*OFFICIAL* M18x Owner's Lounge Thread

Thanks for the info

 

To keep it at 60 fps 95% of the time even in most heavy situations I found shadows on medium, everything else on ultra, no AA, and motion blur off seems to do the trick. Otherwise with everything maxed out no AA you do get 60 FPS most of the time but it dips quite often depending on what your seeing.

 

You're patient!! I was waiting by the door and I opened it up like a kid at Christmas the moment I signed for it

 

I like to benchmark and stress test it to see if any glaring problems are reveled during the full refund period versus 6 months down the road.

 

So anyway the Dell "Tech" came today, replaced the keyboard, battery and put in 2 new cards(6990m's! yay). And after replacing it all then plugged the unit in after I told him I also believe I have the wrong PS(And he argued with me for like 20 minutes it was the right one and in the build spec). The new battery had enough charge to show all is working well(And something tells me if he just replaced the battery first and checked the unit all would still have been fine, lol), but when plugged in showed all the same old artifacts and a disabled card and then had another 20 minute argument on the PS being the wrong one. So called up Dell and argued with them, the rep. finally got an "engineering" tech on the horn and finally admitted the 240 watt PS was the incorrect one, so after 2 hours on the phone they are overnighting me the correct 330 watt PS. So I should be up and running by this time tommarow. I dunno, an M18x with a 2820QM and a pair of 6990m's, new battery and keboard for $1999 shipped now seems like a much better deal, especially considering that all the "wear" parts were replaced. And the m18x I got didnt have a single scratch on the case or any dead pixels on the display. So all in all seems like a pretty good deal. Plus if I want to extend the warranty an extra year with in home support on top of the one year I already have, Dell offered to do it for $99 if I do it within the next 30 days. That I can probably do and is very reasonable in my eyes.

 

So the driver issue has been resolved but.. now i noticed my motherboard doesnt have intergrated graphics.. but ill get back to that..
So i pluged in my ps3 into my hdmi in and i noticed i dont have sound and the graphics were kinda choppy so after searching google i called alienware support.. after 4 hours on the phone they want to swap my mootherboard.. claiming it is bad.. but it seems to work fine..
but here is the thing i dont get.. the tech disabled sli and sound and picture from hdmi in works fine... wouldn't that be a gpu issue? also? they say its not but I dont know..they SAY MY BOARD SHOULD HAVE INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ALONG WITH MY DEDICATED gpus and it doesnt so they say thats the problem..

 

The intergrated graphics is on the cpu so it has to be there. Try and press FN+F7. That should turn it on(for ati cards, will need a reboot).

 

yea nothing.. i CALLED Alienware support back and asked them what you said and they said my cpu..2720Qm DOESNT HAVE THE GPU BUILT IN.. so i dont know.. even under bios nothing is listed.. I dont care.. but there telling me that is a mother board problem.. but as he was doing things remotely .. all sighns point to a card being bad or at the least going out.. I mean how does disabling sli make it work? but with sli enable no sound from hdmi in.. and crap picture..
but with sli disabled its perfect.. for a bit... then that to craps out and stutters.. and sound cuts off.. gaming on the laptop is perfect that i can see.. this is just from hdmi in..
Also they tried making me pay for gaming support since it was the hdmi in and a 3rd party piece of equipment hooked to it and i told them that was unfair as this wasnt a gaming issue it was an issue with a the hardware and the first hour was spent trying to convince them to diagnose it over the phone..

 

I am 100% sure that the 2720qm CPU has an intel 3000 iGPU on it. I do not know if the switch over is the same with nvidia cards but on my m18 the intel gpu dose not show in the bios unless I have used the FN+F7 from windows to turn it on, then the ati cards do not show in the bios.

Think Nvidia has optimus that turns it on/off without reboot but not 100% on that?
Have you installed the INTEL_--HD-GRAPHICS-3000 driver?

 

NO LOL i have not.. didnt know i needed it..

but how would that have to do with my hdmi in problem?

 

thanks the info guys, i should get home tonight so i will have a play and see what happens...

thanks alot

Ian

 

You have to install the alienware OSD software before you can switch between discrete and igp graphics......

 

You are right it's awesome!!! I can't believe how much I can fit on one window!!! I was worried about the matte screen but it's beautiful and coming from the mirror that is on the ACD, I'm happy not to see myself when I type

 

m18x r2 ivybridge... still waiting yo

 

I am running on Nvidia cards and I do require a reboot every time I switch, is there an update that changes this? I am running the latest OSD software and the latest bios.

Also a completely unrelated question, do you guys use the disable charging feature in the BIOS when plugged in to save wear on the battery? Is there any downside to using it? I used it on my m11x and I have used it on my m18x for about a week and see no issues.

 

So I've had nothing but problems since my initial decision to buy the laptop.
Long story short to my order issues, I had to reorder the M18x 4 times over before it finally got to my house. Took nearly 2 months to get because Dell kept really messing up.

So I finally got the laptop, and after coming home from a trip, the laptop fell out of the back of my car due to luggage shifting. The laptop survived, but the shell needed fixing. Technician came and did so painfree. This was all my fault, I was stupid and careless.

1. Except, he didn't reconnect my entire logic board with HDMI output and USBs on the right side of the machine. I would've done it myself, but taking this machine apart is killer and I wasn't 100% sure it was true. Turns out my suspicions were.

2. A month later I finally had time to call for a tech to come to my college. She came, reconnected it, but not only failed to connect my macro keys but also my media function keys too.

3. I'm fed up, go into the machine, and reconnect all the cables myself. My macro keys work but refuse to light up no matter how I shift its ribbons.

4. I put the machine back together, but have been living off of onboard graphics due to the fact that 6990m drivers fail big time. I finally get around to installing working drivers, and it says "CrossFireX internal bridge interconnects linking your cards are not properly attached"
I'm furious. It's just one problem after another. I didn't even touch or go near the CF wires for me to have removed it. So I'm thinking it was the 2nd tech but it went unnoticed till now.

Should I look in myself and bother taking apart the machine a 3rd time or call Dell to do it AGAIN?

 

Call dell dude and get them to fix it! That's what you paid for after all if another issue comes up down the track ask them for a replacement!


Yup Nvidia cards require reboot every time you switch on & off! Only single GPU setups with Optimus can do on the fly switching


Sent from my iPhone4 using Tapatalk

 

Hahaha - personally, I much prefer a matte screen as I dont have to faff around with moving the display in bright light or whatever...much better in dealing with unwanted reflections (even those of yourself!).

I thought you would be suitably impressed!

 

Serious?? I have to reboot all the time when switching from Nvidia 580m SLI to Intergrated GPU. I'm running A05mod Bios, Latest OSD file Version 0.31.0.15

Anyone else have to?

 

Yes everyone has to no matter what GPU cards AMD 69xxs-Nvidia 5xxs it's not Optimus it's using the intragrated GPU on the CPU

 

Yes, everyone has to reboot to switch to IGP on the M18x. This is by design. We asked Louis B. (Lead Engineer, Alienware Mobile Graphics) about this on the last conference call with Dell and on-the-fly graphics switching is not supported by AMD or NVIDIA on dual GPU systems.

It is not as convenient, but there are some distinct advantages to having the two graphic subsystems completely separate, including more flexibility using reference drivers and improved stability. I am actually glad it's this way because performance and stability is a lot more important to me than the convenience. The battery life that is possible on the IGP is an added value nicety that isn't hugely important to me. I seldom use that feature, as high performance gaming is what makes the M18x all that. The only time I even use the IGP is when I am traveling and know I am going to be without access to AC power for an hour or more, which isn't very often.

What I would really prefer to have instead of the IGP and battery life is the ability to run in full performance mode on battery, even if the battery life was cut down to an hour like it was on the M17xR2.

 

Yeah....everyone has to reboot unfortunately - no "on the fly" switching available on any gpu setup for the M18x.....maybe on the R2??

 

Ahhh i thought so. I didn't read mobiousblack post properly

 

hey guys. anyone have any experiance with Corsair Vengance DDR3 1600?
M18x will take 32gb of 1600 ram?

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It is unfortunate that you dropped the M18x, but accidents can happen. It's wonderful that you have the advanced warranty, or you would just be out of luck and left on your own to resolve the issue. Personally, I would always prefer to do it myself over having an irresponsible hired third-party tech messing with my M18x. Taking apart the M18x can be a little bit intimidating the first time, but once you know how to do it this is not a big deal (at least it's not to me). The CrossFire cable is very easy to dislodge by accident. The poor AMD driver support is not a "Dell problem" but I've never known them to be so bad that I was forced into using the IGP. The bad connection on the CrossFire cable (rather than drivers) may be the reason you have been experiencing issues with the 6990M cards. You could also have a bad (or damaged) CrossFire cable. This may relate back to the incompetence of the independent contractor that worked on your machine.

 

I put 16gb(4*4) in on Saturday and its working ok.

 

It should work just fine. It can handle 32GB at 1600. From what I have heard from friends that use it, they said they like it better than the hyperx. It is a little cheaper, and seems to have better latency times. I would go for it. Let us know how it works out for you.

 

Also you need win7 professional or ultimate to use all 32gb

 

thanks fro the replies. just ordered it and the SSDs

 

Just ordered M18x and the 580SLI has increased 200USD,

Intel® Core™ i7 2960XM Overclocked Turbo Boost to 4.0GHz (8MB Cache)
Genuine Windows® 7 Ultimate, 64bit, English
Dual 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 580M – NVIDIA® SLI® Enabled
**Kingston HyperX 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1866MHz (4DIMMS) - 1866MHz Ordered from Amazon
**Intel 520 Series SSD 480GB RAID 0 (2 x Intel 520 Series SATA3 240GB SSD)
Ordered from Newegg
Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader
Killer™ Wireless-N 1103 a/g/n 3x3 MIMO
Internal WirelessHD Technology - FullHD Video Transmitter

 

Save 75 bucks by not getting dell to go into the bios and click one button to "overclock" that is the easiest thing you can do. Honestly, unless you are going to really be overclocking the CPU, don't get an XM chip as the stock speeds are really close to the lower end chips. The "Overclock" AW does is simply just very mild and ups the turbo boost but that is NOT running 4ghz on 4 cores. Typically get the cheapest hard drives and ram and upgrade through newegg but I can't tell if you already did that from your post. At least drop the OC from AW because that is just plain ripoff city! Nice rig nonetheless.

 

Just wanted to say I've had my system for 4months+ and 0 issues with this model .

 

Well Ive owned my system for a few weeks now and im still waiting n dell to send me the correct 330watt ps for it. Was told originally it was being overnight'd to me, then just a few minutes ago they tell me the 330 watt ps are back ordered and wont be in stock till middle of next month? ? And to top it all off, Dell has the 330 watt PS IN STOCK direct on their website, and I confirmed it also with a phone call......... :/

 

Hi there,

Question for the m8x owner with 6990m CF config,

I'm thinking of getting the playstation 3d display, and I notice the ATI HD3D doesn't officially support 6990m or the display...

Anyone here got the ati 3d working on that display or other displays?

Cheers.

 

That's great! I have had mine for 3 weeks. The only problem I have is when I install "Steam" I get multiple bsod's. No problems at all if it's not loaded. Wonder what may be the problem?

 

Never heard of steam causing BSOD's.

 

I've had no problems with steam install (steam running is what I meant). Ran skyrim and dirt 3 with no issues. I've even logged into windows live when playing dirt 3 with no issues.

 

Gonna try a clean reload of Steam and see if it happens again.

 

I suggest using this to figure out exactly whats causing the bluescreen.

Blue screen of death (STOP error) information in dump files.

 

Thanks! I'll definitely check it out.

 

I suggest a fresh install instead of cloning. When moving from an hdd to ssd, cloning software can misalign the drive, resulting in performance loss with the ssd. Can look it up, but in the end, a clean install is always the best. Can even get the alienware tweaks, like the login background wallpaper later.

 

WhoCrashed is an excellent (I think the best) tool for analyzing dump files. You can grab it for free from Resplendence Software - WhoCrashed, automatic crash dump analyzer.

I agree. I've done it both ways and don't recommend cloning from HDD to SSD. It always results in reduced performance based on my experience. Clean install is the way to go with changing from HDD to SSD.

 

Thanks but I figured it out. I ordered mine with the 6200 wireless card and had purchased a Bigfoot Killer 1103 to install myself (cheaper that way). I left the old wireless drivers installed after installing the 1103 drivers. After removing the 6200 drivers the problem has been corrected, no more BSOD's.

 

hello
M18X cd eject button does not work , there is an action if, I have the screen display activates ODS but not eject CD ... Have you encountered this problem? I reinstalled the OSD Application R315150 but nothing changes
thank you for your experience

 

My current M18x came from the factory with Intel 6200 hardware and Killer Wireless drivers installed and it was BSOD city right out of the box. Glad you got it figured out.

 

Try this...

Open Computer and right-click the optical drive icon and select eject.

If that does not work, boot into BIOS and then press the eject button.

 

At first mine worked and if it did not i could click the taskbar to give it focus then press and it worked. Now it dose not work at all, the screen icon shows but i have to use MyComputer-->Eject.

 

That may be the disc you are using. Does this happen with all optical discs?

Sometimes, for reasons I cannot explain, some optical discs don't like to be ejected. They end up with hooks into Windows resources and don't want to let go.

 

Every disk I have used in the last few weeks:

GTA 4, Dirt 3, Saga Rally and disks I have burnt. Think the OSD uses MFC so it could be a windows update that has changed something?

 

Has anyone tried gaming on the battery, if so how long do you roughly get either on a discrete card, two discrete cards or the integrated gpu?

M11x could get 2 hours roughly, looking for comparison before I buy a m18x