Alienware M17 *OFFICIAL* Owner's Lounge *PART 2*

The previous M17 owner's thread was getting too large for the forum search to handle, so this is part 2.

Original M17 Owner's Thread

Official NotebookReview.com OCZ Whitebook (Alienware M17) Review

Remember to keep all comments/discussion related to the M17. If you have something else to add (comments about someone's avatar and other trivial things), then go to the Side Topics forum.

 

thanks chaz.
hi m17/whitebook owners

 

my m17 is scheduled to arrive on wednesday!

 

what's your specs?

 

a little late to the game?
ha jk!
its a great machine...
i had one.

 

Herro fellow M17 members.

 

oh a new thread

Hiho m17 rocks

Greetings
Julian

 

Whoa, a Julian Sighting....

 

dual 3870s
c2d p8600 2.4ghz
4gb ddr3 1066mhz
320gb 7200rpm 16mb cache
1920x1200 lcd

 

you are right

Hey to get the discussion roling again

How long will the m17 still surwive?

Greetings
Julian

 

Well xoticpc is still selling the Arima/Flextronics version, and Alienware is still selling the M17 as Recertified. the 3870's are still going strong with even Batman grovelling to their power. I plan to keep mine for at least a good year or two.

 

a long time ;p hopefully in the future game will have a more optimised engine then crysis did so it might last quite a bit

 

yeah the M17 rocks.....I love it!

but lets get those 4850s guys.

 

This thing is going to last me 3 years, and no matter what comes out I won't need better graphics until then really. This is considering my beast handles Crysis on High @ 1440x900 quite smoothly indeed-it's not going to get much better than that and Crysis was poorly optimised for Multi-GPU situations anyway.

I really am in love with my machine. (Not literally, lol) It performs just as well as I want it to. I'm only adding the RAM and SSD hopefully because 1. I really need more than 2GB of RAM and 2. I'm impatient. I hate long loading times. Lol

The funny thing is despite how 'old' this machine is, if the 4850s were produced properly for it and supplied to us then it'd match the best laptops out there today. It'd appear though that this isn't going to happen, unfortunately.

 

its funny how much better my M17 performs now from when I bought it.....Ive only upgraded the processor from T9600 to X9100 and installed a G-skill SSD......I think Catalyst has improved a lot as well.
I think the 4Gb of RAM would make a noticeable improvement to your M17 Evil, and the SSD does certainly speed up game load times.

@quadzilla.....thanks for the response in the previous M17 thread.

 

i'ts in my plan to maybe 2 ssd in raid and a qx9300 and a coler cause with thoses the speed would almost be equal to heat XD

 

I added a second HDD and it's a nice feeling to have raid 0

Feels faster

Greetings
Julian

 

Any 3rd part release for 4850s? ASImobile? The barebones sellers like RJtech.com haven't lowered their prices like AW...

 

M17's starting at $699...10 days left...
http://www.alienware.com/products/recertified-systems.aspx

Just for kicks I reconfigured my rig and it came out to $1999. Smokin' deal if you ask me.

 

are u kidding me? my alienware is scheduled to be delivered today, if i only waited one more week..

 

Selling my like new M17. Check it on Ebay or the NBR marketplace.

 

What are you looking to replace it with?
Good luck on the sale, that's a very nice rig.

 

Welp, I was messing around and oc'd my cpu to 3.5 and got 15999 in 06. I'll mess around and see what I can get with Vantage

 

how are you liking the 4850s now frozen guy???

are they a massive improvement over the 3870s? I always blamed my 3870s for poor game performance but since installing the X9100 and SSD they really are kicking butt.
I dont think I would be able to stick with them for another year or more.

 

Just got my Alienware M17 via FedEx today! I ordered the 160gb hard drive, and when i opened it up to put my 320gb drive in, i noticed they used a 250gb drive...didnt really affect me, but thats nice i guess.

 

Well its got two HDD slots, so enjoy the extra 410GB lol.

 

yeah i just wanted to use a big hard drive as my primary drive, but the extra upgrade is nice.

 

I'm curious, when you order with just one 3870, does the laptop still come with a second heatsink in case you ever get a second 3870?

 

actualy the heatsick is made so it covers both card so unless they got a special heatsink that don't for single card option it shall come with it

 

Is it possible to run 3 monitors off this rig? Meaning, my two externals and the laptop monitor... Also, I figure that if I don't leave it open every now and then I may have heating issues. True?

 

You'd need a matrox switch to run more then one external monitor. Closing the lid won't have a significant effect on temperatures.

 

I am already running two external monitors. Just wondering if it's possible to open up the laptop and use its monitor as well.

 

The current drivers only support two monitors, be it two external or laptop and one external. With a matrox switch you can use more then two.

 

what is the exact wireless n card that fits the m17 i'm planing on the upgrade but when i search it gives 5300 mini and normal so i don,t whitch one to get

 

its the mini card as in;

INTEL SHIRLEY PEAK 3X3 AGN FULL MINI-CARD

 

Hey all,

Just a quick question - how is the 1440x900 display on the 17" screen of the M17x? Is that sufficiently high so that things don't look MASSIVE on your desktop etc..?

Thanks!

 

So let's talk Windows 7. How does it run on this rig? I am currently running Vista Ultimate 64-bit. Should I upgrade? If so, which version do you guys suggest? After looking over the different versions, it doesn't appear that W7 Ultimate has the same appeal as Vista Ultimate.

 

It's awesome and it runs really well on M17..I'm using Windows 7 Professional Edition that I got for free from my University. The only trouble that I had is the driver auto installation/detect feature that seriously screwed up my update to the newest driver from AMD's website.

 

I'm using one and the 1440x900 display on 17" screen is quite good actually. Of course you will lose some screen estate and thus have to scroll more when viewing web pages or doing some long documents. Apart from that, it is good for movies and especially games since it will run smoother. Just my opinions.

 

Has anyone heard anything regarding Microsoft manning up for Vista Ultimate users? I sure don't want to go out and purchase an upgrade, just for those idiots to reduce the price two weeks later... When I received my M17, two weeks later AW starting packaging free Windows 7 upgrades and told me "too bad".

 

Hey, does anyone know what the difference between Windows 7 Home Premium or whatever it is and Ultimate? I'm wondering which one I'll be getting later down the line, seeming as it's £100 more for the ultimate (upgrade) I'm wondering if it's worth it.

 

I think there's a guide posted for different version of windows 7 at the main page of notebookreview

 

Here is the link: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=5300&review=Windows+7+A+Guide+to+the+Editions

 

Anyone run the new 9.10 vid driver yet? How is it?

 

If you don't need bitlocker drive encryption and I think it is definitely not recommended for SSD's then there is no need for Ultimate. I think there may be a couple more features in Ultimate you might want to check on but they are not relevant for most users.

If security is a concern then Ultimates bitlocker is the way to go. Does Dells BIOS support TPM key? If it doesn't then don't use the USB key method--it'll bite you eventually.

 

Hey, I just got that Dell Express Card Travel Remote thing today and I can't get it to work..I have installed the CIR infrared drivers on the laptop yet I get no control in Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center...I am using Windows 7 64-bit.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

i do actualy

i don't see much dif from 9.9 in gaming or frame rates the main diff i see is that open gl run much smoother but again frame rates are not better just it's more stable

 

Does it run better than Vista? How is it with resources? I read that it frees up some of them and doesn't hog memory. Is any of this true?

 

Wrong Owners lounge airplaneman.

 

Thanks for that. I think I'll stick with Home Premium then especially as the upgrade disk is just a little over £60 off Amazon.