Alienware M17 *OFFICIAL* Owner's Lounge

So now that I've spent hours and hours running the damn Vista updates...! Good lord, I forgot what a pain that is. Ok, any other preliminary set-up suggestions? Going to be installing Office and CS4 tonight.

Also, for performance I usually set up partitions on a new system/drive; one for the OS and one for the rest. However, I have this one configured Raid 0, so is there really a need?

 

I'm not too happy with AW. Seriously. My laptop was finished 9 days ago and they still haven't shipped it. And when I called today, they said it'll be shipped on Monday. Seriously? Does it take 12 days to hand it to DHL?!? That's retarded. I should have asked why, but then again knowing AW they would have come up with some made up excuse.

 

look on the bright side 4850's the sam cards in the ASus whooo

 

yup, with that at least we can keep the M17 going for abit longer

 

stupid dell make my m17x already!!! - rant over.. sorry .. sigh... rough day at work.

 

Screw what I said earlier, they've just shipped my laptop. (After 9 days of it waiting in a warehouse in Dublin...)

 

It is going to be very weird, AW used to be known as the spoiled kids brand, but with the good pricing of the M17 with 4850's being cheaper then ASUS... wow...

 

Yeah. All of a sudden with the release of the M17, BLAM, suddenly they're pricing things really well, even with the new M17x it's nicely priced.

You still get bragging rights though.

 

well its well priced in the USA in the EU its far far far too over priced

 

I don't read every single post so I obviously missed the important stuff about 4850's in the M17; I just went to the Alienware Web site and all I see for the M17 is ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870.

I have been waiting for weeks for the new Alienware laptop, M17x, and now that it has been released I can't stand the look - not something I really want to plunk down in front of a client. So back to the M17, but I really would like to know what the all the hype is about 4850's in the M17.

 

the m17 is getting the sam cards as the Asus w90p

 

look at the other threads which cover it

 

I loaded all the updates, installed my software, now I have a boot-up issue I hope someone can help with. When I power up, the system seems to hang just prior to the windows boot screen. Blank, nothing. I power off with the button and it powers down. When I power back on, it boots fine. So it is taking two power-ons to boot up. When it boots the second time I get the screen asking how I would like to boot windows... So something is failing in the initial boot and getting bypassed on the reboot.

Any thoughts?

 

Hmmm. The only thing that really would cause boot-up problems is the finger print scanner. It overrides the normal password log in screen.

I haven't had that issue (yet), so I can't be of much help.

Make sure you do a disk cleanup and a defrag.

 

I haven't even set up the finger print scanner yet... Having a helluva time calibrating dual external monitors. One monitor is perfect, the other is off in its colors and the fonts are a tad fuzzy. I foresee a long call to tech support in my near future.

 

if i was gtting that kind of error i would suspect an error in the boot sector, sad as it sounds first thing i would prob try is to re-install windows

Regarding 2 external monitors, i have only hooked mine up to my 28" so cant help there sorry

Pete

 

Let me add an interesting note I learned last night: this "boot hiccup" doesn't happen when I boot the laptop by itself. So maybe it's one of the usb peripherals or the config of the external monitors, because the absence of those things are the only difference. Perhaps this is some kind of delay; maybe the system waiting for one of the usb items to respond. Powered USB Hub: my speakers (just got those yesterday and this was happening prior to their installation), Wireless keyboard/mouse, HP monitor for its two USB ports, and my external HD (Seagate 1.5TB).

I will start unplugging one at a time and see if one of them is the culprit.

 

oooo yeah i had a similar problem with a desktop i had, it wouldnt boot with a usb thumb stick or a usb wireless adapter in, i had to remove them to get it to boot

Pete

 

Wow!

With two 22" external monitors, your graphics cards are gonna be working overtime.

What is the resolution on those monitors? 1680x1050? Are you going to be using the M17's display as well?

 

I do notice a decrease in performance in gaming when I have even one of my 24" monitors hooked up to it. So yes they do tax the graphics capability.

 

it depends on the resolution, i have my 28" screen hooked up with my m17 running at 1920x1200 and it all runs the same on my external compared to when i dont have it on

Pete

 

That makes sense.

If he's running two 22" monitors at 1680x1050 and the images are different,ie landscape, then his cards are going to be working harder than they would on a single monitor at 1900x1200.

I'm not sure by how much, but FPS will go down.

 

totally agree, if he is running 2 at that res his card will be burning up

 

Thanks! I was not even aware of the ASUS W90 until your reply - I just ordered this over the Alienware M17x since I can't stand their new case design.

 

its a good call, i would have waiting until the m17 got the cards and got that though tbh

 

I'm running them at 1680x1050 each. Have the M17's monitor disabled while these are plugged in. I wish I had gotten two of the same model, but the Gateway monitor's colors are a little off from the HP monitor. Otherwise, they are running fine; one off the HDMI port and the other off the VGA port. When I bring up the Catalyst Control Center, it shows each monitor assigned to its own graphics card (ie: graphics adapter 1: HD2201 and graphics adapter 2: HP w2207).

Keep in mind, I am not gaming on this rig. This rig is for graphic design; heavy adobe type stuff. Ok...well I DID buy Flightsim X for it yesterday!

 

Two different monitors and two different output methods both drivin from a laptop.

I'd say you're doing pretty good getting it all to work well.

Good job.

 

i knew i saw some one do that a while backk good job and thanks for posting to help some people

 

A follow up to my boot issue: it was my external Seagate that was holding up the boot sequence. When I unplugged it, the system (and Windows) booted fine. Plugged it back in and the system booted but Windows did not - or at least it was hanging in one spot. So I'll just plug it in after Windows starts its boot sequence.

It's a 1.5TB 7200rpm that I have a lot of info stored on. I could move it to the M17's hdd, but why? Know what I mean?

I don't know how many of you guys are familiar with the boot sequence...but if Windows encounters an error, it will log the point at which the error was encountered and when you restart it due to that error, it will bypass that point to reach boot completion. That is why it was taking me two power-ons to boot up Windows. Now my experience comes from Win95 and NT days (old MCSE here) but I am guessing that not much has changed in the boot architecture.

 

Cool, sound like you're back in business!

 

lol check in your bios that its not se to try to boot off the usb

 

That was one of the first things I checked. The usb items are toward the bottom of the list, so it should have booted fine. Perhaps during the bootup sequence, the usb drive isn't responding fast enough when the system checks all attachments... Don't know. Just know it was the culprit, and the bios was not set to boot from it.

Did I mention that I really, really love this new rig??

 

I have had this on a few pc's in the past

I never did get to the bottom of it

 

Guys, is there a thread where I can learn how to overclock - get the most out of my rig?

 

yes their is look in my m17 how to guides

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=325944
here is a guide

use GPU tool to over clock after 8.10

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1383/GPUTool_Community_Technology_Preview_1.html

my stable clocks were 735/1030

but most cant overclock that far on the memorey but i think it was because i was cooling the notebook and keeping the memory banks from overheating

 

As I prommised, here my idle temps with notebookcooler ... sadly not that impressive. I'll spend some time on gaming and than I'll update the test

Greetings
Julian

PS: 911 posts, It's time for a porsche joke

 

Calling all cars! Guys, tried updating my display drivers to ATI 9.5 using E-Wrecked guidelines. I must have missed something and now my adapters are FUBAR. Current state is that VGA drivers are loaded but DM says they are not functioning properly. Tried installing the 9.5 installation files but the Control Manager doesn't run; says there are no ATI drivers.

I don't want to reload a backup from several days ago unless last resort. Any help asap would be greatly appreciated.

 

Did you use Mobility Modder? Be sure you modded the right file, I installed 9.5 yesterday on W7 and I had no problems (after reinstalling RC1).

I did it liek this:

How to Windows 7 on m17

I know that guid from E but it takes so mutch time

Greetings
Julian

 

Also, before you try to do a fresh graphics driver install, uninstall the drivers in DM, then use Driversweeper (free) to remove any remaining traces of the old drivers. Then begin with a clean install of whatever new graphics drivers you want to use.

 

I did this portion; that is what I meant when I stated I followed E-Wrecked's procedure. Lemme install the modder.

 

okay, got it back to square one at least. Installed drivers from AW Support CD.

I obviously don't know what I am doing in this regard, so I will leave well-enough alone.

 

Do you have ICQ?

Greetings
Julian

 

about the basically 0 upgrades coming to your computer. having little driver support for the 3870s.

im considering purchasing second hand

 

Well, its a decent laptop, not many laptops out there get upgrades so id consider it a bonus if this one did.
ATI already made the first step releasing mobility drivers (for win7) lets hope they will keep it up Also ive seen some pretty damn cheap M17 in ebay so if you are buying one at that price i believe its worth it.

 

yes and no

yes becuase we thought you could upgrade the graphics cards ( maybe still but for now its a no)

drivers for the cards.. well i used to have m9700 and a/w used to be slow with the drivers supports for cards then so its no big shock + drivers have been comming out and the rest will see the 9.6 out soon is great.

it plays most things on high and is a very good laptop so if you can get one cheap i would..

me personally i think it will have upgrade options in the futre for the graphics cards the processors are great and you can shove 8 gig of ram into it as well.

 

I have had zero problems with my M17.

We have the same driver support as any ATI mobile graphics card owner.

The m17 is one of the most capable gaming laptops money can buy, still.

 

I will come up with GTX 280M or FX 3700M upgrades on M17. Will try to test tonight too.

 

upset would be a very mild way of putting it

 

Like someone else said, the graphics upgrade would have been a bonus, but typically that isn't an option for laptops anyway. It's been a good laptop, and am quite pleased with it. Not upset no, and I would highly recommend you do pick one up as it is one of the best bang for the buck notebooks you can buy, especially the cheap prices you could pick one up for second hand.