*OFFICIAL* M17x R3 Owner's Lounge Thread - Part 3

Thank you

 

hi,
I need to know the name of the 1080p panel (NON 3d) of the Alienware M17x.

TFT Central - LCD Monitor Information, Reviews, Guides and News shows the name is LG.Display TN Film LP173WF1

TFT Central Laptop Panel Part Database

Can anyone confirm this?

 

as far as I know there is two different models that have been used in the 1080p r3. there was a thread a while back when people compared them, let me see if I can find it for you.

Edit: Hope this is what you were looking for: M17x R3 Screen? (solve the confusion!)

 

many thanks

The best panel is AUO B173HW01 V4

 

So now that my laptop is fully setup and tested with not any real problems *except the screen being a bit too warm and not as bright as the original*
What should i do with it *except game of course*

 

You could do some bench marking. Not really sure what you mean though.

 

Already did some benchmarking, I feel kinda empty, Idk why Maybe its because a better r3 will be out any day now,Or maybe that the screens a bit dull, Anything i can do to calibrate the display to the highest quailty, Oh and any softwares or themes or something to make my desktop look awesome

 

I have tried playing Mass Effect 2 with my new R3 and I have got this really annoying and silly message in the top LH of the screen saying "PhysX > CPU". Yeah great. Does anyone know how to disable this dorky message?

 

Im just using stock windows with a modded windows welcome screen atm, not much into crazy themes lol. If you are trying to get your screen more vibrant, just look at this thread. M18x - IPS RGBLED Color Quality

Hmm strange . Never had that issue before with mass effect. Let me poke around and see if i can find a fix.

 

Tony you ever feel like that you should have bought the m18x, I am having that kind of feeling lately lol, couple reasons, Macro keys, Bigger screen and duel graphics cards,
Though the reasons i got the m17 r3 is because of its screen 120 screen and 3d of course, Thats about it
If m18x r2 has all the features the r3 has and more i will exchange this to m18r2 in a heartbeat lol

 

Found it. On the NVidia Control Panel on the #D Settings Tab is a "show PhysX visual indicator". Mine was selected but it isn't anymore . Thanks anyway.

 

just glad to see you got it fixed

 

It was driving me nuts!!!!!!! Obviously Mass Effect 2 is the first game I have played that is supported by PhysX

 

Got a couple questions since I have a new machine coming that I'll be installing 2 x 256GB m4's as RAID0 in.

When I get the machine, I'm gonna test it out, then open it up and replace all the ram and then replace both HD bays with the new SSD drives.

Here is where I need help. I want to update the firmware of the drives - so when I first turn the laptop on after installing the drives and memory I put in the firmware update iso cd for the drives, boot from cd and update it? Or do I need to enter bios and switch to IDE mode, then after the update switch back to RAID and install windows?

Secondly, I'll be installing a fresh copy of windows and all the drivers. Will I need to install Intel RST during windows setup, or can I install RST after windows is all installed?

 

Hey guys!

Well to start off, I'm super content with my purchase. My M17x R3 is a beast in almost every aspect.

I'm just wondering if this is normal behavior. I have a max GPU Temp of 75 while gaming but it always fluctuates. Idle its 73, then while gaming it will be around 65 and then it slowly climbs to 70. When it gets to 70 the fans seem to kick in really hard and then it cools back down to 67~ and keeps doing that.

Is this normal behavior? Are these temps good?

 

Idle of 73 is not good. My idle temps for my CPU are around 45-50 and my GPU temps are around 55-60 (but that's on integrated graphics so idk if discrete is different).

The gaming temps don't seem bad though.

--Sent from my Touchpad using Tapatalk--

 

I ment idle is at 53 .

So the gaming temps are good? sweet.

 

That's much more reasonable haha
Yeah the danger zone for the CPU is over 100°C, and I think the GPU danger zone is somewhere past 90°C so you're fine.
--Sent from my Touchpad using Tapatalk--

 

Good stuff! Thank you for the prompt reply!

 

I'll second that response. My fans have the same behavior. They are pretty quiet until I reach around 70/71 degrees Celsius then they kick up into high gear.

I have found using a notebook cooler makes a decent different. Or, as some members have done prop up the rear of your notebook with bottle caps.

 

I use a wireless XBox 360 controller which means I have to plug in the wireless receiver to a USB port. I plug it in and put the receiver underneath the rear of the computer near the power port to prop it up in the center while I'm gaming. That works just about perfectly and drops my temps by four or five degrees or so.

 

Just got it in today, here are my initial impressions:

Overall:

Feels cheap,
Keyboard flex is beyond anything I've experienced aside from a Blue Tooth wireless that I use with my Ipad. I had an ASUS G74 as my last gaming laptop and it felt far superior. The keyboard also bows up in the center as others have mentioned on here. Fit and finish of the exterior is good, no obvious defects, marks, or anything of that nature.

Display:

Looks fantastic, no dead pixels, crisp and easy to read even in a well lit room.

Performance:

HDD is lacking but it is mechanical so I am sure that's why, though I admit I expected better. Plenty of storage space. Takes about 1 minute to boot from power down to password entry, another 2 - 3 minutes before the HDD stops accessing and I stop getting random "windows circles" next to the cursor. On three occasions when shutting down using Windows Shutdown I've gotten the "waiting for a program to close" message. Not sure what that's about as there is next to no bloatware or anything else on here. Also had one "Windows Explorer has stopped working" message but there were no obvious effects on operation as I was still able to open and close windows and programs.

Appearance:

Looks beautiful in red, very futuristic looking, several people were impressed and asked about it.

Gaming:

Have only been able to install Far Cry 2 at this point, settings at Ultra and 1920 X 1080 with 2x AA and it runs smooth. Very satisfied with that aspect so far.

Final Impression:

I expected more for just over $2000 in terms of performance, though again I haven't bench marked it or really stressed it with a more modern resource intensive game, I wouldn't spend the money again but I'm not disappointed that I did either.


Now I'm off to see if I can find some of these benchmarking programs you fellas use these days, I haven't done anything like this since 2008.

 

Yes, the keyboard is cheap.

Benchmark programs would be... 3d mark vantage, 3d mark 11,and Unigine Heaven.

You may want to install the newer AMD drivers first. Stock Dell drivers are not the best.

 

Yeah I just went and found some of those programs, over 5 hours each to download on this connection, that's not happening. lol

Wouldn't happen to have a link to the driver you're talking about would you?

 

It feels awfully slow because of the HDD. Get an SSD NOW, GO GO GO!

My best boot time was around 9 seconds.

 

^ Definitely agree with GeoCake, an SSD will make it lighting fast.

As far as the keyboard, it's my personal favorite for typing. I have to be pounding on it to get any flex.

Good luck with your new system!

 

SSD = best upgrade possible for any pc

 

As everyone else has said, SSD makes all the difference. Laptop HDDs suck, period. With an SSD this machine boots in sub 10 seconds, things like Skyrim load almost instantly, so fast you can't even read the hint text.

As for the keyboard flex, if it is REALLY REALLY bad then it might just not be properly seated. There are like 4 little notches on the bottom of the keyboard that slip into little retaining holes. It is VERY common for one of the notches to not be in the hole, and that can cause flex. If you feel kind of brave, you can use the online service guide to take off the keyboard and reseat it. It isn't a major job if you follow the guide, and might fix the flex.

If it is just a little flex it will probably clear up. Mine from the factory was kind of warped, but properly seated, after about a week of use it no longer has any flex, I guess I pounded it into submission.

 

You might also make sure that the ram cover for the dimms under the keyboard is there as well. Several others have reported their M17XR3s shipping without the metal cover. This will also add to your flex.

 

Thanks for the advice, I'm heading home for a month at the end of March and may take it apart then to check on it, but for now I'll live with it. I sold my little Toshiba today and this is my sole point of contact with the real world, taking it apart and poking around in it right now seems like a bad idea, especially with the random gifts our hosts give us. All I need is to be in the middle of it and have something drop in for a visit and send everything flying. hahaha

 

That's a really smart idea! I am surprised I didn't think of that. I was just using a full pack of these mini tissues before...

I'll be sticking with the little reciever thingy now.

Anyways, just stuck one of them Intel Core i7 Sandy Bridge Extreme stickers on my laptop. The black sticker blends in so nicely. Might order one for the AMD card

And updated to the latest AMD Catalyst + Drivers: http://benchmark3d.com/amd-catalyst-8-96-14-february

 

does anyone know if the gtx 590 for notebooks is out and if so is it or will it be compatible with the m17xr3?

 

There is no 590...only the 580m

The highend next gen 6 series (i.e., 675m) will be out when ivy bridge gets released. I'm unclear if there will be something stronger than a 675m, but at this point, the 675m is the flagship of the next gen nvidia mobile offerings

And we assume that it will be compatible because it should be based on the same MXM 3b standard

 

start here...

AMD Catalyst 12.1 WHQL – BenchmarK3D

 

I just stick my wallet under the back since its soft and won't scratch it.
I was thinking of maybe using the power brick though. It's thick enough to elevate it a good amount, but I wasn't sure if that would be bad for the power brick or anything.

--
Sent from my SGS2 Skyrocket using Tapatalk

 

Holy moly. Do yourself a favor and change to an SSD and do a fresh OS install. Or if you wanna fly 2 SSD's set to RAID0. Boot times for me are like 10 seconds from power on to a usable desktop. I'm using 2 x 128GB m4 SSD's in my m18x. In the m17x that's coming though, I'll be using 2 x 256GB m4's, faster RAM and faster processor. I'm hoping more like 7 seconds boot time

 

My power brick gets hot enough to cook an egg on it while gaming, so that probably isn't the best option to keep your laptop cool

 

As the risk of being redundant, I will simply state my complete agreement... definitely need to get an SSD to get great performance. I will add, do not clone your HDD to SSD. Do a clean OS install when installing a new SSD and you'll end up with a better performance outcome in almost all cases. Just about all you need to know about moving to SSD can be found in this thread.

This is absolutely the truth and there is a great chance that is what the issue is. Same thing happens with the M18x. I have almost no flex with my M18x keyboard (which is the exact same part on the R3). If the tabs are not properly seated, then it is like a spring-pad, LOL.

If everything is in place, have Alienware send you a replacement keyboard. I know of several folks that had a new keyboard sent and that fixed the flex for them. That makes no sense to me and I am not sure why there would be any difference between two identical keyboards, but apparently there can be.

 

I haven't really timed it but my M17x R3 with a 512GB Crucial M4 boots in about ten seconds or perhaps a little less. I disabled hibernate and never use sleep because there's no point when I can cold boot in the amount of time it takes to pull out my wireless mouse and turn it on.

I love this keyboard. Maybe I got lucky and mine was in place where it should be. I did have to take it off to put in my RAM. My G73JH keyboard was horrible but maybe they got much better on successive models. I didn't see many complaints about it other than from fellow JH owners.

 

As stated earlier, I'm in Afghanistan but heading home in about 1 month, having parts shipped out here isn't really an option at this point as there's no guarantee I'll get them in time. (Those that have been out here know how predictable our mail is) To add to that, the environment I have to work and play in is far from conducive to effective repair of components that include screws as small as these are.........and the dirt and dust that I'd end up trapping inside would probably counter any improvement I'd see by causing some other issues.

On another note, when I booted this thing up this morning it hung on the "Starting Windows" screen for about 10 minutes............forced shut down as the HDD wasn't being accessed, it was just sitting there, and when I restarted it went into repair mode............spent 20 minutes doing that before telling me it couldn't be repaired and I should click finish to shut down. Did that, powered it back up and it started fine, albeit slowly.

Not getting a warm and fuzzy here with this expensive toy. Really shouldn't have to "fix" something I paid this much for. Don't count the SSD as a fix since I wanted to do that and planned for it when I ordered the machine, but the keyboard and boot issues do annoy me.

Off to do a search on which BIOS I should use, currently has A09 in it, vaguely recall seeing something about A08 being the better performing BIOS.

 

A08 will enable the full SATA III speeds. A09 borks it. Instead of 6GB you'll get 3GB I believe.

 

Just found these forums. My M17 R3 was delivered a month late due to the hard drive shortage but it was worth the wait!

AW M17xR3 - Black
Intel Core i7-2670QM 2.2GHz
16GB DualCh DDR3 1600MHz 4DIM
Slot-Load DL DVD Burner (DVD+-RW, CD-RW)
Internal HD 5.1 Surround Sound Audio
17.3-inch WideHD+ 1600 x 900 60Hz WLED
2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M
500GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s
Win 7 Home Prem 64 SP1,Eng,w/Media,AWNB
Wireless 802.11 g/n

Kinda wished I hadn't skimped on the network card after the fact. I'm already looking at upgrade options. Oh well live and learn.

 

The wireless card can easily be upgraded. You can purchase the 6300 card from Newegg. I wouldn't have skimped on the screen. The 1900x1080 LCD is much better.

 

Runs butter smooth when maxed out. Gameplay/graphics so far is awesome!

After an hour:

 

What game is that?

 

Syndicate

 

decided to look into m17x. i'm coming from thinkpad and i use my laptop for both gaming and everything else. recently sold w520 because it cannot manage heat from gaming...

1. does m17x manage heat well? i'm getting 2730qm with 580m setup and i play games mostly an hour or two at a time but can sometimes pull an alnighter

2. does it require one adapter like 99.99% of the laptops or TWO adapters? i heard sometime ago that highend alienware requires two adapters to be plugged in simultaneously to run games but i'm not 100% positive on this

3. how's the build quality? if i grab it in one hand, would i feel like it's going to disintegrate right on the spot? i always liked thinkpad's build quality and i don't expect the alienware to be the same but i'm curious... especially from someone who can explain the build quality of m17x compare to thinkpad's...

thanks!

 

Replies in Red.

 

Slimshady,

thanks for your helpful comment!
can i ask how much you paid for your setup? i'm trying to locate online coupon and all i could find was measly $50 off coupon. by chance u know any?

 

Dear Sally,

As far as heat goes, the m17x has the best heat management of any gaming laptop. For example, the sagers get much higher temps than we do...probably 10-15c. A common temp for a 6990m in a repasted Sager is about mid 80's c on load. I hover in the high 60's c while gaming.

I think the build quality on the thinkpad is superior. They are built to get banged around...HOWEVER, that said, when i opened up the box the first time and I saw my m17x, i was like "WOW"...great laptop. The first thing that popped into my head was that they didn't spare any expense. Plus i like the design compared to more conservative laptops. You won't be disappointed