*OFFICIAL* Alienware 18 Owner's Lounge Thread

I hear yah too GreaseMonkey90...... I originally ordered mine on the 11th of last month and my order was canceled for the second time on the 28th, and now on my THIRD reorder........which was apparently reordered automatically on the 15th...... with a change of EDD of the 30th of this month to the eighth of next month. I'm starting to wonder if I ever will receive the damn thing. I plan on calling Dell tomorrow again but only to speak to a manager and if I am unable to or I get another order cancel for the fourth time...... I'm canceling my order all together and looking elsewhere for a laptop. My old gaming/work/school laptop has been out of commission since May and I'm sick of using my wife's Lenovo.
Hello from Nova Scotia by the way!

 

I tried getting toaster.exe to close and took it into work to show a mate who has a sli m18x. Tried msconfig and could find nothing and no programs (except the nvidia settings program) showed in task manager. As a result I couldn't activate sli.

Hopefully this rep gets back to me with a new quote after speaking to the finance department. If the dual 780's are cheap enough I'll go for it.

 

Got my Alienware 18 today. Specs in my signature.

The first thing I did - before booting it up, was to open it and replace the stock HDD and the Optical Drive with my own SSD+HDDs.
After that I installed Windows 7 from a USB 3.0 drive to my SSD.
The stock hard drive that I removed has not been booted up at all - so I can image it (in Acronis) and then save the image somewhere, and format the whole drive. Next time I need to restore my Alienware to stock windows, I can do so by restoring the image to the drive - this way the computer will boot up like its the first time and ask the user to enter details and such -- so if I happen to sell the Alienware the next user will turn it on like its the first time.
No need to faff around with AlienRespawn and removing bloatware and whatnot.

For those of you that want to replace the optical drive with your own HDD and caddy, it is possible. No need to buy any special 'Alienware service kits'. A standard ODD to HDD caddy is all you need.

First impressions of the laptop - if the M18xR1/R2 is a tank, this seems like a half-track. Yes it has very good build quality but not quite as good as the M18xR1/R2. For example, only the lid is metal - the other silver part of the laptop that forms the base is actually plastic painted silver.

The Alienhead on the back of the laptop is actually a LOT smaller than I thought.

The screen seems better than the M18xR1 and so does the audio. Nothing night and day for me, although there is less glare.

Pretty much the whole laptop supports AlienFX morphing (and other advanced theme-ing features) apart from the mousepad, status lights and power button light.

Unlike pictures on the Alienware.co.uk website, the ENTER/RETURN key on the keyboard is the normal large block shape as opposed to the smaller rectangle shown on the website - something which I am actually quite happy about since I don't like small ENTER keys.

The keyboard is an absolute DREAM to type on.

nVidia 320.49 drivers
I was able to install this for my 780m SLi - I modded an inf file with the relevant hardware IDs. Anybody wanting to install these drivers for their 780m SLi can download the nvcvn.zip attachment and extract it to this folder: C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\320.49\Win8_WinVista_Win7_64\International\Display.Driver
You will have to run the driver setup first (it will fail first time) so that it can extract all the setup files, then replace nvcvn.inf with the one I have attached. Go to C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\320.49\Win8_WinVista_Win7_64\International and run setup.exe. It should install for you.

 

Nice review, Brother Prank! +rep!

I wondered wether the side trims were actually aluminium or not, to match the lid - shame they are not.

 

Can anyone confirm that I can take out the DDR3L RAM and replace it with normal DDR3 RAM? I have 32GB of Corsair Vengeance sat waiting but wanted to check before I tried.

My 18 arrived an hour or so ago. Initial impressions are good. The keyboard is a dream compared to the 18xR2 and the 17xR4 (not that I found either particularly bad, just not that good). The screen is lovely, I'm quite impressed. Very little reflection and nice and bright.

 

You will need to exchange that ram for ddr3l I had tried Vagence ram and it didn't work.

 

Finally my order has gone into production as of today (after one cancellation). I also got an email from dell saying that they are trying their best to bring my EDD forward due to my cancellation. So things are looking up. I should also be getting be replacement vindicator bag next week also

 

are you sure... i find it hard to believe that it wouldn't work.. I could be wrong.. but the L is for low voltage right.. cant you set te voltage for the ram in bios?
ALSO IVE BEEN LOOKING AT THE PRICES on the ddr3L and what the crap... wow there sure are charging some thing crazy for that ram..

 

Hey Guys, Finally Got my m18 !!!!!!! and my oh my is it preety. however, i got the i7-4900 QM, overclocked. But it still shows only 2.8Ghz. Is there something i need to do to first activate the overlock??? . Also i knw this might sound strange, but my screen seems to be Glossy and not matte. Its not as bad as the m18x but it is still glossy. Is that how its supposed to be with the m18???

 

You'll see the 'overclock' when the machine turbo's up to it's limit under load - otherwise, the cpu isn't gonna stress itself for no reason. Maybe try running something like wPrime.....then you'll see how fast she goes

As for the screen, it's supposed to be a balance of glossy and matte, being neither one or the other, but a balance of the two. So, yes - it will be glossy-ish, but not as glossy as previous models, and it will also be slightly matte - but again, not pure matte either. There was no true matte option on the 18....just the 14.

 

I didn't mess in bios I exchanged it for patriot 1.35 v ram they have. Yes they charge a lot for ddr3l ram mine cost me 130 for 16 gb

 

I would love his contact info....I had a horrible experience with my rep....I'm actually thinking of cancelling my order because of it.....I'm very very unhappy at this point in the game because of my experience with the rep and her supervisor. Was told I was wasting their time when I asked if I could request that they don't put any stickers on my six thousand dollar lap top....

 

Tell me about it, seriously who came up with the idea of putting those ugly stickers on the soft touch palm rest; they didn't do it for the M18xR1 but someone somewhere decided it was a good idea to change that..

Anyway I immediately removed the stickers from my 18 using a post-it note. Took me about 60 seconds to remove them both and stick them on the bottom; quick, easy and no residue.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...easiest-safest-rubbery-texture-alienware.html

 

nice review pranky boy!, me for one loves the stickers on the front, shows off your spec a bit makes it a bit of pimpage

 

It looks awful doesn it. However, its not AW's fault. Its with the business deals that they have with microsoft and intel. Back dureing the old days AW wasnt a brand that big guns like Microsoft and Intel had to advertise on. So they didnt even bother. But as the brand grew, its one of the term added. And it is clear Dell has an amazing relation with Micro and inel. Lucky there is no Nvidia sticker, but thats just because AW is not exclusive to Nvidia, they also use Radeon . But have u seen AW provideing Linux of AMD recently????

Well i am not 100% sure about this but i have read about it few months back. So thought ill just drop it here too

 

Hey Guys, Well i have been trying few benchmarks and just testing the machine for the past few hours. I have read in alot reviews that the Klipch spearker are amazing. I am sorry to say that i am compareing it to the JBL speaker in my XPS 17 and i find it kind of a inferior sounding system then the XPS. What do you guys think of this. I personally find the sound system quite disappointing as i was expecting something way better then my XPS. Any thoughts?

 

Maybe it needs a bit of EQ. All you need is just a song you listen often, and a pair of good ears :thumbsup:

 

I am practically listening to the exact same song from exactly the same source. and switching machines and listening to the same song. Im not very awsome with tweaking EQ's but with the basic setting on both the machines, im still not very happy with Klipch.

 

That is seriously disappointing to discover. I thought at least the bottom rim of the 18 was still aluminum. To have only the back part of the lid and nothing else reinforced with with higher quality material than plastic really detracts from the notebook as a whole considering the M18x was such a sturdy machine.

I keep going back and forth on whether or not the 18 is worth it.

 

Hey all,

So I got my Alienware 18 today. Its great except for the following

1. Base plate on bottom lists wrong specs.

2. My Mouse hasnt turned up yet as its a separate box.

3. I had a new hard drive ready to install a Samsung 840pro but I am unable to use it. Alienware respawn wont allow me install my system onto the new drive due to the fact the drive is to small.
(current 750gb HDD, new 256gb SSD) I cant shrink the drive down as far as 256gb as it wont let me.
I also cant to a fresh install as I didnt get a windows Install CD.
Does anyone know how I an fix this?

4. There is no spare hard drive screws in the system at all so I cant even install my second hard drive at all.


In all I am quite annoyed

Can anyone help me with the hard drive bits?

Thank you
Glen

 

I didn't want to say much on this, but this has disappointed me so much I feel better talking about it in detail.

The silver painted plastic is not rubberised and has a very cheap feel to it. If you tap it with your fingernail you'll get a very loud, hollow sound.
When you pick up the M18xR1/R2, your hands grip only the metal parts of the laptop, and you can get a real feel for how sturdy and well built it is.
But when you pick up the 18, you grip it from the plastic base and you get a really, really cheap feeling. The lid being metal, will feel cold to the touch and when picking up the laptop your hands will span the metal lid and plastic base; so you will feel the cool touch of the metal contrasted with the room-temperature plastic base. Every time you pick this badboy up you unfortunately won't forget its 'build-quality inferiority' when compared to its predecessor.

Overall it is still built very well, certainly well above average, but the M18xR1/R2 was just simply too good to beat in terms of build quality.

Having said that, don't let it detract you from the good qualities the 18 has to offer over the M18xR1/R2; Haswell/700m series GPUs, easier to service/upgrade, better screen & audio, better lid design, more lighting options, MUCH BETTER KEYBOARD, more macro keys, better command centre (with more features), cleaner/more professional look (subjective)...

 

im still awaiting on my 18 prank, been 6 days in production, how long was yours in production for ?

 

Well EQ is not hard, just use an accurate enough source and use proper earphones/headphones. Maybe you need to turn on the Dolby Surround settings, I don't know, I haven't received mine yet to be conclusive.

All in all, you can't expect the tiny Klipsch inside there to sound as good as Martin Logan ESL speakers. Even the Magnepan 1.7 electrostatic speakers at only 2k a pair will run rings around it.

My point is, to produce good sound you need excursions, and to have low distortion you need to have very rigid diaphragm, or you use altogether difference technology, like the electrostatic stuff. If you want good sound, use the USB out or optical out, and connect to a good DAC, good amp and good speakers. To really invest into it, you have to prepare about at least as much money as the cost of a AW 18, or maybe even more. From experience of meddling in high end audio, if you're going for headphones, a good electrostatic high end setup cost close to 10000 bucks USD. If you build the amp yourself, you could save so cash there so cost goes down to about 7000 bucks. A good speaker setup cost easily upwards of 100k.

So, conclusion is, you can't expect too much when you don't pay too much. Good audio cost quite a bit, just because how much money the research takes into engineering the technology and material. For eg, somebody found out from the financial history of Stax Japan that, to develop the Stax 009 flagship headphone, they spent half a million dollars, and it wasn't until the 3rd and 4th year selling the headphone that they started making profit.

Most puny speakers in laptop are EQ'ed. Esp those that are labelled Beats. And Klipsch/JBL or whatever speakers, if they are on laptop they are most likely EQ'ed somewhat. If the speakers on the AW 18 don't sound as good as the speakers on your XPS, it's most likely because it's not EQ'ed as well. And for what's worth, since AW and XPS are both Dell, who knows the speakers could come from the same OEM. A bit EQ goes a long way. If it sounds like it's too boxy, you might want to lower the 500Hz region. It's too tinny, you might want to lower the 16kHz region. Give it a bit of boost at 50Hz and 125Hz. You might want to adjust the 1kHz to 5kHz region so that human voice sounds like human voice. If the cymbal crashing sound is too loud, you might want to lower 5kHz to 8 or 9kHz. Actually, increasing slightly at 9 or 10kHz could make the music sound a bit more airy.

 

Production for 4 days

 

9th of July went into In-Production
15th of July shipped
17th of July arrived

 

Can some one please take a picture of the display cable end.. (pull it out) and get a picture of the port and the inside of the connector ..
And also the second cable end that runs to the motherboard also..


Thanks..

 

mine got cancelled but the reorder was very very fast. I ordered on 8th and got my machine on 17th. So Only in 9 days . hope the guys who are still waiting, i hope u get it soon

 

anyone help with my Hard drive issues?

750gb Drive needs to get it into 256gb SSD, no windows cd, unable to shrink to 256gg as well

 

You could reinstall and rearm the activation for the Windows 7. Or you could use the Samsung Data Migration software to clone the drive over. As long as the content in the HDD is less than the space in the SSD, ie, you have enough space in the SSD, you should be fine. I used it once, it worked.

 

Thats genius! I forgot about that software! I don't have a cable but I should be able to do it internally on the 18.

Also I have windows 8 but seems alienware did not send me a disk to actually reinstall windows 8

 

Some people says that cloning the OS that way reduces the performance on the Samsung SSD. But you could benchmark it before cloning and after cloning, assuming you leaving more than 25% space empty on the SSD, the speed should be around the same. At least it was about the same for me...

Oooh btw my specs will be similar to yours. I got the AW 18 with the 4700MQ but I got a 4800MQ right now to put it in. I have a 512GB Samsung 840 Pro, and an Intel msata and another Crucial M500 SSD.

Another alternative you could try is Clonezilla, now this is more manual chore, since you have to boot into DOS to clone stuff. Or you could try the free trial of Acronis True Image. Since the Samsung software is made to work fine with Samsung SSD, I think sticking to it is fine.

 

Just as I ordered the Crucial M500 960GB yesterday, Samsung announces their new 1TB Samsung 840 EVO. And since the HDD caddy only runs on Sata II speed, I can't really put a 1TB SSD in there, could I, it's just blasphemy.

AnandTech | Samsung launch the 840 EVO: Up to 1TB and Faster Writes for 120GB
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Released | StorageReview.com - Storage Reviews

 

Well I now know it doesnt work internally you have to have a sata to usb adaptor which I dont have so I will pick one up tomorrow.

there is only 47Gb used on the system and I wont use proabably more than a 150gb of the SSD as I have a back up 750gb drive.

My System currently has (from factory)
WD black 750gb drive
Lite-On 64gb msata.
16gb which has been delivered as 4x4gb Hynix
2x 780m's idle temp 56C

Samsungs software seems fine.

Odd I got the system today I am more frustated with whats wrong with it than interested with whats right.

Annoyingly as well I havent barely touched it I am doing everything on my macbook pro still. It just works and does what ever I need easily, Hard drive upgrade on it was about a million times easier than on the Alienware 18. Still I shall carry on till my AW18 is perfect!!!

 

Mac is the only notebook that you could use without much tweaking from the factory stock state. Even stuff like Alienware requires tweaking. If you have friends working inside Apple you will know what I mean, you will know how serious Apple takes things. One of my friend got a job there less than 2 months ago, and now he's being sent to China to make sure stuff works.

 

If you lock everything down and away from the user as well as reduce the feature set to the bare minimum, like Apple does, - then yes, it's easy to make it work. But that's the whole point, enthusiasts crave for upgradeability, power, tweaking, no compromise! You just can't compare the two realms, IMHO.

 

Wise words, Sir. Wise words.

 

As good as any "enthusiast" gaming pc/laptops are, they just can't hold a candle to the integration of software, firmware and hardware of Apple. It's precisely because they have control over all the variables that they can achieve such level of integration, which PC makers can't, at least for now. And bear in mind that Apple having "bare minimum" feature set is not necessarily correct. Apple's design has led the industry in many ways, you name it, desktop/laptop, tablet, smartphone, mp3 player, etc.

People in the industry will see the merits of Apple's choices and designs. There are in fact, a lot of low level optimizations on Apple products that will never see the daylight, and the consumers may never know about them, but they just benefit from it silently. With every design, there has to be some compromise, it's just that Apple pushes it a bit further than most.

At this point, you might think that I am an Apple fan, but actually I have never owned a Mac was never much of a fan of Mac OS. I like some of their industrial designs, but not their OS. I also hate the fact that they changed the better sounding Wolfson DAC in their iPod to the not as good sounding Cirrus Logic DAC.

And in fact my AW 18 is coming in about 12 hours from now. I maintain that Apple's design is industrial leading and that as good as AW is, just because it's a PC the integration and optimization therein will not be as good, until of course, Intel starts to do something, which they are right now. Nonetheless, AW is doing quite a few things right in the design this time, which I personally like quite a bit. I'd like to see some more innovation though.

With that, I rest my case. Any argument will have to resume next week after I setup the AW with all the new components :hi2:

 

I'm waiting for someone with 770's to post up some benchmarks. Hopefully (if I'm lucky) someone will change the vBIOS of their 770's and really push them. If not, I may be the guinea pig if I decided to not go with an R2... Still have a month or two of hard research and waiting

 

Some one already posted back a 770m SLI score. It was in the 8000's.
I'd be interested to see how far they can be pushed too.

 

Oppps I started an Apple debate when all I want was hard drive help hehe

 

ok, so i receive my windows 8 recover and restore key ( i hade to use the alienware resource dvd for the drivers) and proceed to pop out the 750 gb drive and pop in 2 840 pro 512gb ssds, my initial plan was to install windows on one drive and then use irst to create a raid. install went fine, bios is set to raid but irst gives me no option to create a raid. i reinstall the latest irst from alienwares site, same, i download latest from intels site and still nothing. i run irst as administrator and nothing. its late, i am frustrated so i say forget irst and reboot with the intention of doing ctrl+i and create raid with the raid utility. i tried over a dozen times and cannot access the utility. i even tried to disable fast boot in the bios and still cant get into raid. almost as if ctrl+i does nothing..
ideas anyone?

 

I'm sure that the new 18 doesn't feel as premium as the old m18x, but the new hinge design, one-piece steel-reinforced keyboard and palmrest, metal support for the redesigned bottom cover, scratch-resistant front grills, thick bezel, and protective plastic on the sides of the base suggest that it might be at least as rigid. I looked through the manuals for both, and the 18 seems better put-together if not sturdier. Is that not the case?

I haven't used either machine, so I'm curious.

Also, does the touchpad flex?

 

Can't see any difference between the M18xR1/R2 and 18 on the hinges - both seem sturdy
Less flex on the 18 keyboard, and the 18 palmrest is very solid - in fact nowhere on the 18 laptop is there flex. On the M18xR1/R2 the keyboard trim and media cover flexes a lot, and my palm rest was deformed meaning it was not flush with the base, I could push it and it would flex with a loud 'plasticky' noise. So definate points for the 18 there.
Front grills on the M18xR1/R2 was very easily scratched, mine was covered in scratches. The 'grills' on the 18 are all soft touch so they can't really scratch. In fact there is a lot more rubberised soft touch on the 18, this includes the bezel.
The thick bezel on the 18 means that the screen doesn't get marks on it from the touchpad and keyboard, unlike the M18xR1/R2 which used to get LOTS of marks.
With regards to the internals, yes the 18 is very well built and easier to take apart. I haven't taken the 18 apart fully so I can't really comment much here, but on the whole both seem very well built.

 

Ummm Maybe I'm high but I thought the r2/r1 felt cheap and I LOVE the feel of the new 18. It feels solid and expensive, I hated that sticky plasticy feeling on the r1/r2.

 

And it's precisely because they try to control the way we think and want things, people like me will stay away from apples.

 

Just got my new Alienware 18 last night 17:15 after waiting around all day , at least it came. Not had much time to play around yet but I'm liking it so far. It really makes my old M15x look small.
Scored just under 7k on 3dMark11 which was around what I was expecting for dual 765's. Pretty lightweight stuff compared with all the dual 780's that seem to be the standard order so far.

 

AW: Alpha bravo charlie, confirm landing.

Comm: Roger that.

View attachment 99260

View attachment 99261

View attachment 99262

Unfortunately I am at work now trying to make some transistors work. So the photos are just quick snaps.

 

Rep +1 for the photo's. Those are probably the first pic's I've seen than show the build and material quality. Well done.

 

Which part of the M18xR1/R2 had a 'sticky plasticy' feeling? I have both the M18xR1 and the 18 and I can tell you the only 'sticky plasticy' feeling is on the base of the new 18.

 

Thanks man. I was really in a rush though. A design meeting clashed with the delivery date of all the components, including the RAM, SSD, and TIM.

By the way, is the HGST Travelstar 5k1500 1.5TB drive available in Japan now? I was going to wait for it, then I saw the Samsung new 1TB drive, so now I decide to wait for the Samsung instead.