*OFFICIAL* "All Powerful" M15x Owners Lounge - Part 4

funny you should mention that, i just helped a friend install windows 7 she purchased to replace her vista on a HP lappy. it was a nightmare driver wise. 1/2 the native vista drivers refused to install so i had to do work arounds for each one... only thing i couldn't figure out was the "co-processor" driver.

and you're right aabout the cases. in comparison they've always got some sort of trick to open and if you don't do it right, they snap. in fact the m15x is the first laptop i've owned where this sort of trickery is almost non-existant. the only thing i can think of is removing the grill requires the front panel removed to access the screws underneath... that's it.

 

I second that! I would never buy a HP.....besides the fact that they have well known overheating issues and reach 70-80 degrees while surfing the net and watching youtube videos is really rediculous..they really ARE horribly assembled. I just recently replaced the thermal paste on the cpu on a hp pavilion. All i can say is NIGHTMARE. It was basically like doing a mobo replacement... cuz i literally had to dissemble every single component to get to it. Took 10 mins on my M15x. However the thing is running cool as ever now a SOLID 20degrees cooler.... doesn't make any sense to me... the paste looked the same as the dell stock paste...wtv the case, it was worth it i guess

 

Never mind...download worked.

 

Hi,

I'm replacing my dell xps 1645 laptop (720qm, ati 4670, agb ddr3, 500gb hdd, 9 cells battery) due to throttling, heat problem and frequent blue screen.

Dell is offering me a little more than 1700$ CAD to buy any new Dell Laptop.

I want to be able to play SC2 max resolution good graphics, encode video, etc...

I want a solid system that will last and I don't want anymore problems.

I am currently looking at the M15X with those specs :

Intel® CoreTM i7 740QM (1.73GHz/6MB cache)
15.6-inch WideHD+ 1600x900 (900p) WLED
6GB3 Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz
500GB4 SATA II hard drive (7200RPM)
NVIDIA GTX260M GeForce®

Does the m15x have any throttling issue, bad heat management or frequent BSOD problems? Is it well built compared to the xps 1645?

Will it performance make me forget its heavy weight and poor battery performance? Compared to the xps 1645, is it that much heavier?
How the 6 cells battery life of the m15x compare to the 9 cells xps 1645?
Is it worth buying a 9 cells battery?

I know it is a lot of question but I would like to be reassured about the m15x. I loved my xps 1645 but its frequent problems made me replace it.

Thank you for your help.

 

you want the 5850 and your good as its the cheaper option and a better one at that by far.

 

I need Nvidia for certain compatibilities with other OSes, but outside of that, I would have went with the 5850.

 

which Operating systems do you need? Linux supports the 5850...

 

After 21 years of owning only Macs, my m15x is on the FedEx truck, and will be here any moment.

About time I got my cherry popped.

 

Yeah, I already run Solaris x86 albeit Sun is clamping down production of Solaris to go in house with their proprietary BS now that Oracle bought 'em....I'll be switching to another flavor, but no, that's not it. *cough* MacOS *cough*

 

Wow, you're in for a serious performance upgrade from a laptop perspective.

260M or 5850M absolutely crush the 330M GPU in the current crop 'o Macbooks.

 

Sweet. I lost one of those rubber thing that go in between the screen and the palmrest. D:

Time to replace my palmrest. Hopefully the creaking goes away too.

 

man how do you lose that part? just don't understand how that part can just fall off.heheheh

 

Wow, haven't been around here for a while. Lots of school, work, and Everquest 2

 

yeah new bios just came out yesterday, fix the touchpad and some throttling problems.

 

Yeah noticed that. Already upgraded to A08.

About to do some furmark and Wprime tests to see if i get any form of throttling.

I heard about Extreme cpu's getting this shaft on this one though. Sorry to hear about that.

 

yeah its a big let down, hopefully they will do something about it. but gaming and everyday stuff is fine for now.

 

Fixes touchpad ??? YOU MEAN IT'S FINALLY USABLE?

Too bad my new palmrest's touchpad lighting doesn't match the colors of the rest of the laptop . Called Dell yesterday, and they told me it's most prob how the new hardware is designed, as they wer designed to be brighter than previous models, possibly making the colors off from the rest of my laptop, and that there's nothing he can do about it. I told him that's unacceptable, and he said he's going to write engineering An email and let me know what can be done. Yea right like that's going to happen. When I build up the patience ima call back, and get it sorted out. On a good note, there's zero creaking and it feels like it's more solid.

So a08 is a go? Ima do that now me thinks

EDIT: WOOOOOOT! On A08 right now and it rocks! The touchpad is amazing finally!! Coupled with the multi-touch synaptics driver for two finger scrolling and 3 finger flicking, it now feels like a worldclass touchpad, for a worldclass laptop . I figgin unplugged my mouse and will be using the touchpad ALOT more often now (since i use my laptop alot in bed, the any-surface mouse i had was useful but somewhat annoying as it would get lost in the sheets LOL). All that's missing now is pinch-to-zoom... well not that i really need it... but just to off macbook users as they will then have nothign left to say

 

what are the best settings for ccc?

 

I can't wait! I absolutely hated this touchpad. It's been turned off through the function key combo for most of the time I've owned it.

 

Boy, cant wait to upgrade to A08.. Sucks I have so little time.. Just bought a new phone also, Samsung Galaxy S <33
So I don't have much time hehe! Will do it this week for sure though, I'm interested in this touchpad improvement!

 

new bios rocks my socks.

installed the synaptics drivers again and im just wondering: How do you get two finger scrolling to work?

 

remove all stock touchpad and mouse software/drivers

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp49501-50000/sp49601.exe

 

man alive the touchpad is now awesome on A08 !! feels almost perfect one could say

 

ok so i have a question anyone else get a different language OS disc with their alienware? because mine is not in english even when i try to switch it over....anybody?

 

I never heard anyone reporting that. But there sold be an option to set it to English when installing.

 

there is but the disc is in a dif language

 

ok so i have another question ive been playing ff14 and my fans seem to kick in full speed...any suggestions?

 

what are your temps?

 

ok so i replaced the thermal PAD on my CPU (im kinda pissed about that)
and replaced my thermal paste with artic 5 i got rid of the loud fan..so hopefully the temps will stay low btw my temps where getting about 80 also i notice my cpu getting hotter than gpu...but hopefully artic 5 will hold til i get money for some mx 3 =) thanks inap!

 

Sweet glad you got it taken.care of. AS5 is good paste but has a long curing time.

 

damnit nevermind...the fans still come on full power and are quiet loud..ima check my temps when on ff14

edit..if im reading gpuz right my idle temp is 49 gpu temp
gpu 1 39
gpu 2 41
gpu 3 47

 

bro your idle temps are good... and the fact that your fans come on full-pin is a good thing wile gaming or benching! Unless you want your laptop to overheat and fry!! lol ... You have a BEAST of a 5850m under the hood, with an i7 840qm.... so yes it will heat up! but its all normal...Youll never get the fans NEVER to come on.... its those fans that give the M15x the best cooling system in a laptop so trust me... you want them to kick in when they should to keep things cool...

on a side note... that AS5 you used will only show its true potential after about a 200hour curing time... mx-3 will show an instant improvement

 

thanks my gaming temps are 75c on final fantasy 14 at 1080...so not bad..but DAMN CURING TIME...i just put it there until i get mx3 i was so scared i thought i scratched my CPU i was gonna cry!!

 

curing time for as5 (i'm a long time user) is around 200hrs.
will lower the temps by a few degrees, say 3 or 4 max.

it depends on how well it was seated.

i'm curious as to how well the mx3 will perform since its one of the few leading pastes i have not tried (yet). let me know how it goes.

also i'm curious, any benefit for replacing the thermal pad of the cpu? it's probably the only one i havn't touched yet?
why did you need to replace?

 

it runs alot cooler..i was really mad to see a pad there also the stuff they use is so badly put on its horrifc..you would gasp to the sight of it.. so i reccomend changing it...not hard...i thought it would be but im confident now i can replace the paste no problem so i cant wait for the mx3 ill post the temps when ever i get it hopefully soon though it would be nice not dealing with a curing time..since my computer most likely wont log 200 in even a month

 

haha yeah i've seen it.
i'm gonna do it now actually. be back later

*runs off to get the stanley knife and thermal sheet*

 

Do we really need a cooling pad
for this laptop

any suggestions which is good ?

Thanks

 

thanks for the heads up, replaced the pad. not sure if i reseated it better or if it's actually working.... but the temps have definately improved.

+rep

 

It appears the M15x eSATA port does not support port multiplier. I got a dual bay HDD enclosure with RAID and eSATA but sadly I didn't do my research on the hard drives. I got 2x 2TB WD Black cos I figured they're fast and would be great in RAID 0 but it turns out they don't support RAID at all unless you shell out for the special edition ones Anyway, the enclosure still lets me use the drives as 2 separate disks but in this mode eSATA only works if the computer supports port multiplier. I can use the eSATA on my desktop and somehow it's actually faster than an identical HDD connected internally! On the M15x the eSATA does not detect it so I have to stick with USB.

 

i only use a cooling pad for when my m15x is on my lap..if you re apply thermal paste with the good stuff you should not REALLY need a cooling pad.
but if you must im not sure whichs ones are fantastic since i have one from best buy that does well.. as for the thermal paste
i would overall say OCZ freeze since it works and is cheaper.
but main majority of people like mx-2 (or 3)
which you can get both from amazon...but if you dont want to wait...you can get artic silver 5 but that has a curing time of 200Hrs or so..so technicaly you will still be waiting for its full potential as to the others work right away

 

Does the processor in the M15x seriously have a thermal PAD on it? If that's true I'm replacing it with some proper thermal compound ASAP.

 

the cpu has paste on it but the heatsink has a thermal pad on the side where i believe it makes contact with the chips on the board. The actual CPU core has paste.


Cooling pad if you need one then get the NZXT Cryo LX that is the best one and only one truly suited to m15x since it has 3 120mm fans adjustable and the position is just right for the gpu and cpu fans. I have one that i ordered to test since i have a 920xm coming as well. In reality only the XM should need the cooling pad and only when hardcore benching or gaming. The paste would make the biggest difference but when you start OC the XM processor they like to run HAWT

 

wait i just applied paste that should be good right i removed the pad.

 

the pads are for the chips near the cpu, you shouldn´t remove it, can make it overheat

 

not the pads on the side the one on top of the cpu that was on the heatsink

 

on the heatsink? mine only has one pad that covers the three or two (i dont remember) parts of the motherboard

 

This is what the stock thermal pad for the CPU looks like this is what goes on the core. If i am not mistaken they do not use paste for the CPU core due to inconsistencies when applying and the time factor. The pads are just as effective as the paste under normal conditions. These pads are different than regular thermal pads and used as a thermal paste alternative mainly in clean rooms and assembly lines

eCOST.com - Startech 5 Pack Thermal Pad Heatsink Paste Alternative - HSFPHASECM

the heat sink has some thermal pads with silicone backing to attach to the heat sink and this is used on the GPU and the CPU but not the CORE the CORE for both GPU and CPU use paste like AS5, MX-3 or OCZ freeze or something along those lines.

EK Thermal Pad Sheet - 160mm x 155mm x 0.5mm - FrozenCPU.com

i hope that clears it up.

 

yea i dont think whats on the gpu/cpu is a thermal pad.... its a cheap generic paste that is stiff enough to hold together and is pressed into a small square sheet, and then applied to the heatsink, so yes it looks like a pad but is not, and is infact paste. Dell does this so its easy to replace. When i recieved my new cpu heatsink+fan, the grey square of paste was applied to the heatsink. As i wanted to apply my own ocz freeze (the stuff is just awesome) i scrapped off the grey square paste applied to the heatsink, and it did infact have the texture of a paste, not a pad. Thermal pads are the white sticky pads they use on the gpu mem chips...

That being said... ok yes they use paste and not pads on the gpu/cpu.... but they are crap. I'd still go ahead and replace it. Any aftermarket paste will be much better and i, like always, would recommend ocz freeze as its the cheapest, and works the best IMO. Other pluses are that its easy to apply, has no curing time, and is non-conductive so you wont have to worry about getting some on the board and shorting something

 

it called "powerstrate extreme"-processor phase-change thermal interface pad.

heheh i have a whole bunch of them, my tech gave me them. tried them and they sucked, hehehhe. the tech said they used these when replacing gpu and only used paste for cpu.

 

lol there ya go... looks like its a pad/paste hybrid aahahaha..either way...get rid of it