered some 3d vision 2 glasses but they would not connect to the system. So i opened up the system to make sure i have the ir emitter built in since i did not see the little black rectangle in the lower bottom left screen. I do have the cable, and the ir board. I disconnected and reconnected the cables to see if that would work, but i didn't. But i think because the panel doesn't have the cut out for the signal to get through, the glasses wont work. What should i do?

 

Follow these steps

Alienware system NVIDIA 3D Vision setup on the Alienware M17x R3 & R4

If you still can't get it working send us an email at [email protected] with your service tag and phone number. Include a link to your post that way I'll dig up your case quickly.

 

Then you must have either an iPhone or a Sony Xperia LOL. I picked my phone based on design first, that's why I really want a Xperia but the iOS is too good to pass . The Lumia looks really nice, too.

 

OMG, I can't stand the iPhone. HAHAHA.

Not particularly an Android fan. I own a Cyan Lumia 800. Am most likely going to buy the HTC 8x very soon. I really enjoy the Windows Phone OS

Just finished applying my Green Onion AG2 matte screen protector. It came with all of the necessary thingies to make application easy, AND... a url for an in-depth instructional video for how to clean the display, apply the dust barrier, affix the protector, and removal tips for how to get those last bits of dust off. My display is slightly less crisp, but looks really good overall.

 

I'm not a Iphone fan either. So little with so much paid, that's my mentality on it. Don't get me wrong as it IS a good OS and Mac OSX and Mac branded stuff has my respect reliability-wise.... But price does not reflect the support or hardware that supports the brand.

As for the Green Onion AG2, you are the mother effin man! Can you elaborate on less crisp? Very curious as I'm still between AG screens heheh

 

I thought so. It must be either one of the three. I really like the design of Lumia but knowing W8 phone still has a long way to go, I decided to go with iP5 for at least another 2 years. Honestly, I think it was very impressive of Nokia to come up with a design like Lumia. If only they could have a better OS...

 

Hey anseio

First things first, I was blown away by your desktop setup I commented on it about how happy I was to see you linked the wallpaper xD

Secondly, You know you can just download something Stardock Start8 or Pokki for Win8? They give full, if not better, Windows 7 start menu functionality and can boot you straight into your desktop. You'll never have to look at Metro UI again and Rainmeter is compatible with Windows 8 so I don't quite understand why you would be having such a hard time making things work for you :S whats the problem?

I'd love to try rainmeter but a few things have been holding me back. How easy is it to setup and configure, and how time consuming is it to get something nice but maybe not as complex as yours? Also, does it ever get in the way like the darn Windows side bar with the gadgets used to... and lastly, any kind of noticeable performance impact?.. Brand new M17x wanna have everything running at maximum

Cheers and props again to the fantastic Rainmeter setup

 

Hey anyone able to get left edge swipe work for Windows 8 on their rig? Tried the Dell Synaptic drivers and the Synaptic generic driver but no go.

 

I just don't like the "my way or the highway" mentality behind the Apple design. I digress before this turns into an iOS vs everything else, deah-horse discussion.

One of the main differences between matte and glossy displays is the crispness of things. Glossy displays are super crisp. Matte displays exchange a bit of crispness for lack of glare. My blacks are ever so slightly less black, but everything else looks really really good.

I only love the design of the original N9 and Lumia 800. The Lumia 900 was a rush job and I found it ugly. The Lumia 920 is just too big and I don't like the body shape very much. I'm gunnin' for the HTC 8x, I think. WP8 doesn't have so far to go as you think. It's already shown itself to be a remarkably innovative OS. It just needs more developers... it's getting there. The features and integrated functionalities inherent to the OS are quite spectacular.

Thanks!!! I've spent a lot of time on my desktop design and am thrilled with it.

My issue with Win8 isn't the Metro UI. It's that I cannot customize icon spacing, nor the desktop fonts. I also cannot make a thin taskbar. I could have lived w/o the modded taskbar, but cannot abide the other visual things I so enjoy... like removing the padding around the windows. See attached image for font, icon size/spacing, and taskbar width.



Rainmeter is pretty easy to setup. There are MANY skins that you can use. The defaults are plenty good enough. I just went crazy rewriting skins to fit my font preferences and color coordinations. The weather skin I'm particularly proud of. It's from a resizable skin series that actually used math/ratios to determine icon size/spacing. I tested each out and tweaked the numbers so that I could squeeze them all into a tighter area. The restart/shutdown/sleep icons on the lower left have been changed a bit, too. Once you learn how easy it is to read/modify the skins, you'll go crazy with it. Next thing you know... the winter has passed you by.

Rainmeter is soooo NOT a resource hog, unlike sidebar gadgets. My entire setup is using 14MB of RAM. That's about as much as a single gadget would cost the system. Even if it were to use more, it'd hardly make a dent in our powerhouse lappies.

It's a lot of fun. You should give it a try. I'm happy to send you whatever skins I have that you may want.

Oh, the thing I'm particularly proud of is the music controls in the upper right corner of that wallpaper you saw linked (currently linked in my sig for the thinner taskbar). It's actually not rainmeter at all. It's the Rainify skin for Winamp with a few modifications and the background removed so that it cannot be moved around the screen. Watch out for launching games that run under 1080p while Winamp is open though. It will throw the controller out of the corner and has to be resetup. A small price to pay for such a sleek look.

 

Thanks for the very in depth and prompt reply anseio

Hmm yeah I have 16GB of RAM so nothing can slow this beast down I will definitely try it out, and PM you if I need some tips or skins, I appreciate that.

One thing though, I'm not too confident about the math/ratios, and 'reading/writing' skins but I'll see how it is, and if I like it and get into I would definitely invest time in learning and creating a great setup

Thanks again!

Edit: Just thought I'd chime in on the Apple discussion personally I LOVE the iPhones. What Apple has done with creating those has been groundbreaking, and I have still yet to see a better/smoother/more fluid and responsive touch screen anywhere. Of course I agree that the premium Apple charges for it is too much, you can get an insane phone like the Samsung Galaxy S3, and Android is excellent. But I have to disagree with anyone against Apple in any way, IMO they revolutionized the whole touchscreen phone with iOS and the appstore etc, and I have yet to see a (better is not the right word...) more intuitive, simple, and fluid OS and touchscreen experience

 

The math/ratios ONLY applied to the fancy weather skin on the bottom right of my desktop. Everything else is quite basic. ALL skins are .txt files that simply lay out a few criteria, then the "meters", then the way to display the meters. You'll see what I'm talking about when you right click over a skin and select Edit.

 

I'll let you know when I get I get home from work and try it

 

I think Nokia found the feedback from Lumia 800 series quite impressive and they thought they can continue the trend. I don't underestimate the W8 OS. But who really gonna use their phone exactly the same way they come with??? There are tons of app/ games that you can add to your phone making it so different. That's where W8 falls short and they need to improve it ( quite a lot ). Otherwise, I did think about switching to W8, after my research from W8 supports, I decided to give iOS another 2 years.

 

I like my android phones do to the customization and more variation so you can get something that fits you... but each to there own.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 running Resurrection Remix

 

I like smart phones in general. Have iphone 4S and a samsung galaxy for various reason, but this I'd like to discuss in a different board - not here.
Can we change the topic ?