After the GPU Downclocking... Do we have a CPU one? A call to M15x owners.

Any news yet from anyone? Still nothing on my end.

I guess now we just wait and wait and wait.

 

no I haven't heard anything yet either. I posted on the Alienware forums but my post has to be "approved" before they will do anything. What a joke

 

yeah the AW forums are pretty useless. Same old song and Dance. We are now aware of it, and currently working on a fix/bios/patch lol..

 

yeah its crazy that all we've heard is "we are aware of the issue" What happened to Frank, or Steve for that matter?

 

I have no idea what has heppened to everyone. There is a new Rep Armando at least he sems to be pretty active here today.

 

true but we haven't seen him in this thread. I was happy though cause I read in another thread that he said that they are still working on downclocking issues. now he didn't say specifically if it was the cpu so we'll have to wait and see.

 

Yeah no direct mention of the CPU downclocking. Oh well and Wait some more.

 

quick question. I downloaded cpu-z. During regular internet or idle time my CPU is showing around 1195mhz and if I ENABLE stealth mode, the cpu INCREASES to 1595mhz. What is up with that? But is the low mhz while surfing the web due to the speed stepping?

 

I've noticed that, I don't get why it goes to 8 when it's at 6. Although I assume it's because Stelth mode sets the multiplyer to 8, and idle is 6.

 

Yes, speed stepping goes down to 1100MHz.

So then you may ask, why run at 1595 in stealth when it goes even lower to 1100MHz. The reason why is because the 1595 runs at a lower CPU voltage than the 1100MHz speed stepping, which means that the 1595 is still more energy efficient (and the better choice for long battery life)

 

My CPU goes to 0,83 GHz when on stealth mode.

 

nice thanks brotha.

 

You guys could use RMClock to make the CPU run at 700 Mhz or 600Mhz as I do on battery

 

Ok guys I haven't gotten anything and i'm sure NEW hasn't either cause he would have posted. Has anyone else had any progress?

 

No... nothing on Engadget either...

 

Ok send off a letter to:

http://www.techpowerup.com/contact.php everyone on the list.
http://www.hardocp.com/
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,9118,00.asp
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,1329747,00.asp
http://www.toptenreviews.com
http://www.laptopmag.com/contact/contact-us.aspx

All sent a copy of the letter so far. Hopefully we will get a reply. Also resubmitted to engadget.

 

will do! yeah hopefully we get something soon. I think AW should stop selling the x9000 until they get a fix for it. Anyone else that is willing to help that would be great.

 

hey guys someone posted on the AW forums about the CPU downclocking on 5/20 Guess what!? no response. I thought someone told us to post there so they could help people out. Well to me doesn't seem like they care to much about this. That or they are trying to keep a tight lid on this.

 

Well it sure is funny how no one from AW cares to post or even give insight into our situation. Roswell hasn't replie ot my emails. My CI rep hasn't replied.
So I guess they just wnat us to go away. It's been well over 10 days since we let them know about this issue. This is getting worse by the day.

 

So. Who thinks that it's about time for a lawsuit? Serious case of false advertising, and a lack of informing consumers. Telling us to report the issue, and then not following up, or letting the thread onto your oh-so-apparently-awesome moderated forums so that people CAN inform you of this IS NOT HELPING. There is a SERIOUS flaw with your product that several thousand have purchased. Some went for the best possible, and end up getting something lower because of the flaws with the system. The system works, yes. You did fix SOMETHING, yes (GPU D/C issue), but the fact of it is, it still has a major hardware issue: Cooling.

Heatpipes on bleeding edge technology (especially with how far away the item is from the fan) DOESN'T WORK. "Oh, let's cool the coolest part of the metal!" "YEA! It's sure to work!" Pfft, it's a POS honestly. You should have done the cooling like the m17x, the fans right over top. Will it make it a little thicker? Sure, but guess what? YOU designed the case, YOU have control over the motherboard layout. Make them CLOSER! You know this stuff is going to get hot, and you know how important cooling is.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy my experience with this laptop... On the odd occasion that I DON'T play WoW, which is the only game that downclocks. Everything works perfectly, except the game I play 95% of the time. Srs. Bsns.

/endrant

 

The heatpipes are not the problem, heatpipes are proven tech and used in almost every cooling solution nowadays. I'm not a engineer but its obvious to me that the heatsinks themselves are too darn small for the heat dissipated by the CPU/GPU! They look so tiny, in my current laptop (a tosh satellite with a t2310@1,5GHz and a HD2600, don't laugh ) I have a single heatsink that is bigger than the two out of the m15x combined...

 

OK sent again to Engadget hope those guys hear us out. Whats also crazy is because of the downclocking you can't play WoW. Anyone else thats experiencing the downclocking care to help?

 

I can play, but my FPS drops to like 10 for 5 seconds, and it downclocks probably every couple minutes. It seems like it's starting to do it more often too.

I completely disagree with heat pipes, I really do. The best cooling is always direct cooling, not channeled.

 

Of course, it is always the best to cool down heat where it is produced, but thats not always possible or the drawbacks of this solution are not acceptable. I don't know how much you know about heat pipes and if your opinion comes from a "bad feeling" bout them or from testing and technical knowledge? Remember, they are not simply a rod of pure copper, look @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heatpipe for more informations.

Heat pipes where a small revolution in cooling design a few years ago and made a lot of convenient cooling solutions in laptop as well desktop computers possible! Otherwise we would still have laptops not smaller than a m17x I don't want to advertise them but my point is, you won't find a laptop these days without them and thus I cannot understand your anger...

 

I just don't agree with the physics behind it, being a physics student.

 

Well the only thing we do know is that IT doesn't cool well enough. And it is begining to a point where AW needs to release something wether it's good or bad.

 

no joke if that at lest give us some type of status that would help

 

Sorry if this goes a bit off topic but I'm curious, what is it exactly you can't agree with? I mean its not that heat pipes are a great hoax and do not really work, do they? The principle of vaporisation and condensation to conduct heat more efficiently than a solid material sounds reasonable to me, furthermore refrigerators/AC are based on something similar and seem to work pretty good Don't want to offend you or your education, I'm simply interested because I was fairly confident about them because they are used so widespread!?

 

I verified with a CS rep today that there is a back order on the m15x cases and they won't be in until May 30th. I wonder if there have been any changes based on some of the complaints.

 

Interesting.

 

yes, more evidence towards the redesign theory...

 

I have illustrated my point in a very crappy paint document. It's somewhat colour coded.


http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/3932/heatsy2.jpg

 

Thanks for your illustration, I think now I get your point but IMO you have missunderstood the principle behind a heat pipe. They do not loose heat along the way of its transport. Because they use the state change of a liquid for heat/energy transport they rather have a hot and a cool zone:



So the liquid takes heat energy from the producer (i.e. CPU) in the hot zone by vaporizing. The vapor then travels along the heatpipe to the cool zone (cooler because its cooled by heatsink/fan) where it condensates again and gives away its heat (which goes into the heatsink and finally heats up the ambient air). The condensated liquid travels back to the hot zone and the circle closes.

 

*Shrugs* Either way, it's not very effective in the m15x.

 

well, not heat pipes on the whole, just how they're implemented (e.g. too small a fan)

 

Wow I got a response from the Critical Issues Team leader.

"At the moment, Alienware’s Product Group is working to replicate and resolve this matter accordingly. Please rest assured that our forum community will be updated on this resolution as the information becomes available."

At least it's something. So let's keep our hopes up that a fix will come very soon.

 

well see you got more than I did this time. I'm sure it can't be that hard to replicate.

 

Yeah I could do it a thousand times a day. And the wierd thing was WoW was what brought my M15x to it's knee's LMAO. COD4 still played quite well.

 

still no response next step? I know these things take time but what do you guys think the next step should be after we give this step some time.

 

I think the next step for me being a Canadian Citizen is the Better Business bureau. I will file a complaint once I get home in a week. If that doens't yield any results, i guess the next step is to find a decent probono lawyer. I am sure we can't find alot of scummy lawyers to start writing some letters. Hate to take things this far, but hey have had my money since Jan 31st. And I have not had a working system since.

 

Yeah I think the BBB should be the first thing only problem with that is it takes a awhile to get things moving on that side and by that I mean a month. Maybe then they'll listen to us. Just wish maybe some type of media would post about this that seemed to be the only time they would respond about stuff.

 

Still new here so am currenltly familiarising myself with the forum and got to say this whole issue regarding the x9000 is really s**t. agree with everything you guys have done so far and hope we all eventually hear something.

@crizzler & lessaj7..... with regards to the cooling system I can see the benefits of the heat pipe, but from what I’ve read here if the temps are getting up to 90c + then is it possible the vapour just isn't getting an opportunity to cool so the pipe becomes effectively useless. The CPU then downclocks until the temp drops low enough for the heat pipe to work again and then the whole thing just repeats itself

 

welcome the the forum TMRL yeah its pretty crazy. Thank you for your support.

 

Its quite possible with temps going so high, but I don't think thats the case here... With a GPU card specified to be able to operate up to 100°C I _hope_ they used heat pipes still able to operate at such temperatures! Second, when a heat pipe fails to operate, the temp raise should be more extreme! Its like taking off the heatsink! Again I think its a undersized cooling system running at and over its limits because the heatsinks are too small/fans produce not enough airflow...

 

Get a load of this fan boy on notebookforums.com

Pretty rude too if you ask me.

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread216944-2.html

 

lol that kiddo uses far too much exclamation marks to take him serious
Give him a link to this forum and a day to read, if he has a brain he will shut up, if not he... whatever

 

Well i was kinda taken back by how rude the guy was. And he had like over 1,ooo post on that site. Still seemed like an uneducated voice if you ask me.

I guess now i remember why I come here.

 

rude is a bit of an understatement.. though I liked you response to him newfiejudd.

Just out of interest, with all the issues surrounding the m15x why has the official review on this site not been updated since it was done in march???

Clearly there are a few extra issues which should be pointed out to people who don't take the time to read all these threads and it would be another way to make AW pay more attention if the official reviews started criticising their product instead of recommending it.

 

That is a really good questoin TMRL, and one that I believe has not been answered.

 

cheers newfiejudd

have been following the m15x saga for a while but have only just started reading through the forums properly (up until then i had been basing my opinion soley on the official reviews ).

I really wanted this thing and almost ordered one, but following a couple of recommendations from this forum I'm now waiting to see what the new M860TU is like, or until we hear AW have PROPERLY fixed a few more issues.