*OFFICIAL* M11xR1 Owners Lounge - Part 4

Hey guys - is there anything special I need to do to enable HDMI audio out? I've got an HDMI cable connected to a LG LCD TV in a hotel room, but no audio is coming out of the TV - any ideas?

 

Are the speakers set as default? There maybe an HDMI speaker out setting.

Spiff

Thanks DR650SE, showing 1.6

SPiff

 

I couldn't find any HDMI out settings for the speakers, but then maybe I'm just not looking in the right place. I checked the audio settings and the Realtek HD Audio Manager, and didn't see anything there.

 

@Rambler=check your player settings, if you choose the REALTEK soundout device it is analogic and only uses the 3.5mm jack. so you should choose Nvidia sound to enable sound by HDMI.

It's strange though, generally, it automatically switch to Nvidia while connected by HDMI unless you explicitly set up otherwise.

 

Alright so I ordered on thursday online with one credit card but received an email that the order was on hold. I later found out that that credit card was no longer valid (long story). So I reordered the next day with a different credit card. That second order was placed friday morning at around 3 am est time (im living in the middle east). I have yet to receive any email regarding that order. No order confirmed email, order held, nothing. I tried calling yesterday and giving the DPID for my second order but they every rep I would talk to would tell me that the order did not exist.

So my question is how long will it take for me to receive an email regarding this order, whether it be a confirmation or an email requiring more info about my cc, address, etc. I read somewhere on dell's site that it takes around 1 to 3 business days to receive the order confirmed email after placing the order. So I guess that means I should hear from them on tuesday at the max?

Are the purchase ID's not valid until the order is confirmed? That would explain why they kept telling me the order did not exist when I gave them that ID. I received that ID from the "order acknowledged" email which is sent immediately after ordering.

Thanks to anyone who actually feels like reading the above and helping me out.

 

hey is anyone here happen to have played FM (football manager ) on the M11X?

as we know, M11X are powerful enough to play demanding graphic games such as COD MW2, Crysis and even DIRT2 at reasonable frame rates with medium to high settings

but what about a Processor dependent Game like FM? if you have played FM before, you will know that it does not require any graphic power at all, and on the other hand, it does take up alot of the Processor power due to the calculation and such

ok straight to my question, is M11X able to play FM on Large database with more than 3 star performance? or anyone here kind enough to review FM on their M11X ?

 

Bah, There is one Best Buy in town with it. I did not see it advertised in last week's ad so I hope it is still at the same price.

 

I called the day after i placed my order because of the same thing. But i did order over phone. When you call you will get an operator and they can help you as long as you have all your info. It was in my inbox as soon as i hung up.
Hope this helps.

 

Well -

After 2 failed attempts at getting a replacement system for my M11x (Gap / Fan / Screen issues) - unfortunately, I'm returning mine for a refund. The reason the replacement unit never shipped? Invalid Nameplate configuration - go figure - (both times mind you)..

Shame - as I *really* like this laptop - however, I'm a bit miffed at waiting over a month now for a replacement that was originally promised to me within 5-7 business days.. that, and the fact that Best Buy is now selling the unit for $ 200 cheaper than what I paid for it (same configuration).

For now - plan is to return the unit - then purchase a new one from Best Buy since they're apparently going to be sold there (and returning/replacing should be a lot easier).

Depending on what happens in the next few weeks, I may hold off a bit as well - considering the fact there now appears to be a lot of movement with the Core ULV chips during the next few weeks/month. Long shot is that they'll update the M11x with a newer chip (or update the graphics to support Optimus) - or substantially drop the price on the Sony Vaio Z.

My only nitpick with the system (other than the gap issue) is the driver support. It looks like Optimus is the wave of the future. While not that big of a deal - I'd have to question whether or not Dell/AW will make continued efforts to update the drivers for this laptop configuration going forward (and I've dealt with their spotty upgrade support in the past), especially considering the fact that Optimus appears to be heading an entirely different way.. These drivers are *really* old - so much so that it's obviously affecting support for some newer games (i.e. Metro 2033). By switching to Optimus - I think this would be a significant improvement to the M11x going forward.

M11x is still my top choice - as there's just NOTHING out there that's even close for price/performance/portability. However - I expect, for this price, that the unit be as close to perfect as possible - which is unfortunately not the case for the unit provided to me. I'll pay close attention over the next month while waiting for the refund to take place to see when/if they address the few issues with this system (i.e. OC capabilities, driver support, etc.) - then re-order..

 

@jsgiv = you can wait for a few mths and get rev 2. ahem iX... ahem Optimus... ahem Soft-touch.

 

What player settings are you referring to? I checked Media Player, and didn't see any Nvidia sound options. Where or what would have the Nvidia sound options I need to select?

 

Just came back from Best Buy. That Case Logic esling was marked on clearance at $20 from $40.

So imagine my surprise when it rang up for $8. I bought the 3 they had.

 

Yeah - that's probably exactly what I'll end up doing.. on the whole - the M11x is a great unit - I really like it a lot - but - there's just a few minor things (as you've noted above) that would make it *fantastic*... That being said.. since I'm waiting - might as well wait another month or two, to see if there's any truth to an R2 - if it has any of the 3 mentioned above - I'm sold - if 2/3 or 3/3 - even better..

 

That's why I didn't buy a PS3 because I just KNOW that they'll eventually release a PS4 - and I managed to skip the 360 in anticipation of the Xbox 720.

 

hehe.. well - I won't be waiting *that* long.. but I will be waiting until the refund at least clears (which is an anticipated 2-3 weeks from now).

By that time, I'm hoping, to either at least see some updated info surrounding the OC issues - and gap issues - possibly a driver update or two as well (hopefully).

Either way - I'm hoping there's enough info at that time available to either let me know it's worth the wait for another month or two (i.e. R2 is confirmed) - or to just go ahead and either purchase from Best Buy (hopefully by then it'll be even cheaper.. ) - or potentially, yet again, purchase from Dell. My first order came rather quickly - I think they just have issues with regards to creating replacement orders in their system.

 

That is the point, people complaining about a laptop that had started shipping about 2 months ago!!

If it has or not a refresh in about 2 months, WHO CARES? there will no be a tremendous fps improve with an ix , neither with optimus, this is a gaming laptop people, ix is not the diference between playing crysis in med to high.....

 

I do kinda wish i had waited as my best buy 2 miles down the road has one in stock with a better processor and better hard drive for about the same price. Im curious if the warranty is the same. Im sure it wont have in home support.
My replacement is in process and one thing i dont understand is the replacement total is close to $200 cheaper than the order i placed last week.

 

I hate to blow your perspective up, but a basic i3 330M has twice the processing power of the 7300. For games that are CPU intensive, a significant boost in FPS is EXACTLY what that difference amounts to. As for the GPU, it's not the drivers, but the driver updates people are concerned about. The 'current' drivers are old and some games will not work with them. A gaming laptop that won't run someone's favorite game... that's not well received, especially after paying a premium for the machine.

This is a great mini-gamer for most, but for those seeking to play CPU intensive games or affected by driver issues, the concerns seem perfectly valid to me.

 

Imo, a Core i3 processor is unlikely in a refresh as no i3 processor in the current range is ULV (ultra-low voltage). However there is one in the i5 range and two in the i7 range that are ULV, just like the current SU7400/SU4100. Having said that, the lowest model standard voltage i3 would probably be a better performer than the highest model ULV i7. Well- it wouldn't surprise me.

http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=43562,47700,47554,

Interestingly though, there is another range of processors that have low-voltage (Intel has tagged them as 25W TDP in comparison to the 18W TDP of the ULV range). They're the first two in the following comparison:

http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=43563,43559,47700,43562,47554,

Don't know too much about them. Personally speaking, I'd still stick to ULV as battery life matters to me. Maybe one of the more powerful ULVs though, such as the upcoming i7-660UM which'll have turbo-boost upto 2.4GHz (thanks for that info, rpg-xps).

 

As of 4/1/10 the replacement laptop was ordered dur to the screen gap issue and the keyboard rising up by the ctrl key. Checked today on the status and it shows still in production?

Am mystified due to the fact that the original order only took two weeks from order to my house.

Mabe they have run out of su4100 and have to use su7300 processors

 

I called them as well, but the problem was that they kept telling me that my DPID was invalid (and I was transfered from rep to rep, department to department, I was hoping for someone who could speak decent english but apparently those kinds of people are too expensive for multi-million dollar corporations these days). Perhaps the DPID is only valid once the order is confirmed? I'm still at "order acknowledged".

 

@fryo

Nice chart of the processors... thanks. I agree with you. Idon't think there's any way the M11x can dissipate the 35 watts from an i3, and it will be hard to sell it as a monster if it's i7 processor doesn't outperform a budget i3. The 25 watt i7s would likely do the trick. I wonder if the cooling system could dissipate 25 watts. It's arctic cool with 10, but 25 is a hefty jump. I expect the 18 watt versions may be the max without a thermal redesign.

 

I agree, The people that take the money from you speak perfect english if you order by phone. Then after they get your money your screwed. I hope i never have to hear that alienware hold music again. It's ok the first 5 min but after an hour i never wanna hear it again.

 

Once again if you know anything about turbo boost the i7 ulv runs at 1.2ghz a core, with turbo boost even, which adds 133mhz to each active core the max freq is 2.266 GHz which is less than the 2.6 ghz currently on the m11x not being overclocked and clearly less than the 3.4 overclocked with both cores. Not to mention the thermos would just add roughly 80% more heat from the processor and lower the battery life. The fact is there is no under 12 inch laptop that cost under 1000 dollars that can get 6900-7000 3dmark06 scores. So you people complaining how bad this revision sucks go somewhere else, I have had the m11x since February and the people saying how much better you want it to be just stop. It is what it is sure in a year there will be a better one. Just like anything else did that stop anyone from buying an iphone 3g knowing that a better 3gs would come out in a year... No.

In short I apologize for this rant and lets keep this board as a way to help and not bash the intentions of dell and intel to either cut cost or what not. And if your waiting for the revision do not expect it to be that much better facts are facts and intel currently has no processor in the ulv class that is that much superior.

 

Im in same boat as you. I ordered mine last wed and got email monday morning stating it shiped at 1am sunday. If my replacement comes that fast and problem free i will have to give them a thumbs up. But im not holding my breath.

 

I don't see people saying the M11x isn't good. There are a few wondering what the limits of this platform are. Is that so wrong? We like performance. I have no issue with the 4100 or 7300, and as was clearly pointed out, there aren't many alternatives that don't add considerably to the thermal index and power drain. Still, is it so wrong to discuss what could be done? I think you need to step back and realize what people are doing here... which is discussing the merits, drawbacks, and probable changes to this platform. There's no attack buried within.

 

Do any of the Dell drivers need to be updated on my M11X? I can't find a auto update link on Dells site, I just bought my M11X, and some of the drivers are dated a few weeks ago.

 

TDP aside, you can kiss having decent batttery life goodbye if you switch to a iX processor that isn't a ULV,and the ULVs won't perform much better than the current chip in a overclocked state.

 

You might want to click here.
The deal isn't that impressive IMO, so you basically get free RAM.

 

Most games are not very CPU intensive, and it's not just about the speed. Most games don't even need a fast processor, you can probably run everything with an i5 or C2D extreme instead of an i7, usually, bad game performance is because of a slow GPU.

 

I dunno, I find myself begging for some CPU power since that's the obvious bottleneck, although I'd rather keep the powerful GPU over a powerful CPU. Having both is just some wishful thinking right now in this form factor and portability. Even if the new ULV i5 are not much of an improvement it's still newer tech heh. Oh well still very happy with my M11x. I've just noticed a couple games not gaining any FPS from GPU OC'ing which shows CPU bottlenecking - crysis and BFBC2 come to mind.

 

3DMark06 comes to mind too

 

Yes this little guy has his hands tied by the CPU. BFBC2 shows it big time in PVP Games.. i'm getting well below 20 fps with medium settings, no anti aliasing.

Of course, if Dell would get off their behinds and update the drivers to the lastest offered by Nvidia, this would probably go a long way in smoother fps in itself, I am sorely dissapointed in the lack of driver updates over a month after release. All we've had word of is that an R2 in in the works. Can they please focus on bringing our driver versions in the 190's? 188's are unacceptable

Edit: 1000th post on NBR!

 

Generally that is the best discount Dell sales representatives will be willing to give for that specific configuration. Even Team Blackhawk could not give more than that. I have been holding back from subscribing to the Dell Home Newsletter so that the coupon won't expire before I am willing to order (I don't even know if they are giving out a $50 coupon just for subscribing anymore), so I don't know if that can be combined with what you were already quoted. However, there is the option of DPA, and don't forget to enter the coupon for free ground shipping, if you don't feel like haggling for free NBD.

Yes, the best buy m11x has a much greater value for what you get. You essentially pay for the extra ram and extra hard drive space and get the processor upgrade for free or vice versa. However, that's still going to be more expensive than getting only a free RAM upgrade and sticking to the base price of $799, which appears to be the cheapest deal you will be able to find.

 

i called 3 other dell reps yesterday and non of them offered me any discount nor free upgraded. so the offer i got 2 days earlir($900 su73 4gb) was not bad at all. then again, bestbuy deal looks sweeter compare to dell's. i'm gonna visit bestbuy this afternoon to see this thing in person, hope they have one on display.

 

Just ordered mine! I was turned off by Dell phone support a couple weeks ago and was looking at alternatives but nothing really comes close to what the M11x will do for me. The battery life, portability, and performance are perfect for me. I know it isn't the best gaming system in the world (that's what my desktop is for) but just the availability to play some games on the go is pretty sweet.

I paid $1003 before tax/shipping. SU7300, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, Bluetooth, 2-Year Warranty. Also, it was pretty sweet that I was able to opt-out of all the bloatware, it actually let me uncheck Mcafee, which is important to me. I used the signature event, epp, and epp $50 coupon. I know it wasn't the greatest price in the world, but it was definitely the lowest that I was able to see in the 3 weeks I have been in the market.

The 27th can't come soon enough!

 

Congradulations on the new purchase!

 

BB.com shows instock at my local BB so i went there, guess what. box opend, system pre-installed with BB softwares, $999.99.

 

Fail

 

My M11X was bought at BB, I did not let them put any "Nerd Herd" stuff on it

 

So I received an email today. Turns out my second order was held as well. Why? I have no idea. Credit card is valid and everything yet they still feel like bothering me to call them and get things sorted out. Tried calling now but I get some recording of a dude speaking so fast you can't understand a word (except for "half hour" or something). This is getting ridiculous..

 

Call the sales line.

 

Just found out this afternoon that my "replacement" m11x was canceled. Since 4/1/10 it was in production. Called to ask why it was canceled they could not give me a answer but could in 48 hours?

Why is this happining

 

finally got an m11x with no screen gap and perfect build quality/oc's and everything. So much nicer without the screen gap.

2 swaps, i'm so glad this one is alright! time to enjoy it

 

You can tell them to take that crap off of there. They can't force you to buy it and if they give you any grief request the district managers phone number.

 

I know that even though the m11x is advertised as overclock-able to 1.73, but in reality its 1.6. Is there anyway to get this up to 1.73? Is this just false-advertising?

 

Now I could be mistaken, but I was under the impression that the initial reviews of the m11x stated that the system could be overclocked to 1.6 and in reality it was 1.73. I heard about 1.73 on these boards, not advertised anywhere by alienware.

 

run/install "cpu truespeed"

 

There has been much debate about this and I have heard many opinions. I personally believe it is 1.73 and this was the number Dell was stating it was overclocked to when they were still advertising the fact. Some software seems to be misreporting the speed, though the windows system screen shows it as 1.3 processor running at 1.73. I have also heard it overclocks to 1.73 and intel speedstep will drop it down as low as 1.6.

 

Why is toaster.exe blocking me from entering increased performance mode? It does it consistently, though it didn't the first day or two. I have to kill the process. All I have installed is a Bluetooh 2.1 dongle with Broadcom's WIDCOMM software, Steam games, and my Razer Orochi, all of which were installed before toaster.exe started giving problems.

Way to go, Dell. Now I'm going to remove your data backup app before I could even look to see if it was something I was interrested in. Jarred Walton had trouble with it also in his Anandtech review.