*OFFICIAL* M18x Owner's Lounge Thread

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New drivers from nVidia: http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...ql-notebook-desktop-released.html#post8057884

 

btw, if you didnt notice already, Alienware Lowers Price on GTX 580M and Changes Our Opinion in the Process | PC Perspective the GTX 580m dropped price as much as $ 225 on single (m17x) and around $450 for SLI (m18x)

Well, we early adopters paid for their R&D i suppose..

 

REAL LIFE OWNZ ALL

 

Funny coincidence. I just asked John the same question earlier today. Kind of miss the dude, but we probably shouldn't let him known that, though.

 

So I received my m18x just a few weeks ago as a brand new replacement and it has a few issues. Been waiting on motherboard and graphics card replacement since the 22nd.

Additionally I've been issued, had cancelled and reissued so many reference numbers and dispatch numbers that my head is going to explode.

Generally speaking at what juncture does this become absurd? How long should I have to wait for replacement parts before I should complain about the service?

I've been without a functioning laptop for quite some time and each time I get a replacement it seems something else is wrong and I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to resolve the issue.

In this situation they keep saying the part is out of stock, should come in by x, should come in by y, and keep pushing back the date.

Ideas?

 

No, it seems there is an issue with motherboards right now. They're probably trying to spare you the frustration of getting a defective replacement or one that has worse known issues. Take a look on this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ussion-thread-re-dell-aw-conference-call.html. There is a list in the first post of revision numbers from users reporting issues, mostly with AMD cards, but some with NVIDIA also. They may have depleted their stock as well, with a sudden rush on motherboards.

If you are having a hard time getting straight answers from Dell/Alienware Support or Dell Customer Service, a couple of venues for escalation that Dell-Bill_B recently shared with us: (1) on Twitter send a message to @DellCares, or (2) use the Support link on the left side of the Dell Facebook page. These methods are highly effective for getting help with your type of situation.

If the troubles you are having are similar to any of the issues being noted with AMD cards, please don't hesitate to post on that thread about your similar or same problems with NVIDIA cards. Dell/Alienware is watching that thread very closely at the moment.

Please keep us posted.

 

Does anyone have any info on OCing the 2760QM? With my m11x there were all sorts of recommendations, but I can't seem to find any now.

Also, what sorts of drivers should I throw on it from the get go?

 

Upping the BLCK in the BIOS if you M11X supports it.

But you are looking at diminishing returns, because the clockgen is not on the mobo anymore, its part of the CPU, and the onboard intel graphics makes FSB/PSB overclocking even more tricky unless we have unlocked multipliers like the XM edition CPUs.

You are better off overclocking your GPU for games.

Mine was stable at 103Mhz on the FSB from 100Mhz which is a peanuts increase on the stock clocks.

 

Darn, I knew I should have picked one of the XM models. Is that turbo boost option even worth anything? According to the specs it can go up to 3.4ghz - do I just enable it or mess around with the BLCK variables in bios? Do you have any recommendations for a stable setting?

Sorry for all the newbie questions, it's just that it's quite the jump from a m11x to the m18x. With my old m11 I'd just mess with the BLCK until it bluescreened and then lower it.

What's the first few things I should do/get when I boot it on for the first time?

Once again, sorry for the dumb questions.

 

Chances are the BCLK wont be stable beyond 105Mhz, you can try your luck with slow incremental increases, but its not worth much in terms of pure clock increases over what you already have.

Turbo Boost is built into the chip, you don't need to do anything for it. Its not software or driver controlled. Its chip level self automation. Those Turbo speeds are for single core boosts when the other 3 cores are idle. If two cores are active the clocks maybe a little lower, if 3 cores/4 cores are active it should be hovering at 2 -3 speed bins above your standard frequency.

So turbo boost is meant for single threaded or at max dual threaded apps, beyond that turbo boost is of little use.

If you want to push your CPU BCLK is the only option. If your M11X has access to turbo boost overrides then the short and long durations of the Turbo boosts can be increased to the max available values in your BIOS. But again those values are in seconds, after the max value of time period, the turbo overrides wont matter anymore. Its a little something but not much as in terms of pure overclocking.

Old day overclocking is dead on SB and for the foreseeable future when it comes to Intel. Intel wants to milk the Overclocking community by forcing people to buy unlocked CPUs, on desktops luckily people can buy them retail at $315 or less. But these crooks charge way much more for the mobile chips knowing we have no choice. Evil rats. Paying 900USD for the same that does no better than the weakest overclocking 2600Ks out there is a total rip off.

If AMD's Bulldozer wasn't such a disappointment maybe we could have pushed Alineware to have the BD option on the laptops as well. I know where I would go if that option was there.

 

Hi,
Just done a fresh install and installed cat 11.10 and it has AMD Overdrive. I looked for this before the fresh install but is was not there. So is it always there?

 

I am having such a hard time trying to get Overdrive to work on my beast. I am currently using Trixx but my cards don't seem to want to overclock that much. The CPU is overclocking nicely though.

 

I did not do anything it was just there after a fresh install, is it normally there and dose it work?.

 

Very interesting indeed Where did you get the drivers from?

 

I had the same experience... Overdrive was enabled with 11.10 for me as well. Didn't have to do anything to enable or make it work. The fan speed control does not work, but the core and memory clock adjustments did.

 

Think I got them from AMD site. I Installed them before the fresh install and overdrive was not there but after the install it was?.

 

Same here...

 

File a complaint for delay and ask them to upgrade your CPU or graphic cards for free. . You spent over $2000 for your laptop and customer service so you should expect nothing but perfection.

 

There's a sure fire way to get their help. A customer filing a complaint and demanding free upgrades would certainly motivate me to jump in and help fix their problem. (I am obviously using sarcasm to illustrate a point.)

Using tactfulness and being friendly, going through appropriate channels and presenting issues clearly without the expression of negative sentiments seems to work better for me as a Dell/Alienware customer. (It works better for customers in my business as well. Most customer service employees lean toward doing nothing above and beyond for belligerent customers.) Better to let them confirm your issues and see if they offer a concession as a good will gesture. Even if they do not, the whole point of Tech Support is getting a fix for the issue.

 

totally agree., that is way to go.

 

good luck all! I remember waiting forever before it was even released.. i was sick for weeks

 

Well I have been loving my M18x since Tuesday. I am a bit curious whether my M18x is running properly. I ran 3DMark Vantage and only get a score of 21000 with my CPU overclocked and my GPUs slightly overclocked. My GPUs only seem to like to go to around 750 core. I tried 815 but it would just go blank when running benchmarks. I am new to overclocking as far as in the BIOS for the CPU but the GPU I have been doing for a while in other laptops. I am guessing my cards just don't want to be overclocked that much but I see others on here getting much higher 3DMark Vantage scores. Any comments? Also it is in Crossfire lol

 

I am looking at GPU-Z and it tells me that one card is at 40 degrees C while the other is at 85! Please tell me this is an error in GPU-Z :-(

 

No, it's not likely to be an error, unfortunately. Can you post a screen shot? Start two instances of GPU-Z and place them side-by-side and you can take one screen shot for both cards simultaneously.

 

I found out the problem... One fan isn't turning on and it shut down due to overheating. I am calling Dell now :-(

 

Alienware support said to call returns and setup a return and reorder a new system. So I will make sure the new system has the 580s :-/

 

Given the opportunity to do so, seems like a good idea, killaz05.

 

Mr Fox, I was actually thinking of using my alienware m18x as a model rocket.

Fortunately I explained my situation to alienware that I have been waiting for over 3 weeks with the date being pushed back each time and that I haven't had a working laptop since late july/early august.

This machine is a replacement, of a replacement of a replacement.

Somewhere over the rainbow?

So they're going to hopefully ship out the correct parts, with a technician who won't damage anything and perhaps miracle upon miracles I'll have a working laptop?!

So I didn't threaten any lawsuits, hold my alienware hostage or threaten to staple myself if I didn't get a solution now NOW! NOW!

Despite the hardware issues I am seriously impressed with alienware tech support.

 

Wow, that is awesome news. I believe in miracles, so there's hope. +1 rep - you deserve it for all you've been through; and, for not stapling yourself.

 

Ok, I'm finally back here.

I just got my M18x last night. and am extremely happy with it. I wish I could play more with it but I have to know my priorities.

 

Vergil... Congrats! It took some doing, but I'm glad to see it finally worked out for you.

 

Thanks. I had it ordered from HIDevolution.

 

Anyone uses OCZ ssd for their alienware? i installed the ocz drive it shows up in BIOS but doesnt show up in ocz toolbox =(

 

If your OCZ Ssd is your primary OS drive you cannot use OCZ toolbox (visit OCZ site) to update or secure erase you need to get bootable Linux update iso

 

fortunately i somehow figure it all out by fluke, now im facing problem i cant make a system image copy, or rather, i did using backup/restore including entire old OS settings and want to put it onto the ssd but windows dont let me. either windows dont let me, or i donno how lol. any help?

 

i now got that problem solved too.. lol then i used HD tune and gets a read max 300 mb/sec although it should probably be around 500 mb/s

i read up somewhere regards installing a SATA 6.0 driver, how do i check what my current driver is? and where i download the sata 6.0 driver?

 

Hey guys,

I got the replacement for my defunct outlet m18x today. Nice upgrade of processor from i5 to i7, slightly larger hard driver and 560 over 460's.

Since the "exchangers" apparently dont have an eye for details tech support has setup additional parts that a tech is arriving tomorrow to install.

1) Nebula Red shell, even though my primary complaint was that i received the wrong color originally they still sent exchange the wrong color. It was suppose to be red. Will be tomorrow.

2) SLI. Tech sent additional 560 and sli cable.

I hope the tech doesnt screw things up because so far its working great.

 

I got the specs for replacement in sign and swapped to a Red Unit.

 

No motherboard replacement, blue screen on trying to install cards. 2 1/2 hours with tech support to be disconnected and have the session sit inactive for thirty minutes before I shut it off.

Yep somewhere over the rainbow and another call tomorrow.

 

hey guys my sister is using m18x now
i am running on ac adaptor but i couldn't find the switchable graphic option on desktop (right click)
please help thanks!

 

FN+F7 doesnt work either..

 

Well I got the motherboard replaced today. Reinstalled OS, drivers in intended order.

Using stock dell drivers the graphics cards and GPUz only show:

Display Adapters AMD Radeon HD 6900M Series -2048Mb
AMD Radeon HD 6900M Series -2048Mb

That's also what the dell system configuration says when I scan my machine.

Is this normal?

 

Yes, totally normal. It's the AMD reference drivers that do not have the correct DevID strings that causes the name to read that way. (I believe with the outdated Dell driver installed the cards may be identified as 6990 or 6970.)

Otherwise, how are things looking now?

 

I'm not quite sure, the AMD driver is a bit wonky, I've had three bluescreens during the install process. Screen is kinda dark.

Motherboard replacement appears to have fixed the Intel 3000 HD problem. At least that driver installed. Need to test it out again.

The tech who came out was quite livid over how I've been treated, He's been here at least 5 times in the past few months with several other techs.

For a brand new system this sure has been a massive headache and really unacceptable.

By the way it wasn't just one missing screw, chasis was missing quite a few screws and the tech found another screw caught on tape inside.

 

The 11.10 Catalyst package has some issues, including no display brightness function. Try doing a clean driver install and use 11.9 and see if things improve. When the new Dell AMD drivers are released here shortly, I expect you will see better results than AMD reference drivers can provide.

 

Not the only issue, I'm also experiencing a pause where the screen goes black and then aero shutting on and off repeatedly. All drivers are current from dell.

 

Did you make sure to grab the latest version of AW OSD?

 

I was having the aero bug and installing the new osd got rid of it. The first week of having my m18 was full of issues. I had ordered an ssd so I ended up doing a fresh install and its been very good since. I still have to reboot to stop the overheating though .

 

Fred - glad you got it sorted with the updated OSD. It really stinks when the first thing you experience is problems. The reboot thing is certainly an inconvenience, but I know Alienware is going to fix it or replace it if they cannot, and things should be awesome then. We had a couple of months waiting for them to isolate and fix the OSD bug that was causing Aero to crash, but they did it and it turned out great. I know it will be the same with the 6990M bug. The good thing is you can still game or benchmark or whatever you want after rebooting. Hang in there, bro.