*OFFICIAL* Alienware 18 Owner's Lounge Thread

Hello New AW 18 Owner and I just wanted to pop in and ask a couple of questions

first off before I start I just want to say thanks to all the awesome and helpful people on the boards here for being willing to help a newb out

second I was wondering if anyone happens to know what kind of memory chips dell is using on the 860M's in these machines? I know they are hynix chips because I can see that much in gpu-z but I was wondering what the model/rated speed is.
The reason I am trying to find out is that I have heard that several manufatures are using hynix ram that is actually rated at 6GHZ which would mean that the chips can safely be clocked at that speed.

I have already tried clocking the ram to that speed on my 860m's and have not seen any issue and the performance increase in demanding games is really significant but I am nervous about a 1ghz overclock if the ram is actually only rated for 5ghz.

finally does anyone have any tips on how to clean the palmrest on this thing the softouch surface feels great but it gets stained where my pallm touches it for extended periods of time an dI want to clean it without damaging it this is definitely the best looking laptop I have ever owned and I want to keep it that way for a long time

thank you in advance for the help!

 

Disregard, it solved itself! I must have somehow put it in incorrectly at first. I tried again and it's working fine now. Thread can be locked/deleted.

My Alienware 18 arrived today. I had a SSD, WLAN card and 2x sticks of Crucial Ballistix 1866Mhz 8gb waiting for it, to replace the stock stuff. I put them in, but now it keeps restarting every few seconds with nothing on the screen. Putting the original memory back in allows it to boot normally.

I'm sure, a few weeks ago, I read a long thread about someone's issues upgrading their memory, but I can't seem to find it now.

Does anyone know the solution to this?

edit- Putting the 2 new sticks in as well allows me to view them in BIOS. They don't appear to be faulty, if that's anything to go by.

 

The possibilities for that happening will depend entirely on what CPU and GPU components MSI uses, whether they do or do not do things to cripple the BIOS and if it has an SLI configuration, whether they provide an AC adapter that can keep up with components that are pushed to their function limitations, and how much attention they pay to cooling extremely overclocked processors. If they produce it with BGA processors (soldered CPU and GPU) it will be a loser by any measurement. Even if they put top shelf components in it and have robust BIOS options it will never be an Alienware 18 killer if its a humble single-GPU system. That's really the only claim to fame that can be made by the Alienware 18 at this time. Two top-end GPUs running at stock clock speeds will just about inevitably outperform just one of the same GPU no matter how heavily that one GPU is overclocked.

However, if they offer it with an Extreme CPU with robust CPU and memory overclocking features, along with NVIDIA's flagship GPU in an MXM SLI configuration it won't take a great deal of effort to be an Alienware 18 killer considering how bad they crippled the extreme performance capacity of the Alienware 18. In a way I hope that happens because Alienware needs more than one competitor to rain fire and brimstone down on them as an incentive to get back to what matters more than anything else... having extreme performance capacity in excess. For any manufacturer to take steps toward emasculating a high performance system is an unpardonable sin that deserves retribution. But, they can easily avoid that kind of tragedy by focusing on what matters most to their long-established enthusiast customer base. And, it doesn't need to come with a price tag in excessive of $5,000. Clevo has already demonstrated what kind of beast can be had for $4,000 in their P570WM.

They need to take decisive steps to correct this and reclaim the crown they lost with the current product line. I'd love to see this happen in the most belligerent display of performance excess imaginable. Hopefully, they will seize the opportunity for a second chance and make a violent re-entry that totally desecrates any and all resemblance of fair play against the product offerings of their competitors.

 

The MSI GT72 is obsolete even before production starts. It has a single 880 GPU which will struggle to power a 4K monitor.

 

^^^that answers it... I didn't bother looking because MSI laptops have never held my interest even marginally because they've never manufactured anything in a laptop before that I would consider owning. Some of their tacky stuff reminds me of something that should be viewed shrouded with UV-reactive crushed velvet under blacklight to be appreciated. Not saying they couldn't impress me with a monster laptop if they had a mind to, because they certainly have the potential... they've just never made one before. So, I'm not looking in their direction for anything amazing to surface. It would need to run out in front of me and scream to get my attention before I would ever notice.

If the next generation Alienware 18 isn't a beast of equal or greater proportion as the M18xR2 I will be going with a P570MW equivalent, sticking with my trusty legacy M18xR2 with no more warranty or building a desktop.

 

I'm betting the next machine will be a boring refresh.

 

hi would the original 1600mhz 1,35v work in a 1,5v machine ?

 

So yesterday I pushed the button and ordered an Alienware 18 to replace and upgrade my m17x R4.
I hope I will see some performance increase compared to the 7970m in the R4.

I made a decision between an 18 with i7-4710MQ, GTX 860m SLI, 8gb ram, killer wifi, dvd-drive and an i7-4810MQ, GTX 770m SLI, 16gb ram, Broadcom 4352 wifi, blu-ray drive.
These 2 where priced really equally with the later just a little bit more expensive (~$150), and this was also the one I decided on to get.

I hope I did the right choice?
of course I also looked at the 880m SLI and the R9 M290X crossfire but I did not feel I could warrant the massive price difference.

And I must give a shout out to this excellent Community! so much knowledge and helpfulness!

 

Good choice, that is a upgrade on the CPU/GPU. Good find on the configure.dell site, because the 770's not listed on the Alienware site which only offers the 860 option for the 4810. The only issue is the delay on the 770's until they get a shipment in for pre-production. Its a smart choice by Dell to offer the 770's instead of the 870's till we learn more about future updates on the GPU's. I would also have added the mSATA 256GB SSD Boot drive, unless you plan to install a additional large SSD, then I would go with the 80GB mSATA cache addition.

 

Does anyone else's left macro keys only have a green backlight?
All the other zones are fine, but altering the colors for this zone gets me one of three results: no light at all (this is most common), dim green, or bright green.
I don't mind at all, I'm just curious to know if anyone else has a slightly faulty strip there. I had a similar thing with a replacement keyboard on my M11x, such that it now only has a red light for the entire keyboard.

 

Hey Chuzzz, are you asking about an 2011 M17xR3 or 2013/4 AW18? If its for the AW 18 using: Command Center>Alienware TactX, you have 3 tabs of different colors to select from. Each tab can be changed to a different color by pressing the Change Color tab and select from the color wheel of about 20 colors, any color works under normal conditions.

 

Well, it was not such a hard find I live in sweden and they have a special deal here with the 770m´s
I did go for the 80GB mSATA cache drive, but I also have an 256GB SSD from my m17x that I will us in the 18.

Now it´s just a long wait for the delivey !

 

Brand new AW 18. I'm familiar with the Command Center, that's where I toyed with the lighting. It's a hardware issue; altering the lighting options in there only gives me off, dim green or bright green. I can't remember exactly which colors corresponded to each, but to give you an idea I had it initally set to blue, pink and green so that when I toggled between the 3 sets it cycled through off->dim->bright green.

Wait...

Upon writing this, I've noticed that it's fixed. I must have fixed a cable or something when I had to open it up today. That's twice now in the last 24 hrs I've posted about an issue only to find that it's suddenly and inexplicably fixed. I guess I should be happy but I'm starting to question my sanity.

 

Yeah I was going insane at first, like, get it done already, so I guess that is normal. You have a great setup: 4940-880-Evo:1TB Extreme everything for gaming. I'll trade you for a eight month old AW18 4930-770-Evo:1TB if you have any other problems that drive you insane. BTW Chuzzz, which version of bios are you currently running... A06?

 

I have enjoyed my Alienware 18 for some time now, my 10 year old son has enjoyed the gaming. btw Dell changed my battery as it had a large wear factor after 4 months.
I am thinking of putting in a 256 or 512 mSata boot drive. Whats the best way to go about doing this? Whats a good reasonably priced mSata to get? I need some assistance.

I assume I will have to disable acceleration on my current setup (2x750 raid 0, max acc 64 mSata cache). I have noticed in the bios there is no boot option for my 64gb mSata so how will it show up for my new mSata? I am on legacy boot. Once I get the new mSata in should I temporarily take out the drives to install the OS? Once the OS is installed how will I get the 2x750 raid 0 drives to forget about the OS installed on it and is there a way to do this without re-formatting my Raid 0 drives.

 

Does the Alienware have any throttling issue? I had heard about this and read some posts, but hours of Googling have turned up nothing as far as if the AW 18 is currently affected.

 

search for BIOS locked for alienware. No custom bios will be available to 18 because Dell encrypted the whole BIOS and the MX CPU throttles without any option to configure it properly which is a total shame..

Sent from my Note 3 (SM-N9005) using Civz ROM [v3.4] with Kernel SkyHigh TW Kernel [1.8]

 

i found a used alienware 18 for $3000 with 780m sli and 512 gb ssd. is it worth?

 

Probably so. Sure sounds like it. If it's in excellent condition and still under warranty, that's a good price.

You have to realize that when you buy an 18 you are buying a nice gaming rig as a console replacement. It's not a viable alternative as a overclocker's machine.

 

Tax return time can't come soon enough, I am itching with excitement in reguards to being able to order my 18, Man i havn't had anything new for years, I have goose bumps, I'm sure i'll be able to overclock the absolute balls off my 860's, They wont draw too much power.

 

Is there a setting somewhere that tells the touchpad to be unresponsive for a moment after typing? It is driving me INSANE. I do a lot of data input and coding, which often involves making a minor edit and then going back to mousing around, but I''m currently doing circles for about a full second (feels like an eternity) after using the keyboard. I'm still working on my M17x because I can't find this setting anywhere.
I have adjusted the sensitivities (light touch, ignore nothing) and it still does it, so I'm confident it's not related to that. If you want to know what I'm talking about and you're on an 18, just type a letter in the reply box here every second while attempting to move the mouse with your other hand. On mine it remains completely still.

 

Fineally ordered myself an Alienware laptop. If you can really call it a laptop, Alienware 18 looks really big compared to my old Asus 17"
I ordered the one with 4810MQ CPU, GTX 770m SLI GPU, 256GB SSD/1TB sATA and 16GB ram. Also equipped with blu-ray reader.
I did look at some other setups, but this suited me best, also the price was right for me

So you guys happy about your Alienware 18? Anything i should know as soon to be Alienware owner for the first time?
And fineally, how much does this machine own my old Asus?

 

Get ready to be amazed... night and day difference would be an gross understatement. Let's just leave it at that for now. Be sure to have someone else (or even a few someone elses) in the room with you for the unboxing ceremony. It will be too priceless for anyone to miss the look on your face, and you'll want to see their reaction, too.

 

Haha.. I remember those few days before the delivery came. You never saw someone answer the door so quick. For sure its a awesome experience opening that package. Savour the moment

 

I love my 1&, best gaming laptop I've owned. I laughed so hard for about 15 minutes because of the size if this thing when I took it out of the box. To this day when I pull it out of my backpack I chuckle a little. Makes me feel more of a man

 

That was the first thing I noticed and liked about it. I have always loved that hugeness factor about the M18x, too. When I first handled the Alienware 18 my very first thought was, "Awesome! This is larger than my M18x!" I immediately compared them to confirm that and found the fact that it was to be instantly gratifying.

 

For sure. I knew it was big, I looked at measurements and pictures on the net. None of that prepared me for what I saw when I opened the box. It is really is gratifying seeing, holding and using this beast..

 

My friend called me today, its here...(new AW18 just arrived) unboxing party tonight at 8pm. ... Party time... Monster kill.. mega-kill.... ULTRA-Kill!! I told her to not set the AW18's unopened box on top of her old HP 14" laptop, I'm afraid it will crush it.... like a Sherman tank.

 

Congrats! Nothing like opening a fresh box! Ugh to time to buy something new. Damn my OCD and addiction!

 

i want a new clevo with haswell E. i pray they make one lol it'll crush AW in benchy, which I don't do LOL

 

Seems like your rig "R2" is the hot ticket until someone proves they can outbench press the M18x R2 with it all clocked out. All I would do is add some 780's to you rig and call it a day. Its like a 1969 427-Vette, classic monster that's bound to be a leader for a while. Econo-box mentality is the order of the current day. If we were smart we would sell our new AW18's and update our rig with a backdated system to the good ole days if power in a laptop is the order of the day, .....where out of production parts....from a land far...far.. away.. is the King of the Hill. ...until further adieu.

 

i am thinking of 780m but i know 20nm is right around the corner, likely in 6-7 more months. tbh im looking forward to broadwell E rather than haswell E cause of the heat issue, and maybe get some DDR4 sodimm or m.2 SSD directly from CPU PCIe lanes.

for now m18x R2 is the champion, just waiting for new GPU and new 2400mhz ram to come out.

 

My 18 has shipped it should be here the 23rd

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Congrats!

I just recived and unpacked my new Alienware 18 today !
the size is just insane my m17x looks like a ultrabook next to it!

 

Just ordered an AW18 on 6/15 and the arrival date is supposedly 7/2.
Only a base model but got the 1TB/80GB msata HDD upgrade.

The one I got has 2x nVidia 860M, so it's the refreshed model I believe?

Anyway, I can't wait for it to come in =P replacing a m14xr2 that is kind of feeling sluggish.

 

Nice! - yeah, that's the refresh with 860m SLI....I reckon you will be in for a mighty performance improvement....be prepared to hold on to your socks! LOL

 

LOL and i thought i was nice with a smaller laptop when i got my AW18 lol
Since before the beast i was used to my dragon

http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/hp_hdx_notebook.jpg

and then of course i get lucky and end up with a defective unit so now waiting for my replacement AW 18 to arrive
but at least support was fast at arranging a unit replacement once they coouldnt figure out how to get second grfx card enabled

 

Oh, especially since it's a lower-end m14xr2, I'm not at home so I can't pull it up, I'm unsure of the graphics card but I know it had a i5 in it not an i7.
It also had the lower-res screen.

I was use-to a dell n7010 and went to the m14xr2 since the n7010 couldn't run FFXIV well, so now it's going to feel like "Oh my god, screensize"

 

Yup, you are in for a nice experience - that's for sure!!......have fun with her when she lands!

 

Finally home.

The M14 R2 I have:
i5-3210m 2.5ghz
8GB RAM
nVidia GeForce GT 650M (I want to say it's the 2GB version)
1366x768 screen
Windows 8.1

It's not the worst ever, but I'm still paying on it, returning it and getting the AW18 I'm cutting my monthly payments in half and actually not getting ripped off(Bad credit and wanted/needed a computer to play FFXIV with friends at the time)

It was huge to go from the 17" N7010(Intel integrated graphics) to a M14x R2
It's 3" smaller and about 1/4" thicker, but more powerful.
Honestly I miss the full keyboard and the screen just feels so tiny still, especially when connecting via HDMI to a 22" TV or a 20" LCD monitor.

Honestly I'm going to be sad to see this little rig go, but I think they still want more than it's worth remaining on it(Rent-A-Center, if anyone's familiar. Yeck.)
In addition I've always had problems with it, the power cable sneaks out the back slowly until it drops to the floor(I use it on a lapdesk) and then in the middle of a dungeon or while playing League of Legends, it decides the 70%~ battery isn't enough to keep it alive so it cuts off.(Apparently these are known for that?)
But it's also the most expensive laptop to date I've disassembled and re-pasted, and I dare say the easiest I've ever done.(I've gotten to the point before that taking PSP-1000's and Xbox 360's apart could be done in my sleep, PS3 was a bit more challenging with all it's delicate thin wires)
The worst offender ever was a Sony Vaio SZ-650N I -THINK- it was. Discrete graphics started displaying green and blue, then cooked and went dead fish and took integrated out along with it. Intel Core2 Duo T7500 2.2ghz 13.3" screen, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS. It was so lethargic playing Neverwinter Nights 2, I shudder to think.)


Windows 8 bugged me so badly for so long, but now I'm pretty use-to it and don't have much fuss out of it. (Windows key + S, quickly type in what I want, hit enter and it pops up what I want about 85% of the time)
I did opt for 8.1 on the new AW18 since I'm use-to it and it doesn't bother me now and it's grown on me like a fungus.

Anyway I'll end this before I get even MORE longwinded.

 

wccftech got some interested article about R9 M295X wondering how thats gonna be different than the current 290x

 

Can't wait for monday guys...

 

can anybody tell me if the displayport is 1.2a
ie does it support freesync

thanks

 

2 months of ownership and it has functioned properly for about a week in total. Gotta say outside of finally having the novelty of a desktop replacement as a laptop that I can bring all over with me, it has been a very disappointing ride. I was told that in under 72 hours I would be contacted in regards to a full system replacement and that was 6 days ago. I haven't heard anything.

I truly applaud Dell for how incredibly expedient and helpful their techs are. Every time I needed a service call it was never more than 48 hours and at the exact time of day that I wanted so that impressed me quite a bit. However, the problems were never solved w/ the fixes that Dell provided so far.

I've been paying for a laptop that limits me to 1 game that's reliably playable out of 5 others that I've been very anxious to play but can't because I get constant hard system crashes.

Has anyone else had an experience like this? I've talked to managers and I made my case very clear in a polite manner and all I want is some feedback on when my replacement will be ready, even if I have to wait longer. Would just be nice to know.

If I need to communicate through different means than telephone and e-mail, then I am completely open to suggestion

/endcrybabyrant

 

You could try calling them back and ask to be put through to the team dealing with the system swaps sicne there normally is a dedicated team or person dealing with these kind of things at least thats how it is over in europe where i just got my system swap done due to a DOA gfx card

 

I will try that. Thank you.

 

I guess there was a breakdown in communication. Apparently they called my cell phone on the 21st to tell me my system exchange was approved and it's just in process. Going to take 2-3 weeks. Wonderful. At least I know. Has anyone gone through anything like this? I feel kinda ripped off having a PC malfunction for almost 2 months straight and have nothing to show for it.

 

It's good that you have been approved, that's the main thing. Unfortunately, Dell do not have to compensate you for lost time - all they need do is do what they are doing. I know it's a PITA and I've been in similar situations whereby I felt the same as you.....I guess you could raise the topic with Dell, but don't be too upset if they deny any 'perks' - they may or may not.

 

Got my new AW 18 today! Ordered on 6/15. So only 12 days to get it built and sent here.
It's so huge in comparison to the M14x R2, but it's beautiful and I'm glad I ordered it now instead of the AW17

 

Hi guys,
So my graphics card in M1730 died and I decided it's a time for an upgrade (it's been 5 years ). Decided to go with alienware 18 because of a good deal....780m SLI, 4800MQ. can someone explain me why high end laptops have so many fkn issues ? First thing, my wireless card is not working. I've found BROADCOM they put inside is crap so that need replacing. What's the best card for this laptop?
I've been reading forums about CPU throttling for the past 12 hours. I'm not sure if I have it right... My CPU 4800MQ @ 2.7 (turbo 3.7) is in turbo mode only when idling. When I start stressing it using Prime it goes to 3.0 GHz pretty quickly. I'm not sure if I think correctly but is throttling considered when it's below 2.7GHz? I'd like to stay in turbo mode all the time.
I've tried XTU, throttle stop but nothing seems to work... please help guys, I don't know what to do. I haven't tried messing with BIOS settings yet cause I'm not sure what to change. Could you give me few tips what to change or link me to a good resource about settings for 4800MQ??
All people seem to post are settings for extreme CPU's which are not good for 4800MQ. Why is throttle stop not working with this CPU? I'm so frustrated at the moment,, grrrrrr...
edit: Bios A07, processor graphic current limit in xtu cannot be raised over 16000...

EDIT2: So I changed multipliers in BIOS to 3.7 on all cores and it works like a charm BUT even though I set Core Voltage in XTU to 1.170 it's still showing +-1.100 in CPU-Z under full load. Is it how it should be??