*OFFICIAL* M17xR3 Owner's Lounge Thread - Part 2

That's the way mine came. RAID mode with the single, original drive.

I changed to AHCI when I installed my own SSD and second data drive. The original drive is packed away should I ever need to send the laptop in to Dell.

 

So the chipset is not on a shared heatsink with the cpu anymore? shame

 

Same with both the R2's I had (sold one). I they both came raid even though I did not request it....

Its not Dells fault per se.......its the fatory in China.

 

no more not even on the R2 the chipset has a separate heatsink without fan but on the R2 is more accessible

 

That sucks then

 

All right!
So I'm getting somewhere... in German!
This doing AHCI in bios, not RAID.
Oh well, I'm able to guess what the prompts are, so I'm just gonna keep going and change the language later. Still not all the way through yet...

 

Guys who have received the R3. Does your R3's lid align with the palmrest when closed? Mine is a couple of millimeters off to the right on both units (I checked both my pre-recall R3 before returning it and the post-recall replacement). Not that big of a deal but still...

Oh, and the new one doesn't light right half of the ALIENWARE word on the screen with blue LED, other color combinations lack their blue component (white is yellowish and pink is reddish on the right side of the word, kinda like a gradient from left to right).



Wasn't there on the first unit

 

Update:
I got all the way through!(insert joke here).
But there's no way to change the language without Windows Unltimate.
So now I'm gonna try and reinstall. I came home to blackscreen after leaving the OS install and I pressed some buttons and probably chose German language. Doh! But let's see if it works a second time...

edit: I probably selected the wrong language from the get-go. Either that or the installation goofed.

 

Finally! Someone else that acknowledges the misaligned lid. kind of QC is this??? I know it's nothing to do with function, but c'mon! Only thing keeping me together is the thought that most of the time, the laptop will be opened and then it won't be noticeable.

I do also have an issue with the alienware logo. I can see that it's a square panel, but there's a some light bleeding through on the ends.

 

Two instances of stuff left in the heatsinks, mine was plastic and the other guys was paper ON THE CPU.

If you're amazed by that quality control then I don't know what to tell you about ours

 

a little custom touch, what you guys think

 

nice image tweaking inap...

Now that would be better than just a custom nameplate. custom labeling of the lower corner of the display.

 

thanks batboy. actually its just a vinyl decal i made. if you want i can hook one up for ya, hehehe

 

ahhh... i thought it was a photoshop tweak. nice! You should put them up in the marketplace

 

Yea, you should they look real nice.

 

thanks guys, will do that!

 

Is this a laptop a good idea to buy right now? Or is it still having all kinds of problems? I was considering one about this time last year and got jack of GFX card and CPU problems so built a PC instead. Now I'm sick of how much space my PC takes up.

My last laptop was an XPS 1730 and it was brilliant. If I get a M17x, will I be let down?

 

Good questions. They're nagging little doubts I have in the back of my mind also ........ guess I'll just have to keep lurking.

 

What similar laptop would you buy in Oz right now if you didn't go Dell?

 

Asus when the G73s's are available again or perhaps, but not likely, a Clevo - not really in a hurry to go for either one of them though. Would probably end up sacrificing power and go with the Asus.

 

Just bought the Oriobackpack for the beast. Anyone else got one? I'm sure you do.....

 

Have you guys noticed that the R3 screen has a distinct blue tinge? I tried lessening it by setting color temperature to 6200K and putting brightness at -8 and contrast at 103. Give it a try and tell me if it looks better to you.

 

Hey inap, PM me if you're selling decals. I'd love to get the same name on my nameplate in whatever font the ALIENWARE is on the front.

$$ Of course offered

 

agree with X3NIA, I'll miss it in the marketplace, please PM me if you start selling them.

 

I got mine on tuesday, sending it back. I ordered the M17x R3 with 3d (2820qm, 8GB ram, Nvida 460, 3d Bundle 120hz screen, 256gb ssd, 6300, blu ray player, black )after the sales people convinced me that I could do graphics switching and that I got optimus with the 120hz screen. I believed them because I thought, like a moron, that they would know what they were talking about.

Hecht I had some trouble trying to return it as well, the return dept told me that the machine had graphics switching as well. They told me to contact tech support for some help as to how to operate my machine. I told them I had already contacted tech support who did a remote diagnostic to see if they could turn it on remotely, and even had me go into the bios to change it, but you cant change it in the bios.

When I told them I wanted to order a non 3d bundle, I was told;

After validation from Tech Support, the new 3D M17x also has the Optimus that enables your graphic card to switch to integrated if it is not using a graphic applicaton and automatically switches to the dedicated video card for video and other heavy graphic application.This is applicable to both the 3D and the Non 3D M17x.

So even know they dont know what they are talking about. I kinda boggles my mind.

This is one I had when trying to explain why I was reordering;

Agent : "May I know where you got the info that says you cannot use WiDi on 3d?"
Me : "a combination of the manual, intels website and finding out that the r3 with the 3d bundle has its IGP turned off, and with no IGP you cant use widi, you need three things to use widi, the box ( netgear push 2 tv ), a compatiable intel chip, and intel gra"
&nbspphics processor, since the r3 with 3d completely disables the IGP, you cant do widi on it.
Agent : "one moment please."
Me: "the current r3 with 3d bundle from nvidia also does not ship with the widi software that would be on the machine, and you cant even go into the bios to turn it on, its completely gone."
Me: "okay"
Agent : "I am further checking the M17x R3."
Agent : "This may just take 3-4 minutes more Tony, I appreciate your patience."
Me: "okay, take the time you need, I would rather wait longer for a good/right answer then a quick response "
Agent : "Thanks "
Agent : "Thanks for waiting!"
Agent : "I thoroughly checked on the M17x R3, I apologize for the confusion, this system has IGP which you can manually turn on and off so you can use WiDi with it as long as it is on IGP."
Me: "the non 3d bundle version does have graphic card switching, the 3d bundled one does not. I think that is where the confusion is. The non 3d version uses a 60hz screen which the IGP can handle for switching, the screen and display in the 3d bundle is not a"
able to be run on the IGP, so they have completely bypassed it and disabled in the 3d bundle version, which means no optimus, no widi. So that is why I am hoping the Wireless HD streaming isnt dependent on the IGP and that the chip to broadcast is already built in.
Agent : "From what I know the 3d bundle has options to turn the IGP on and off through the systems control panel, do you already have either of this packages?"
Agent : "With the 120 Hz you can also run 60 Hz display, it will go on 120 Hz if you need to view 3d graphics."

So, even currently, it seems to be believed that you can switch between graphic cards with the 3d bundle with a few sales people.

Dell also told me they are holding my money for 30days as per their return policy, which makes it hard to order another one, I have to restrict my budget. I told they I wanted to reorder, and they told me, sorry but this is our policy sir, we offering free shipping and no restocking fee. ( Gee thanks, you only lied to me several times and made me buy a product based on misinformation given by your sales people and when I find out its not true, you screw me...awesome. )

I know I am coming off whiney, but I went over the details over and over with the sales people to insure I was getting what I was paying for and that has turned out not to be the case.

I did manage to play some games, shogun2, civ v, both ran nicely in 3d, but without 3d, they were stunning. The design is nice, still a bit heavy, the plastic covering felt good, keys felt good, didnt have any flex. Screen was crisp and bright. Most things ran well, however had some issues with civ v in direct x 11/10 which I thought this card supported. and It would run the demo version of dungeons from steam which runs nicely on my m11x r2. The full size keyboard is sweet. The lighting is fantastic on the grill and keys. I did notice a bit of a washout like some people did on the actual alienware name plate on the screen. Ran quiet and cool. I also ran some 3d demos from Nvida on them, they actually choked the system and they were supposed to be able to run fine on it. I also got the breed gui, and its pretty sweet, but I did notice some graphic issues with it. Like pieces and pages would be missing. I also noticed once on boot up, the screen looked like it tore on the lower left side, like black. Saw it once, didnt see it again.

Couldnt get normal dvds and blu ray to upconvert to 3d. I fiddled with power dvd, no go. They just wouldnt flip over. and the 3d glasses fit over my glasses as well for peeps worried about that. Great machine, lots of power, just wont wont do what I want it to do.

 

Actually, I picked up a great "Mobile IT" messanger bag at Office Depot with a red interior that looks awesome.

Also, I just noticed someone mention the misalignment issue...yeah, mine's off like a millimeter or two to the right. Never noticed it before until I checked.

Overall though, this machine kicks . I have to send mine back because they didn't put the 6970M in like I asked them to though.

Anyone on the fence...you won't regret buying this.

 

I went light on my R3 when I ordered it so that down the road it won't be too big of a loss if I had to sell it to get an m18x. If you want a laptop decently enough to really wanting one, I'd get the R3 now. I myself have several issues with it, but ultimately keep telling myself, this can just be an intermediary laptop if it's that bad.

However. Now that I've got it up and working again and installing drivers now, something came up. If I just install the nvidia driver, and not the 3d driver, could I install the intel integrated gpu driver and utilize that? Or is this a bios restricted thing?

 

JUST AN FYI:
If you're looking to upgrade your HDD for an SSD. Wait for the OCZ Vertex 3 coming in a month or so. That beast will be driven by SandForce 2000 series and will max out the SATA III bus.
Any reason why it wouldn't work with the R3?
I'm gonna try to return my Corsair SATA III SSD cuz it didn't work. Unless you guys can think of a way around to installing the OS on it successfully.

 

via what app?

 

Man I'm posting a lot. Can I get in trouble for this?
I suppose it's partially due to all the time I have in between drivers downloads and installs.
The thing that popped to mind was that when I ordered this R3 I did it for the 120 Hz and not at all for 3D. For that same reason, I also did not order the Bluray Player. Which brings me to my question. I want to sell the glasses that came with it, but I don't know the best way to do it. I tried ebay, but the plu from the barcode didn't register. Will it have any luck selling in the market place here? I've never been there before.

 

I did a calibration on the 120hz, and these are the calibration curves for 6500K, L* gamma, taken at 60% brightness.

If it were instead calibrated at 2.2, red and green would be spot on, but blue would still be fairly off. Blue is pretty much exactly 10% too bright across the board.

 

Thanks for confirming, I knew it was off.

 

Please write about it in the backpacks thread Please share photos of the interior, especially of the compartment, and the base/bottom of the backpack, preferably of the padding. TYIA!

I've got 3 letters for you, which will surely get you what you want: BBB.

 

All of my drivers are being installed onto C:dell\drivers
Is that essentially a copy of all the drivers I installed?
Could I copy it and set it aside for later use, say for a SSD.
I know I'll have to go into setup and reinstall, but at least I won't have to download 'em all.
And lastly, could I change the names of those drivers to say (1)current_driver_name so that I know the order in which to install them.

 

Will do. I remembered that thread just after posting here. As soon as I get it I will do a review.

 

Just found out mine has shipped and has an EDD of 3/21. Woot!!!

 

I recommend backing up this directory as it is VERY useful during fresh installs

And you can rename those directories to whatever you want, they are for your reference and irrelevant of the contents.

 

Thx!

And...you LUCKY bastid! Photos and stuff too, in the show time thread, k?

 

Showtime thread???

 

Dookie was mentioning this thread. http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/559824-m17x-show-time-pics-26.html

 

Question:
Do Alienware include driver cd and/or Windows cd with the M17x? Or do you have to download everything yourself?

 

From the video's ive watched. It does it include it.

 

Yes, a resource DVD is included. Best course however when needing drivers, visit the R3 support page @ support.dell.com and grab the current driver as provided by Dell. Only time you should be using the Dell resource DVD for drivers is if you have no active net connection and need to reinstall the driver. Always use the current version of Alienware Command Center.


A Win7 disc is also included. It is a clean install of win7 with no alienware customization. If you want to recapture the Alienware look and feel, you'll need to follow this process:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ook-feel-after-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

For driver install order on a clean install, see this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...er-install-order-guide-alienware-systems.html

 

Thanks man
That is awesome by Alienware. The newest laptops from Asus you have to make your own driver cd and download everything from their site.

But that Windows 7 disc. Is that a recovery disk or is it only Windows?

 

Its a Windows 7 OEM install disc.

 

Even more awesome. Many OEMs will not include the Windows disc. You have to make your own CD. The only thing they include is the product key.

Big star in the book for alienware

 

@BB

Do you have a copy of "Red Glyphs" with the alienware writing near the bottom (instead of dead middle)? my r3 shipped with that as login. Can't seem to find it though.

 

Attached to post#1 here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ook-feel-after-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

If you mean the word 'Alienware' at the bottom of the wallpaper, I have to look - probably have it somewhere. There are two versions - the one @ the bottom, I believe was used with the M17xR1, M15x.

EDIT:
Attached. Will add to the guide as well.

 

yeah I read/followed your nicely written guide (several times now). And yes, that is what I mean - I only have "Alienware" @ middle of image version. I Mostly want the bottom version so I can make a 3rd with no text at all...or just small text elsewhere.

 

Is the ATI HD 6970 mobile card really that much more powerful than nvidias 460m? I'm just curious as I can do further upgrades on the nvidia machine because they have the special and its a bit cheaper... etc

EDIT: as for the question about extending my warranty... I'm not entirely sure, although I doubt it because its dell lol...