*OFFICIAL* M18x Owner's Lounge Thread

OSD was pulled from Dell's current downloads

version reads as 0.31.0.15C

Can anyone confirm this is the latest revision?

I was told by the support tech not to use my alienware respawn image I created, to perform a completely clean install with the disk.

The tech who came out told me that they should have sent me a hard drive with the image installed instead of wasting more of my time.

 

Thats the one.

 

Thanks Mr. Fox

Anyone having problems with the eject button and other top panel buttons? Mine needs the desktop/taskbar to have focus or it will not work. I have to click the taskbar then press.

 

I'm a prospective M18x buyer, currently looking at moving up north here in Canada to work on the oil rigs and I need a decent gaming laptop to keep me busy since a desktop just isn't going to cut it.

m17x doesn't seem like it will cut it for me since the performance is border line on some games specifications to run well, i.e single 580m or 6990m roughly being as powerful as a 460 GTX which is okish, where a SLI/CF version is more then enough for the laptops lifetime.

The main dilemmas I'm having regarding this purchase, well A. I don't need it yet I'm looking forward in the next 2-4 months. I've noticed the 6990's and 6970's disappearing from circulation, at least on the US site. I am Canadian though and 6990's seem to still be here.

I'm opting for multiple cards since the laptop is obviously a single display and running in fullscreen is no issue versus my current 6950 Tri-CF hasn't gotten the use it should have due to multi-tasking demands.


And it appears the prices between the US site and Canadian site are just out of wack...

the 580M SLI option on the US site is only 600$ Above the 560M.
the 580M SLI option on the Canadian site is only 1200$ Above the 560M....

Do you see some issue here? I think I might I'm not 100% sure though...

6990M CF on Canadian site is 600$, and alone for a single 580M its 600$.... what is going on...

_________


Anyway besides the absolutely insane price differences, I'm wondering if AMD who is suppose to release their 7XXX series by end of Q4, are going to be jumping right into Mobile products? If that is the reason 69XXM's are slowly disappearing.

 

If that's a lot check out the European sites (UK, Fr..etc.)
For Dell it goes like this: $=€=£

 

Yes, this is the latest OSD. Sorry, I just now saw your post. This is still available for download. You can get it here: Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States]

Nice new layout on the Dell Support Downloads page... just noticed it today.

 

***Happy Thanksgiving***

 

Hello all,
Well i just joined the club thanks to a saveology coupon and dells's gift card deal i am awaiting fed ex right now before 3pm. So i have a quick question: I have the 580's sli and i am certainly no computer expert so what do i need to know? what drivers do i need to update etc. any bloatware to delete or any other simple tricks or advice thanks. I am really excited to play skyrim and hope on max settings.
thanks in advance for any advice.

 

MSI Afterburner 2.2.0 BETA 9

DDL: http://download1.msi.com/files/downloads/uti_exe/vga/MSIAfterburnerSetup220Beta9.zip

 

hey guys, i have a laptop for a week now and i noticed that the bios preinstalled inside is A04, i have read if you have A03 bios you can unlock some good options in m18x. here are my questions

1.) A04 has any defects that i need to be aware of? i always run and game on stock clocks (for now anyway)

2.) is degrading the bios from A04 to A03 worth it? (gaming side)

3.) Err...how do you flash bios?

so far in my rig all drivers are updated, im looking if i could further improve the gaming performance if there is by any chance possible but not in a risky way.

if there are any computer experts there i can send you my dxdiag info and i need help if there are any drivers/tweaks that can be safely applied in my system. thanks

 

hey just got a question donno anyone here can help answering this. i got the dual 6990m AMD graphic card in crossfire, although i just learned recently not all games supports crossfire thus those games only run on 1 graphic card, not 2.

nevertheless, my question lies in wei score. my wei point for graphic/3d/gaming are both at 7.6

does that mean 7.6 the score for a single graphic card? or for both the crossfire?

 

I doubt that part of the WEI score would be 7.6 if only one graphic card was in use during the WEI benchmark. It would more likely be around 6.5. We would need someone with a single GPU to confirm this for us. Another thing you might try is disabling the secondary GPU in Device Manager and see if the WEI score drops.

 

mmmmm just Ordered my 8gb Kingston Hyper X 1866 and a Crucial M4 128GB !!!! Sexy time is coming to town !

 

the thing is with my asus g74sx it has a gimped version of graphic card, gimped nvidia 560m with only 128 buswidth gave a 7.1 on the weiscore, where as the 6990m crossfire gives 7.6 but buswidth is double at 256.

im just thinking according to that might have gave the wei for a single graphic card, not both, but still not sure.

in the case of wei being just a single 6990m, it would mean nvidia grpahic card is a lot better than amd

 

Unityole

WEI is just a general tool to evaluate hardware performance and win 7.

Use this to evaluate graphics card performance

Mobile Graphics Cards - Benchmark List - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

thanks a lot for that list of mobile graphic bloodroses, i didnt realize 6990m crossfire is in 2nd only to 580m sli and only behind in some benchmark test by a little bit.

but anyway looks like graphic/3d wei score for laptop wont get to 7.9 anytime soon, at least not for another year maybe D=.

i could see cpu/memory/ssd maxing wei but not video cards lol

 

unityole

Yeah that site was passed on to me quite early on. It's a great resource should you need a replacement computer or looking to upgrade video cards or buy a new machine.

WEI is really a marketing tool for prospective buyers. To me this is the best explaination of intended usage. Say you go into a retail store and there's 20 laptops and a few desktops, you can go around and look at their WEI's and get a general feel about the hardware in those machines and how it will handle windows 7 and tasks.

More knowledegable buyers might not need WEI or might scoff at their odd scoring system.

It might also lead to purchasing one of those machines and knowing where you need to upgrade your hardware prior to making said purchase.

 

im really glad to see cfx 6990m is on top of that list lol. kinda makes up for the disapointment alienware recently figure out they cant solve the 6990 and 6970 cfx overheating issue so they stop selling them.

if you checked in the configuring laptop page for alienware, they completely took out crossfire, all thats left is single or sli for 580 or 560m. really disapointing paid 600 bux for it and turn out all they do is not solve the problem but tries to avoid it for their future businesses.

however there are always ways like repaste and hwinfo64 which is really good for cooling, imo.

thanks again for the list!

 

Has anyone tried vacuum cooling on M18x? I'm not advertising but this is the item.
Any review on that at all?

 

Not something I would think would do any good whatsoever to help cool. Besides, that device clips onto side vents and the m18x doesnt have any.......

 

m18x doesnt have any side vents? now thats new. I havent received my alienware yet, so i have no idea
guess i will be going with notepal U3 then.

cheers, mate.

 

All the system fans are located on the underside and draw air "into" the system from underneath and expell it from the rear exhaust vents. A cooling stand is a good idea and I can highly recommend the Notepal U3 too.....congrats on your system when it lands!

 

today my laptop froze when i push move the screen forward and backward by a bit to adjust the angle. and i hear the sound of volume repeats a noise nonstop and froze like that, and computer freezes. only force shutdown button works. any idea?

edit: another freeze occured and this was right after window reinstallation, i tried to change battery from balance to high performance and it just freezes yet again..

 

Hi everyone!
Proud owner here of the M18x for a few weeks now. Been busy replaying Crysis 2 in all its DX11 glory Still in awe what these 6990M in CrossFire can pull.

 

congratulations on your purchase i myself own it for weeks and i was deeply amazed, what's more is this is my very first alienware/gaming laptop purchase. i own a 3 year asus g50vt which died on me before

 

Hey congrats everyone! I ordered mine on the 21st it got cancelled due to part problems,Im so upset Ive been waiting a while,anyway I have a new order on the 30th.Dell had no exact part,I am getting the 256gb ssd,and 560gtx,I heard theres a shortage of 560s and the flood hdd issues.The wait is killing me.Lol

 

Well I reordered an M18x after I had to return my previous one due to serious issues with the 6990s now I have the 580Ms in SLI on the way. I hope I have a much better experience this time around

 

Just got my m18x today, along with my 160GB Intel 320 Series Sata 2 SSD.
So just popping that baby in and installing that, so 160+750.

I would have defnetly splurged for the 256 but intel didn't have decent rebates on it like the insane rebates on the 160, payed 300$, so normal price ish, but 120$ rebate, so 180$ for a 160GB is just slightly over 1$ per GB which is amazing for a SSD.

 

which is amazing for an Intel SSD

that aside, make sure you dont write so much onto it, and if you're using firefox, change from disk cache to memory cache, otherwise just browsing internet with firefox will kill a section of your SSD in just 1-2 years.

whats the spec of your new machine?

 

btw can anyone tell me the wei score for those 580M SLi?

 

7.9 bud on both

 

Congrats on your new system as well! I had to sell my previous system, Qosmio X305-Q708. This is also my very first AW

 

I think I'm getting a little paranoid here since I saw my CPU temps at about 67C max when playing on the ps2 emulator. GPU temps are usually below 65C. Do you think this may be a bad sign or something?

 

No, not at all. Those temps are well within specs and should be considered normal.

 

Thanks for the assurance. Was getting quite paranoid over my baby.

 

No need to get too worked up unless you see them going up to around 90°C or higher. That would not be good at all.

 

6990M CF, 2670, 16GB, and the 750, etc.

Ye thats the first thing I'm doing is moving the page file over to the main drive.

 

wondering if there is a fix for this when im using my hdmi out i get tearing on my 18x's lcd it is just one tear that cycles from the bottom to the to top almost as if vsync is all messed up

 

SO what cable do I need to hook up my PS3 to the HDMI in? Thanks. I want to know how to hook up my PS3 to the HDMI in on my M18X?

SMOKE

 

I'll take a wild guess at a HDMI cable?

 

That would be my guess as well. There's nothing unusual about the port that I can see other than it is an "in" port rather than an "out" port. It needs to be activated using the FN+F8 keys.

 

Ok thanks a lot. For some reason I thought it was a mini HDMI or something. Also thanks for the Fn+8 info as I did not know that either., I just plugged in a regular HDMI into the in and out ports and it fits both.

 

Excellent - you got it working? - its a good feature, being able to hook up your console or other HDMI enabled devices. Like Fox says, its just a regular HDMI to HDMI then Fn & F8 to enable.....happy PS3 gaming on your M18x !

 

jem286 - What video cards does your M18x have? Is this happening with discreet graphics, the integrated Intel graphics, or both? Also, what activity are you engaged in when the tearing occurs? Gaming, ordinary use? Please provide a little more detail for us.

 

Apologies to SMOKE if my initial response above sounded sarcastic. I, more than many, should realise that this is a place for friendly advice etc. Hope you didnt take it the wrong way buddy.

 

That was hilarious! I'm in pain but that got me to laugh.

I can't speak for smoke skull, personally I think you were being more facetious than sarcastic but I didn't find it insulting. You also did provide an answer that was useful.

Sometimes you get those unintended moments of hilarity.
Rep for silly reply and then knowing to apologize.

 

btw i found out, for both crossfire or sli, wei score shows only 1 video card. reason due to a 2 core 4 threads processor at 2.4 ghz will show weiscore of 7.5 while a 4 core 8 threads cpu at 2.0ghz shows 7.4

also, alienware is now on powernotebooks reseller lol, cheaper than alienware website imo =/ just that its not free shipping, but sure has the option to remove optical drive to add an external usb dvd drive =D

 

BAD STUFF is happening to my laptop guys. today when i started up the computer windows wont start up, and makes 5-6 LOUD BEEP sounds, and repeats it self until i shut the computer down. then i restart again, samething happens, loud beep and nothing loads, no screen, no bios, no windows, just black screen.

it continue to happen for several restarting then i finally shut it down and slightly shake the laptop a bit and then restart again, this time i was able to boot into windows but now i am scared to turn off my laptop..

im reading a thread about this http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/614401-help-laptop-making-4-beeps-start-up.html and it seems to be memory/motherboard, what should i do here? i thought it might be the graphic card being disconnected thats why i lightly shook it but i have no idea whats goign on anymore. please help.

 

@unityole - The fact that shaking it allowed you to start the system suggests you have a stick of RAM that is not properly seated. Otherwise, that should not make any difference. That would be the first thing I would check. If I remember correctly, 4 beeps also points to a memory problem. (Having 8 beeps is an indication of video problems.)

Good luck, and keep us posted.

 

I cant seem to find any info on Insyde Bios' "Beep Codes".........but it does sound like memory modules could be a good place to start.