New to me M15x

I traded my Macbook Pro 2011 15" for a M15x earlier today. Specs are as follows:
i7 620M cpu
ATI 5000M graphics (I have never heard of this card before. vend 1002 dev 68C0)
8GB RAM
1TB HDD (replaced with a 60GB corsair SSD temporarily)
1920x1080 LCD

I have questions. The top of the LCD has some kinda light scratching/buffing, any way to remove/lessen?
This garbage GPU. Please somebody sell me/give me a 5870M or 6870M, 6970M, or something ATi based. I do not like the sound of this GPU, and it lags like hell in Furmark even though I am able to clock it from 600mhz to 800mhz no problem.
What CPU to put in? I am thinking 920XM? Sound good?
The "Alienware" light up logo on the bottom of the LCD is dimmer than the rest of the system lights. Any way to un dim this?
My dad and I skype, and he said my camera always looked lit was trying to focus when I moved. Any way to fix this too?

It is not as cool as my M18x, but I think its nicer than the macbook pro i traded away I think.

3D mark vantage score
http://www.3dmark.com/3dmv/5265981

Seems higher than comparable systems.

EDIT
I have a lovely problem. I cannot use sleep. Everytime I close the lid, open it back up, system does not wake up. The caps, scroll, and num lock keys light up and blink. I have to pull the battery/power cord to get the system to turn back on?

 

You did well in my opinion. These systems are becoming very sought after as of late, since the new systems are all ball grid array and can't even be overclocked.

I'd upgrade the CPU for sure to a 920XM or 940XM. The GPU you have PLENTY of options, all depends on what you intend to use the system for and your overall budget. Right now the 7970M is the best bang for the performance to dollar ratio. But 5850/5870's will work very nice for the age and they are DIRT cheap. The 6000 series cards I've been discouraged from as they apparently are a pretty hot running chip. If you got the cash the 970 from nVidia is the current crown holder.

There is no independent adjustment for the light zones as far as dimming goes that I have ever known of. You can either turn it off, on or dim everything via right clicking the tray icon.

As far as the camera and the sleep issues go, I'd make sure you have all the drivers needed from the Dell website installed or perhaps dig into the settings.

 

I will look into a 5850/5870M replacement card, or perhaps even a 7970M. I am worried about the sleep issue. All my drivers seem to be up to date, but it still can't resume sleep without restarting with blinking status lights. It is on BIOS a06, was there a bios update that addressed this problem?

 

Congratulations on getting a m15x. I agree with what has been said above. I upgraded to a 920xm and a SSD. I use my m15x as my work laptop in the office. On occasions I have taken it to hotels when I have to travel for work but it is a pain moving it around due to the weight. It originally came with a 5850m and that is absolutely fine for work applications. If you are a light gamer it is perfectly adept at games such as League of Legends. I play most hearthstone which is not taxing at all.

I did open the laptop and clean out all the fan vents with compressed air and I also reseated the GPU heatsink and applied fresh thermal paste which brought down my temps so that there is not throttling at the moment.

I can't believe I got this laptop for free. One of my best friends bought it years ago and gave it to me a couple of years ago to fix it as it was constantly BSOD. Turns out that it was just a wifi driver. Anyway by the time I figured this out, my friend went out and bought a Macbook air pro and said I could have the m15x for free!!!

Oops I have gone off topic but am lazy to knuckle down to work!!!

 

I seem to have fixed the resume failure issue, used drivermax to update the SMBUS driver because for some reason, the drivers downloaded from intel didn't want to install so it was using MS stock drivers from 2006, so I'm happy with that now. Still looking for a cheap MXM ATi card if anybody has something better than the Mobility 5730

 

One comment to make. NEVER use furmark unless you wish to kill the GPU. Pointless benchmark to use. All it does is heat up the VRM's to melting point which is something that no other software will ever do.

Congrats on getting the M15x. It is the best laptop ever made Compact, powerful, very upgradeable and serviceable!

I also recommend on looking for a 7970M in the NBR marketplace. Also the 680M is a great bang for buck card. I got mine for $150 dollars and it performs better than the 7970M I owned previously. More stable too.

 

150$ 680M? Hook me up!

 

Haha I did haggle on a great deal. You will have to go hunting in the marketplace. If you look around and PM a bit and are patient too you will find something.

Seriously though 970M's can be had for as little as $430 dollars brand new! This card runs at 81W vs the 100W of the 680M and performs 10% faster than a 880M at stock clocks!

That by default makes it the best price/performance card out there, also the coolest and newest too! Might have to save up a little though!

 

I would like to get a 5870M to play with first, I am uncomfortable dropping a whole lot of money on this laptop, will be used for casual gaming at best.

 

My 5850M did quite well, so I wouldn't discourage it the least if you want a really cheap play around option. I played everything from Battlefield 4 to Crysis 3 no issues, would have to bump the settings but it ran them great. Would get 80-120 FPS in BF4 with the right settings... Plus the card overclocks like nuts.

I'd check out eBay and the marketplace here. Lots kicking around as people have upgraded, but the 680M and 7970M are for sure winners unless you want to dish out bigger dollars.

 

Yeah, The 5850m is a pretty awesome card! I'm surprised that it still holds up to this day.

 

I can't believe they shipped such a crappy card with the M15x...this HD 5000 is absolute garbage. Should have made the 5850M a standard card.

 

Believe it or not some people want muscle cars with four pot engines instead of V8's, just like some people buy a premium gaming name for looks and want economy specs.

 

Just so happens. My m15x ate it for the last time on me and I have a 920xm and a 6970 to unload. PM me if your interested

 

I don't understand how these computers just "eat it"
In my 25+ laptops I have owned, 3 of them being Alienwares, I've never had a motherboard fail.

 

By ate it, I mean, I've lost interest in up-keeping it. I just got an m17x r4 so I'm done with her. I just put a new mb in her and had the hard drive fail within a day. I have no interest in paying $400+ in a new Hd and OS and no use for 2 laptops.