*OFFICIAL* M18x Owner's Lounge Thread

Congratulation on your new system. I hope you love yours as much as I do mine.

A word of caution; you might want to think twice about plugging in the optical adapter... Luckily, I found this thread and did not plug mine in...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...g-after-using-optical-external-audio-out.html

As far as I know, there's not a fix other than mobo replacement. I'm not sure if the latest models like yours or mine has an updated motherboard since this was discovered, but I'm not about to risk screwing things up.

 

been a long time for me having an ati,
like 10 years ago when p4 was hawt
so can any 1 show me the stuff to know about ati,
like the driver install methode is diff from nvidia
& where you get drivers

but most specialy for me is
some kind of ui to see if cf is active and overclock (in game)
i recall seeing a program on youtube that allowd you to that

i also recall steve linking a program to fix dead pixels,
is it also usefull to detect if there are dead pixels ?
i wanna run true a whole bunch of test to find out the problems now & get fixd before its to late

 

Well you CCC Catalyst Control Panel should show you if CF is active, so will running any benchmark program.

As for drivers, there is a thread either here or on the main alienware forum on how to do so ...

 

yes
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/579120-m18x-how-install-amd-reference-drivers.html
bit outdated it seems

so by applying this link you can get rid of aero bugg?

Found 1, RadeonPro but i know there are others 2 which 1 and any preferabel?
also found AMD Catalyst Application Profile are they a must in gaming will it boost allot or ?

 

I'm offically back

 

Hello to all, just received my M18x today. WOW what a machine, Everything is perfect with it. My previous 17" pre-Dell Alien is over 6 years old and still works fine, but it feels really good to step into the 21st Century. I am no where near the tech level of most people here, but I love to learn.

New M18x Spec's
i7 2920xm OC, 16Gb 1600Mhz Ram, 256Gb SSD, Dual Nvidia GTX580's, N6300 3X3 Wireless Card, Blu-Ray BR-ROM DVD/CD, Alienware Messenger Bag.

 

Congrats on receiving your new beast. great specs - that should really do some damage where it counts.

Welcome to NotebookReview forums! - plenty of knowledgeable people here who are more than happy to help out should you need to ask anything, please feel free to do so!

 

Free bump! - anyone with 580's help out with this one?

 

Thanks Steve.

It would be great if we could get like a spreadsheet together of people who have the different setup so that we can tell at a glance what the scores are. It's not easy going through the various messages across different threads to pull that information together .

That way a newbie who runs the test can tell if their system is performing at the expected level.

 

Agreed. It may also be a good idea to create seperate threads so that owners of 6990 and 580 can have their own "checkpoint" to compare their own bench results without sifting through results of configs that they dont have....I know there is a generic bench thread but like Avatar1973 points out, it can be quite tedious to trawl through pages of results that people have posted to find something to compare your own system to....if there were a 580 bench thread and a 6990 bench thread, members could go directly to that link to check out bench figures.....might just help out....

Just my £0.02p worth lol.......

 

Nice scores! What was the OC' level on the CPU? Also, what was the room temp and did you use a cooler pad or elevation? I'm trying to compare the OEM 2920Xm with the ES in terms of thermals. Thanks

 

eCake - you might want to give this a go (see below)

...working pretty awesome for me. CCC is a buggy program and you'll get better overall results without it installed IMHO. There is really nothing you need CCC for, even without the Aero bug. Still have CFX, still awesome benchmarks (better than with CCC installed for me) and RadeonPro will do anything CCC would do only better, and more. RadeonPro is the program that works with the visual indicator that CFX is working very similar to the SLi indicator.

 

I've had just a few small problems that I haven't really bothered to get fixed but I might as well resolve them.

1. I can't adjust screen brightness. From max dim to max brightness everything looks the same. I've tried reinstalling OSD as well as Command Center to no avail. I assume that I'll have to do a fresh install to fix this.

2. My usb 3.0 won't recognize my samsung f4 2tb hard drive. The usb 2.0 ports work fine and all other external hard drives work with it. If I delete the flagged message in device manager and plug in my hard drive, it asks me to format the drive. Obviously that isn't going to happen. Though I doubt usb 3.0 vs. usb 2.0 makes much of a difference. This probably has nothing to do with my m18x anyway.

 

Try checking your bios. USB3.0 could be disabled. There's an option to decide what the 'wifi' button actually does, and by default it disables bluetooth and wireless I believe. Make sure the USB3.0 driver is installed as well. The difference between USB2.0 and 3.0 is pretty significant. You should easily see double the transfer speeds.

Another thought is that some external drives have retarded firmware on them. This could be causing your error messages if it was configured on another PC.

 

On my current Dell L502x i get 30Mb/s vs 90Mb/s going from usb 2.0 to 3.0 on an external 1Tb Verbatim HDD)

 

Thanks. I have updated original post to include this info.

The Bios overclock was set to level 3.
There was no cooler pad or elevation, it was placed on a wooden table. Outside temperature about 15C, inside closer to 20C. Window was slightly open to allow air flow.

Stock standard drivers and no other tweaks to speed or config changes (besides BIOS above).

My main concern as mentioned was the 3DMark 11 scores as I have seen values of about 6k.

 

when you switch to integrated gpu mode, do the discrete gpu's turn of completely, meaning that there is no electricity running through them?

i assume that is how the laptop manages so much battery life?

 

Yes, exactly ARGH. Neither the BIOS nor the OS recognize the presence of the graphics hardware for the subsystem not in use. The battery life on the IGP is awesome. I ran 4 hours on a charge this weekend.

 

i wonder how it handles it form it from the drivers side.

 

I got a little over 5 this weekend ...

 

Only partially well. There's a thread on the Aero bug. The drivers do just fine. Whatever hardware boots with Windows loads it driver just as it normally would. Where things can sometimes get flaky is Windows loading and the registry instructing the OS to load drivers for hardware that is not visible to the OS or the BIOS.

I know I had at least 4 but forgot to time it. When it occurred to me to look how much battery was left I had like 3:55 remaining with no certainty how long I had been using it. My guess is between 4.5 and 5 hours... It's outstanding, isn't it?

 

Unreal, and I still haven't tweaked it (because this machine is going back) ... I am guessing you could break 6 or 7 hours if you really tweak the profile. Of course I am using the 2630.... not sure if that makes a difference ...

 

M18x.R1 A02 BIOS file is now posted on support.dell.com - just posted today... download quick in case they decide to take it down again.

 

5:20 was my best shot with 2630 + wi-fi

Upgraded to A02, everything is ok so far, better GPU temps

 

AG2 Anti-Glare Screen Protector for Dell Alienware M18x Laptop : Monitors | Dell

does it realy worth anything ? or more damage than help ?
reducing view quality ?

 

Finishing up a clean install... wiped out all partitions and started over in RAID0 with my XT's. No more Respawn partition or anything AW on the drives. I used my original key and activation with a Windows generic ISO linked from this thread. So, there is no branding of any kind to the OS. I have installed Dell's version of the 6990 drivers and CCC on my 6970's to see how Aero behaves with that combo.

I have to finish restoring all of my Steam games, install Adobe CS3 and MS Office Pro, Project and Visio. Then comes to long ordeal of turning on Windows updates and waiting for everything to finish. Once done, will image and be ready for more testing/benching to see what improvement the clean install has made.

Even though I already had A02, I reflashed to see if the EC had changed and it was the same.

 

I do not have that one but my experiences in the past have shown that these films/protective covers do reduce glare but also reduce clarity/crispness, color etc..

SO for me they are not worth it.

I would be interested in hearing from someone who actually has one

D.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-m17x-r3-ag2-anti-glare-screen-protector.html

 

6/10 for 50 bucks? Thanks, I'll pass. Too bad, I am currently looking for a well performing screen protection as well.

Well, GOS for m18x is not available in Europe anyhow.

 

Sorry to be a bearer of bad news but there's no screen protector that can magically turn your M18x screen into matte without image quality reduction.

It's simple optics. The system has 2 layers already (stock screen AG layer and the thick Edge-to-Edge glass cover) and a lot flex in between. Even with a single layer it would be almost impossible to achieve good results, but with 2 - forget it.

The only way to have a proper matte finish is to remove the E2E glass and replace the embedded screen polarizer with a matte finish. The former is very difficult and may void the warranty, the later is impossible to do at home and will ruin the screen.

If you are brave enough and very careful, you can remove the E2E and reveal the stock screen which is semi-glossy with anti-glare element and have probably the best balance between the image quality and reflection reduction.

Here's how the system will look without the glass and with custom bezel installed:

 

well , at least I got a clear answer lol

thanks for the info ( yet again ) mate.

 

I have a set of 6990m's on the way, I assume A02 is needed for them?

 

Noob Question .... how do you tell what Bios v you have ?

 

go to bios
read

 

Or simply just type "system information" (without quotes) into the start menu and hit enter ....... bingo....all the system info you will ever want lol

 

lol Thanks guys, already rebooted and checked, is 02 ... maybe aiki is right about the gpu temps since mine are awesome. Wish there was real fan control though ...

Is there a way to control fans ???

 

Quick request here. Can someone do me a favour and enter bios....tell me what shows on the main page next to SandyBridge Version????.....only asking as I have "QS" next to mine.......im hoping its just me being a bit over-worried but im thinking "quality sample"......put my mind at ease....thanks!

 

QS!? definitely very suspicious. My 2630 never showed QS. The ES 2920 doesn't show QS either but it is not even a 2920, shows as 2400, lol

 

It shows fine in cpu-z (Shows as Intel Core I7 Extreme 2920XM not ES or QS) but it was just after flashing A02 today, I went back into Bios and noticed the line:

Sandy Bridge Version .......................................... QS

Got me worried......

 

May be QuickSync
Link

 

They should all have quick sync though

 

can someone with 6990m xfire play crysis 2 with the ultra patch and see if it maxes it out? i am worrying about it, about micro stutter. if it plays 30fps smoothly then i will give it a pass. if it cant max out crysis 2 ultra then it wont be maxing out BF3 with 64 player maps and i may have to re-think about getting the laptop.

 

If I had Crysis 2 ... I would.

 

someone must have it

it would do justice to the community for someone with 6990 xfire test for smoothness in ultra with high res texture pack and in 1080p!

even if gpu overclocking is required to achieve smoothness in frames, this is the most important benchmark for the laptop world!

 

Crysis 2 dx11 maxed
Almost all the time 60fps (cap)
Heavy scene drops fps to 45
Shooting in the near water drops fps to 35.

 

those numbers seem too good to be true. you sure it was ultra settings with high res. texture pack enabled?

would it be possible for you to upload a short youtube clip of the game being played with fraps running for fps meter and verify your in-game settings? you can simply just point a camcorder to the screen. it would be epic

 

Maybe but it just jumped out at me.....QS. If someone could just check their bios, would clear things right up I imagine.....someone please just let me know what you see about half way down the main bios page nex to where it says "Sandy bridge version"

TIA guys.

 

As weird as this may sound, does anyone's laptop screen actually change when you press fn-f4/f5? I haven't been able to notice any change in brightness once so ever. I don't really expect the difference to be night and day like turning your brightness off on an ipod vs. having it maxed but to my eyes there is no difference. Windows detects the change in Power Options at the bottom as well the on screen Alienware pop up. Video drivers and OSD re installation has done nothing. I actually tried adjusting the brightness with my factory install default hard drive and it did the same thing. A whole lot of nothing.

 

If your running 11.8 preview, the brightness adjustment does NOT work at all via fn keys.....it does on 11.6 (not sure about 11.7) and I can definetly see the difference in dimming down and brightening up using dell drivers or 11.6.

Something that AMD need to sort for official 11.8 release I imagine.....

 

I just watched this and my m18x clearly doesn't adjust at all. I might be able to get free 6990s off Dell now. I'm using 11.7 so it couldn't be a driver issue.