*OFFICIAL* Alienware 18 Owner's Lounge Thread

Okay,

After a rant and the ultimatum at the rep last night I realised that It probably wasn't his fault and calmed down. He phoned me this afternoon and I took the polite but disappointed approach and by God it works to be nice

After some careful negotiations I managed to get the below.

1 x Alienware 18 BTX Base Mod
1 x Overclocked 4th Gen Intel Core i7-4930MX (8MB Cache, up to A.B GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
1 x 18.4 inch (467.36mm) WLED FHD (1920 X 1080) TrueLife Display
1 x Anodized Aluminum
1 x 32GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz Upgraded from 16gb
1 x 512GB mSATA SSD Boot + 750GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s Upgraded from 750G/7200 RPM + 64G caching mSATA
1 x Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BD-ROM, DVDRW, CD-RW)
1 x 330W A/C Adapter
1 x 8-cell Lithium Ion (86 wHr) Battery
1 x UK 250V Power Cord
1 x Dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5 - NVIDIA SLI Enabled
1 x Broadcom 4352 802.11 ac 2x2 and Bluetooth 4.0
1 x 5G WiFi Broadcom 4352 802.11n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0 driver
1 x Internal UK/Irish (QWERTY) Keyboard
1 x Shipping Box Alienware 18


Software
1 x Power DVD 9.6, 3D,V2
1 x Operating System : English Windows 7 SP1 Ultimate (64 BIT) Upgraded from English Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
1 x Os Media : Included with your OS
1 x Additonal Software
1 x Resource DVD
1 x Alienware Avatar -Alienhead 3D

Service
1 x Standard Service - 1 year of Next Business Day coverage included with your PC
1 x INFO 1 Year NBD with Premium Phone Support
1 x 3 Years NBD with Premium Phone Support Free from first order
1 x 3 years Accidental Damage Protection Free from first order
1 x Logitech® M705 Wireless Mouse Free from first order

£3888.34!!

And shipped for the same date if not sooner or the order will be cancelled. 26/7 or 7/26 for you yanks (No Offence).

Morale of the story? Keep calm and be polite.:thumbsup:

 

I am absolutely furious with dell at the moment. I contacted my rep, he said he will deal with it and will contact me back, but just vanished for the weekend, tried contacting his manager, he is vanished too. Tried to contact anyone I can at the moment and all I can hear is, dept is closed for the weekend. Im not new to dell, and I haven't ever seen this kind of a ignorance yet from dell. Untill now that is. ( rep vanished waay before the day ends, I have been trying since the afternoon)

 

I ordered my M18 on 07/03 and have an EDD of 07/26.
I can hardly wait ...

 

Guess what everyone!!!!! 17 days in pre production called today by "miss no name" and order canceled. Apparently some parts for the 18" system are 3 MONTHS on back order. I was raging and gobsmacked. I was at work when they told me this. Best thing is they want me to rebook the same spec after getting confirmation the parts are available?!!?!?!?!?!? and want to charge me £1950 instead of my £1721.74 and credit me over £350 after the new order ships. Im really raging to the max, cos i kept calling in and emailing just keep checking as the system was moving anywhere and they finally after 17 days realise there is a problem. Im going to ask for a better spec for the price for all the messing around ive had. I could of got a new machine from pcspecialist shipped and be using now in al this time. THANKS YOU VERY MUCH DELL!

 

They really need to sort their Sh*t out.

 

They really need to sort thing out.

 

I'm sorry (and really bummed) to hear that you - and what seems like most everyone that ordered early on, have had their orders cancelled. I feel your pain. I've posted in a couple other threads regarding my order issues and subsequent cancellation of an M18x R2 and recent M18 order.

I really don't want to go through any of that again with my M18 order.

This is getting ridiculous.

 

yes tell me about it they just dont want peoples money!!! They making it so hard, it never used to be like this years ago with them, ive been buying from dell since i got my first laptop a Inspiron 8200 in the good old days.

 

I have had my order cancelled as well today. Checked my order status and its listed as canceled was in preproduction from 12/6/13. I have contacted my rep to find out the issue.

Only thing is I have bits that I now cant return as the outside 28 days return period. I hope this gets sorted

 

I feel so cheap with my P370SM comparing to all of you guys with your fully upgraded M18's . Next laptop is definitely gonna be an M18.

 

The 18 has arrived. trying to upload some photos but I am getting an error message files too large? Any recommendations?

 

Resize in Paint. Depending on your camera, going below certain percentage/pixels will allow you to fulfill the requirement.

 

Do you know what size? Right now my pixels are 4608 x 3456.

 

Can you post HWmonitor CPU/GPU gaming and web-surfing temperatures after you resolve the issue?

 

Here are some photos.You can see how it looks compared to my three year old Sager.

 

cool cool man!

 

Beautifull machine.

 

Thanks! Now i am trying to figure out how to use Windows 8...frustrating!

 

That I'm not sure. I forgot.

Edit:
I didn't see your pics until you uploaded them, very nice indeed. Congrats.

 

Mr. Fox,

Thanks for the response. Your quess is better than anything I could come up with.

 

Its a really nice machine I'm very jealous. It seems as though lots of people (including myself) have had their orders cancelled today. When I speak to my account manager I'm going to reorder and ask if I can have a longer warranty for the inconvenience.

 

I will download HW monitor when I have a chance. I have never used that program before, more than happy to give it a try. I haven't had a chance to download anything because still trying to figure out Windows 8 and also working at the same time. The laptop is a nice solid build. This laptop is deadly quiet so far but I have not tried gaming yet ( that will be the true test). The keyboard is not as bad as I was expecting. Never owned a AW laptop..so far seems like a really nice upgrade.

 

Congratulations on the new Alienware 18. We look forward to seeing you in the http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...alienware-m18x-benchmark-thread-part-2-a.html as soon as you get acquainted with it.

About Windows 8... download Stardock Start8 and work from the desktop. You'll have a far more rewarding experience than you will trying to use the horrible tiled Modern UI (Start screen). You can try Start8 for free 30 days. If you like it (and I believe you will) it is $4.99 to buy.

I have tried most (maybe all) of the free versions and they suck compared to Start8. If you end up liking the Modern UI and its screen-hogging apps without borders, then you will have the best of both worlds. (I like Windows 8 a LOT, but I hate the Modern UI with a passion.)

 

Thanks for the advice. I downloaded start8, made a huge difference.

I just tried out Metro LL. Without AA and normal tessellation I was averaging about 90-100 FPS. With AA x 2 and tessellations maxed out 50-60 FPS. Of course, all this is at stock...really haven't had a chance to play around with many settings. Will download MSI Afterburner to see if GPU settings can tinkered. I am really impressed with how quiet this computer is during gameplay, I could hardly hear the fans at all.

 

Looks like the build quality is top-notch.. Have you monitored the temperature during gameplay of the metro LL? If the fans are quiet I guess either the cooling system improved or dell used some good thermal paste to keep the cards cool under load..

 

After playing 10 minutes of Metro LL

After playing Metro LL for 10minutes
Hardware monitor Battery
Voltage 0 17.38 Volts [0x43E3] (Current Voltage)
Capacity 0 87320 mWh [0x15518] (Designed Capacity)
Capacity 1 87320 mWh [0x15518] (Full Charge Capacity)
Capacity 2 83191 mWh [0x144F7] (Current Capacity)
Level 0 n.a. [0x64] (Wear Level)
Level 1 95 pc [0x5F] (Charge Level)

Hardware monitor NVIDIA NVAPI
Voltage 0 0.84 Volts [0x345] (VIN0)
Temperature 0 64°C (147°F) [0x40] (TMPIN0)

Hardware monitor NVIDIA NVAPI
Voltage 0 0.84 Volts [0x345] (VIN0)
Temperature 0 61°C (141°F) [0x3D] (TMPIN0)


Web Surfing
Hardware monitor Battery
Voltage 0 16.31 Volts [0x3FBA] (Current Voltage)
Capacity 0 87320 mWh [0x15518] (Designed Capacity)
Capacity 1 87320 mWh [0x15518] (Full Charge Capacity)
Capacity 2 79165 mWh [0x1353D] (Current Capacity)
Level 0 n.a. [0x64] (Wear Level)
Level 1 91 pc [0x5A] (Charge Level)

Hardware monitor NVIDIA NVAPI
Voltage 0 0.84 Volts [0x345] (VIN0)
Temperature 0 48°C (118°F) [0x30] (TMPIN0)

Hardware monitor NVIDIA NVAPI
Voltage 0 0.84 Volts [0x345] (VIN0)
Temperature 0 42°C (107°F) [0x2A] (TMPIN0)

 

The build quality is amazing. I just started temp monitoring based on limited gameplay, you can see my post above. My first 3d Mark 11 run at stock was 11,998. I tried tinkering around with MSI Afterburner on the Core and Memory clocks and it looks the new settings held up as well without needing to adjust anything else. . I am still very impressed with how quiet the fans are. I was expecting this machine to be extremely loud, quite the opposite. Overall, very impressive so far.

 

Can you check out and tell us what the max OC is on all 4 cores? Perhaps some temps to under full load in a short stress test ??

 

Well Ladies and Gents, my order shipped today I guess. It has an ETA of July 10th (maybe 9th if my math is correct). Only problem I have had is my Dell Level II support rep has stopped communication on a free laser printer that arrived when I was out of town. She tried to facilitate it being sent back, I took a day off work, and it didn't arrive. I also didn't hear from her and don't have her contact information (which I suppose is my fault). I assume the printer will be shipped back to Dell and I will negotiate a bit off the price instead of waiting for a printer to re-arrive. I am pretty stoked to get the new machine and take some good pics of it next to my R1. It will give everyone a nice comparison of the two systems!

M18 specs: 4900mq OC (i know, weak sauce), 780m SLI, 3year warranty (a must have), 750gig+64 caching and 16gig ram. I will keep my M18x R1 and switch to integrated graphics for mostly web surfing, downloading music and movies...and just to stare at it's beauty. I will have to be VERY financially prudent and stop spending on ANY toys as I have been on a spending spree lately The benefits of being a single guy with no kids and a decent job.

Cheers People!

 

Dave,
I looked back on your posts, you ordered on the 13th of June? Do you live in UK? I ordered nearly the same build on the 13th as well...I'm hoping that's a sign that mine will ship soon too. Of course, seems like US is getting slower ships than UK, so who knows.

 

i ordered mine on 20th and it is due to arrive 7/10. i'm from us.

 

Nope, I am in the US. It just seems like they are "deploying" their beasts finally. I am very interested in seeing the build quality and comparing to my ROCK SOLID R1. Hoping for a good dell TIM paste job and better than expected cooling. I am really looking forward to playing Crysis 3 on highest settings. My 580m SLI just couldn't quite do it. Honestly, I am a more competitive gamer (CS:S, CS:GO, L4D 2, Virtua Fighter 5 on PS3 etc) but really enjoy the Crysis technology and what was required to play it when it released. I never played it through until 2010 when I got my m17x R2 because I just couldn't play it on my m15x with the 8800mgtx. I really like to play games at the highest settings. Crysis 1 still needs very powerful hardware to contend with the horrible coding during the last levels. Crysis 2 even drops in the 20s in some parts. So I plan to play through the whole series again. I am also looking forward to seeing how this will play GTA: IV with the ICE mod. It's CPU limited and I am hoping the 4900mq will offer just enough juice that my Sandy Bridge i7 2760qm couldn't do.

I have such a busy job and not much ability to take time off. It's gonna be a challenge to get my games downloaded and find time to "do what I do" when I get new systems I'll have to plan a few days off in the next few weeks me thinks

 

Hey Blackjack,

Could you confirm the screen you have? Is it 400nit or 350nit?

 

hey blackjack, this is a better way to monitor your temp. link, http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...mperatures-game-benchmark-screen-display.html

 

Hey BlackJack, congrats with finally having the notebook in house

Could you tell us a bit about the noise when gaming and when just surfing the internet? Is it quiet? Noisy? Did you own M18x R1 so you can compare against that?
Also, what about the keyboard. Is it nice to use? Good feedback?

Thanks

 

Played Metro LL last night. I could barely hear the fans...very impressive to say the least. In my opinion, the keyboard is fine. I never owned a previous Alienware laptop so I cannot compare to the old models. Overall, the system is impressive.

 

Will read up when I have more time. Thank you for sharing. I have to get to work in a few minutes.

 

The flex ratio override seems to be capped at 28. The Core ratio limits can be increased, to what degree still not sure. When I have more time will play around. Here is a photo.

 

Hey all,

I have been floating around this thread for a while. I had just ordered my 18 on the 21st and am to anxious not to say anything :wink: ... Dell really knows how to torture you with keeping you in the dark and their long production phases... Anyhow, I got the bare-bones base model. i just hope i don't kick myself in the later with the 765m SLI. i just don't have the cash to pull a 780m SLI! maybe in the future when mobile GPUs are more common place for stock. Oh well, anything is better than my old Dimension with a 4 year old 8800 GT!

I'm estimated the 26th, i just sure hope it gets here sooner damnit!

 

you will be ok with that conf. with most of the games out there.

 

ARG, so jealous of you all. I really should have waited to get my (m)18(x) late last year for now, but really needed it... these seem pretty awesome and I love the photos of the new LEDs on the front and back.

Thanks for the perf measurements as well. Any chance we can get some CPU temps? I prefer RealTemp as it's what I use to OC, but guess don't mind the ones proposed by Mr. Fox either that includes the overlay... just guess that's more interesting if you plan to do videos and post those. No complaints there either!

Cool cool.

 

BlackjackCZ you lucky son of a ... so jelly right now.

 

Does anyone know if the power brick from the M18x will fit the M18?

 

Woot. What's up everybody? Like you - I'm hoping to get the most out of this beast. One question that remains thanks to Mr. Fox is whether we will be able to harness the full power of the laptop like they have with the m18x R2's (due to power?)?






1 Alienware 18 BTX Base Mod

1 16GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz

1 Dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5 - NVIDIA SLI Enabled

1 750GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s + 64GB mSATA SSD Caching

1 8-cell Lithium Ion (86 wHr) Battery

1 Overclocked 4th Gen Intel Core i7-4930MX (8MB Cache, up to A.B GHz w/ Turbo Boost)

 

Hmm, anyone ever seen order status showing 'partially shipped'? My ETA still shows 7/22, but I got a tracking number from FedEx, albeit it's still in the early stages and shows no details.



Sure would be nice to get the beast early

 

Glad to help, bro. When you get ready to completely emasculate Windows 8 to make it awesome, be sure to see this post for a quick list of things that need to be fixed to keep it from getting in your way.

 

Mine is also "partially shipped". Odd.

Edit: but mine has shipping info and expected delivery is 7/9. Sweet.

 

Guys, haven't you heard? - all models are 'self assembly' flat pack, like Ikea. That's why they are partially shipped. You might get the LCD first....then the Keyboard etc etc :laugh:

 

Same here. I just wonder if it's the actual unit, or something else like paperwork.

 

You'll get the motherboard and power brick a month after you get the laptop.