*OFFICIAL* M18x Owner's Lounge Thread

Thanks SOS. Been so busy lately that I haven't had time at all to post.

Yeah I don't see that changing anytime soon. The 1+ month of waiting on an RMA was too much for me. Hopefully with R2, they decide to produce more than 10 red shells.

 

AMD releases its 'fastest notebook GPU' too: AMD Radeon HD 6990M

"The Alienware M18x will offer configurations with either the Nvidia GeForce GTX 580M or AMD Radeon HD 6990M, in single and dual-GPU versions."

 

As with Joker, NYCDrifter, and so many others, after returning my machine, I'm too on the fences. Waiting... Luckily I'm not pressed. Have enough machines at home and around where I go. There is no doubt that the M17xR2 was 'better' (in some specific ways) than the M17xR1... So, since the hope is the last thing that dies, maybe the M18xR2 will be a more accurate and reliable piece of work... maybe...

Hey Joker, I hope you're making good progress in your studies...

 

I'm in more direct need, so will probably have to order the R1 again, but at least it will have 6990. I would think the R2 will be killer, but can't wait for Ivy and what ever else the R2 brings.

 

Yeah, waiting was never an option for me either. If I can't have the best of today, it doesn't make any sense as the future is always uncertain. We don't dwell in the future or past, we live right now.

If there's any truth to the 2012 EOL - you better hurry up with your games, lol

 

I quite understand you. When I was young ( a very long time ago... at the age of dinosaurs according to my daughter) I was pressed too. Today I'm not waiting for the "last" (such as the Ivy...). I just want a quite modern, well designed and, above all, working machine for work and game...

 

As old champ Einstein like to say: " I never think of the future - it comes soon enough."

We live and enjoy the best we can the ephemeral (ephimerous?) 'present'... learning from the past to be, in some limited way, prepared for the future...

 

If only we could just fast forward to the future so I can just skip this whole thing and move back to Cali.

 

Don't skip any minute of your life. If it's painful, at least we can learn a bit of it. When you 'fast forward' it... you lose the opportunities. But those are words of an old (antique) man that learned to appreciate even the hardships of what we feel as the present... when, by definition, it become past before we really, completely, understand it...

Yesterday evening people order their 6970... and today at breakfast it became a past... Not fast enough for you?

( I'm now quite close to your Cali... in Quito)

 

Hi to everyone! I just got my M18x: here's some grabs and a video for the ATi's SLi setup.

It's simply amazing (I put more details on www.alienwareitalia.com).

YouTube - ‪MOV001‬‏​

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Wow!! Looks awesome bro congrats and thanks for sharing the pics.

 

Haha, I would think a majority of med students would like to skip the med school and residency portions. I know I signed up for some hardships but my school's just piling it on some real unnecessary stupid (bleep). It's no wonder we lost 3 prominent faculty members (interestingly, all 3 were my closest advisors and mentors). But hey, I'm using their scholarship money for my m18x and upgrades. Still waiting for my SSD to come in the mail though.

 

Wait until you have to study for the USMLE Step 1, you're going to start getting gray hair like I did. Glad I got passed that and hit clinicals. It gets better but not until the 3rd year.

P.S. Start annotating your First Aid the first year with high yield facts and do UWorld (even if people claim its too hard). If you do that + Goljan, by the time you have to take the Step 1, you'll kill it.

 

I'm starting some USMLE prep, just to keep year 1 fresh, later this summer. I've heard the 3rd year is better but like everything else, this school is screwing things up administratively.

 

it would be a stupidity, but have anyone noticed the smell of this m18x after take out the box? Is like parfum. I have asked to the technic and he said that is probably a (in spanish = resina) to preserve the laptop. This smell is addictived. Does anyone the name?

 

Yeah, most new electronic products have similar smell upon and shortly after unboxing. Dunno the name of the substance though.

 

Hello All! I am back from a holiday and a funeral (literally) in my home country with tales from Dell. Like i said, i sent an e-mail to that [email protected] or whatever, and it worked wonders. A technical representative called me when i was back home and said that they were going to send me a replacement laptop with the Nvidia 460M in SLI and now with 2 years warranty! I thought that was great, so i accepted. And the new pc got delivered while i was away, and they gave me a few days to move all the folders from the old pc to the new one.
But no tale has good endings lol. After i got back, i turned on my pc, and i thought "hmm...pretty good...but why are the macros keys not light up?". So i called Tech Support, and they said they were going to send an engineer to replace the keyboard. So not too bad.

Btw, does anyone know how to "reset" the keyboard? That's what the representative at Dell told me to do on an e-mail.

Anyway, nice to see you all again!

 

Congratulations! I'm happy that that address works as it was for me and my daughter. Lets not abuse from it. It's a very good last ressource... And as far as I know It always works... Just remember always to be diplomaticaly correct and very polite... and you will getan answer.

 

Its possibly to change the color of the alienface placed back the screen?

 

No, I don't believe that the head on the lid is configurable as it used to be. If it is, I have not discovered a way to do that.

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There is a new Sandy Bridge driver package out that appears to fix known issues. See this post for more information.

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Also, Sapphire Trixx works really well with the M18x. There's more info on Tech|Inferno for anyone that has not discovered it already.

 

Hey Guys! Decided to create an account as I have just ordered my first Alien!

I have just one issue nagging me, should I upgrade to the 2720QM? This will be for gaming only, at this point at least, I know it wont bottleneck me now but what about in the next year or two? Thnx in advance!

Specs:
Intel® Core™ i7 2630QM 2.0GHz (2.8GHz w/Turbo Boost, 6MB Cache)
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz (2DIMMS)
Dual 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6990M AMD CrossFireX
750GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s
Intel® Advanced-N 6200 a/g/n 2x2 MIMO Technology and Bluetooth 3.0
Slot-Load Dual Layer DVD Burner (DVD+-RW, CD-RW)
18.4-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 WLED

 

Geno, as many people have suggested already, there is really no need for anything above the 2630. I have one, and I can tell you I am benching the same as anyone with a 2720... and games will perform the same...

IF ... a big if, you need the superior CPU in the future, you can really grab one off the net and put it in yourself... but you really shouldn't. As long as teh GPU is the bottleneck, no need for a better CPU

 

Thanks for the quick reply, that settles it then 2630QM it shall be, oh god this is going to be a long week haha

 

i know the feeling ... when I got the message saying it would be delivered the next day, I couldn't sleep that night at all ....

 

Just one point regards cpu. 2720 has native support for ram speeds up to 1600 whereas on 2630, max native support is 1333mhz.

 

Stevie, you are incorrect, the 2630 supports 1600 and 1866 RAM. Several people here are running Kingston Hyper X on their 2630s.

Aikimox has posted several times on this.

 

He's right. Intel needs to update their webpage. For the 2630qm & 2720qm, I'd be more concern with only having a 6mb cache instead of 8mb.

I think most people who bought the 2630qm intend to upgrade to ES or QS.

 

Fair enough!

There isnt much in terms of cost between the two. If you CAN afford it, I would ALWAYS say get the best Cpu you can afford to. As alot of people have found out, upgrading to a 2920xm ES or QS is easy, the hard bit will be keeping temps in check without the dual piped heatsink that only the xm comes with when being assemled.

 

Arn't supports and runs at two entirely different things?

They used to be.


I've just got off the phone with tech and cs support aaaaaaand.....
The 4th m18x I will be receiving has just been delayed due to 6970's stock.

To compensate, I will be getting a free upgrade to 6990's + The 580m m18x will be discounted so it only costs me £400 in total. Not a bad deal but I do have to wait until the first of august (or before) for both to arrive.

Hopefully this one is the keeper. Lord knows, I'm getting bored of playing notebook-swap.

 

I reordered today with 6990s and Killer wireless.

 

sweet Drifter sweet

 

Thanks Shaden. Long return process worked out to get the new cards!

 

Yea looking like the same will be true for me, unfortunately after talking about how I have had no issues with my old Inspiron Custom t9300 ... it just crapped the bed 2 nights ago. So my current rig is the only one I have and I don't want to put all my stuff on it then have to delete it all and upload all my stuff to the replacement laptop when it arrives ... too much work. So now I basically have a bare system with some OCing and Benching Apps and a couple games loaded ... kind of annoying ...

But the 6990s will be crushing ... I just hope they will OC as far as the 6970s.

 

Got my new SSD. Alien Respawn Recovery wouldn't work since it keeps telling me the new drive doesn't have enough disk space (I have about 95GB used on my 500GB hybrid). Thought about cloning though I'll have to fiddle with the partitions to get it to fit the 256GB. I dunno about a clean install since well, I'm using a school provided license for MS Office/Acrobat Pro and won't get that for some time. Thoughts?

 

Well I have my system. M18X 2720, 6970CF, 8gig ram, 750hd for $2300. Couldn't get the 6990s in time but am going to keep the rig. I didn't want to wait to return it and reorder and then wait again and pay about $500 more (2800). It's playing Crysis/Crysis2 and every other game I play perfectly. Much better framerates than my old R2 that I unfortunately had to part with. This rig is nice and should last a long time. Runs much cooler than my R2 for some reason as I heard the R2 had better cooling? Great system so far. updated to 11.6 drivers with no problems and have the system pretty close to how I want it.

 

Hey Guys! Of the 2920XM owners, I'm sure some repasted the GPU/CPU. Have you noticed the number of pipes on the CPU HS? How many?

 

2 pipes. /10char

 

Here's the reason for asking

 

Lol is that a triple pipe sweet I want one

 

in the works

 

Add me to the top of the list of buyers.

 

At this point I'm not very optimistic about the temp gains but sure

 

Do you have any results that you can share at this point? If it drops me 2ºC I'd consider that a success.

 

I don't have any results yet but 2C should be doable. BTW, what are your CPU temps at lvl 1 OC'? Have you tried Prime95? Oh, and without the cooler pad.

 

As requested sir. Hope this helps. CPU has been repasted with MX-2 fyi. Check out that fancy Aero glitch.... it just happened to boot up that way and I left it for nostalgia


EDIT: Room temp is @69ºF.... I keep it frosty in my crib.

 

Two pipes on my Cpu Heatsink......

 

Wow, great temps! Huge difference between a single and dual piped HS.

 

Aww, I thought it was going to be a quad pipe Aiki.

 

It is going to be a quad-piped HS. The 3-piped one is from Dell and that's another mystery. I have no idea why is it only available on those systems that Dell sends out for reviews and tests.

 

Sweet!

Any progress on a new panel?