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

riva tuner is forcing 3d clocks on the gpu, so it will be hotter than normal, but your temps are still very high. if your comfortable taking the laptop apart, i suggest redoing the thermal compound. and also cleaning up the fans with some compressed air. there is a link to a gpu replacement guide in my sig, the step will be the same.

 

Will that mess with my warranty?

 

no it won't. but if your not comfortable with it, call dell and they will send a tech to do it. imo doing it yourself is best and it is also good to get to know your laptop internal parts and learn some maintainence.

 

Ya Im pretty comfortable doing it.. Just wanted to be sure about Dells warranty.. Would suck to throw away a 3 year warranty. What would be normal temps (idle and gaming)

 

if i can remember normal idle temps with 2d clocks is about 45-50. also you running riva tuner so your forcing a constant 3d clocks, making your temps higher. so i suggest only running it when you need to.
also here is a link for some temps comparison between old and new thermal compound.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/480075-replacing-thermal-paste-m15x-i7.html

 

My temps idle anywhere from 41-44C and 51-58C Load. This is after replacing TIM with MX-3.

 

wow those are some awesome temps, beyond the omega must be a cold place,lol.

 

It is space I guess...lol. But I do cheat a little though, I'm using the NC2000.

 

great cooler but instead ive got 66c load with stock paste with 650/1100/1625 oc same idle temps

 

yeah thinking of making a custom cooler, since this thing runs hot with the 5870. but not bad though played bf2 for 2.5 hours max temp was 84.

 

Custom cooler you say? I've been looking for spare bottom service panels so I can experiment with cutting extra vents etc into them. So far though, no luck. Extra vents will basically allow the NC2000 to cool everything under the laptop.

Plus I have a secret cooling project I'm working on just for you guys, more to come soon...

 

wow sounds cool, i guess i will have to put something together too,hahahha
just did a few benches with the 5870 oc'ed and posted the results in the bench thread, i just want to see someone break the 10k mark.

 

Getting my M15x in a few days hopefully. As a mac user all these while there are a few questions i'd like to ask.

I know i can google search them but i'd like to get info from you aw gurus. It would be greatly appreciated if anyone would take the time out to answer.

1. What is benchmarking?
2. What is throttling?
3. What are bios?
4. What is overclocking?

Is it necessary to run tests on my aw? What are the things i needa lookout (virus etc.)? What else do i need to know?

sorry for the noob qs. and thanks again!

 

Hey Brutality.
1+4. Benchmarking is just testing how fast your system is, people like to overclock (OC) which boosts the speed of your CPU + GPU and benchmarking shows the performance gain. It's not necessary to run the tests but people do it out of enjoyment.
2. Throttling refers to when the CPU speed gets limited, it will not likely affect you but if it does then see this page Here for a fix.
3. BIOS is the basic program built into the motherboard that tells it what to do with all the things connected to it like HDD and I/O card. When you see the big Alienhead during boot, that's the BIOS loading and that is when you press F2 if you want to see or change any settings.

For Antivirus I like Kaspersky Internet Suite as it does virus and firewall, you can get legit serials off ebay for cheap. There are free options too, I recommend Comodo Firewall and Avast antivirus tho I hear good things about Malwarebytes too.

Edit: Oh and I highly recommend browsing in Firefox with Adblock and No Script adons.

 

Boy I should have done that,
worst tech ever.
The first thing I tell him is; I have a problem with my M15x AlienFX system, I'm pretty sure it's a hardware problem since I've tried reinstalling the command center and restarted my bios.
He then proceed to take the control of my computer, from which he searched for the new command center.. after about 20 mins and multiples "Hold on I gotta figure something" I take the mouse and go download it myself..
He came back few minutes after saying; well I don't know what's wrong- Wait you managed to download the good driver?
So I install it, it doesn't work as usual.. He tells me to reboot 3 times.. (??)
Then he ask me to take off the battery and press on the power button for 15 sec to reset the bios, still nothing.
He puts me on hold again..
about 45 minutes later; Well it seems to be a hardware problem, I'm gonna take your information so I can send a tech over to your house.

>__________________>
These Indian-based tech are lame.

 

Wait a minute., Thierry. The tech is going to send a tech to your house??? WTH. That is one lame tech they send you man!
I wish I could send you mine, because he's the best. Before he starts he draws a draft of the computer, then places all elements on the pre-drawn spots, cleaning every component with utter care in the process. He takes his time and works extremely professional. Furthermore, even though he lives near me, he refuses to take on gigs outside of Dell, which in my book makes even more professional.
A shame not all techs are as dedicated.
I feel sorry for you, man. It should have been solved by now!

 

I'm guessing he meant the phone rep is sending the tech. Same thing happened to me. I also just realized my sound isn't working at all now, lol, this keeps getting better.

 

That makes more sense, actually. The "He then proceeded to take the control over my computer" threw me off.

Sucks with the sound problem. Hope you can fix it, mate.

 

Thanks, I hope they can fix all of these issues. Having this all happen within a month of purchase is ridiculous.

 

Makes you wonder if these high-priced systems are actually tested before they're shipped to the customer. I have my doubts.

 

I think you will find AW Tech Reps are in the US (Denver I believe).
Before slagging Indian reps and going all bigoted, you might want to confirm facts.
So it took the rep 45 mins to confirm your diagnosis: perhaps it was his first day. If and when you get a job, your first day will not be your best either. Try to be a little more tolerant, you might actually get better service.

 

The reps (both Dell's and AW's) are based everywhere over the world. Most of them in cheap labour countries. I know one (female) rep in the Netherlands and one in India (he's quite capable, though).

 

Thanks man. So after taking my lappy apart and cleaning / reapplying thermal paste. (I did both the CPU and GPU)

I have had the laptop under load for 30 min. hitting a peak of 58 C. Thats with the throttle fix (rivatuner and throttlestop) running while gaming. Should be interesting to watch after the break in period. And see how it handles a few hours under load.

I wish i had checked my CPU temps before doing all this.

 

yea the indian rep i have is very good so i can't complain its just here the tech support here is impossible to beat imo.

 

I was polite the whole time, I helped him to download the driver I already had tried. I explained him why he couldn't download the dell's drivers from firefox, and all, I've been tolerant and respectful the whole time!
The guy was named Ousman and I heard people talking in a language I can't understand in the background.
I just find it stupid that he had to do a bunch of thing I had already tried to make sure it's an hardware problem, eventhough I told him first.. but I'm pretty sure these guys have a manual with all the steps to follow in case of [insert every possible problem here]. Though if he had been more comprehensive I could have save about 30 minutes in my and his day..
Anyways, don't get me wrong, I wasn't mean and disrespectful, I just thought he was not very competent, but it's the downside when you buy from dell, the guy can't know everything about every computer dell sells..
And yeah Harry, I meant a rep on the phone
Can't wait to have my lights back, I feel like it's been years..

 

I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding Soccer. I didn't find your post disrespectful or anything like that.

 

I have my lights out most of the time (well, during the day) and I have a great tech. Maybe we should swap systems, Thierry!

 

Well tech person showed up yesterday at my daughter's house with a new video card to install since her diagnostic test beeps and hangs at the color check. Turns out the tech said it is a firmware problem and that it is attached to the motherboard and that he would report it. Ended up running the test via the disc. He took the video card back with him and told her to tell Dell that he installed it which she will not do. In the meantime I will be call them first thing in the am because I am having the same problem and you should not have to use the disc to run your diagnostic test.

 

Hi guys, I seem to have a bit of a problem here. I rarely use my CD/DVD drive, but tonight I wanted to watch a DVD so I popped one in. It started playing but I stopped it and ejected it to watch something else. The second one I popped was not recognized, and neither was the third, the fourth, etc. So I tried the one that worked before again. Nothing! It just says Insert a disc. I already uninstalled the driver and re-installed it, but that didn't do anything. Any ideas?

Cheers,

Harry

 

thats a strange issue harry, does it work after a reboot. i don't have the regular cd/dvd drive, so i can't really test it.

 

What program are you using?

 

Hi Inap,

No it doesn't work after rebooting. I uninstalled the whole thing, but nothing seems to work. I obviously can't use the recovery CD !

@Soysauce: I'm just using the program it came with (which for me means stick in a cd/dvd and it should work).

 

One quick way to see if it's a software issue is to run system restore back to a time before the problem happened. Something might have gotten changed in the registry.

 

excellent advice babyhemi, also maybe do the battery drain just to clear out the glitches.

 

Thanks babyhemi. I did try that and, of course, did I try the all magical battery draining trick. All to no avail, though. It's probably just a faulty drive.

 

yeah thats what i'm thinking also, man that sucks.

 

It's not really a big deal. I'll wait a couple of days to see if J gets bored at work and finds me a solution , and if that doesn't work I'll call Dell. I personally know the tech they're gonna send, so I'm not afraid he's gonna wreck my system (I know where he lives, so I'm sure he'll be careful ).

Thanks for your help guys, appreciate it!

 

Weird! Make sure it's not a software issue by trying a audio CD, and download VLC, which pretty much works with everything!
Or you can try with this diagnostic.
Good luck!

 

wow nice find soccery.

 

Thanks Smeggit!

I read somewhere in the forum that people don like the mcafee that comes with the system? Why is that?

Just got a call from the courier service, they're gonna deliver it tomorrow whee

 

well sucks the life out of your cpu cause of the constant scan service really $***ty thing mcafee did

 

Yeah, Mcafee was good a long time ago but it's turned to crud and recently they sent out an update that screwed computers world wide. You're much better off getting rid of it.

 

Thanks Thierrry,

I just tried it, but all that does is download Windows Diagnostics Tool (Fix It) which is already built into every Windows Vista and Windows 7 version. I ran that program several times last night, but when I come to the point that I have to insert a CD or DVD it can't find it and tells me to put in a compatible CD/DVD.
I did try every kind of disc I could find in the house and I only use VLC (Sorry S0ysauce, this is probably what you meant yesterday!). The thing is, I never get to the program because it simply does not recognize the fact that there is a disc in there.

Thanks for all the help guys. I'll probably just call Dell to have it replaced.

 

Oh, I see.. I'm sorry about that dude :S Hope your sweet tech will fix it soon

 

Dos anyone have any recommendations for a neoprene sleeve for the m15x? I want a nice snug fitting one, and since I've finished college I'm thinking about going shopping for a sleeve, unless someone can provide a good one (I've searched and found 0 results that look possible, except for the InCase 17" sleeve for MBP, but that was for the area 51 m15x).

 

I use a Belkin 17" Neoprene Sleeve which fits quite snugly front to back and has just a fingers width to spare on either side. I have a 6-cell battery so it might be a bit tight for a 9-cell.

 

I've decided to go shopping anyway, but I'll keep a look out for that one. Thanks

 

Well, should be a piece of cake really. Is a tech coming to you today for the AlienFX-problem?

Man, I love this forum! It's just one big family looking out for each other!

 

Yeah this forum is awesome =D
The tech should be coming today, but it might be later this week too >.>

 

Well let's hope that
a) He comes today
b) He's a capable tech
c) He can fix the problem

Good luck, Thierry!