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    Just Got it!

    Discussion in 'Alienware M11x' started by dmccouch, Dec 24, 2010.

  1. dmccouch

    dmccouch Notebook Enthusiast

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    Ok so we are traveling over christmas so we did gifts early. that being said, I got my dream machine. First things first, Its the su7300 model with 4gb ram, 160 gb Hdd( soon to be momentus xt) and all the same as the others. More importantly, any tips or tricks you guys have with this? Any programs you found to boost performance? basically important stuff, and things like that?
     
    dmccouch, Dec 24, 2010
    #1
  2. snarl298

    snarl298 Newbie

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    Merry Christmas to us!

    :)
     
    snarl298, Dec 24, 2010
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  3. Jose331

    Jose331 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Congratz! Welcome to the club! R1 owner here and I love it!
     
    Jose331, Dec 24, 2010
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  4. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    Nothing special really. Fresh install might do it justice, but you'll do that with a Momentus XT I'm assuming.

    Just use it and enjoy!
     
    HTWingNut, Dec 24, 2010
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  5. Docsteel

    Docsteel Vast Alien Conspiracy

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    Hey dmccouch,

    As a new owner also of an R1, I have a few thoughts:

    You probably need to do the following:

    upgrade BIOS to A05
    upgrade Nvidia driver for video
    upgrade sound driver
    upgrade AHCI driver
    upgrade AlienFX software

    I have played around and found a tool called GameBooster that seems to net a few frames by turning down services during gaming, bumping priority, etc. I run Avast AV software, disabling it during gaming seems to help with minor "hitching" in games. Another small tweak is to set your sound device so it has NO enhancements; all these little tweaks will add up to 3 frames or so in play if your game is more CPU bound than GPU bound. Oddly, I found that if I disabled speed step I had more hitching than with it on, but you may want to look into that as well.

    While not as powerful as their big brothers the M15x and M17x, they are just plain cool and fun to use! I neglected my M17x-R2 for almost three weeks after I got the M11x-R1 during a business trip, you will have fun if you don't expect it to fly like an Alienware desktop.

    I swapped out the drive for an OCZ Vertex 2 120GB drive from NewEgg; I think you will find the Momentus a fun drive with the boots and shutdown!
     
    Docsteel, Dec 25, 2010
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  6. Salue

    Salue Notebook Consultant

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    Congrats on ur M11x
    am sure BIOS is already A05
    check other drivers tho for updates
    REMOVE mc cafe :p it's bad that anti virus
    get NOD <3 i love NOD :p
    VLC media player is a must also ;p
    Google chrome is great for surfing ;p
    like the above said Gamebooster is good i dont notice the difference but am sure it helps and it defregmants my ram also
     
    Salue, Dec 25, 2010
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  7. Batstone

    Batstone Notebook Enthusiast

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    just got mine as well... seems great minus one dead pixel. What free anti virus software do ppl use? just windows firewall fine?
     
    Batstone, Dec 25, 2010
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  8. slickie88

    slickie88 Master of Puppets

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    I'm always going to use nod32, but if you're looking for free then Avast or MSE are both good.
     
    slickie88, Dec 25, 2010
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  9. RayDawg

    RayDawg Notebook Consultant

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    Welcome to the m11x club! Be sure to check your hinges for anything odd (misaligned/odd noises such as creaking) since they have a habit of breaking...
     
    RayDawg, Dec 25, 2010
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  10. Salue

    Salue Notebook Consultant

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    free antivirus is AVG
    but NOD is cheap also xD
     
    Salue, Dec 25, 2010
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  11. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    Best free AV is either Avast or Microsoft Security Essentials.
     
    HTWingNut, Dec 25, 2010
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  12. Docsteel

    Docsteel Vast Alien Conspiracy

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    Avast is great, highly recommend it too!
     
    Docsteel, Dec 26, 2010
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  13. Xsonic

    Xsonic Notebook Consultant

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    Yep, go Avast! AV
     
    Xsonic, Dec 26, 2010
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  14. RayDawg

    RayDawg Notebook Consultant

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    Has anyone ever tried Norton 360? I use it and it's decent, its just switching betweeng graphics modes on my r1 that makes it rather difficult.
     
    RayDawg, Dec 26, 2010
    #14