Alienware M17 *OFFICIAL* Owner's Lounge

Well the principle is the same, the parts only fit in one way round can't put em in back to front or whatever and there are lots of clear pictures out there I took alias of my m17 upgrade and wrote a review bout it too ^^

 

Oh Link please, you'll recieve rep I can assure you

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=394028

is the thread

i did take photo's of the inside of my M17 as i did it but for some reason i never got round to posting them, i can do if it would help tho

Pete

 

WOOT. i should be getting my m17 today, the tracking info says its on a delevery truck as of thismorning. i cant wait!

 

Wahoo!! Just had mine delivered a few hours ago, up and running. everythings perfect!

 

I think you meant to post this in the M17x thread not the M17. Got me confused there for a little while. I was like, "how did he get a 260m for the M17?"

 

Lols guys your in the wrong thread

 

Oops =P

!!

 

ok. i have mine and it works well. just one quick question. is there away to turn off the blue alien head but keep the keyboard backlight on at the same time?

FoxTrot

 

The option isn't available in the FX settings?

 

no way to do that, either all on or all off

 

oh. ok. well thank you mate. lol. just a shame that i cant

 

Okay guys, I am getting frustrated. As you know, I have two external monitors hooked up; one to the HDMI port and the other to the VGA port.

Most of the time, when I boot up, all is fine. But other times I boot up and the video config is whacked. When the boot sequence starts, the HDMI is fine (primary), then when the OS starts the config is either reversed (monitor order) or the HDMI monitor shuts down and only the VGA monitor works, etc. Takes a reboot or a reconfig to correct it.

I called tech support and they walked me through updating the vid driver but it's happened again a couple of times. I definitely get the feeling that its Windows related because during the initial boot sequence, the primary is working fine. But damn.... It's frustrating when your system doesn't work the way it's supposed to all the time. I don't want to get an external adapter for the dual displays; that's why I went with the high end GPU's.

Any thoughts?

 

You can change the monitor order in windows by dragging the #2 screen to the right or left of the #3 or #1 screen while in display properties on the settigs tab.
Are you trying to use the laptop as the middle screen, right screen, or left screen?

 

Anybody wants to sell his M17?

 

I dont think thats what hes looking for. Hes saying the hdmi monitor shuts down on on boot and sometimes that the config gets reversed.

Im trying to think of what I did when this happened because I remember when I had a hdmi and vga running on my desktop, it happened.

Its been a long time.

Maybe try to set your vga as your main display or the other way around. Not sure if that will work, but I cant think of anything.

 

That's been sold since mid June...

Here you go though, post #17....
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=396458&page=2

 

Thanks Marvie

 

Sometimes it gets reversed and sometimes the HDMI just shuts down and I am left with only one monitor up on an extended desktop config. I have to turn off external monitors to get the laptop monitor back and reconfig that way.

 

Did you try with what I said?

 

No. Didn't see your post until this morning and I am already at work. However, in all honesty and with all due respect, I am not interested in band-aids; I want to find a fix or isolate a specific problem that I can have AW come and repair. I paid too much money for this rig not to be working correctly like this.

And remember, this is not a constant issue. It's intermittent and a pain.

 

If you do what he says and it holds after reboot is it really a bandaid? Good luck getting anyone at AW to admit that your issue is a "problem".

 

band aids fix wounds ;x

also, i found a 3rd party that might help called UltraMon

 

Guys, I appreciate what you're saying but bandaids "fix" nothing. Bandaids simply patch a symptom of a problem. If you don't heal the problem, more symptoms will simply arise. Again, I mean no disrespect, but I am no spring chicken here - Masters degree, 25 years tech support - this issue just happens to be outside of my experience.

If the system does not hold its configuration when Windows starts, it is NOT my issue; it is a problem. And, as I said earlier, most of the time it is fine. Like just now; I booted up and it held the config with no changes made. Yet it may not hold the config later, or tomorrow. It definitely doesn't hold the config if I boot up laptop-only (like if I am working in bed), then next morning I plug everything back in and I have to reconfig all over again.

If I have to get on the phone for a day with them, then so be it. I was just hoping someone ran into this before and knew a driver update that took care of it, etc.

Sorry Snow, overlooked the link you provided. And that may be a direction I have to go. For now, I am focused on getting this rig to behave.

 

Snow, trying out UltrMon now. They have a beta version for Vista 64. Thanks for the link! I took care of ya!

 

I have a question for you guys. Is it normal for the m17s gpus to run at 93C? I was running hwmonitor while i did an extended marathon play of GT4 online play, my gpu is normally pretty cool never goes higher than 82, then i saw hwmonitor this last time. sorry for bad quality had to do this quick before class started.

 

GTA pushes the CPU and GPU's and the ram etc so it could cause it to run hotter....

Little hot for my taste but still "safe"

 

Alright thanks you have been lots of help! Any tips on how to stop my gpuz from melting away? Besides a nice laptop cooler, going to get the cryo xl beast in a few weeks.

 

well ...remove the black little cloth things from the vents (doesn't help dust much ...)

undervolting guide

.....

 

Has anyone ever tried
Game Accelerator 7.5

 

Thanks
10char

 

IMO useless

 

Even Einstein had his moments and had to step back for a minute to see what others offered. Experience is only a temporary set back you'll get over it.

 

Good lord, let it go. You're preaching to the choir. But seeing you felt so moved to throw out a few more cents, allow me this: If the only advice I get on this matter is to swap the order of my monitors, then I suppose that is all I can take away from it - from here. It's not that I didn't understand what he was saying; it was that it made absolutely no sense to me that this could be a FIX. Until someone can convey to me the logic behind the idea that swapping the order of my monitors will help Windows save my display configuration on a more consistent basis (I'm sorry but all sarcasm in that sentence was intended but not to be taken personally, please), it's just falling on deaf ears...er blind eyes? Therefore, IMO my answer lies elsewhere. No biggie.

On a more serious note, when I spoke with AW tech support initially, they told me there was an HDMI issue with the driver previous to 8.57. He then walked me through updating the driver. My guess is the issue hasn't been fully resolved. I won't know if UltraMon is working until it happens again. It's just one of those things that nag at ya.

Nuff said, horse dead

 

Have you changed out the less than optimal factory thermal paste with some high quality paste like OCZ Freeze? If not, you should. You'll see a nice drop in temps. 93C doesn't give you much wiggle room especially in a warmer environment or if dust begins to build up.

 

Please can you advice a better software

i also tried the - Game Booster 1.1

that too was Useless

 

Thinking of getting the
8g ram for my m17

where can i cheapest price ?

 

If you're thinking of getting the 8GB of ram to boost gaming performance, don't.

It won't help gaming at all. If you do a lot of Cad/Cam type programs then it may benefit you.

What will give you a massive boost in performance is getting a set of the 4850's from Alienware. I'm sure you're aware of this though.

 

Sorry, I've just jumped in here, as I use the HDMI output on my desktop 4870. Have you tried downloading the latest Catalysts from ATI, mobility modding them so they'll work fine on XFire3870s, and then setting up a standard display profile in CCC?
I found doing this saved me a lot of hassle; as my 4870 detects plasma off/av amp on, no amp, tv/amp both on as different configurations, due to the HDMI hardware involved and can sometimes load up, or play funny when swapping things around.

Now when I have everything the way I want it, I load my profile; in my case standard settings with amp on and the tv off setup, and everything springs round the right way.

Might be worth considering, as even if it's not a 'fix' it might help you get around your issue, especially as when I load my profile I believe it reattempts HDMI handshaking, which means I can usually have my prefered settings [which includes ATI HDMI audio] running withing 10 seconds by just trying to load my profile twice at worst, with a few seconds of 'settle time' in between. To make it easier, I've set it to have a shortcut for my profile on the desktop.

If you've already tried this step, I apologise.

 

*Jubal paces back and forth outside the door*

 

Jubal... you know this is the M17 owners lounge right ... just curious

 

Doh! Well I can't come in here either!

 

Thank you
i already ordered the 4850 cards
& will be shipping my laptop to them monday

& so was thinking will it worth to upgrade
to the 8gb ram also

but i guess ill wait till next year & then upgrade the ram
for half the price I hope

Wish they had a option of 6gb ram upgrade for around $300

 

Congrats lordvader!

You should see a massive improvement.

So now the question is do you have all of your benchmarking software ready to go? Ya know we will all want to see what they can do. lol

 

oh so they approved the 4850s finally?

Can you not just order the cards and they send them to you? they could walk you over it on the phone if you had to, but sending in my notebook is a no go. lol

 

nah i cant mine either, cpu changed and bios lol

 

I take it you sold your old processor then? Because if you flash it back and put the old proc back it you could send it in if you had to.

 

well tbh i would only take the laptop apart and remove that cheap crap they use for thermal paste anyway tbh

so they as well just send me the cards

 

Wish i would have what to send

 

Omg I just checked out the site and they do have the 4850s! damn. So can they send them to you?