*OFFICIAL* Alienware 18 Owner's Lounge Thread

Sweet Lord Almighty! I get mine delivered Friday! Initial delivery date was 7/25!! My weekend is set!

I bought a brand new desk for it as well and that won't even get here in time!!

Time to order my SSD!

 

With only one 750GB HDD you should have an empty drive bay available, so keep the 750GB HDD and keep the 64GB mSATA to accelerate it as a data drive using Intel Rapid Storage Technology. Do a clean install of Windows (not clone or Respawn) to the 256GB Samsung SSD. Create Alienware Respawn media in case you want it later. If Windows is installed to the 64GB mSATA it sounds like the setup was not correctly as a cache drive. You should not see the cache drive in "Computer" and it should not have a drive letter assigned to it.

 

Well I will say this:

It's design is understated but by NO means worse than the current model. It's just more streamlined. It sits a bit bigger which is good and bad as it deals with the lid mostly. The back of the lid is MUCH better in my opinion aesthetically. The lighting bars angle up to the alienhead with amazing congruency. The alien head is smaller but the overall look is much sexier. I will take and upload pics once I get my situation straightened out.

However the actual display aesthetically looks worse. The bezel is gigantic and throws off the design. However the brightness and viewing angles are much superior.

The keyboard is a dream to type on. I have no keyboard flex. The lighting is way more subdued and that will be welcomed by some and not others. I do miss having the panel of touch buttons for volume, wifi, eject etc. I like how the mouse pad lights up when touched but you don't get the lighting on the outline of the mouse pad. I prefer the actual look when touched personally.

Honestly, in person, while the grille of the R1/R2 is definitely more radical, the new model is not that bad from the front end either. It really isn't. The lighting around the entire chassis is really classy.

I won't say this is an absolutely aesthetic revolution of the AW 18inch product line. However it is an "Evolution" that still screams Alienware, but is a bit sturdier, less "blingy" and has a much improved screen. Unfortunately the bezel is just a design flaw IMO from an aesthetic poitn of view. However, the back of the lid is just light years ahead of the current one. These two machines trade blows. With the right pictures taken of both machines side by side, I think people will realize this new one is very nice looking. Most importantly, it's the NICEST looking current gen Haswell/780M in it's class (18.4in). The screen colors are spot on, the viewing angels are great and the keyboard is A+

It pains me to have to type all this as I am working through my own frustrations with my system right now, but I don't want to disappoint my AW lovers. If someone can show me how to properly embed pictures (the code) I will snap some side by side shots right now and post em up for everyone

 

Nice to know that the 18 appears as sturdy as the m18x. I don't know if any laptop has an attractive bezel, but at least it reduces heat and protects the screen better than edge-to-edge plastic.

 

Hopefully these images uploaded properly.

 

They appear in your quote but not in the original post. Try using tinypic.com next time.

And thanks for the feedback on the system. It does look pretty nice and it's definitely a head turner. I'm currently saving up for one next year, and I can't help but wonder what Alienware has in store for the first revision... Hopefully some of the stuff on IdeaStorm.

 

Awesome Pics! Thank you for sharing. Both are beautiful in their own right.

 

Dave can you do a front shot with screens off side by side ?
I wanna get a good look

 

The look of the m18 has steadily grown on me. I have a feeling that it will come across much better in person than it has in most pics (I will get to settle that bit for myself tomorrow). That said, your pics do a good comparing the two styles. Now if someone could photoshop the new body nebula red, that might really bring it to life.

 

I'm going to miss the gunmetal-esque shade of black on the M18x. Though with the original M17x I really preferred the silver color over the jet black, so I suppose with this new generation I'm getting the best of both worlds with a darker gray color.

 

As requested, this is probably the worst "look" of the new AW 18 in my opinion as it shows the bezel issue I have been talking about. It also shows the grilles protrude in the R1. However, though it's hard to capture in a pic like this, the new grilles aren't bad; especially when the lights are on and you are viewing the angle showing the light going around the chassis like in other pics I have shown. I can't believe I am "selling" the new one as much as I am considering the experience with CS I am going through with still no resolution. I guess it just shows I have patience and sometimes that pays off. If not, someone might be the proud new owner of this scratch and dent system from the outlet at 25% off!!

 

Wow, it's bigger than the previous M18x? That's crazy.

Have to agree, though... That grill is nothing compared to the R1/R2.

 

Thank you brother Fox! Installation is nearly done. The secondary drive automatically shows up as accelerated, so I assume it's working?



Also, is it OK to leave the HDD mode set to RAID? My Samsung tool is crying and saying it wants AHCI otherwise it will not run at 100% performance.

 

Wow, the lid is so much better on the new one! No terrible reflections! I had to break the edge-to-edge glass and make a custom bezel on the R1/R2 to achieve the same effect. Finally, Dell listened to my prayers, albeit too late....

 

While the old grill is much more aggressive after seeing this picture I'm actually really liking the new grill more. The old grill is like a Ferrari...it looks fast and sleek and it should go down in notebook history (IMO) as the most innovative design ever. The new design however is like a Rolls Royce...its large and powerful, you know it, but its more understated and refined. Maybe this is designed to match the aging demographic of gamers? Maybe its the evolution of Alienware. While my inner frat boy loves the old design, this 40 year old IT Dad is much more impressed with the new refined design. Its classier.

 

So I have a weird story.

My order was supposed to be delivered July 26 so I haven't even been paying attention to it this month. When I got home from work I get a note from FedEX saying I need to sign for a delivery tomorrow afternoon.

I did order a HP laptop a few weeks ago also and figured it must have been that. I go online and check the shipping info - Nope.
I ordered some clothes online, thought it would be weird that I'd have to sign for them but whatever, check online - Nope.

Then I look at the order number they provided me and see that it's a next business day shipment and weight nearly 30 lbs. I check my order on Dell's website (which for some reason has incorrect billing info listed but whatever) and it still says in production EDD July 26. Underneath it now however it says "partial order shipped." I didn't order any accessories like backpacks or anything else so unless they are sending my computer over in pieces I have to conclude it's my Alienware 18 being delivered tomorrow. No idea why the site is showing so much inaccurate information about my order. Literally the only thing correct is my shipping info. Whatever.

I'll update tomorrow if it actually does turn out to be my new machine. Anybody else have a weird experience like this?

 

Instead of Rolls Royce, how about Aston Martin, just from the the aspect of how it looks? Actually I think a more apt comparison would be Lamborghini to the old design, and Ferrari to the new design?

I am young and I like the newer design more, it's actually one big part of the reason why I ordered the AW 18. I'd have liked the old design, if they were able to make that shape out of smooth matte metal, instead of plastic. Also, imo if they had used the old grills as air intake it would be really cool, just from an engineering and functionality standpoint.

 

Sounds more ridiculous by the Minuit here with the car comparisons. There is very few things I can see that I would want changed on this laptop but if they had the 18.4" PLS screen on the 17 would be pretty great.

 

Well then that would be the Alienware 18...lol

 

Idk why people are complaining so much about the new design, it's far more streamlined and sleek looking than the original.

 

The new system is built extremely well and looks excellent IMHO. The only thing I don't particularly care for is the display bezel. It reminds me of something one would find on a ruggedized computer... thick, rubbery and almost a "military grade" type of look to it that clashes with the sleekness the rest of the machine possesses. I don't think it is horrible by any means, but I do prefer the look of the previous display even though it is reflective. Aesthetically, it is remarkably different and it needed time to grow on me as far as appearance.

I still love the menacing in-your-face look of my M18x "Avenger" but the new 18 "Viking" is awesome and a worthy successor in my opinion.

Nice! Yup, cache is working correctly. Good job. Ignore the Samsung tool and leave it in RAID. Unless Samsung did something unusual to mess up the functionality of their drives it will absolutely run at 100% performance because RST RAID mode includes AHCI. Think of it as AHCI on steroids. I suspect the Samsung software is not recognizing the RAID protocol and assumes it is IDE (ATA) mode instead of RAID/AHCI. That's not uncommon. The average consumer computer does not even have a RAID controller available as an option.

If the cache is not already set for "maximized" mode, go ahead and change it to that for the best performance.

 

This was my experience exactly. I am still awaiting a copy of windows 8 pro from AW, so when I received the 18, called AW, and they could do nothing to help me because their systems didn't read that it had been delivered yet. I had to speak to someone to tell them to invoice the system over to me, which would take another 24 hours before they could even provide tech support.

 

Hi how big is the performance difference between the RST accelerated 5400rpm HDD vs RST accelerated 7200rpm HDD?

 

Hi guys,

Long time lurker, first time poster. Just got my Alienware 18 in. If anyone needs a vbios dump, specific pics, or any other info let me know and I can provide it. Would love to contribute to any questions you guys might have.

I do have a quick question though - apparently the Vindicator backpacks are a bit harder to source but I've read that the quality of the Orion series backpacks is much higher. Will the new Alienware 18 fit in the Orion 18'' backpack? I'd think yes, but just curious before I buy one.

Also, for you new owners, make sure you go into BIOS and check if your machine was overclocked (if you selected a processor that was supposed to be OC from factory). Mine was not overclocked from the factory as it should have been, and at this point with the Alienware techs has not been able to overclock it over 3.8Ghz (i7-4900MX, supposed to be 4.0 from factory). I may end up upgrading to the 4930 extreme but only if I can do it at a fair price. The overclocking options were actually disabled in BIOS when I first got the laptop.

Other than that, I threw Crysis 3 on it and its nasty

Specs: i7-4900mx, 32gb 1600mhz ram, 2x GTX 780M in SLI. Waiting on my mini displayport to dual-link DVI adaptor to hook it to my 120hz monitor. Will try the 3d stuff soon

 

I don't know. It's about double being accelerated versus not accelerated. I haven't tested my little 500GB 7200 RPM HDDs to see how they perform. My 5400 RPM low-power 1TB drives perform about the same as SATA2 SSD. Here is an example of how well it performs... I think it's amazing.

 

BTW - I do not believe it is a full copy of windows 8 they are sending you. Most likely a Windows recovery flash drive, which is what they sent me. I had to try to recover Windows because of a missing file (Alienrespawn didn't help at all, in fact made the situation worse). Once I completed the recovery, all sorts of device drivers and files were missing. This gave me a good reason to send back and go for a i7 extreme processor.

 

The bezel is a bit thick and rugged looking for my taste also. Imo if I could have a >75% metal machine that is modern looking, minimalistic and sleek with the traditional Alienware lighting and a thin bezel that would be perfection. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder though lol.

Since you're on the subject of storage Mr. Fox, do you have any suggestions for me to have the following setup?

-Use the mSata cache drive as the OS installation drive
-Use two 256 Samsung 840 Pro in Raid 0 to install everything else to

Thanks in advance.

 

Which system? M18x R2, new 18?

If you have an R2, go with a setup like I have in my signature. Replace the ODD with a caddy and move the ODD to an eSATAp enclosure.

With the new 18, skip the ODD and use the mSATA to accelerate a 1TB HDD and put your dual 256GB 840 pro SSD in the standard HDD caddy.

 

Hey Brandon I got the new 18 and the old Orion backpack, and I can safely say that it fits great in the Orion 18 backpack. I got it via amazon when I found out laptop had shipped and got it the same day laptop got home.

 

Welcome Brandon and thank you for entering the light Good to know as I have yet to receive my 18. Specs:

16GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz
Dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5 - NVIDIA SLI Enabled
750GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s + 64GB mSATA SSD Caching
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, English
Overclocked 4th Gen Intel Core i7-4930MX (8MB Cache, up to A.B GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
18.4 inch (467.36mm) WLED FHD (1920 X 1080)

 

The new 18.

I was thinking of just removing the HDD entirely and using the mSata as an OS Boot drive.

Edit: I just need to figure out if the 64 gb mSata cache drive can be formatted as a storage drive or not.

 

Hey - Thanks a bunch. I ended up doing a lot more research and it looks like its pretty hard to beat the Everki Titan backpack. So darn expensive though... $200-ish. I ended up ordering one and will do a review on it once it comes in.

I figure if the Alienware 18 could fit the Orion, and the Orion could fit the M18x, and the M18x could fit the Titan, then the 18 could fit the Titan.

Hopefully I'm not wrong.

 

First time poster here too.

Been following this thread closely the last couple of weeks for obvious reasons...
I'm replacing my m17x r1 (qx9300, 8 GB RAM, 2x intel 320 128GB SSDs in raid 0 and dual GeForce 260GTX SLI) with a m18 (4700, 8 GB RAM, 750GB + 64GB mSata and dual GeForce 780GTX SLI) I'm pretty excited with my "minor" computer upgrade...

I just ordered two Samsung Pro 840 256GB that I'm gonna use in raid 0. I read mr.Fox suggestion above about throwing out the ODD and initially I didn't like the idea of keeping a HDD but I've changed my mind and will use that idea. Question is do I need to get a caddy or something or will the HDD fit in the slot without "extra additions"?

Second question: I ordered another 16 GB RAM (2x 8GB) but I read somewhere that win7 only can use 16GB, will 24GB be of any help in my system or should I just remove the 2x 4GB that my monster will be delivered with?

Thanks in advance and thanks for a great forum, tons of useful information!!!

 

Ordered an Alienware 18 on the 24th of june.... Along with a logitech G930 wireless headset, gaming chill mat, tactx mouse,external optical drive, diablo3 and a 18" vindicator briefcase... Now I've received everything except the briefcase and the actual laptop itself... So u can imagine how I feel looking at all the stuff and just trying to wait patiently for the aw 18.... N EDD is 29th july! I'm dying slowly everyday waiting for it... ... anyways, below r the specs of my beast:

*Overclocked 4th Gen Intel(R)Core(TM)i7-4930MX Processor (8MB Cache, up to 4.3GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
*768GB RAID 0 (3x256GB SSD) + 256GB mSATA SSD Storage Drive
*32GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz
*Dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5 - NVIDIA SLI Enabled

I also went for Windows 8 ... But now I'm thinking I shuldve gone for win 7, any thoughts?

Can't wait to get my alienware

 

Yes, it sure can. But, the space it uses for cache is not available for anything else. If you disable caching and use the entire SSD, 64GB is still very small... perfect for caching (max allowable is 64GB), but for OS or data, probably too small to be much value. If you plan to use the mSATA for the boot drive, 120GB or larger is recommended. I have a 120GB Mushkin. I use 64GB of it for cache and the balance of accessible drive space is used to store a drive image for my dual-boot RAID0 setup. It's just sitting there for disaster recovery if I need it.

Alienware has a bracket and cable to replace the ODD with 2.5" HDD/SSD. If you order with an ODD it will not have that. You would need to buy the bracket and SATA cable from Alienware. This might be serviced as a kit (meaning not separate part numbers). Since this is a new product, service parts, and even part numbers, might be hard to come by. You could attach the HDD/SSD to the chassis using adhesive Velcro and that would work perfectly, but the SATA connection for ODD is different so you cannot use the same cable unless you can find an adapter to go from ODD-SATA to standard SATA, if there is such a thing... probably is... somewhere.

 

My 18 arrived today and I'm actually very disappointed. It's my first Alienware product and my first laptop but can't justify the price paid for it. Admittedly I went for the lower spec machine with the dual gtx 765m's but upgraded to 16gb of RAM. After speaking to my sales agent and account manager I was assured that the GTX 765m would handle the latest games; as soon as I put Crysis 3 on in the recommended specs it was unplayable. I downloaded Nvidia GeForce experience and optimised the specs and it set everything to low. Now I genuinely can't justify paying £2000 on something that runs a 6 month old game at low specs. I have a gaming desktop with a GTX690 in there so I was always likely to be disappointed, but didn't realise how much.

I've tried activating SLI before speaking to customer services and arranging a return, but it's being blocked by "Toaster.exe". I have read that this should just be disabled in msconfig but it isn't even showing in there.

Any help you can give me before I give in and contact customer support tomorrow please guys?

Thanks in advance

 

Brandon,

You are absolutely correct, these are NOT overclocked from the factory. My monitoring shows 3.8ghz under load instead of the promised 4.0ghz. I am sure there are ticks in the bios that can change this and probably a few more once a more "user friendly" bios becomes available. Right now, I haven't even bothered with investigating CPU options as I am trying to figure out if I am correctly upgrading my vbios.

 

My 18 arrived today and I'm actually very impressed. in my opinion is way better then the M18xR1/2, I love it . well done dell...!!!!

 

Finally my machine moved into production. Yes its the reorder, after the massive cancellation that dell just felt like doing. Reordered on 8th and now just moved into Production. EDD is 26th but i have a feeling i might get it earlier then that. Finger Crossed

 

For Alienware owners, please help me with the following:

How is the screen compared to the older Alienware M18x? Do you notice the PLS screen is better? If yes how? Colours? Viewing angles?

What about the noise compared to the older version? Quieter? Noisier?

Thanks

 

man, this new machine is 100 time better, trust me!

 

I can honestly say that this screen is a lot better than last generations m18x. The colors are stunning and viewing angles are perfect, exactly what you would expect from an ips/pls screen. This laptop has also been surprising quiet for me. I cannot compare it to the m18x because I never heard one operate too loud. This is my first time pc gaming and I am truly impressed.

 

Then send it back. It could be a problem with the drivers but my bet is that you have the problem. You said yourself that you were "always likely to be disappointed." If you dont like the performance of the 765m sli then send it back. I got the 780m sli, however I am pretty certain that the 765m sli should be able to run crysis 3 on low settings. So either you're expecting too much or there is a problem with the hardware though my money is on the former.

 

Send it back while you can. To be blunt, you're wasting your time with 765m SLI. They are hugely underpowered and a waste of space in a AW18. A the very least go for the 770m SLI or try really hard for 780m SLI if you want something comparable to your desktop 690.

 

I have a GTX 690 in a desktop as well. The only way you will be able to get close to that performance level is with gtx 780m sli configuration. Just call customer support and they will arrange your return. You have a 21 day window

 

Alienware 18 delivered! This thing is massive! Way thicker than the M17X R3 I have. I did a fresh install of Win8 and it is way faster than stock Win7 from Dell. Dell's install was scaring me. I thought something might be wrong with the "laptop". Benchmarks will be posted when I get everything installed.

 

Wait a minute. You are then trying to play Crysis 3 with SLI disable, which is most likely why it's so choppy. 2x 765m in SLI should play Crysis no problem. If Toaster.exe is in the way, just disable it and you should be able to re-activate the SLI properly. Toaster.exe is part of AlienRespawn and you can turn it off this way: Start > click on Search Programs and Files and copy and paste this there: services.msc and run it. You'll now see the Services window. Scroll down until you find SoftThinks Agent. Double click on it and click on Stop. If you want to disable it permanently select Disabled on the Startup type menu.

 

Are there any stipulations on returns - will having formatted my stock HDD void a return? Tempted to return mine and re-order with the 4930MX.

 

^^^^no, that will not void your warranty... they will wipe/reimage the drive anyway

 

Got mine in this afternoon, and I am very pleased. The screen is fantastic and I am really liking the keyboard as well. I have to admit that I find myself liking the light up touchpad way more than I thought I would, too. The unit definitely presents itself better in person than it does through pictures. Though it is more reserved than the r2, it has a subtle class while retaining its identity as an alienware that I find attractive.

No performance numbers to share yet. I just installed my Samsung 840 pro and did a clean install, and now have to update the drivers. Does anyone know the chipset designation on the new 18s? I am having some trouble finding the drivers.