4850's Finally out for the m17

Actually no one is talking like that.

 

Alienware never promised an upgradable computer.

outdated GPU wise??? Since when do you buy any computer component that isn't refreshed in 6 months? Still its not like the 3870's aren't still capable GPUs.

 

Absolutely true, and I understand that. I also understand that, for me at least, the justification of spending the extra money to go with Alienware was to have the upgrade route open to me. While I am a notebook enthusiast, I don't have the technical abilities and knowledge that many of you here on the site possess (upgrading my own RAM is about my max speed...) so I rely on Alienware to perform any substantial upgrades (CPU, GPU, hard drive, etc)

So, in my mind, what I was paying the extra money for was to have the ability to send it back to AW and have them upgrade my machine for me, paying a little but gaining the potential to maybe keep my laptop a little closer to current for a longer period of time.

I don't have illusions here - I do realize that AW never guaranteed that upgrades would be available for a given length of time, or at all. I also realize that all components get obsoleted very fast, especially in computers.

With that said, this time my decision was to go with Alienware, pay perhaps a little more money to go with them (as alienware rarely tends to be the cheapest option! ), in the hopes of having future upgrades available. My mistake and loss, as the upgrades aren't available - but their loss, as well, of a potential future customer as I think I'll probably go a less expensive route next time, having learned a lesson on this one.

In short, I guess my thought was I'd go with AW as what made them special was the potential to upgrade. If that's not going to be there, then I don't have any real incentive to go AW as opposed to other manufacturers.

 

That might work between friends but I wouldn't trust any oral word from ANY company

 

Yeah some of the posts have got a little out of hand about "broken promises" we were never "promised" anything but many of us received E-mails and some had cards debited claiming that the 4850s were for sale....this was the only real crime commited.
About whether it is right and decent that Alienware offer us the cards of course they should.....The notebook was only on sale for under a year and we were never given the chance to give a little more life to our machines......shouldnt they just try and do something decent for their customers instead of creating an "us vs them" sort of atmosphere.
@Marvie.....GPUs that are outdated in 6 months.....come on, you expect a bit longer....the 3870s were already a little old when the M17 was released to most countries....they could have offered us the upgrade or give us a good reason why they cant do it....I would be happy with that.

 

That sure is true....but we should not give up! .

I will try and try till i get bored of myself...i know i prolly don't stand a chance but i got "some" hope.

I urge everyone in the same situation to keep complaining (we all know eventually someone will give in) and we might be lucky, or someone might be atleast.

Good luck bro's!

 

I hear what your saying.


I'm frustrated as hell too that AW pulled this crap off. I took the hard way of getting the cards but the wife is happy with her M17 even though all she does is play The Sims 3 with it.

 

The Sims....god what a waste!

I bet your rubbing your hands together with glee frozen.

 

What he's not mentioning is, with the M17, each sim actually becomes an AI....

 

lol yeah but whatever keeps her happy plus she didn't mind getting the 3870's.

 

definitely....she will be the coolest wife in Alaska.

 

when I bought my M17 they assured me with 100% certain that I could upgrade it to 2x4850. law suit on the way.

 

I agree. Let us know what you are able to find out. I do intend to keep phoneing till somebody is able to at least give a lucid and reasonable explanation for not doing what has been shown to work just fine.

It's unbelievable that every time you call they tell you a different story. AW is in my opinion loseing customers on this one. Customers that would in many respects love to continue to be ones but find the treatment in this situation poor.

 

I'd expect you to know as well as any other tech junkie that there's an urge to have the latest and greatest tech.

The 3870s are perfectly capable cards-I love playing Crysis on High, 1440x900.

However, I'd also like to play it in 1920x1200/1920x1080 (yes, I plan on getting a second monitor)-which I could only really do with 4850s unless I want to play on low or something.

It's like my CPU-everything works fine on my Q9000 at just 2GHz. However, I still long to have a QX9300 in my machine working its magic to add the icing onto the cake, so to speak.

It's a bit criminal that they offered them for an upgrade twice and nobody ever got them, except one.

 

Just to let you folks know that i am still fighting with Alienware about being mislead inregards to GPU upgrades.

Fortunatly for me, Dutch Consumer Law is on my side.

They have recieved my last final written warning, if they do not respond before the 26th of October i am taking this to the consumer protection agency or the Better Business Bureau.

I have offered them 2 choices, i want either the 4850 cards or a full refund of my laptop.

Ill update this thread when i know more.

Take care y'all.

 

Thanks for the update man. Good luck!

 

Well Guys, I cannot believe this happened to M17 owners.
They should offer you the upgrade to m17x AT LEAST and a symbolic price.
I feel very sorry for you, I can imagine you all must feel so angry!!!!

 

cheers DHC.....keep at it pal.

I will also continue the crusade in a week or so when Im less busy.

good luck and thanks.

 

Is there anywhere else to look that people know of to try and figure out what is going on behind the scenes in this ATI-AW debacle. Is it really just a matter of getting enough parts and they don't have the supply, etc.

 

actualy it seem like the 4850s where made specificly to sel the remaining of the m17

 

I agree, these were to clear stock of the M17's most likely

 

I wonder what was the reason behind they never offered 4850s as an upgrade. I think many of us would be ready to pay around 500 quid for them if no more, so its probably not the marketing. No one reported any bigger issues with them, so I think its nothing technical either...

If I remember correctly, Alienware already set the price for upgrade, so I guess there was at least a plan, to sell them separately.

I think It might have been caused by Dell merger. Perhaps Dell didn't want to have anything to do with M17 or any of its upgrades?

Cheers

Luke

 

it was prob in order for them to get you to buy a m17x

 

Always Dell! Ruining it for everyone! What a bad business model. Give out parts for a select few knowing that everyone who has an M17 can use them but then telling them no and then try to just upsell you on a new "faster" machine. Dell I think has murdered AW finally. They are like AOL that way.

 

I'm not sure if this is old news or not, but the latest version of GPU-Z is now correctly obtaining GPU temps for the 4850's. When the cards first came out, the temp sensor was not available when I tried it.

However, you have to do the same workaround in Crossfire that was employed for Everest. You have to disable Crossfire, start GPU-Z, then re-enable, or it could hang your PC.

 

thanks i din't knew

look like the fan speed rotation sensor is broken LOL

 

As Alienware/Dell has not responded to my written complaint I have now opened up a case with my Legal Insurance Company.

Apparantly the avarage laptop has a lifespan of 4 years.

For every year after purchase the value of the device drops with 25%.

Currently my laptop is still worth quite an amount of money (only 12.50% less then purchase value) and since they decided to mark the M17 as EoL my Legal Insurance Company was more then willing to open a case up for me.

I will hear more from them within 5 days.

Stay tuned .

 

Good job!!!Alienware has to give M17 users a responsible solution

 

Definitely let us know what happens!

 

I got them, and I got 13k on 3dMark06 ... same problems for all M17, fan goes at full speed, overheating issues and outdated drivers makes this 400$ upgrade REALLY NOT WORTH IT ...

BTW I have 2x 3870 ATI Radeon Mobility Cards for sale ...

 

I want to start somekind of Modded 4850 drivers thread for M17 owners ... or anyone that could use it ... especially for Windows 7 64-bits ...

Anyone wanna join ? PM me !

 

haven't you tryed to use mobility modder ? to update your friver to the lastes ones from ati?

cause AW 4850 are compatible with it

and how have you been able to get them overheating last time i checked ati card shutted themself down when they reached a danger zone (ofcourse not telling the os what was going on and making it bluescreen) how ever this was befor ati was bought by amd but i never had overheating with mine ya they run bloody hot and make the laptop feel like a furnace (64 at idle and between 80 and 90 under heavy load)

but i agree that you'r 3dmark06 score is low since you got a qx9300 it's close to mine of 12k but maybe is it the driver

 

Actually if you can get a good price for your old cards, update the drivers and use decent thermal paste; they are worth the price. The difference between the cards is 3870 Crysis High playable at 1440x900, 4850 playable on high 1920x1200, you'd pay much more money to get a new laptop with the same results.

Thats a massive difference, and as games get more shader heavy, the 4850s will continue to show superiority.
They're expensive, but will allow the M17 to stay capable of gaming at decent settings in high res for the next year or so, something the 3870s can't claim anymore as it is.

 

If you do not like the 4850's that much, I can buy them off you

I will buy an M17 just to put them in lol

 

That does explain everything !

After a fiew run of World of Warcraft (at high settings) ... I saw that crossfireX was disabled and that video card no.2 wasn't showing anymore ... so I had to clean / re-install drivers to get slave card to be back on track ...

I think the M17 plateform is total crap ... fan systems is really noisy, the notebook overheats after max 2 minutes ...

 

It is a good platform, the only cooling that is weak is that there is one fan and set of fins to cool 2 GPUs. Both fans are also too small, which hurts the cooling and makes it louder

 

Still no word on AW getting out these cards as upgrades?

 

You cannot even buy the system they were offered on anymore....I would say the upgrade option is gone haha (not that it ever existed)

 

Hey scook it is actually possible to upgrade to 4850. You just need to call up Alienware many times to reach the right person. Then he will place the order for you. Depends on your luck sometimes you might get lucky for getting a good tech rep. I got my single 4850 from Alienware and it is definitely possible to grab a pair of those and get it into CrossFire, just that I figured single card is enough for my usage. Hope that will help.

 

You are one of the only people that has managed to get them as an upgrade from AW then...and the Canadian people may be more willing than then American ones

 

Are you serious? I don't think it is so hard to get the upgrade though, they even offer me 4870 with just 223$ exclude shipping and taxes and I would have take those if it werent went out of stock. I guess I should really just order one more 4850 and sell those? But then it is kind of like an unfair business.

 

The 4870's are not going to fit in the M17 at all....the rep you got is not that well informed, is probably why he ordered the 4850's for you, all the american ones were told not to send them out. And yes, you absolutely should have gotten 2 4850's haha, I would try to get that same rep and order a 2nd before it is too late.

 

Oh man I guess I just got lucky! But then it took me lotsa phone calls to actually reach the rep. So I guess all my effort pays off then. Yea then I will try to call them up and try to order one more I guess.

 

you will probably need to get that exact same rep haha

good luck though!

 

/me smells order cancellations again (like we never seen that before )

 

When did you order your 4850?

And when did you recieve it?

Thank you in advance for the reply!

 

I ordered it last two weeks and receive it last week. Keep calling the tech rep, don't give up. My card idles at 53c and loads at 80c, is it too high guys?

 

that is about right for the cooling in the M17 - it has horrible GPU cooling unfortunately

 

How about cpu? is it as horrible because I'm planning on getting a quad core and copper mod the northbridge

 

The QX9300 in mine would break 80c when under full load and OC'd

The system can handle that and it will not run that hot ever during normal use. It should be fine