4850's Finally out for the m17

hhhmmmmmmm

So how much more delay on Drivers for 4850 ?

 

Marshall has managed to get some drivers installed now, the problem with the Alienware set was a broken self-extracter from Alienware, rather than the driver itself; it was deleting the temporary installation and setup files before the installer could run!

DOH!

 

-Maximus- just bought a m17 with the 4850s. he's going to post some benchs when he receives it. estimated time is Aug 3.

 

cant wait to see what improvement we get over the 3870s.

 

about 50-60% better

 

I want to see wheather non Crossfire can kill the 3870 Crossfire

Greetings
Julian

 

Vader aren't you still sending yours in to have your 3870's replaced with 4850's? When's this supposed to happen.

 

Been a week now
thinking maybe drivers are the delay
on my laptop

Hope i get it this week

wonder if anyone has got the 4850 in there m17 yet ?

 

Marshall has; and also my laptop has just hit phase 5 (building). After an email; because of the price drop of the M17; the finance department also agreed to fit the Blu-Ray drive for me - bonus!

 

Sweet Alex....Hopefully the finance department talks to the "build" department and they get it put in for you as promised. In the past this has been one of AW's fault's, changes made during production didn't make it into the system. I wish you luck though, as these are Dell built anyway.

 

Lol...I bloody hope so; still can give them a call tomorrow to check. If they don't they'll have an angry phone call; as this went from Customer Services, to Finance, back to the Customer services assistant who reported it to me, someone should have made notes! I of course have the email chain incase they back out

 

Oh brilliant news Alex....I was very sceptical but your obviously more persuasive than me.

Good for you!

 

Well I told them that I knew I had DSR on my side, but would really prefer to come to an amicable solution, so either I cancelled, or they gave me the drive that meant they still made more of a profit than if I cancelled and reordered

Basically if you don't do this Im gonna cancel on you; I have the legal boat on my side; accept my offer and help me and make more profit (£20 absorbed into the nether + profit from BluRay upgrade); or cut of your nose to spite your face

Perhaps it was the fluttering man-lashes in the email; or the fact it hadn't left finance...perhaps we shall never know

 

Oh no...its definitely what you said initially!! I was too "yes sir..no sir" about it all...."would it be possible if you could blah,blah"

never works!

Im sure you will be even more happy with your system now.

Whilst Ive got you here Alex;

I suggest you have a quick read of this thread of mine regarding cleaning your M17....I suspect your well versed in these things but I swear by the E-cloth and think everyone should see how good they are!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=382244&highlight=clean+M17

I dont work for them or anything(Co-operative, in fact) but think every Alienware owner should have one.

 

Looks like a good idea; my cleaning tends to be a bit more OI YOU! - Attack with an airduster; followed by a non-residue leaving wipes; followed by a quick wipe from a little cloth out of one of my family members glass cleaning cloths I've nicked

I do like the look of them though! Out of interest; which loudspeaker company did you work for?

 

B+W(Bowers + Wilkes) loudspeakers. I was a sound tester their for 3 years.

http://www.bowers-wilkins.co.uk/
We made the most expensive speakers in the world.
One particular pair of speakers called Nautilus at the time(2000ish) cost £36000...yes thirty six thousand pounds.
All sorts of expensive chemicals were used to get that same finish that I now get with one of these cloths...something to do with the fibres.
I used to run about with all those silly disposable wipes but they dont do half the job.

How much are you selling your desktop for? just curious.

 

these look like more modern versions of the Nautilus;

http://www.bowers-wilkins.com/display.aspx?infid=786

The biggest story going around the place where I worked was of a Arab sheik who ordered 2 for each of his 6 wives....whether this was true I dont know..probably was.
Nearly all of them went to the US(studios mainly) and the rest went to China which was a big surprise to everyone because it hadnt really started to boom then...I cant imagine how much they order now!

 

Oooh, yeah I know B&W, nice speakers; can be a little harsh for me sometimes though on the few sets I've tried.
I can believe the money though; Im well aquanted with the likes of older (good) Missions/TDLs, Quads, Dalis and others audio makes like B&O, Arcam etc etc

I probably would have loved your sound tester job haha!

I'm going to be selling my desktop for about £500-600, which would include a 24" 1920x1200 monitor (PVA panel) and probably my trusty MX revolution et al. Well that's my estimate anyway.

 

Yeah before I started their they used to make KEF speakers and Mordaunt-Short and many other old school speakers.
The job wasnt really as good as it sounds. All I did was plug them in as they came down the production line and run a quick sound test from low to high and send it through, if it did not sound right I would swap out a tweater, cone or cross-over....very simple assembly work!

Cheers Alex, see ya!

 

ok lets get back to topic peeps....PM each other or start an off topic thread about the speakers if you desire to continue the convo.

 

BAD NEWS.........ALIENWARE ARE NOT OFFERING 4850s AS AN UPGRADE;

recently, we have received the information that the ATI RADEON M98 1GB HD4850 will not be available for sale as an upgrade.
I'm really sorry for this.

Kind Regards

Matúš Danko

UK Customer Care Team
UK Technical Support Team

Alienware Ltd

JUST RECEIVED THAT....thats back on-topic for ya!

 

You are aware how uninformed that these people are. I emailed them concerning something about the warranty and the person clearly didn't even understand half of what I was saying. He was clearly using a set of questions and answers to answer my question (so to speak) and refused to send my question higher.

Alienware should at least be smart enough to realise how much of a monumentally RETARDED decision it'd be NOT to release them. They would make literally tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars out of it.

As has been said before they are likely waiting for more stock, to make sure that they have enough stock for the new orders with 4850s.

 

Hi Evil....yeah perhaps I shouldnt have thrown that out there quite so drastically but It shocked me for a moment...Ive had a brew and a fag and am calm again.

OK, perhaps it could be another crap Alienware employee getting their facts wrong but Im half waiting for this E-mail to arrive anyway just cos we are all so excited and looking forward to the upgrade.

It makes me laugh, below that E-mail was another Alienware E-mail asking for customer feedback.
I tell ya, Ive got a bad feeling about this Evil.

 

I really wouldn't be suprised if it's another employee getting their facts wrong. They've already been proven to work (well, we've got one working at least in an M17 however since that M17 has a non-crossfire-supportive version of Win7 it's no suprise that crossfire isn't working) so AW would be stupid not to release them.

 

Yeah I hope so too,

I dont know why its just the part of the E-mail where he says;

"Recently" we have received the information...........like its something thats just been decided over breakfast.
not only that but in all the other E-mails and phone conversations the Alienware reps said "you cant have them...yet" he has not..he has said "they will not be available for upgrade" see what I mean!

About Marshalls cards; I disagree about the version of Win7 being the issue simply from experience. Myself and many others are win7 fanatics and the cross-fire issue was fixed in the last BETA build....perhaps they are other smaller issues but Im using the RC1 and X-fire is working well.


lets hope all this is just a misunderstanding.

off to work...see ya!

 

Well just to let everyone know Im almost there with both cards working. Am using a DNA-ATI driver which installs lovely. Only issue im having is getting the CCC part of the driver to load hence I cant turn on crossfire at present. The guy who does these drivers is on the case and giving me some help with CCC installation. I said for anyone who has not seen that GPU-Z is showing crossfire as disabled so the scores of 13000+ 3dmark06 and 5100 vantage are most definately single card scores.

 

You ought to be able to download the CCC package seperately from ATI and install it. I don't think the CCC package checks your card in anyway.

 

Thats been said like ... 100 times now ? And every single time its a misunderstanding from "4850 are not currently available" and " 4850 will never be available".

As long the option in the web side is still available it means at some point the old users will be able to order them as well.

 

I have said it in the past and I will say it again - never buy a laptop and plan on upgrading the video cards. Even if it is possible as with the M17, it just doesn't pan out the vast majority of the time.

That said, I do not think it is fair to blame or bash Alienware if they do not offer the 4850s as an upgrade - their obligation to you is over once they deliver the product (other than providing end-user support). I don't have the numbers, but I would guesstimate that if they decide not to offer the 4850s as an upgrade, they would base the decision on research they did beforehand as to whether or not it was worth it.

 

What chaz said.

I am gonna be buying an m17x if my whitebook ever sells and I will be ordering with GTX280m SLI because if an upgrade comes out, I may get it if not, I already have some dam fine cards. Win either way

 

We are not blaming AW for not offering the cards. Think ive said it myself in a few posts that those cards would be a "bonus" if Alienware actually offered them. The main problem with the whole situation here and why people blame AW is because they keep saying, now we are offering them, now we are not. Not to mention actually taking orders then cancelling them, which im sure is very annoying for some people.

The least they could do is first test the cards and make sure they operate fully then give the users a straight answer. And maybe forward an email to all people in customer service so they give the same answer to people!

 

Exactly, they have definitely lost customers over this 4850 debacle. So far it is being handled very poorly by them (reminiscent of when I had poor support from OCZ for my whitebook before they abandoned it all together - maybe this is due to still being connected with Flextronics?)

It is a shame, this is a phenomenal laptop that is being so badly crippled by bad support from the ODM (Flextronics should have provided working drivers with these cards)

 

I think once the dust settles and they have sold enough machines with 4850s they will become available myself to existing owners. For now though ill bet the easiest answer for them to get you to leave them alone about the issue is just to tell you they are never coming . Not really good business practice but i guess it gets the job done. The fact that Marshall got a hold of a set of cards to me is proof enough that they can be had somehow and just a matter of when not if. I could be wrong as this is just more speculation but i have a feeling you guys will have your day at some point in time.

 

If that's the case then Alienware is having some internal issues, and yes I can understand how some people would get upset over having their order canceled.

 

They are having big issues actually .

I spoke with a tech for a couple hours the other night , he said there biggest issue right now is everything in there system is all being switched to Dell tools(IE part replacement etc) and at some point in time they will no longer use any of the old alienware tools .

This could be part of the problem with switching over all there systems and why orders are being cancelled etc.

It took them 2 days to place the order for the SLI cable for instance on my M17x and get back to me.

He said he found the part right away but couldnt figure out how to get the order properly placed.

Maybe there still is a ray of hope and once they get there stuff straightened out you guys will be in the clear to order.

 

At least it took a few years before being bought by dell adversely affected Alienware and their customer service......it looks like the effect is finally settling in sadly. It was inevitable I suppose - one company cannot afford to run as 2 forever

 

I've just wrote a mail to AW asking them when I will be able to upgrade the gpu. If the answer isn't satysfing then I'm going to sell my recently bought m17 (6 weeks ago). I'll buy another pc and never return to AW.

 

They wont know for sure. So the answers will vary if you ask different people. Patience you must.

 

Who is Flextronics and is it just me or do they suck ?! I had a 9700 that I was having issues with before and everytime I got it back from them it was either in the wrong configuration when I received it or it came back in worse shape.

Is this Dell's and unfortunatly now AW's answer to cheap 3rd party work?

 

Flextronics makes the actual hardware that is these laptops, they are an ODM - Original Device Manufacturer

Dell and all companies really that you think of as computer companies contract to these other ODM's for the actual design and manufacturing. Dell just markets and sells the system. The work isn't cheap, it is a top of the line laptop, it was just poorly supported and then abandoned for a newer design to be focused on (m17x)

 

no one in their right mind could bash AW since they are the only ones offering it and they went through the trouble o doing this..... they are better right now then 90% of the people who do not fight for GPU upgrades

 

yup this is exactly what has happened to me, twice now

Thats why i have given up and will not buy AW again

Clevo for now...

 

They still offer the 4850's on their website? Eventually they will come out, we just have to wait, or at least hear why it can't be done.

 

they are offering on new systems, but they have now said to 2/3 people no upgrade...ever...

they cancelled my order again...so this time they wont get the option of having my cash...

 

I don't think a can't is likely; they might not have driver support properly sorted; but Marshall has his running now; even if the drivers aren't the best, and he was an upgrade from the 3870s, so 'can't' is quite unlikely

 

they screwed up on his ..... they actually called and asked them to ship them back

 

exactly, i think there will be a small modification on the mobo on the new ones



wait and see

 

Oh I know; but what I means is, bar supply/logistics (and possibly official driver support) there's no physical reason the upgrade can't be offered

 

i do agree and i think they will be eventually but these cards are not main stream only 2 companys have them MSI and AW ... the supply is limited but they could make serious money off upgrades

 

Aye, hopefully demand for these chips will improve thier or thier successor's flow into the market.