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

Wow! Gotta love it!

 

what effect does disabling hyper threading do?? does it improve game performance??

 

Sweet, I was able to intercept my replacement mobo with Unisys. The tech is going to come by Monday and I'll have a check to see if it is the right part and off he goes to do other things while I get to replace my mobo warranty intact. Apparently Unisys says they don't care who does the repairs, as long as the problem is resolved eventually lol.


Oh I also got my 9.5mm caddy from newmodeus.com. Got my HDD in there already, just waiting on my new mobo.

For those of you who had your M15x bricked by A03, would you do me a favor and go back in time and check your service call history and make a note of the motherboard part number? Thanks bros.

EDIT: Here's a picture of the caddy with HDD installed. Will put up a comprehensive swapping guide this time with lots of pictures. LOL unlike my M11x with no details... I think it will be helpful for those of you who want extra internal storage, run on a small capacity SSD, or just space greedy (like me) and will probably never use the dvd drive or have an external one.

Hopefully the system will accept it.

 

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to say hi and say that I've recently in the last couple of days become an Alienware M15x owner

Well pleased so far with the laptop. Not had too much time to use it yet but think I'm going to get on with it just fine.

Couple of questions though. I seem to have one of those keyboards that unfortunately flex's somewhat in the bottom right corner. The arrow keys and the page up, page down keys etc. It's bad enough to actually make a slight tapping sound (not the keys themselves but the keyboard base moving up and down). Strangely after having the laptop on for a couple of minutes the flex improves considerably. When it's off and cold it's pretty bad.
Do many others have this problem? Should I phone tech support and get them to send a techie round to replace the keyboard? I'm sure they'll do this but I worry that the person they send round will be rough with the laptop and mark it in opening it up etc.

Also the backlighting is only very faint on the bottom row of keys, particularly the space bar. Again, is this normal?

Your replies will be much appreciated

 

Ok everyone, I just got confirmation from the Dell.ca order status page that my Alienware M15x has shipped out today! Complete with tracking number. (this is the 4th laptop that i've been sent out where it shipped out on a friday, somewhat odd.

Anyway so if precedent is anything to go by I should have my new laptop by tuesday/wednesday at the latest. =D

 

pretty much everyone has the keyboard flex in some way. if its really bad you can just take out the keyboard and gave it alittle flex the other way, normally that would fix the problem, or you can shim it with an old credit card. or have dell replace it. either way. also yes bottom lighting is deem towards the front, but i think it is normal.

also congrats on new system.

 

hey anyone ever have where u turn on your aw and all the lights come on but the alien heads? That happen to me but when I went into the command center they came back, and now there on its wierd, should I be worried.

 

Hmm, command center and the whole Alienfx thing is really kinda glitchy imo. Just from reinstalling command center, I ended up killing the controller lol. I had no lights for a while and then the whole mobo went dead. Don't know if those two are related but I think in your case, you'll be ok.

 

nice find on that caddy villosa, hope it works out for you.

 

i have the same thing happen on odd occurrences whenever its been off for a while but other than that my system is awesome except for the horrible fan thats getting replaced after i had to reissue the part because it got shipped to some where 150 miles away from where it should have gone lol

 

Thanks bro. Yeah tomorrow is break down day, test fitting the caddy with lots of picture taking. Got all my little bottles labeled with the part and number of screws assoaciated with said part lol. Ended up with 15 bottles in all! I figured better stay organized.

More than likey I'll have to hand the tech my dead mobo too so I have to break it down before he gets here Monday. Wait or do I send it back to dell?

 

you have to send in any dead part if its being replaced

this was done by the tech who replaced my screen happy that he owns his own computer shop so he knows how to properly take apart an M15x and not rip off the top bezel because ive heard of horror stories where techs have broken that top piece because of not removing the 4 screws below that are covered by the battery.

 

wow thats super organized bro, normal i just toss all the screws into a plastic cup a made with a magnet underneath. but most of the screws are the same size, that why i didn't do that. trust me once you do it a few times, you'll be lazy like i am,lol.

 

I just thrashed my M15x order from DELL. After a long hard thought, it was the look and style of it that drew me away. Don't get me wrong I think it's one sexy laptop and has more then enough going for it under the hood. Reason I got turned off is by the look of it, it's too flashy for me and would like something more basic/professional looking while being able to have Alienware type performance/hardware.

Ohh well back to the drawing board, time to spend the weekend comparing and reviewing other 15" notebook options. But you have all been helpful and kind over here, so I appreciate that since I'm newbie with this type of stuff but love to game. BTW I still plan to own an Alienware system someday but most likely a desktop.

 

Hey guys ok so I was turning on my system and I pluged in a usb device then all my light went out, so I touched the power botton and it shut off. Now when I start it it tells me to repair it, but it fails and flashes a blue screen when windows trys to start. What happened, what should I do, also what could have caused this, should I be worried of damage to computer. Plz help

 

Are here any error codes on this blue screen like the BSOD?

 

if you want this kind of performance its going to look like a stone tablet this isn't rigid squares edges for nothing it has very efficient cooling better than any other computer to knowledge with the same specs and is built better than what you can try to duplicate in performance if you don't want to be flashy get the black model trust i sometimes am looking for my alienware after using somewhere and pass by it without noticing it trust me its not as flashy as you think imo the black version the silver however is much more noticeable.

 

so the repair fails, and have you disconnected the usb device and run the repair without it because if you disconnected it that might cause the failure. also what 'device' did you plug into your computer.

 

imho, no laptop with similar specs can compare to the build quality of the M15x, its solid and has an excellent cooling system. the only thing i consider flashy is the lighting system and that you can turn off. but its your money and your decision, so good luck.

 

it was a cooling fan lol. I did discontect it and then run the repair was I suppose to leave it in, I can't belive usb device damaged my computer.

However I had it go to my restore point and no more blue screen, I do not know what happened, any ideas? Also how do I turn the lights of I can get them all off but the trackpad, wifi sound play touch keys and the alien heads. I try pressing fn+f11 and no luck .

Also do u think I damaged the hardware , what should I do, oh my baby aw.

 

Is it true that our DVD burner has a Max speed of 8x??? I find this hard to believe when you buy a computer that is as expensive as an alienware... Did they really give us only a 8x Burn DVD player? Or did I not install a driver/firmware or something...

 

well it shouldn't hurt your computer if was probably something odd in the OS install which is why im recommending you do a clean fresh install with the os disk that came with your system. also with doing a fresh install make sure you have the latest drivers off dells website on a cd/dvd or usb drive so you can quickly install everything and always install OSD and alienware command center last remember that very important. you press Fn + F12 and the track pad lights go away but turns it off and what turns me off is that alienware command center cant turn the track pad color black annoying very annoying.

 

Yeah build quality-wise, the M15x feels like a solid slab of metal. Such a nice feeling to hold and the weight is awesome. Like Inap said, once the lights are off, the while laptop does black and is very nice looking and not at all distracting...aside from it being Alienware that is.

 

trackpad light is always on unless you turn off your trackpad.

 

even the alienware power button and back face thing those always stay on aswell.

Also u really think I should reinstall windows even though I did a restore point and everything is back to where it was.

also to do a clean install u mean in this order put in windows disk install then put in driver cd then do aw command center. What is OSD also where can I find the lateset drivers and how can I see what I am on currently.

Thinkin about gettin a ssd might just wait till I get that then do a new install on that.

And u don't think that would have caused a hadware failure, like cpu or mobo.

 

well why i say that is because with a factory install i don't like personally you don't have listen to me but this is what i have to say. With a factory install you have some programs that come installed but you uninstall the, but these leave small extensions and can leave processes behind and can take away a little bit of speed and it annoys me. so with installing the drivers take a usb drive and go to this site and download the drivers for what you have for your configuration.
M15X drivers
and the OSD is in the applications tab same with the alienware command center for best results use the drivers on dells site as the resource cd has drivers from last year lol.

try this

 

For the programs that are installed and removed through control panel, you can always use CCleaner to clean your registries. Or am I lost on this lol. I just got back from Nightmare on Elm St. Some sweet kills in that one....

 

just try this first:
shut off
take out battery
press power botton for 20 seconds
put back and power on
see if that fixes the issue

 

Ahah, the usual right?

Villosa: Looks like a great movie, Im gonna go see in with the D-box seats asap!

 

I was going to change my Ram to 1600MHz DDR3 but was wondering if anyone tried it. Clearly the mobo supports it, and with the current 1333MHz Ram I get about 14GB/s with super low latency of just 36ns.

My current ram boards are Elpida EBJ21UE8BDS0-DJ-F

Would 1600MHz ram increase this? I mean, it should right? I was going to upgrade to 8GB while I'm at it, so can anyone recommend a good model/make?

I know corsair and kingston are decent, but willing to pay a bit more for the best if anyone has a tip

 

I will downclock itself to 1333Mhz, to be compatible with the CPU and all I guys.. *-) I've tried it, aint working :S

regarding the 8gb of ram, I suggest you to buy a SSD or a ati 5870GPU.
Going to 4gb to 8gb won't give you much performances increase.. Unless you are one heavy multitasker!

 

haha thanks okay so I won't go for 1600MHz ram.. Currently my ram is at CL9 and I might look into 8GB of CL7 1333MHz if I can find it.

I can use 8GB since I do a lot of Ramdisk operations, virtual machines, Application Ramcache etc. I could probably use 16GB too..

I'll be getting a new Solid state also, but I prefer Nvidia (especially for Cuda operations) so unless there is an Nvidia upgrade path then I'll leave that one out. Pity that many of my critical apps just don't support the ATI compute model. Maybe later on I will go that direction once ATI GPGPU is more widely used.

Thanks for the info buddy

 

Hey guys, I'm looking to buy a decent set of wireless headphones and I know there's a couple audiophiles on this forum so I'm wondering what brands you'd suggest? Also, wireless with a base unit would be handy for charging but bluetooth's portability is tempting, any opinion on the two would be appreciated. Cheers.

 

Bluetooth and wireless units lose a lot of quality so I would get a wireless/bluetooth and a decent audiophile headset seperately.

Brands to watch for - Sennheiser (the expensive ones), Beyer dynamic, Grado..

hope that helps

 

Anyone upgrading to a 920XM might want to see this great deal:

INTEL quad mobile i7 920XM 3.2GHZ 12M 1066Mhz KING! on eBay (end time 13-May-10 00:56:20 BST)

 

Thanks for the quick answer, it's narrowed down my search. I'll go bluetooth for portability and grab a wired set for the home later.

 

hey Smeggit, would you mind telling me what will be your final choice? I could spent a couple of hundreds on a nice pair of headphones!
I currently have two Sennheiser, one pair of headphones for my computer, and a pair of earbuds for my Zune HD

 

Sure, will keep you posted. Been looking at the Sennheiser PX210 and they sound like good ones tho I just saw a review that said they had a small but noticeable lag which could affect games. Gonna keep researching

 

hmm...wireless headphones= crap compared to wired ones... even the 400$ ones

If i were you...id go buy wired headphones...whats your budget?

AS much as wireless headphone companies advertise that theres no loss in sound quality...going wireless means cutting exactly that...sound quality... the sound quality in the Pioneer SE-DIR800C's ( one of the best wireless headphones i've ever heard but pretty expensive...still dont compare to my HDJ-1000's.... but if your going to go for them anyways..and arent a REAL AUDIOPHILE like i am...then the Sennheiser RS130 should be your best bet...or the real affordable Sennheiser RS120's....

Music is my life...and i always strive for the best sounding speakers everywhere i am...from my car(Full JL setup) to my house (BOSE 7.1 surround) to my studio headphones ( pioneer hdj-2000's) and even when djing ( hdj-1000's) ...i've heard many...so trust me on this one ... if its one thing i know.. its sound and music

 

Hey thanks Jstar, I was hoping you'd answer I'm certainly no audiophile but when I buy something I like to spend a bit of dosh on a good one. Gotta use the disposable income while it exists I've been looking and all the bluetooth options have too many drawbacks for my liking. Was tempeted by the Samsung SBH600 but no one seems to have them in stock. I'm about ready for bed (4:30am) so I'll check out wired Pioneer headphones in the morning.

 

what will this do?

 

I will do this when my ssd comes in on tuesday, thanks for the links.

 

I got my machine a few days ago.

The only problem I have, but it's a huge concern, is that when I copy any files off a DVD, it takes hours and the fastest rate of copying is 110KB/sec.

I saved up data onto DVDs from my other computer, so we're just talking docs, pictures, whatever but I literally put a DVD and drag-drop the files into the Library on my M15x, and it estimates (and takes) anywhere from 6-10 hours to copy the files.

I did some brief searching, and found many similar cases from people using Windows 7. Couldn't find any solutions though.

Is this an M15x thing, a Windows 7 thing, a combination?

 

ok I did that power button thing, which is a reset correct. What does that reset, I know when I did it my alienhead lights were off when I turned it back on, but the trackpad and voulume keys were still on, is that normal. What does that reset do. I hope my computer ins't going bad I mean I only had it for a week.

 

yes that is normal touch button lights are always on, touch pad lights is always on when touchpad is on, press fn+f12 to turn off touchpad and lights will turn off.

 

the estimated times are sometimes off, it will always be quicker. just let it run. if it is truely slow then its an issue. normal should be around 15 - 20 min. for a full dvd.

 

I'd like to know exactly how often you've already typed in this little piece of crucial advice, bro!

 

If I access a DVD that has a lot of small files I tend to image the whole disk first. I save the disk as an ISO and then mount it with the hard-drive.

Why? The DVD drive is much much slower at accessing small parts of data. When you copy the image the DVD drive reads in a linear fashion so can read at it's max speed without seeking around all the time.

Reading the files off the image and then deleting it might sound like a hassle, but then waiting for 30-40 minutes just to read a particular DVD is also pretty annoying. Not sure if this will help you, but it might

 

I understand what you mean, but the problem is that if you want this kind of performance, the system will never look "professional" (or basic, for that matter). These kinds of systems come in huge packages. Alienware makes them look sexy, the other brands make them look like huge bricks.

 

Thanx so is that all the reset does is turn off the alienhead lights.

Also I noticed u had a intel ssd how do u like it.