*OFFICIAL* M18x Owner's Lounge Thread

It is very dumb but probably makes them a lot of money....so we all know how that works

 

Hehehe - im hoping POS is point of sale and not peice of ........

 

LOL, I was thinking the same when writing it. However its point of sale

My new specs (same as old but plus the 4 years of warranty and WiHD)

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Intel® Core™ i7 2820QM
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz (2DIMMS)
Dual 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon™ HD 6970M - AMD CrossFireX™
320GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s
Intel® Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 a/b/g/n 3x3 MIMO Technology and Bluetooth 3.0
Internal 60GHz WirelessHD Transmitter and VIZIO XWH200 Universal Wireless HD Video and Audio Kit
Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW)
Internal High-Definition 5.1 Surround Sound Audio
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Just need to wait awhile till it gets put back in the DPA so I can order again...

 

Good deal that fella.....agreed my replacement today (well, refund and my new order).... Wont bang on about it too much but suffice to say that there were no offers of any variety on any upgrades of any kind for me! - no shock there as if you are in the UK, they hand out NOTHING - tight sods.....although I tried my hardest.....

I tweaked a bit, changed up to Win 7 Pro, ditched the momentus XT in favour of a standard 750gb HDD and, well, cpu wise...in the UK now, you can only configure with a factory OC'd xm (if you want an xm, that is)...so I kept that the same but HAD to go Factory OC'd....which actually was no extra ££££ over the original cpu i ordered with which was just normal 2920xm.

All in all, more or less the same....my tweaks....a few quid more but what the heck......just hoping its right this time around.....lucky number 7 and all that

 

For those with Wireless HD, do you use the 6970 Xfire or the integrated GPU? For some reason I could only get the sound to work with the integrated GPU. Also, I thought I could watch a movie on the TV and do something else on my laptop? If so, how do I get that to work?

 

i killed my card just now. red and pink flickering all over my games. just called dell and they will send a technician over to replace it :/

 

And how did you do that?! vbios flashing or just overheating?

 

Sounds like you overclocked the memory too far.

 

no. it was stock. the cards must have been too stressed from the previous OCing. but the cards are still usable. it only happens when i turn the pc on after a complete shut down for 30mins. crossfirex was disabled too and will only pop back up when i restart the system.

no worries. at least i could still play games.

 

I'm curious about this too. Also, what WirelessHD receiver are you using?

 

yikes, didnt think these cards would be that fragile, you must have pushed them really hard. I've relaxed my overclock just a bit to guarantee a decent life.

 

This is by far the best laptop I've ever owned, guys! Bringing it to work every day in my 17" Orion (very tight fit but have no choice, the 18" Orion is backordered in Canada). Managed to squeeze 5.5hrs of browsing from the battery

 

yea. i thought AMDs were tough. but im looking forward to E3 when AW unveils couple of new cards like the 560 and the 580.

dude. since we are like 2 hours away from each other. lets meet up sometime.

 

Man, this is the first AW I have ever owned. I'm having little quirks that are ticking me off. Sometimes it won't recognize that it's plugged into the AC power. Sometimes it'll freeze up in AW Command Center. Sometimes changing the OC at all in trixx will cause a lockup. In games, I notice a stutter every 10-15 seconds if not an outright screen tear. I even went so far as to un-raiding my drives and doing a fresh install using the guide on the AW forums. So far the issues aren't as bad but still there. I'm still on stock drivers from dell for everything since this machine is so new. Before I did a clean install I tried installing the newest catalyst drivers, 11.5b and that was just a huge mess... It's also my first dual gpu systems so are these normal issues when gaming? I have yet to have that "buttery smooth" experience for more than.. oh.. 10 seconds lol Thanks for the help everyone!

 

I have the vizio from Dell...

 

Great idea! Are you coming to Calgary during the Stampede this year? Anyway, we can discuss this via email/PM.

Run DPCLat Checker in the background and see if the stuttering is related to red spikes. If yes, you can start disabling devices in the device manager (bluetooth, Wifi, etc) and see which one is causing the spikes. When you find the culprit, try updating/re-installing the drivers.
Hope this helps.

Generally, don't worry about the quirks, it's totally normal for high-end systems. It takes time to learn your beast at tune it up to your needs.

 

Thanks for the swift reply Aikimox. I appreciate it! I'll try out that program and hopefully catch the culprit!

 

Good luck and keep us posted! I'm very curious to know what's causing the stuttering. On my system I had to disable bluetooth (never use it anyway) to get rid of all of the red spikes and the idle latency dropped to under 200µs which is amazing.

 

Thanx. For all the information...Sweet...Now I can reconfigure my M18x to fit my budget. Thanx for all the links. I'll keep those in mind

Thanx . I just wanted to get the cheapest SSD just for operating system and a few other programs...I'll replace it with my own hdd for more space .

 

I've used it over both with no probs. You may want to try using a regular HDMI cable just to make sure it's not your sound system before going any farther. If it's not that then it could be a number of things. I would start with making sure the sound software is installed and outputting properly. As for the dual screen thing you'll need to use the FN+F6 key to go into extended desktop mode. Just cycle through and you'll find the setting.

 

You know, I just gotta say... When the M17x first came out, it was wrought with problems, so much so that they pretty much gave up on it, and brought out the R2 early... which had it's own problems for awhile.

I have yet to have a single problem with this M18x. I'm not saying there aren't any, but still... I'm seeing problems in the forums, but nothing like the first month or so of each iteration of the M17x. The build quality of this thing doesn't even compare to it's predecessor. I'm very happy, so far.

I just wish I'd gotten the Orion backpack, instead of the messenger bag. I don't know what the hell I was thinking.

 

I made a mini "how to" for people with issues installing memory on the m18x.

Enjoy

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/583324-ram-upgrade-m18x-pics.html

 

Yeah, a messenger bag for a 5kg+ laptop is not the best choice for the shoulders/lower back. I learned the lesson 10 years ago. Only backpacks ever since, screw the looks

 

Wait until your speakers stop working, then you will have something to complain about

 

2 1/2 q's:

1. what are ya'll doing to protect the soft rubber infront of keyboard from oils, dust, dirt, etc? for the r2's plastic, a quick wipe is all that is required. but the m18x rubber coat is like the g73jw's coat which was a dust, oil magnet.

2. if u have hd wireless transmitter, is the widi disabled or won't work? anyone who opted out of hd wireless transmitter bcuz widi is already built in, wish they had opted for hd wireless transmitter?

comment - other than 1200p rgb, didn't realize power adaptor didn't have the led light where u plug directly into laptop.

 

That is a great help! Thank you, Smooth J!

 

I have been trying to add mine since last week with no luck. It gets to the point where the website is trying to examine my M18x and it the little thing just spins. I let it go for a while thinking it may take a bit, but no luck. I have tried to input it myself, but it keeps saying I need to enter a valid service tag.

 

I had to email my customer service rep, he took care of it for me and all works now.

 

Well Aikimox it was my bluetooth adapter as well. Disabled it in BIOS and the stuttering is pretty much gone. Weird.

 

I would like to know people's opinions on question #1 as well! I can already tell where my palms sit on the palmrest if I look at it from a couple diff angles. lol

 

The 18" Orion is finally in stock in Canada, ordered mine today! Got 15$ off

You can try updating the bluetooth driver.


On a side note, I'm still having the occasional disappearances of aero. weird...

 

Yep, I get that as well Aikimox. To me.. it seems like a lot of issues are when it wakes up from sleep and hibernate. Sometimes it wont recognize the AC adapter is plugged in... and I have to reboot. Aero will sometimes disappear. It's a quirky little machine. lol

Also, Youll love that 18" Orion backpack. I DO! Very comfortable considering the weight you will have on your back.

 

I have also been noticing the Aero coming and going. I never do anything but shut down/restart though. I blame the video card drivers

 

I've seen the Aero issue a few times too, and I have the nVidia cards, so... What are the odds that BOTH video drivers are messed up?

 

My aero comes and goes as well on a fresh install. Must be the drivers.

 

If it is happening to nvidia and ATI owners that just leaves one culprit in my mind.....Intel drivers

 

Another one for noticing Aero doesnt always work.....

 

Quick question, how would intel drivers be the culprit if the igpu is not on? Also, I have found no way of reactivating aero without a restart when it does do it's little disappearing act.

 

Just because the hardware is not being used does not mean the drivers are not present and active. Has anyone tried using QuickSync while using the discretes? If it is accessible that would indicate to me that the Intel drivers are a possible cuplrit.

Think about it, we are seeing it on both nvidia and ati cards, and Windows 7 is not special when loaded on the M18x......maybe a power related setting (check Alienware Command Center and fusion?) but more likely GPU/driver related and the only commonality is the Intel iGPU

 

She finally landed yesterday. I slept 3 hours last night and worked my socks off at home in-between getting everything up to speed.

It's my first Alienware and the build quality is amazing. The colour is really cool too. I just loved the packaging, apple eat your heart out.

I popped it open and switched in an ocz vertex 3 max iops 120gb which sits alongside a seagate 750gb.

Ive had a few short freezes since booting but then there are alot of updates - quite surprised win7 sp1 isn't already installed. I created recovery discs but couldn't use to fit the ssd drive - so no respawn. The recovery discs did the job - oddly the command centre software was in the mouse box.

For info the command centre on that disc doesn't list the m18x - and it dint work well. The version on the dell support site works just fine though.


The sound is awesome and despite being worried about the screen it's nice and bright, clear and has good viewing angles. I've calibrated too which improves on it. Rgb may be better, but it's good for me - I always have the option of an external screen. The screen isn't a worry.

I bought the mouse and headphones which are great too - and the bag, although my first one had a ripped laptop insert so I exchanged and hey sent me 2!

Btw I went with the 2920, 8th 1666mhz, xfire and black.

Still installing my steam collection...have to go to London for the weekend, so it's going to be a late Sunday night when I get back to myM18x!

 

Congrats man! I had to get the command center from Dell's site as well. Ya I noticed on the Win 7 updates.. sp1 is nearly the last thing it will download and install. It should be the first!

 

Quick one for you guys.....do any of you get a quirky little "rattle" noise before your gpu fans kick in?...when i say rattle, i dont mean in the sense that something is actually rattling about....its kind of like a little jongle right before either of the fans kick in.....best way i can describe it is like shaking a few dice in a cup......(and no, im not a member of gamblers anonymous lol)

Its quite faint but audible from the left rear on my system.......

 

I had that happen on my R2 the fan on the left side would always sound a bit off (like what you are describing) when it kicked in so I had them replace it and it fixed the issue.

 

Cheers mate. I dunno if its a dodgy left side gpu fan but the whole system is getting returned and a new one is on order....

Just wondered wether or not it was a normal thing on the M18x....its def only when the fans kick in....my R2 was silent as the fans engaged - this system likes to "sing a little jingle" to let me know they are about to!

 

Finally got home and i can open my M18x, everything is good except there is a rattle inside. Tomorrow ill open her up to see if i can get it out.... Kinda bummed my $2700 laptop has a loose screw

 

Count me as another with the Aero bug. It only happens when Windows boots and restart almost always fixes it but it would be nice to get that cleaned up.

 

Good to know it's not an isolated issue but rather a common driver bug. I'm sure it's gonna be fixed at some point.

 

Mine arrived with one loose screw as well. Not a huge surprise, lol

 

When i run furmark gpu 2 does get significantly warmer than gpu 1 12 degrees hotter, but what i noticed in gpuz was that the fan rpm for gpu1 max out at 300 however my fan on gpu2 maxes out at 95 RPM can anyone else confirm that gpu 2's fan is slower or is mine just messed up?

 

I don't think you can trust the gpu fan readings in GPU-Z. Most likely one of the heatsinks has poor contact with the card.