*OFFICIAL* M11xR2 Owners Lounge - Part 1

Its theoratically possible, but not a simple task. The Antenna for the GOBI card is wired right inside the display lid itself.

Regarding the ability for GPS to be enabled on the card that came with the laptop if you chose that option installed, I am not certain if that will work. I have not seen any posts where anyone has gotten the GPS to work.

 

If not, is it possible for dell/alienware to install it in my laptop?

 

is there a quick shortcut to turning off the touchpad?

every laptop I've owned has had a Fn + F_ key to disable touchpad

 

I dont think so, but you can configure your alienware to deactivate the touchpad, while using a usb mouse.

 

Hi

I have a R2 I5 4gb M11x (not overclocked and on Dells 257.30 drivers)

I posted a question on the benchmarks thread as I was puzzled as to why I was getting 4334 3dmark 06 points on battery power as opposed to 6666 3dmark 06 points on mains.

The guys on that thread suggested I change my power savings plan to 'High performance' while on battery (its currently on 'Balanced').

I don't understand this (apologies if I'm missing the obvious). On mains my power savings plan is also on 'Balanced' so what is the difference betwen that and battery? why the huge difference in 3dmark 06?

I bought the M11x as a 'laptop' not a desktop. After reading reviews it sounded perfect as it seemed to allow me to sit on a plane/train (or in front of the TV) running off the battery and give me 5 hours + browsing the net or allow me to play recent 3d games at decent detail levels for a couple of hours (or a combination of both).

So I was expecting it to use Intel and low power while I browse the net to give me best battery life and then when I switch to games give me the best frame rates available unless I choose to lower detail settings etc...

Now it seems that on battery something is choosing to throttle down the performance when playing games (hence the 3dmark differences). That forces me to plug it into the mains... which defeats the point of having a gaming portable netbook!

Am I missing something here? (hopefully I am). Any advice appreciated.

Regards

Si.

 

BAD BAD BAD result on Wprime, notebookreview got a 32.79 However I am getting 47.89 almost 48 ok that is not normal... ANY IDEAS!!!

edit: the machine was plugged in, no overclocked I think same as notebookreview's tested machine.

Please any ideas????

 

People. STOP using wPrime. It doesn't work for the R2 processors. Use superpi or Prime95x64.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/500547-i5-2-3ghz-2.html#post6482318

 

Loading all threads will cause CPU with Turbo to run at default multiplier. Turbo is designed to keep the CPU within its TDP limitations, loading all threads will limit the turbo clock to stock speed. You will need to turn off Turbo and manually overclock the CPU to see a benefit in wPrime.

 

ty i didn't see that option till you mentioned it

Previous laptops never had such an option

 

The multiplier is dropped to default when you run it on 2 threads as well.

Going back and looking at what superpi calculations and the Prime95 benchmark routine are doing, I can see that they are not using all 4 threads. Prime95 steps through 1 thread, then 2 and 3. As it's doing so you can see multipliers being adjusted. I really should have noticed that, rather than assuming that they were utilizing all available threads... My bad! Thanks for setting me straight.

On a related note, the older version of CPU-Z that wPrime is using is persisting after it fails to detect and is bypassed by the Shift key after startup. I think people aren't noticing this and their scores are suffering as a result. The process is utilizing 25% CPU and needs to be killed prior to running the benchmark.

 

After starting wPrime it will fail to detect your hardware because of the old version of CPU-Z it's using. Kill the CPU-Z process before you run the benchmark and your scores will drop to about what they posted.

 

All R2 owners, If you have time/opportunity I would hope you to try out something. Please take sometime look at your current WEI score on the memory. See whats the default score you have there. Next thing verify the RAM that you have if its 800/1066/1333mhz. for those who have the 800mhz RAM please run your WEI assessment and see what score you can get on your memory. Once done remember the score you have. Now try to overclock your CPU to 166(if your machine is capable of doing so else to the highest clock you can achive) then try run the WEI assessment again and check your memory score. I love to know if you getting a different result.

 

thanks to all. that makes sense. didnt know before sorry for false alarm. thank you.

 

Man I just discovered something slightly annoying.

I have a wireless logitech mouse with the nano receiver that I just leave plugged in all the time. I use an intellimouse while at work so I don't burn my mouse battery so I don't use the wireless one.

I however like to leave the nano receiver plugged in all the time. Wish there wsa a quick key now lol

 

Anyone? or is this not the correct thread for this?

 

Oh this is the correct thread, it's just that no one has been able to answer you question yet.
I personally have absolutely no idea.

 

If you hadn't posted the question in more than one place, you'd realize it was answered:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/492232-m11x-r2-benchmarks-67.html#post6483401

Basically every laptop throttles down. It would be stupid for it not to because the point of a laptop is portability, part of which is battery life, so what would the point of a 11" laptop be if it sucked on battery? Anyway, since you seem to want that, I explained in the post linked above how to stop scaling.

 

Yes - I did see that you had suggested bios changes and powermizer. I posted in the benchmark thread as my first post was related to benchmarks.

Thankyou for your response and suggestions.

I posted in this thread to ask anyone elses opinion on this. Forums aren't just about one answer ... they are also about discussion and other opinions (I thought anyway).

This is my first post here and I thought I was raising a perfectably reasonable point. After all - do the owners of M11x want a greater than 30% decrease in 3d performance when they play their games on battery? Not everyone knows about bios and powermizer.

I find your attitude to a new poster very poor. I'm not stupid and don't tell me what I want (if you read my post you'd realise I don't just want performance over battery). People are allowed to post a topic in more than one thread if they think it is more appropriate in another thread following responses.

 

First of all, I apologize. You're right; I was being a jerk unnecessarily. I overreacted because I had already answered your question without you seeming to have noticed, making me feel like I wasted my time, and by posting the question multiple times, you clog up the forum to some extent (for example, with less of the same thing posted over and over, you might have been able to find the answers I posted without me having to do anything, since they were available all over the forum before you asked). Regardless, I overreacted and apologize.

 

Apology accepted... and I take your point about posting mulitiple times. I don't usually post on forums and this hadn't occurred to me.

 

Let me know if theres anything you guys see wrong.

 

everything seems the same on my machine except the core speed and multiplier changes often. i hope that is not an issue for me! Is your core speed and multiplier stable???

 

So, after officially belonging to the m11x Owners Club for a few days, I thought I would post my impressions.

I'm not new to laptops, nor am I new to Dell but this is my first Alienware. I purchase the m11x to directly replace an Acer netbook (532h). I wanted more performance, and a few more pixels on my screen. I also wanted to continue to be able to carry it with me daily to work as well as other places. I'd be lying it I didn't say I expect I also expected it to play a mean game of SC2 next week when it comes out.

Ordering from Dell was a PITA, partially because of them and partially because I am impatient. In the end though, they got my machine here ahead of schedule so I have no complaints and just a comment that it shouldn't be that hard.

As soon as it arrived I uninstalled the (surprisingly little) crapware, and upgraded it to Win7 Ultimate. I removed/cleaned the old nVidia drivers and installed 258.96. I updated the rest of the drivers and applied all Windows updates.

Things I like:
-I'm very happy with the CPU performance. This "feels" like a good fast machine.

-I had problems with Optimus not working at all, but reinstalling the new driver a 2nd time fixed them. The video performance is everything I expected. I am not a hardcore gamer, but the few games I have loaded so far (EverQuest, Starcraft 2 Beta, Torchlight) all activated Optimus and performed well.

-Keyboard is spacious and feels good to use.

-Internal bluetooth to connect to my peripherals without using dongles and wires.

-The ability to turn off the annoying glowing "Alineware" text under the screen is appreciated.

-Quality touchpad. I often use a mouse but not always.

-Unlike many others, my build quality seems to be great. No noticable hinge issues, no display touching the keyboard. It feels solid and I have no complaints yet.

-Power Adapter detection. My work is an all HP shop, so I have many 90W HP AC adapters laying around. I even have a 90W DC adapter I plan to use with my m11x. The m11x detects at boot that it's not a genuine Dell adapter and throws up an error. This is annoying but I understand why they do it and it's probably a good idea. I sort of expected this, but what I did not expect was the ability in the BIOS to disable the check. Thanks Dell!

Things I dislike:
-Poor quality screen. Make whatever excuses you want, but the screen on my $250 Acer netbook has better contrast and picture quality. I'm grateful for the more pixels the Dell has, and the quality is not enough alone to make me return it, but I am disappointed.

-Port Placement. I really dislike their choice of where to put ports. Obviously this is personal preference, but having all the commonly used ports under the palm rests makes using them more difficult. Using a port on the right side means I have to move my mouse further away and I'm always getting the cables in the way. Having the Ethernet jack on the left front of the machine (Again under the palmrest) just seems stupid but thankfully I won't be using that too much.

-No gigabit ethernet. We got BGN WiFi but no gigabit ethernet. This machine has no DVD drive, loading over the network is important. This is 2010 Dell, come on and get with the program. I want to transfer data and fast.

-Size. It's larger than I expected and I'm going to need to buy a new bag to carry to work everyday. I was, of course, expecting it to be bigger than my 10" Acer netbooks and I knew it would be thicker than my GF's 11" notebook but I was generally expecting the same width and depth. It's over an inch deeper. I'll adjust but it was a bit unexpected. Compared to our standard corporate issue Elitebook 6930, it's a pretty nice size reduction but on any "netbook" scale it's a behemoth.

-Soft Touch. It sounds great now, and I have no doubt it is a huge improvement over the fingerprint magnet m11xR1, but I'm concerned it's going to wear off all of the corners and very soon our lovely m11xR2's will look like crap. I'd have preferred a standard matte black lightly textured plastic. Time will tell, but I've had devices with this soft touch coating before and I've not been happy yet.

-Lack of WWAN antennas. It's been my experience that most machines (from both Dell and HP) have the antennas wired in regardless of if you order the WWAN option. I was disappointed to find this is not true of the m11x. If you don't order the factory option, you don't get the antennas. This mostly annoys me because I wanted the GPS not the WWAN and I intended to add a cheaper WWAN/GPS from eBay.

-Battery life. Even on powersaver mode I'm only getting about 4 hours reported from Battery Bar.

-No VGA. Way to be on the cutting edge where it doesn't matter. Display Port might be useful in a couple years, but right now I'd much rather have a VGA output. Thanks for the HDMI though, that's actually starting to get useful.

Final Thoughts

I'm not sure yet. I do like the machine, but I'm not sure I spent my money wisely.

The only negatives that are going to bother me on a daily basis are the screen, the size, and the GPS.

The size can be fixed with more spending on a bigger EDC bag but the screen is pretty bad and the rest of the list just adds to it. Not being able to add my GPS internally is also a pretty annoying as I use that for several Amateur Radio related functions.

 

The GPS works. It tells me the coordinates and how many satellites it's locked on to.

 

Same here, LED screen quality is noticeably less crisp than my UL30 and battery life is pretty pitiful...

 

I wonder if Dell's web site has gone haywire or have they got their act together and produce much faster now. Just test configured an M11x, shows ship date of tomorrow? Just to be sure, i test configured M15x and heck, some random inspiron 14z laptop, shows ship within 1-2 days as well. ?

 

hey guys i was thinking of getting the alienware optx aw2210 monitor and was wondering if it would work with the m11x r2.planning on connecting by hdmi to hdmi would the resolution look good?

 

It should. Just make sure you are using the discrete graphics card for the primary monitor.

 

Discrete graphics will always be used automatically for the primary monitor. Just remember to assign whichever monitor you want to run discrete graphics on as the 'primary' monitor.

 

On a side note I have been playing Metal of Honor beta and its running great so far after 1.5 hours.

 

thanks for the info +1 =]

 

MOHB was fun so i put it on my desktop to play tonight, kinda stoked lol.

 

damn, why can't mine play it !!!

 

Need to order one more for friend...any deals or coupons? I could only find this

Dell Alienware M11x Intel Core i7-640UM Dual-Core ULV 11.6in Gaming Laptop $1099 Deal - Reviews and Compare Prices

and

Dell Home: Alienware M11x 11.6in Laptop Core i7-640UM 4GB 320GB 1GB Video BT $1077 shipped

any coupon or deals would be greatly appreciated....

PS: Bing wont work with either one either, from bing I can't get to either of these two pages, and I tired to save both to cart and use bing to hop in and retrieve cart, no luck.

 

howard thats it my friend. plus tax on top of that 1077. i have been looking for a good deal too none so far for a second one.

 

so here is my update on benchmarks on r2 so far i got similar scores to notebookreview's benchamrk results and i tried to run furmark 1.8.2 but cant manage it to run it with graphic card to see the temp. yes i did include it on the list and right clicked and chose high graphics but no it doesnt wanna run with the nvidia. any ideas. other than that dont have a single issue except froze once during web browsing and unstable at 166.

 

man .... thanks... by the way, does it show if you order today preliminary ship date is tomorrow July 21st? wonder if their ordering page has problem and really ramped up production. Also, after add to car at final check out page, the estimate delivery date shows August 2 with 2 days shipping, that is some long 2 days shipping

 

Ok so have had my R2 for 24 hours now and I love it.
i7, 4GB, 500GB, BT & W7 HP
Everything has pretty much worked out of the box for me so far, 2 random freezes but I have updated some drivers and windows update and now cannot recreate a freeze.

Not got a lot of PC games due to mostly relying on the 360 for my gaming needs but so far have loaded and run Civ 4, Torchlight and Kings Bounty and they all run perfectly (to be very much expected).

The unit does get a little warm but nothing I'm not used to with my old netbooks and notebooks.

The keyboard is a little squiffy, with the WASD section slightly raised but I am ok with this. The keys must touch the screen but no noticeable marks yet so will keep my eyes on this.

Hinges look pretty well aligned, and no creaking sounds so pleased about that.

Great to finally be an owner and not just a forum browser

 

I got my R2 yesterday and I am in love with this thing!
While I haven't tested a whole lot of PC games on it, it has run Medal of Honor well. As Richo said, the unit does get warm but not bad.
The Keyboard is a bit cramped, but you get use to it fast.

Now to me, the touch pad is actually good. I mean it's one of the best I have ever used! Though I maybe I am simply easy to place

Hinges look good, and screen looks wonderful!

I will post an unboxing video a bit later, as well as get some more solid info about performance on MOH beta.

 

Unboxing vid:
YouTube - Unboxing Alienware M11x R2 (Intel Core i7)

 

apparently, there is a new driver for the R2 that supposedly will boost battery life by as much as 50minutes. Has anyone tried it yet?

 

Link please?

 

Alienware Software Update Gives M11x R2 45 Min More Life

I guess it's not as new as I thought.

exact link to the driver: http://support.dell.com/support/dow...dateid=-1&formatid=-1&source=-1&fileid=402594

new gpu driver: http://support.dell.com/support/dow...dateid=-1&formatid=-1&source=-1&fileid=406575

 

OUTSTANDING!

Have to admit.....tho it might not make much difference, I just couldn't stand not having the top cpu... just sent my R2 back and ordered a new one with I7-640UM with bigger HD and all....week and half till delivery. I guess during this time I'll sit back and see how folks fare with this new driver Does look promising tho!

 

I installed that version of CC the day after it was posted and my battery life is over 6 hours on average. I've always been perplexed why so many here had been reporting such poor battery life. Hopefully this is the answer people have been looking for.

 

well, i havent officially timed my r2, but im guessing it would be 4-5 hours? and plus at 6 hours do you have everything on balanced? or with highest brightness?

 

What's your power management, backlit settings?

 

Vinyl cover new thread

 

That looks so awesome!! Where did you get it from?

 

Yes please do tell where those skins came from