Just bought a new M11x R1

R1 because that's all I could afford and wanted to be able to play basic game that net books can't handle.

Most of you here have had your machine for some time, any advice to give a newbie? (Been on Mac OSX for 7 years as well)

Short of upgrading components rather.

 

Which processor do you have?

 

Haha weird my m11x should be here this week and I'm in the same boat been on macosx for about 7-8 years!
I got a good deal on the R1 With the SU7300 think I saved about £200-£250 or something.
Although I am eyeing up bigger better things already just hoping I don't get hooked on Alienware as they aren't cheap!

 

Yeah same Blacklisted, it's the R1 with the Core 2 Duo.

 

Go into your bios and overclock it. Also, uninstall your accelerometer. I know there's a couple guides to browse here as well.

 

I seem to recall those guides lurking here before but cannot find them now.

 

I'm looking for things like what up to todays date drivers to install, over clocking guides, etc. Does anyone have a link to those guides, I cannot find them.

Thanks!

 

Hi! Im brand new! I just ordered my C2D 7300. (how much was yours by the way? mine was 689).

 

This could be a long post.

Here's a big ol' thread about it.

For personal optimizations that I've done: If you do run>msconfig and go to the startup tab, I have many services disabled. What I do have running:

Synaptics Pointing Device
RealTek Audio thing
3 Intel(R) Common User Interface The igfx ones you want to keep as well as hkcmd.
DW WLAN Card
Alienware FX (because I don't see a performance hitch)
I have the sidebar going with a gadget called All CPU Meter. I also use another program called Core Temp in tandem as it displays my core temps in the System Tray.
I use BatteryBar as well so that's enabled.
Alienware OSD
avast! Antivirus

And that's it. You don't need updaters (i.e. Adobe and such) to run at start up.

As for overclocking, it's incredibly simple. Restart your PC, MASH F2 to get into the BIOS, go to the Advanced tab, and look for Overclock. Highlight it, hit Enter, enable it, hit F10 to restart with changes applied, done.

I haven't updated my drivers at all so everything is stock and there's been no problems. If you want to get down to the nitty gritty for services to disable and such, then you'll have to look elsewhere. Unless you know what you're doing (and it's specific to each system) I wouldn't mess with it.

I hope that was helpful. Also, to uninstall your accelerometer. I use a program called Revo Uninstall to do all that stuff since it removes registry entries and such. Load that up or go to the uninstall program thing in Windows and get rid of it. The entry said specifically "Accelerometer".

Go into your Command Center by hitting Fn + Pause (right next to the backspace key) and go to AlienSense. Slide that bar all the way to the left (I think) to disable that facial recognition. I believe that's also a service you can disable that's described in the guide at the top.

I think that's it.

 

Like TalonH said I personally did not make a lot of changes because it was running fine. If something that I learned here is ''dont fix something that is not broken''. I suggest beware of spywares etc and dont install programs to start up with programs like skype, itunes etc. Oh by the way what games are you getting ?

 

Thanks! Just waiting for it to ship.

 

Well World of Warcraft. And I wanted a subnotebook that could play TOR next year.

 

I'd also recommending installing Spybot S&D, Malware Bytes and Avast! since those seem to keep my system pretty clean and protected.

 

Being on MAC OS so long, I havn't had to worry about drivers and the like, what should I update to right away?

 

I'm on stock drivers, bios version A04, and that's it. Should run fine right out of the box.

 

just bought one too

First thign I did was whip out the HD and put in an SSD, with a complete reinstal from the alienware windows 7 dvd and set up everything individually.

Nox

 

I've had mine since May, but just upgraded to a 640GB 7200RPM drive this weekend. Reformat took fo-r-EV-er! oh well...it's done now. ^_^ Welcome aboard the UFO guys!

 

I'm devastated just rang Dell and for some reason the credit card company didn't issue payment.
I had the worst customer service experience I have ever had I spoke with 7 different people because they kept sending me back and forward. Apparently this is cause the phone sales people do not know how to deal with online sales so just try to send you to someone else ... Very professional.
Needles to say apparently they are re-ordering for me tomorrow as it is too late tonight but I think I will ring in the morning if confirmation email doesn't come just to make sure it gets done.
The wait continues and it's just making me want it more!

 

Haha I hear ya, I already got my email a bit ago, just waiting for it to say "shipped" so I can track it lol.

Also being new to Windows again (Last version I used was when XP launched ...) What are some must have applications?

 

The only two "must have" applications for the Alienware M11x:
1) Avast Anti Virus (free version)
2) Steam, the digital game platform

The other "nice-to-have" applications are:
a) Foxit Reader. Replaces Adobe Acrobat Reader. Must faster, smaller, than Adobe Acrobat Reader.
b) Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP). Contains codecs to play all of the most popular video formats.

 

a must gave apps is !
NOD32 anti virus *u gota buy it's cheap tho*
Steam
VLC *it's one of the best media players*
Java
Google Chrome *it's simple doesnt much power*
Microsoft office
MPC=Media player Classic *one of the best media players also no harm of getting it *
internet download manager is use full for direct downloads
Direct X11
and ofcourse your instant messeging programs such as
Windows live Messenger
Yahoo
or u get Trillian it opens all emails and IM such as FB Myspace and more sites skype and others