Thinking of buying M17X-R2

Hey all! I'm thinking of getting an M17X-R2 to replace my M11X and M15X that I have. I'm thinking of doing this to have only 1 laptop as space is at a premium where I live now. Are there any problems and other things that I need to be aware of? For example, the M15X's trackpad leaves a lot to be desired. Is the trackpad on the M17X any better? How about battery life? Does using the binary GFX help with the battery life on the M17X? I've been seeing other issues as CPU whine, crossfire not working, etc. Please give me all the info you can to me so I can make an informed decision. Thanks.

 

The trackpad of m11x,m15x and m17x are equally bad. battery life is about 1 hour of normal use.
There is a cpu whine like you mentioned, but that wouldn't stop me from getting the machine..
The rest of the issues are solvable.

 

You're looking at a desktop replacement, expect power, but limited portability and poor battery life. however, in stealh mode, 2.5 hrs of battery life are achieveable.

 

the M11x has a much better trackpad (or drivers).

 

In comparison to most R1's I'd say it's a dream, but there are still some issues. I'll list the ones that I'm aware of:
-The M17x's trackpad suffers from the same issues, it's a problematic/low polling rate that causes it, Dell is in the work of a fix but the last I saw the earliest it would be available is mid-late July.
-Battery life depends on what you're going to do with it, on mine I've got nearly 3 hours in certain situations and 1 hour in others but I also don't have dual gpu's, I would guess dual gpu/hot cpu would give you between 45 mins and 2.5 hours of life.
-Using the integrated GPU does help battery life quite a bit but in gaming or anything highly GPU intensive the integrated is unusable.
-The 5870's have had driver issues, the Dell ones are sub-par and the ATi Catalyst stuff has been less than stable as well.
-The 4870's seem to be pretty decent but lack DX11 support and both them as well as the 5870's seem to have major throttling issues in Crossfire setup.
-The i7 series seems to have throttling issues in some machines as well
-The maxxed machines seem to have major throttling issues on all sides (for instance i7-920 with crossfire 5870's) and ocassionally even BSOD when majorly stressed
-On a plus note Joker5150 found a way to OC the non-extreme Core i processors (i5's and i7's)

Those are about all I'm aware of. Overall a very good machine, and as far as the high end lappy's I've had(Asus G73jh/G51jx, Alienware M17xR1/R2) it's the best one I've had by a long shot.

 

Wow some of the things I have heard so far have made me appreciate my M15X and M11X combo. The only problem I have with either machine is the touchpad on the M15X.

 

I hear about CF 5870's not working a lot, but does a single 5870 run without problems?

 

Mine has run good so far, the drivers seem a bit sketchy though as I seem to remember having a bit better performance from the 5870 in my Asus. I would guess it's probably driver related though. It performs well, just not as good as it could if that makes sense.

 

Wow! So it seems that the M17x is not much better than the M15x as far as touchpad and throttling issues go. Does anyone have mainly positives they can state about the M17x?

 

I returned my M17x for the M15x. I haven't seen an R2 without POST'ing issues also. I cannot be the only one.

Also besides for synthetic benchmarks gaming with Crossfire was performing worse than my G73 and M15x.

 

The 5870 CF works like a dream for me and I play FPS, but I use the default driver. (I only play well reviewed FPS and don't waste my time playing games with poor reviews). No issues with noise either, fans are reasonable. If you compare the Dell Precision M6500 custom addition (orange aluminum) to the M17X R2 you will find the specs very similar but a huge difference in price tags. One of the main differences is a business class GPU. That doesn't justity a $2000 price spread. I suspect Dell allowed these crappy touch pads on the M17x R2 to steer business users towards their lofty m6500 business class systems. My 4 year old XPS had a better touchpad than the M17x R2 so there is really no excuse for such a bad touchpad. No one plays FPS games with a touchpad so really not an issue if you are gaming but business users will take issue with the M17x R2 touchpad. I was told by my sales rep that they are starting to see business users purchase Alienware laptops.

 

i haven't had any issues really with my r2, only issue i have was not being able to oc the cpu , which is now solved. i don't hear any of the noises that everyone seems to hear(cpu whine, super loud fans etc) but either way its still quieter than a desktop. i don't think i could ever go back to a regular ccfl screen after using the RGB though, its probably the main reason i keep this thing .

 

By all means the M17x-R2 is a good computer, with my experience any computer is going to have issues at some point or another and high performance/gaming computers are more likely to have them especially when pushed to their limits like most of us do. The performance of this machine has been by far the best out of any of the machines I've owned, the i7 and ATi 5870 in my R2 beat the heck out of the G73jh I had with the an i7 and ATi 5870 in it as well. The clarity of the screen is much better, the design is a million times more attractive, the build quality in terms of materials used is much better, the ability to use industry standard parts to do upgrades is only matched by one other company that I can think of and it's as easy to do upgrades if not easier than anyone else as well. The problems in my opinion are there, but the positive things outweigh them as well.

 

Can anyone tell me from first hand experience about the size and weight differences between the M17x and M15x? I have the M15x and it is big and heavy compared to any other 15". Also, who has the worse touchpad polling problem, the M15x or the M17x?

 

From what I've heard in the official thread, both have about the same problem. However, if all goes according to plan they may have a fix soon.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ent-polling-rate-problems-37.html#post6390473

 

M17x

-Sexy
-Sexy 17in Screen
-Sexy Looking
-Sexy High Res screen
-Sexy CF power
-Sexy processor power

Its sexy.

 

Can you guys tell me why y'all got rid of your Asus G73jh?

 

What are the advantages to the 5870CF vs the 4870CF setup? I heard read somewhere on this forum or another that there are some driver issues with the 5870CF setup while there are not any with the 4870 CF setup. I also read that you can use any drivers, even the ones from ATI, on the 4870CF setup whereas with the 5870CF setup you can only use the one's from Dell.

 

No one wants to chime in? Just trying to get all bases covered before I pull the trigger.

 

This info is outdated
You can install 10.6 on 5870s, there is some tweaking involved but you can.
As for processing power, you will see 10 to 20 percent increase in framerates.

 

There isn't just one reason I got rid of my G73 theres a lot, I started to get constant BSOD/GSOD's running low level apps with no oc at all, Asus's "customer/technical support" is horrible and that is speaking very nicely of them, and the performance you get out of the hardware in that machine is a lot lower than the same hardware in other machines. Really Asus's recent products seem to get worse and worse. And as MFractal stated, 10.6 can be used now it just requires tweaking, AW hardware has almost always required some tweaking of drivers to work. Don't know why, I've had multiple AW techs tell me that both pre-Dell and post-Dell the hardware didn't seem to work with standard oem drivers the way they are released. You can't expect a ferarri to work very well with walmart brand oil in it.

 

Well I placed my order today for a M17Xr2! Yay me!!!

Anyway, here are the specs:

Nebula Red - Special Edition - Anodized Aluminum
Intel Core i7 820QM 1.73GHz (3.06GHz Turbo Mode, 8MB Cache)
4GB Dual Channel Memory (2x 2GB DDR3)
17-inch WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 RGB LED (1200p)
Crossfire 1GB ATI Radeon Mobility HD 5870
500GB 7,200RPM SATA-II HDD
AlienFX Color, Mars Red
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW)

I'll be glad when this baby comes in. I ordered the smallest hard drive I could because I have an SSD and 500 GB drive that I will use for storage. Hopefully, it will come with the second hard drive caddy installed.

 

Cajun, looks great. It does come with the 2nd hard drive caddy. But make sure you don't throw away the foam inside the second caddy because it has the adapter and screws you need. They hide it in there and it is easy to not see and just throw away the entire foam piece.

Congrats on your new system. I've always wanted the nebula red!

 

Thanks, SirRogers. I can't wait to get it. The Dell Rep couldn't tell me for sure if the caddy was in there or not. Thanks for the heads up on the foam.

 

Very nice setup! Welcome to the club, the other side the Alienside

 

what price did you get it for ??