*OFFICIAL* M18x R1/R2 Owner's Lounge Thread

StephenChapman,

Funny you should mention DAW. That is one of the reasons I plan to purchase a M18xR2 for as well.

Sonar X1 Producer Edition
Fireface 800

Was thinking
i7-3920XM
32gb ram
680m SLI
Space black to go with my UV777's
But a different drive config

Good luck with your new system Brother

 

Thanks, MonnieRock! Yeah, this i7-3920XM + 32GB RAM config definitely sounds like a killer DAW environment that should last us the rest of ours lives, theoretically. lol. For my software, I've gotten into Reaper over the course of the past year-and-a-half. I used to use Sonar years ago, then moved to Cubase, and now, Reaper.

About 4-5 weeks ago, I purchased a Focusrite Saffire 6 USB interface. These things are absolutely killer -- especially for their low price. Once the ol' M18x gets here, I'm going to get crazy with configs.

I'll add you to the buddy list here so I can keep up with your progress, since we have similar scenarios going here and all. Any kind of time frame on when you'll be looking into picking one of these bad boys up yourself?

 

Yay, guitars! It feels rare to see fellow guitarists nowadays.

I'm jealous of that XM processor. I just couldn't quite swing that extra $500. I am very tempted to pool funds to pick up another Samsung 830 and Raid them, though.

Edit: Also, congratulations on the order Stephen! Now you get to join in on the waiting game.

 

got mine
P4G / [Review] M18X-R2 Sli gtx680m i7 3920xm
i'll post a review in english here if you want

 

Please post some game benchmark.Thx

 

its equal to 7970M's no better no worse

 

Please do... thanks.

Hopefully, without all the malfunction and drama.

 

throttles the 680m in Furmark?

 

Question: are those 3DMark11 scores really with SLI disabled? If so, that is truly amazing.

Edit: never mind... I see on the Futuremark page that it is turned on.

 

nope actually when I took the snapshots of gpu z, I'd just installed the latest beta drivers ... sadly, the SLI is disabled after each driver graphic driver installation, so you have to set it up in the Nvidia control panel, then reboot the computer
(and i didn't take any newer screenshots)

as far as I see, it seems that when overclocking with msi afterburner, only the memory frequency is increasing while benching. the core clock stays stock. hence these " low score" compared to stock clock scores....

 

Did you try any other overclocking software? i.e. nVidia inspector.

 

not yet, do you think nvidia system tools could work ?

 

I'm not sure because i myself had never used a sli or crossfirex system before, but with adequate cooling i see no harm of trying.

 

Who would've thunk so many guitarists would populate the M18x section of the site? hahaha.

Yeah, I can't wait to put this thing to the test and see how it performs! It's exciting being one of the first bunch to try the 680M GPUs in SLI mode, but I definitely see some trial and error in my future until NVIDIA gets their drivers to a certain point. Looks like there's a lot for NVIDIA to improve on, based on the one and only review I've been able to find from someone who received theirs already:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-got-yours-where-single-review-benchmark.html

Samsung 830 RAID sounds fantastic, BTW! Good luck with that, should you decide to go that route.

As for the waiting game... yeah, lol. In the mean time, I'm making lists of things to do, backing up stuff from other computers to transfer to it (especially local game save info!), etc. I think once I get it, I'm going to benchmark the crap out of it and document everything. Here are my initial plans, which I eventually plan to create a dedicated thread to:

1: Run initial OOTB benchmarks, noting driver versions, etc.
2: Upgrade to latest stable drivers (if available), then rerun benchmarks.
3: Do a complete tear-down of the system while taking high-res pictures and filming every step of the way! During this process, I'd change out my RAM, add my mSATA SSD and regular SSD, replace the DVD-RW with the Blu-ray drive, re-paste the CPU and GPUs with Prolimatech PK-1, and finally, replace the thermal pads around the GPUs.
4: Barring any unforeseen show-stoppers (I'm slightly concerned by what some people are reporting about their RAM), I'll rerun benchmarks and see what changes have occurred.

To note, before I do any re-pasting or pre-padding, I want to try to find out which products Dell uses. I'd like to think that Dell uses something significantly better for the M18x than the standard goop, but something tells me they don't...

 

Dell's factory applied TIM is actually pretty damn good. Depending on how well its applied I guess but it was discussed on one of the conference calls we had with Louis Bruno (Lead Alienware Graphics Engineer) and it came to light that the stuff they use is of very high quality and longevity. I'm personally still on factory TIM for gpu and cpu and have zero problems....maybe aftermarket TIM would reduce the temps by a few degrees but then you are into the rigmoral of changing it alot more often.....try it out first before repasting - you might be suprised!

 

Very cool, man. That's exactly what I was wondering about. Good to know! I'm going to have to take mine apart once I receive it (so that I can slap in all the RAM, the mSATA, etc.), so I was just going to do any re-pasting at that point in time. But, like you said, the whole thing of having to re-paste another time or two is something I'd rather not have to deal with.

Thanks for the good info!

 

Drummer reporting in... the party's over!

 

No, no... the party's just begun! 3 guitarists and a drummer... look out! lol.

I'm going to assume by your username that you're a Primus fan? Sailing the Seas of Cheese is definitely my overall favorite Primus album!

 

Picked up the nickname when Suck on This! came out

 

Yes use Nvidia Inspector, you should be able to adjust the shader values, and shortly you should be able to flash the cards with a higher voltage .ROM which will allow you to get away with higher values.

Correct me if Im wrong but one of the reasons AMD produces stellar bench scores is that they are running hotter, at a higher voltage, than Nvidia does from the factory.

Upping the voltage from .87 to .92 V allowed me to increase my Vantage GPU benches from 27k to almost 31k as I could get away with higher memory and shader values on my 580 SLI equipped R1. And the increase in operating temperatures was marginal, they mostly stayed below 75 C at .92V.

Properly clocked these cards should outperform AMD's latest offering.

 

Jam session, anyone?

As Stevie said, the paste coming in the Alienware systems is good stuff. Since you plan on benchmarking and etc out of the box, I would just monitor your temps and see how they are. If everything is running smooth, just leave it. If it ain't broke...

 

Short version of the story 47days.

I have had 4 repairs

2 times motherboard
1 Main Graphicscard + heatsinc
1 LCD
2 times lcd cable
1 Mediapanel

I have the problem with 8 beeps on startup, and Dell/Alienware refuses to give me a swap becauuse iam not in the country i bought it. So people what can i do next to have a working system?

 

If they are offering warranty now They totally can swap it and are just playing games keep pushing!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Iam pushing it, but they dont agree on it, they want to have it to their service station for 10 more days.

 

If they have attempted to fix three times without success, I believe you are within your rights to ask for a swap. Warranty is International or at the very least it is transferable so thats a bunch of crap right there.....

 

They say that only the service contract get transferred the legal rights to swap remains in the country where the laptop is bought:-(

 

So I've been playing a free First Person Shooter called Blacklight Retribution. I pull over a 100 frames per second and edited this video with my beast. First video Ive ever edited like this! : )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egPKzPiK0yk

 

i believe dell offer repair parts instead of sending out a tech, but again if you are uncomfortable disassemble it yourself then you might as well wait for a tech. never ever sends it back to them thats the worst thing you can do and its the last resort.

tell them, the warranty clearly states INHOME services and thats the service you will get, be firm and polite and make sure you are FIRM and STAND your ground. dont make assumption talk such as "i assume" or "i think" or "i thought". straight out say, this is what it says in the warranty and i would like to have this right away.

and iirc, transfer should have no problem the same goes with warranty. machine bought in the states or in canada they can send tech out.

hey mr fox, about m18x R2 i know you have the R1 but thought you might know. after reading this article Ask the Experts: Do I need a motherboard with dual x16, or dual x8 PCIe slots for SLI GeForce GTX 560's? :: TweakTown USA Edition regards to x16/x8 for graphic bandwidth pcie, im curious what R2 uses if its x8 or x16 speed.

after reading that article in the comments section it seems x8 will bottleneck on the latest games on ultra settings so that kinda sux.

 

How in the world have I never heard of that game before??? Looks awesome, man! What did you use to record in-game footage? Also, which video editing software do you use? You did a good job with the transitions, etc.

 

Well, I have had my M18x since December 2011. March it went down with a power issue. Dell could not determine what was wrong except that it was a known issue. They replaced it. It took a month for me to get my replacement. Now it is July, and my 580m cards need replacement. I will say this. The customer service are top notch. Very nice and empathetic. But seriously, twice in 8 months. Bought a Asus ROG with a 560m card in March, and it has never had a problem. Is there anyway I can return or sell this. They will send a tech to replace the 580m cards around August 8 due to back order, or this week to 560m or amd 6990 xfire. They said that the newer cards are not compatible. Anyone know if this is true. Ty.

 

Kur0, I have an idea, why don't you send your computer to someone in the U.S. (I am assuming you initially purchased here) and then negotiate not simply a system exchange, as that is standard Dell protocol after 3 attempts to resolve a particular hardware issue, but ask for a full refund that will go towards the purchase of a new M18x R2. That is what I did, as I explained at the bottom of page 1 of this thread.

If you need someone to send it too, you could send it to me.

Sgt. Psych, I feel your pain, I thought that the 580 cards would last quite a while but they failed in a few months time. Now to be fair the system was a refurbished unit, but it really did appear to be a brand new unit and it pulled strong benching scores (30k 3dMarkVantage), I was dismayed when one of the GPU's failed, I was in disbelief, especially after only 3 months of ownership.

Dell needs to improve the durability of their products or they are going to lose their customer base, this hardware is too expensive to not have high quality, durable components with long lifetimes.

 

what are you talking about. asus rog is asus rog, dell alienware is dell. your graphics card going bad is nvidia has nothing to do with laptop company. just as you said, you used for about 8 months and nothing happened, so obviously dell checked your computer 8 months AGO finds nothing wrong with your graphics card. this is a problem with nvidia and Asus rog has its integrated 560m but in the end it is still nvidia.

regards to power issue, they said its a known issue but look at how many people on this thread and the previous owner lounge and how many times the power issue has been mentioned. imo you are just unlucky getting bad parts and all, happens to everyone else, giving up and selling off your machine would be the worst thing to do.

not to mention my original unit had issues with graphics card, beep at start of bios. having issue with adjusting brightness and that actually maybe due to hwinfo. had problems with my keyboard top row keys gets stuck on the first day. had problem with the plastic bent and had to replace keyboard holder. called up on dell and i had their tech come out about 3 times for the 5 issues in just a month and half. just don't give up, and hopefully you get yourself 3-4 years warranty and just go along with 580m having most games maxed out =).

 

Thanks for the insight guys. Yes it is frustating, but seeing i am not alone brings hope. I called Dell and left a message that I am going to wait for the 580m cards to be back in stock so i can have mine replaced. Got 3 years or so left on the warranty, so its just an inconvienience issue now.

 

Hey guys, I've been looking at gaming laptops for a while now. I have a 6 years old custom desktop which was top of the line back then, but now not so much! I really like the "portability" (not to carry around every day but to be able to move from place to place with relative ease) of a laptop. This is why I decided to go with a new laptop rather then replacing almost every component of my desktop.

Originally I was really turned off by Alienware because of what I heard from friends and others so I was looking at the Clevo/Sager products but after reading a lot of the post on this forum it seems that the build quality of the M18x is quite outstanding! The only thing I preferred about the Clevo/Sager was that the GPUs + CPU were readily accessible...

The configuration I am aiming for is:

3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3920XM

16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz

500GB 7,200 RPM SATA 3Gb/s (I will order 2 Intel 520 480Gb SSD from Newegg, set them up as RAID 0 in the 2 SATA 3 slots and reinstall Windows on them. I will put the 500Gb HDD on the SATA 2 slot and use for music/movies. IF THIS HARD DRIVE CONFIGURATION IS NOT POSSIBLE PLEASE LET ME KNOW! Thanks!)

Dual 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 680M - SLI® Enabled

Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW)

I've been saving money from my internship this summer so I'll pull the trigger soon!

 

go on brother, with that configuration you will be more then happy

 

Ok. So, I'm looking at mid Sept for my big purchase. Been pricing out machines and I need convincing why I should go for the M18x over the m17x. I like the 3 HDD bays and the larger display. I don't know if i necessarily need SLI graphics, as I don't play the war/battle type games. I like Batman and Mass Effect, but will never play things like Battlefield, Crysis, Metro 2033 and stuff.

I'm sure that the 680m single will be able to handle ME3 on full settings AND the m17x config I'm looking would run $900 less than the m18x I'm gunnin for. Sooo... since I could use that $900 for sweet hardware upgrades, should I just go for the m17x? Any good reasons to go all out?

Thanks for your input.

 

Damn. Dell is having a free upgrade to 24GB RAM promotion, three days after I ordered mine! I guess it's one of those things, where the product will always get better and cheaper the minute you buy yours. That's technology..

 

You can go M18xR2 and not "go all out". Seems like you're making compromises with yourself and boxing yourself into getting a M17x. The problem with that is the M17x is less of a system than a M18x in more ways than just graphics. Consider you'll have the system for many years. The M18x is far more upgradable than the M17x. The build quality of the M18x is also better.

I'm sure many others here would agree that there are ways of getting into an M18x and still stay within your budget. You could go with a single 7970M and save big $$$. Or, since your still a couple months away from making a purchase, keep an eye on the Outlet and sales and I guarantee you can pick up your dream 18x for much less than new, and you get the same warranty! I picked up a $3500 M18x for $1500 at the Outlet during a sale. The deals are there, you just need to have good timing, and check often. Sign up for the Outlet emails so you know when the sales are.

I think since you have the money for an M18x, you'd be unhappy in the future if you chose an M17x.

Go Big or GO HOME!

 

My original order was indeed for a single 660M, however my new order is for a 680M single unit. I just could not justify putting $500 extra dollars into my system just to run SLI when one 680M will be more than enough to do what I need it to do until I can afford to add the second 680M. I am afraid I would have trouble posting any type of benchmarks even if I did them, as I am not very familiar with how to do any of that...However, my second system is in process with an EDD of the 3rd of August, so I am excited to see how much of an improvement I will notice with my new system once I receive it! I am very happy with this system so far, so I can only imagine how impressed I will be with my new system!

---

Moderator Note: thread closed... please use an existing thread for established discussions. Order Status Thread, Owner's Lounge, and Benchmark Thread would have fit here. This is not facebook or twitter. Please do not start new discussions on existing topics where an established thread exists.

 

Hello everyone,

my M18X R2 was delivered on the 13th of July and I have had some time to play with it so I thought I would share my thoughts with everyone. I have been able to play Assassin's Creed II, Tera, BF3 and a few other games so far and they have all handled themselves very well considering I am using the 660M graphics card. I have been able to keep a steady 30-40+ FPS in all of my games, even under the highest graphics settings. Boot times have been great (about 25-30 seconds hard boot and around 50 seconds reboot), and I haven't noticed any temperature problems when playing for prolonged times (I have been using a cooling pad though). I would keep this system, but there is a problem with the period key being unresponsive and sticking every once and awhile, and I am looking for a little better response time graphics wise. For all those reasons I have decided to return this system and reorder with the following specs:



From:

1. Processor: 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3610QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.3GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)
2. Hard Drive: 750GB 7,200 RPM SATA 3Gb/s
3. Video Card: 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660M
4. Operating System: Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
5 Wireless Networking: Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 2230 With Bluetooth 4.0
6. Hardware Support Services: 2 Year Basic Plan

To:

1. Processor: 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3720QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.6GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)
2. Hard Drive: 500GB 7,200 RPM + 32GB mSATA Caching SSD
3. Video Card: 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 680M
4 Operating System: Windows® 7 Professional, 64bit
5. Wireless Networking: Killer™ Wireless-N 1103 a/g/n 3x3 MIMO for Gaming & Video and Bluetooth 4.0
6. Hardware Support Services: 2 Year Advanced Plan

I'm hoping these changes will give me a faster and more responsive system. The total cost of this system will be right at $3,000 dollars with no tax or shipping costs. I have been told the EDD is around the 7th of August, but we will see given all the problems everyone else ordering the 680M's have been having.

 

No hat, sticker, or nice, bound manual. I kinda figured that I'd still get the extras after spending over $3,000 on a new laptop...

 

Not anymore all you get it the mousepad which is nice.

 

Well, I threw the sticker away and gave the hat to some kid along with the mouse pad. The only good thing about all the crap that came with R1 was the manual... because I could 'scavenge' the metal alien head from its cover and use it for a little AW DYI project I am working on (details soon enough), so I am not going to mind when my R2 comes 'clean'.

BTW, talking accessories, too bad Alienware doesn't sell AlienArmor suitcases anymore. They looked really good and seemed sturdy enough.

 

You can actually remove that plastic Alien head from behind the screen? I thought it was part of the system and removing it would cause problems. It would be nice to not have it there as it does not look professional to me; looks like something a high school kid would have.

 

NO. Please don't try to remove it, unless you really want to modify it, or you will damage your system.

It isn't a sticker, it's part of the lid. The sticker they are referencing used to come in the M18x R1 box, along with the hat, and leather bound manual.

 

I have my M18xR1 for a DAW but unfortunately the latency this machine has rendered that useless! Just a small headsup hopefully the R2 will be better in that regard. Would like to hear your progress once all setup and maybe pics with lacencymon


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Did you get the mouse pad?

 

how to remove the window/ intel sticker?

 

Try to get your fingernail under the corner and work your way around the sticker, then peel up very slowly. That's how I did it, at least, and stuck them on the bottom. No residue left behind, and the stickers weren't damaged.

 

I was under the impression that these stickers were placed at the bottom side of the unit. Or at least, mine did.