M18x Replacement Lappy...

Hello All.

I had to request a replacement laptop because my M17x R2 died on me do to a dell tech trying to flash the BIOS. So here is what they decided to send me as a replacement. Do you guys recommend me asking them (begging them ) to change any specs prior to them building it? Thanks for you help...

Quantity Item Number Description

1 225-0887 Alienware M18x Space Black Anodized Aluminum
1 310-0173 Airborne Documentation, System Exchanges,Factory Install
1 313-8791 AlienFX Color, Mars Red
1 317-6849 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz (2DIMMS)
1 317-6854 Intel Core i7 2820QM 2.3GHz (3.4GHz w/Turbo Boost, 8MB Cache)
1 318-0770 Internal High-Definition 5.1 Surround Sound Audio
1 318-0843 Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader, BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW
1 320-2269 18.4-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 WLED
1 320-2270 Dual 1.5 GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M
1 331-2425 Standard Nameplate
1 331-2428 Alienware M18x 330W A/C Adapter
1 342-2628 750GB 7,200RPM SATA 3Gb/s
1 410-0548 Adobe Acrobat Reader
1 410-9453 McAfee Platinum, 15 Month, MUI
1 420-9691 DataSafe Local BackUp
1 420-9956 PC Restore
1 421-0092 DELL-DOWNLOAD-FLAG
1 421-1305 Roxio Creator Starter
1 421-1723 Soft Contracts Dell In-Home Hardware Agreement for Alienware
1 421-5099 Alienware Command Center, M18X
1 421-5789 Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit Service Pack 1, English, w/Media
1 430-4150 Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 a/b/g/n 3x3 MIMO Technology
1 469-0549 Bluetooth 3.0



How does the CPU, GPU, and screen look? Any changes? I am not sure if they would allow me to pay more for the better GPU but I would pay for anything if it was to make a noticeable difference in performance. Thanks again for your suggestions and comments.

 

Oh yea, forgot to mention that the are actually sending me a NEW M18x lappy since they first tried to send me a M17x R3 replacement and it was DOA. Also, I was hoping for them be able to change the casing color from Space Black to Nebula Red. I wonder if they would do that for me since I have had a tough time getting a "working" laptop.

 

Graphics cards are the obvious choice. 6990 XF or 580 in SLI. If you can't them to go for it, ask for 6970's - still hella good. If they still don't go for it, perhaps you can ask to drop the processor to the 2720, drop the Mcafee subscription, and the Roxio to help offset the cost. If all else fails, pay for the GPU upgrade. It's worth it.

If they're willing to throw it in for free, maybe ask about an SSD. If not, get it aftermarket.

 

You should be grateful you are getting that much.

 

I am very grateful. Thanks for telling me that. ANYWAYS, I was just wondering what would be a better configuration. I would love to get the 6970m's or the 580 SLI's but I do not think they would do that for me. I will try by asking them to downgrade the processor, HDD, and RAM but I still think it would be a negative. Beside the GPU should I try for something else?

 

Just tried to downgrade a few things such as the CPU and RAM for an upgrade on the GPU to the 6970m CrossFire and from the 720GB HD to the 500 Hybrid solid state HD and they said they cannot change anything. Oh well. I guess I will have to settle for what they are sending me. Just hope it runs as well as my M17x.

Anyone know if there would be a huge noticeable difference from going from the 460M SLI's to the 6970 CrossFire's?

 

460 no match vs 6970. 1.5 + 1.5 gb vs 2 + 2 gb

 

i'm also taking that pic....thx

 

Haha np , its from Mr.Fox btw

 

Will they let you purchase the graphics card upgrade? If so, buy the XFire upgrade... ask for the 6990 since it's the same price. It's worth the money!

 

Nebula RED represent!

 

show off! mine come with machine guns

 

lol.....................to bad Brink sucks.

 

somehow , I saw they put Diablo 3 images , wonder if Diablo 3 gonna release soon?

PS : copy/pasted that image from alienware.com directly lol.

 

thats interesting...

 

lol you Red m18x signature from dell's build list~

 

You do still have the option of, it if it's still in the 21 day period, contacting a dell sales rep, telling them you want to return it and ask them to wave the restocking fee since you're going to purchase another one immediately with the specs you want (6970s in CF, CPU and HDD changes). Several others have done so.

Suggestion tho?

Don't upgrade the harddrive and ram through dell, just get the one they send you and buy a harddrive and ram seperate.

More, faster RAM for less than the dell upgrade, and it's has a no thought installation from what people say -
Newegg.com - Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 HyperX Plug n Play Laptop Memory Model KHX1600C9S3P1K2/8G
This is "plug and play" ram so you don't have to go tinkering in the BIOS like with some other ram in order for it to work properly.

As for harddrive, my plan is to get the 750gb drive for storage from dell even though it's expensive (because I have to get a drive, I may as well get a useful one) and buy an SSD for the operating system, which will be much cheaper than the hybrid upgrade from dell. The Crucial M4 is what most people suggest, so it's really just up to you how big you want it to be.

Newegg.com - crucial m4

And if you do decide to go this route, there are instructions all over this forum to help you do it, primarily in the M18x owners lounge stickied at the top of this forum.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/575859-official-m18x-owners-lounge-thread.html

 

I think you are missing the point that it's a replacement laptop. You don't get 21 day return on these. Just the original purchase which was probably I'm guessing over a yr ago?

OP, when was your original purchase made?

 

Look here and see what I went through. Of course, I may have gotten a great rep. But I called him up after seeing the specs they were gonna give and asked if I could pay the difference. He GAVE me the 6970's. It's worth a try. They prolly gonna have some sitting around now since everybody is going for the 6990 and 580 nVidia.

 

Thank you all for your detailed help. I was able to finally get a rep to help me with the Video Cards. They are putting in the 6970 CrossFire's. They were also able to change the casing from black to Red. I am keeping the processor, memory, and hard drive with what they originally planned to send me. Also, how hard is it to install a SSD if I was to purchase and install it once I received my laptop? What are the benefits of having a SSD over the HDD they are sending me with the laptop? Thanks again everyone. This has to be the most informative site on the web.

 

Nice job getting the 6970's. A SSD is nart hard at all to put in to be totaly honest. You pull the bottom panel off, remove the screws hold the hard drive bay in and thats really about it.

 

It looks good though.

Your Diablo from the same place looks sweet too. Alot better than the Brink one.

 

Thanks for the reply.

It seems I will be also getting the Dual 6970 CrossFire's. I beleive they are still only including the i7 2820QM CPU but I beleive that will handle gaming with no problem. Correct? I tried to get a SSD but they said that they can only include the 750 GB SATA. I am thankful that they were able to help me out as well.

 

I see from your sig that you have the Extreme CPU. Is that something I can change later if I need that speed in the future? Or would I have to swap-out the motherboard as well? Will the i7 2820QM CPU do me justice for the future when it comes to gaming?

 

The 2820QM will be fine. I think the bottleneck on these systems is actually the video cards when it comes to performance. Glad you got the 6970's, very good system!

 

The 2820 is plenty for gaming. The GPU's will be the bottleneck and the cards you got should last a couple years at least. You're getting a great computer. You can upgrade to the extreme CPU at a later date, but you may have to also upgrade your heat pipe at the same time.

 

Mr Lucky. I hope mine can be burned one day.~~~~ Replacement~~~~

 

If you can talk down the CPU, memory, hard drive even more for the dual 580s or dual 6990s that would be best.

Those are other things are fairly easy to upgrade yourself later. And the CPU will not really be the bottleneck these days unless something radically changes in the GPU world.

 

No way in heck are they going to exchange a 150.00 CPU dropdown for a 800 Upgrade in GPU's Even if you add the cost of ram diff and hdd it would still not be close to 800.00 And good luck getting the 6990m if they are offering the 6970m. It seems that based on country location you get one OR the other.

I think he was lucky getting them to even change his color.

 

SSD=SPEED!!!

I never had one until just recently and the difference when booting, opening programs, running apps is day and night. Soooooooooo much faster and if you can afford to get one-DO IT!!!
But also know that the M18 supports 6Gbs SATA and that a 3Gbs SSD will be fast, but a 6Gbs SSD will be smokin'. Just saying. Tried both and the 6Gbs boots 4-5 seconds faster. I ran Boot Timer before SSD and after. My before times were 64-110 seconds. After with the 3Gbs-18-19 seconds. 6Gbs-14-15 seconds. That's booting up and into Windows. It's fast-just sayin'!

 

Yeah, I wasn't sure about that, but either way he managed to get what he wanted.

jamster001 - like the others said, changing out an SSD is pretty easy, just read the instructions. And you're probably better off not upgrading through Dell, the M18X is capable of sata III (or as pmassey said 6Gb/s, which is the new official name or something) which is faster than the sata II drive (3Gb/s) that Dell will offer. You can get a 6Gb/s SSD for cheaper than the slower one Dell offers on their site, like the Crucial M4 or the Vertex 3 (but some Vertex 3's are unstable so unless your comfortable messing with stuff I'd suggest staying away from that one).

Everything else you're good with, the CPU is fine and more than enough power for a while, and the 6970's are top tier, and while they will probably be beat out by the 6990s nobody knows anything about them yet or how much better they'll be, and the 580ms are $1200 for dual, which is a lot of money for a barely noticeable increase (like 5-15%). So yeah, CPU/GPU-wise, you're more than fine.

 

well after going through 5 5870's in my m17, they finally decided to send me a m18...
i have heard they are alot easyer to work on and clean.. is this true... it looks like you can pull off all the fans and clean it by just taking off the back panel.... bit less work than going through the keyboard and pulling the card, then the fan..

 

I found my m17x R1-R2 much more user friendly to work on. This m18x is a little harder but after a few times taking it apart you'll get the hang of it

 

I sooooo agree with your statement!!

 

Thank you all so much for your knowledge and support. I know I got lucky with Alienware (not that kind of lucky which I am grateful for. It took much time and stress but I think is slowly getting resolved.

As for trying to shoot for the 580ms; no thanks. Those things better be plated in gold for me to purchase them or even waste my time trying to get Dell to change them up. Once I receive the laptop, I will decide on which Crucial SSD to go with. It would be awesome to have the 6Gb/s SATA III but might have to settle with the 3Gb/s SATA II drive when it comes to price. In a perfect world, for the price of these machines, we would all get top of the line Alienware lappies. But...

thanks again for your help.

 

What do these HD Transmitters do? I see they are pricey but do they help with gaming at all? Are these capable of being installed later?

 

The HD transmitter will transmit a signal from your computer to an HD capable device wirelessly.

Help with gaming-NO. Unless you have an HD wireless capable TV and wanna show the game on it. Then, I guess it would help bc there are no cables!!! Yay!!!

Yes they can be installed later

 

Seems the 6990s are still MIA here in the US. At least, the 3 Dell reps I talked to today couldn't build me a M18x with them.

 

Can they? Easily or do you need an engineering degree? Would there be wires and soldering irons etc?

 

Like installing a wireless card I believe. Pretty much plug and play. Install the drivers and all. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Anyone have a link/supplier to buy the WiHD cards from?
I am sure my replacement wont have one and would like to add it in if possible (aftermarket upgrade)

TIA

D.

 

I would check NewEgg.com or maybe Google the one you want. That would be the first places I would try.

 

just got confirmation that my order is shipped, should get it by friday, there saying on the work order that im getting 6990's..... hope they last longer than my 5870's did....