The Official Area-51 m15x Owners Lounge II

They do care. Notebooks are a lot different than desktops. You can change the RAM and harddrive and that's pretty much it. But, putting a new cooling system in. Nope. You can't do that. You can buy a notebook cooler though.

 

In the thread which alienware Frank posted in, he said that alienware were investigating the issues with the cracked chasses and downclocking/overheating issues. Is alienware only investigating this in the US, as I ordered an m15x on the 24/02/08. It would be rather worrying if the investigation was only occuring in the US, which would mean when the UK versions come, they will be littered with issues like these.

 

A bit from Laptop who did the review, they did a follow-up:

http://blog.laptopmag.com/alienware-m15x-crack-explained

 

This kind of bothers me the way that the website downplayed the cracking or gap issues, "if you pound your fist on the chassis after a frag." Maybe if you dont pick up the laptop with perfect weight distribution with both hands is the more likely answer. This chassis is very flexy. Also, AW's response is so PR. I am glad they are responding, don't get me wrong. However it is obvious to us here that there are very few reported problems because who really takes their notebook home and installs rivatuner, configures it properly and then benchmarks for hours analyzing game performance? Heck, only a FEW members on these forums have done so!

The reality is that EVERYONE with an 8800GTX who HAS benchmarked has had an issue with the temps and downclocking. Every last one. Some more severe than others. Why this reviewing website doesn't at least mention something like what I just did...irks me.

 

They are paid to say nice things about it... Probably they were given the laptop!!!

 

i played a dvd, stopped it (via safely remove hardware), removed the drive, popped in the battery, let it run on battery for a while, let it charge back up again, put the drive back back in, and played some more of the dvd. the software even remembered where i was in the movie. then i burned some data to a blank dvd. no problems..

are you not "safely removing" the drive before you physically remove it?

 

If you feel that way post your responses and let them know how you feel. Most of our responses probably wont even go through considering the comments are moderated.. but oh well - worth a try.

 

This dude doesnt probably know how to run it with rivatuner to test the overheat issues at all. As far as the cracking issue is concerned he probably had the unit for less then a week, he should simulate opening and closing the lid for about 3 weeks worth and see what developes!

 

i love/hate how the title is "Alienware m15x Crack Explained"

The only attempt to "explain" seems more of a rash assumption that all m15x owners who have cracks beat their system that they paid $3-5k for...

I guess he's implying that those with cracked cases are all rich, ill-tempered noobs who keeps getting pwned... and all have this funny habit of hitting the upper left side. it was an epiphany in a night of gaming.

 

i just got back from the fedex kinkos. i had to mail it to texas. i know the downclocking probably issue cant be fixed by them, at this time im just going to play along with alienware, and "honer the warranty", so i cant get ALL my money back.

 

Most m15x owners will not notice the downclocking just playing a game. You really have to monitor it carefully. Just playing a game for 4 hours, won't do the trick. And overheating is totally different from downclocking, IMO.

 

I don't safely remove the battery. I guess I never thought about safely removing the battery... Like I said, it doesn't do this all the time so maybe I didn't safely remove the drive every time, (although I think I did)

 

Yay, my M15x is in Phase 8, it was in Phase 5 on Tuesday. I wonder how the quality check looks like in Alienware.

 

I'm the author of the Laptop Magazine review. I'm open for any and all ideas you guys want tested on the m15x and I'll post straight up and legitimate results. Honestly, though,we just haven't had any trouble with our unit yet.

 

I'll forward your post to Chaz.

 

Hi Todd and welcome to the forums.
Try downloading ATI Tool and running the renderer while monitoring the GPU's temperatures with a program like Nvidia's nTune or GPU-Z. Preferably run them both. With my review unit, the temperature slowly climbed to 90*C, then the video card downclocked because of that until the temperature reached acceptable temperatures and it clocked back up.

I'm getting a new review unit and according to what you and I were told by Alienware, it should not have the same problem.

 

Thank you Todd, for coming to the forums! To add to what Chaz said, Rivatuner's hardware monitoring feature is also great to use in conjuction with the other programs he listed.

 

Hi Chaz,
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll definitely try to jump on that tonight or tomorrow morning and get a post up on our site with the results. If we see the same issues we may need to call in a new unit as well. Thanks for kind the welcome to your forums.

Todd

 

Welcome!

 

Thanks, we are very interested to see your results.

Here's a screenshot of my testing:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3086838#post3086838

 

Laptopmag is very Alienware biased from what I have just read. They were suggesting that the cracks in the system were from people hitting their fists on the keyboard when they were "fragged". Wow not reading anything from there ever again, that just screamed FANBOY

 

Hey Stone825, I wrote that--but it was in a joking manner that didn't come off that way, so I take it back. I'm not an Alienware fanboy and am not biased in any way.

 

No one knows what caused the cracks, not even Alienware, so it's hard to point fingers.

 

This is how my crack comes from.
I have open up the m15x to remove a loose screw but ended up with lot of cracks. That is because the plastic is very thin. When I fixed back the LCD black plastic frame by apply pressure to click it (b4 screwing back). The cracks appear. Pls note that I have taken utmost care to open and I do it with the help of AW CS on the phone (to help me remove the loose screw).

LOL CS say is not his fault. But they did ask me to send the system back. They will not send me the plastic replacement.

Here is the heart pain picture.
http://img222.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc00438resizeresizesr0.jpg

 

I sincerely doubt that any international company would fix issues with their product in only certain regions. Not only would it hurt their reputation and sales, but it would most likely also be cost prohibitive as usually all the product, regardless of the region they are sold in, are manufactured in the same plant and parts need to be interchangable.

So while I can't answer your question difinitively, it would be a very surprising move by AW if they did NOT address this issue in all regions their product is sold.

 

He posted in another thread that it's a worldwide investigation.

 

I've been following this forum closely since I discovered the over heat problem from my friend's internet cruising. My m15x just shipped today, so I am excited, yet concerned. I can only hope that AW has addressed this issue prior to shipping my system. I will post my thoughts upon its arrival.

As for the cracks... My existing AW 766 has a crack which mysteriously developed around the display's housing. Odd thing is that my friends 766 did the same thing. AW trys to keep it so light and small, the structure pays the price.

BTW, thank you Chaz for opening this new thread... this one seems more informative than that last one. So far the information has been more to the constructive then destructive.

I would really like to see AW fix this problem. It's hard to find a decent Laptop that can perform, and I have enjoyed my old AW for so long now, and am not disappointed that I bought it so long ago.

 

Yeah i remember you doing that, rexibaby. But the cracks over the ethernet port didn't require screwdriver torque to make. Still, im sorry yours cracked... i would have followed after you told me that was how you fixed it.

Edit: Chaz, do you know when you will receive your new review unit?

 

After some deliberation I asked them today to hold the new unit until there's a fix, I don't think it will take that long for them to come out with one. Hopefully I won't even need a new review unit.

 

same stance i have about sending mine back, no point til they announce a fix.

 

well crykies, now i'm thinking about calling AW to ask them to not even ship mine until the problem is fixed too... hmm...

 

well for me i either get it fixed or money back. its win win.

 

Sorry about that then. It just came off as you defending Alienware and saying that people are mistreating their notebooks which is the only reason it is happening. Sarcasm is kind of hard to detect on the internet, kind of a confusion by me.

 

Chaz

When will you try replacing the thermal past?

 

I've been talking with an owner of an m15x and they said replacing the thermal paste does not help. I'm not going to bother.

 

We here at Laptop Magazine just ran ATITool 0.27 with GPU-Z running in the background and saw the same drop at 90-degrees. Update post coming sometime shortly thanks for the heads up on a more rigorous test everyone.

 

Man. that sucks. It's a good thing that you found out!

 

it's good to know that you can reproduce the problem with ATItool and RivaTuner very easy. Therefore it's better to demonstrate it to AW

At the moment I would guess, that MANY m15x have this problem but lots of people just don't experience problems and therefore don't know that their graphic cards have a serious malfunction.
But I think that there will be a solution for this issue. What troubles me more are the cracks. It looks like the plastic is very touchy (you could also say of poor quality *g*) and I have no idea how they could repair this problem without changing the whole case/barebone.

 

Thanks for the update and waiting to read what you're going to write about it.

I was kinda hoping that your system wouldn't show the downclock since that would give me more hope for mine.

EDITED: I am glad however that AW now has less of an excuse... sorry AW. The downclocking happens to every m15x with a 8800m GTX that i know of and that might mean more pressure for a fix from AW asap.


@ thesaint - i'm with you with the cracks. I've been told that the warranty would cover that but i don't want to have to send it in and possibly have to do so multiple times. What if, a couple of years down the road, it cracks due to design flaw and I'm not covered... or if AW all of a sudden claims that the cracks that time was my fault and they won't honor the warranty. I have many laptops and i take REALLY good care of them... my wife jokes that i'm borderline ocd with my electronics. i do expect the m15x to stay pristine unless i accidentally ding it up myself.

 

Well not every 8800gtx, just all m15x's with 8800gtx's. Your post kind of makes it sound like it's an nividia problem with the 8800gtx. I haven't heard about the downclocking issue in other notebooks that utilize the 8800gtx.

 

oops... yeah i meant the m15x specifically. i just went back and edited.

 

Yea I figured that's what you meant. Just didn't want people getting confused.

 

hey guys, we just got an official update from Alienware. I've also included the results of our tests in my post.

http://blog.laptopmag.com/alienware-m15x-bios-fix-coming-for-overheating-problem

 

It looks like we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel indeed.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3110741#post3110741

 

Hi Chaz,
what is your general impression of your test unit beyond the overheating issue.
Maybe you can give a short review while we are waiting for your detailed one.

Thx

 

can anyone think of a reason for why my gpu core clock and gpu memory clock move down to 275mhz and 301mhz when i just unplug the ac from the system? all settings within afx fusion are the same for ac in and battery. doesn't make any sense to me...

 

If the clocks stayed at the same frequency, your battery would be drained very fast. It is a feature of the Nvidia video card called PowerMizer:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/feature_powermizer.html
It will adjust the clock speeds as needed depending on usage. At idle there is no reason for the clocks to be at their max and just waste power/produce heat.

I'll see what I can do, if I don't post something by tonight then just drop me a private message and I'll get right on it.

 

I have only experienced the downcloc the way the guys over at laptopmag or whatever website I just viewed did; during atitool benchmarking. I have not had downclocking in game and am VERY GLAD AW is getting a BIOS fix ready. This are indeed looking up and am very glad I didn't jump the gun and return it but rather just kept strong with voicing this problem as did others on the forums. I think the owners here are going to be very happy we kept with our orders and will continue enjoying gaming on this awesome rig!

 

ah that now does make sense, thanks chaz.

 

Here's a brief overview of this machine so far, the full review should be posted next week but that depends when Alienware releases the fix for the GPU issue.

Design
I love the looks of the m15x and it is clear a lot of thought went into the design. It looks stunning and is visually impressive. Very smooth lines and this thing is sleek. I am amazed how thin and light it is for what it packs.

Build Quality
Very solid across the board, I have had no issues There is basically no flex anywhere; the screen creaks a bit but it's a minor thing as far as I'm concerned. The glossy plastic is very smooth to the tough and surprisingly enough fingerprints don't show on the silver.

Screen
I have the WUXGA matte - it is bright and beautiful. It is not quite as bright as a glossy screen I'd imagine but the resolution more than makes up for it. You can fit so much stuff on this screen thanks to the high resolution it's insane. It does equate to small text but that can be fixed easily by bumping up the DPI in Windows to 120.

Keyboard/Touchpad
Very comfortable keyboard, love the backlighting. It has a slightly rubbery feel and is very quiet. The keys are very durable by the looks of it, and shouldn't develop a shiny look over time. The bottom right side flexes a bit but none of the actual letter nor number keys do.
Touchpad is flush with the palmrest. It's glossy so if you have sweaty fingers they will stick to it. Just go to Best Buy and try out one of the glossy HP Pavilions, it's like that.

The rest will be coming in the review, including heat/noise, performance, and battery life (all to be tested after the fix).