Alienware M17 *OFFICIAL* Owner's Lounge

some people are being told yes, some are being told no, depends who you believe

after what happened to me before i will wait for someone to confirm they received them sent to them before i part with cash (again)

 

ah cool. im going to try and find out.

i remember a friend getting a 3870 sent to him, because he only got one. and they were suppose to walk him through the install.

Although you might have to send it in because they might have to change things so it doesnt overheat..

 

How much of a bottleneck will i have with 4850x2 and p8400 ? how far can you overclock it, 3ghz?
or is it still better 3870x2 and t94/600 as a whole ?

Waiting for opinions

 

Ill try to do my best

 

pretty sure they can send them and walk you through installation should be really easy to do. I though about updating my m15x but decided not to the expense was huge and i have other machines that I can use if I need more power. Is this a worthy upgrade at a fair price for the m17? Also I have the bottom end CPU so is it even worth it? What about a CPU upgrade to quad core is that $$$ feasible? hmm

 

The p8400 will be a major bottleneck at just a 2.26GHz duo. There is no guarantee how far it will overclock as each CPU is different even if it's the same part number, you may not be able to go to 2.53GHz even but you may be able to go past 3GHz.

Save up for a bit to the point when you can actually get a good CPU and the 4850s. You'd have to be mad to get the M17 at this point with no 4850s...

 

i'd get the cheap 2.2 then get a better quality one from eBay

 

Yes but not everyone wants to do all that messing around

 

Pretty much my plan.
Go for the M17 Chassis with 4850x2, Bluray and 1920x1200 screen, and then upgrade the rest.

I can get 2x W.D Scorpio Black 320GB (or 2x 500GB Scorpio Blue for roughly the same) for £100 for RAID0, compared to Alienwares £220, 4GB of DDR3 1066 for £70 compared to AW £125 and anT9900/P9700/X9100 OEM (non ES) from China [trusted seller with hench good feedback] for £150-£250, compared to ....A LOT from AW.

Swap em out carefully, keep the originals incase I need to swap them back for warranty purposes, and bingo, top spec M17, with a saving of approximately £500-750, and throw on some better thermal paste (AS5/TX-2)


Pman, as you've obviously tinkered with your model already, how easy did you find it, I've not tinkered with a laptop in quite some time, and am more used to desktop builds - nice and easy to swap over stuff?

 

The M17 is such an easy model to tinker with, and very very good value for money in the UK compared to the M17x which is very overpriced.

replacing the CPU takes maybe 10 minutes tops, 8 screws (or so) on the back, 6 screws to remove the heatsink over the CPU. twist screw to release cpu, replace with new CPU, twist screw, grease up, replace heatsink and all screws

Job Done

I dont mind talking you through it on msn if you have another pc one evening if you need someone on hand so to speak.

Personally get one with dual 4850's, 2.2ghz cpu and 2gb ram, upgrade the ram and cpu yourself and save cash.

I brought my quad for £240 on eBay saving over £700 on the list price and it runs flawlessly

Hope that helped

Pete

 

[Accidental double post]

 

Good to know, and thanks for the offer of help, I might take you up on it if I get one and then have a panic attack, the base model with the larger screen et al is still gonna cost £1750 I think I'll probably pass on grabbing a quad on ebay right now though, what with these stuttering issues mentioned here and then, may as well wait and put money down on that when I 'need' it, and the issue has been cured; if ever, an X9100/T9900 should still be plenty fast

I'm presuming this thing does use 2.5" SATA drives as well, I can't believe it'd use IDE, wierder things have happened though!

 

I did a little thinking and i decided i dont really need 4850

 

No offence intended, but if you're not going to be gaming, you really don't need this laptop There are other laptops just as fast for non-game/3d work, that cost less

Might be worth considering, as it'd save you a bundle, besides, that said I have a mate who said he was going to stop gaming around the age of 16...hes 23 now and worse than ever, he just doesn't have as much time as before because of his job, so the chances are you might change your mind in the future

 

yeh the drives are sata drives.

the quad issue can be solved, i think i had like 3 stutters oon my quad so its not that bad, some people better then others.

reason i got the quad was simply i want to make sure this machine can handle anything for a couple of years till i replace it

with a quad and 4850's should mean that is possible

You can copper mod the Northbridge which appears to help alot of people who do suffer with stutter. Some peoplke dont want to do it as it means opening the back but if you buy an eBay cpu its all the same to me

Pete

 

I dont want another laptop than M17
This is what i want

But trust me that im stopping in the next month or so
You have never seen will-power like mine

We, from europe, are the only ones awake at this hour lol

 

Thanks again,
I've got you there, and you're right, I'd imagine a 3Ghz Quad and crossfire 4850m would perform pretty similar to my desktop machine which is exactly the performance I'm after.

That said, I don't really need a quad and extra complications right now [I tend to have bad luck with those sorts of things haha], which means I may as well stick with a high power dual core which I can actually utilise, will cost me a little less, should overclock a little easier [if needed], with slightly lower power draw; and then move to a quad when I need one; by the time it's needed, there might be a sure-fire fix for the quad issue, and I'll probably be able to get hold of one a little cheaper.

A quad is nice, but I use about 2 programmes that actually make use of it; Supreme Commander, which is fine with a decent dual core anyway, and needs a mod to get the most out of a quad, and Age of Conan, which makes minimal use of cores 3/4 anyway.

The apparent ease of tinkering with this machine and upgrading is one of my draws to the machine, as I can quite feasibly look at replacing a lot of parts at a later date.

@Marius

Haha fair enough

- At least you don't have to be in work today like me. Joys of a desk job hehe

 

i see what you mean about the quad issue, i am not sure how much devolpment companies will be putting into the Quads that we have now. I think they might change thier focus to the I7 mobility.

I find that things like alt tabbing and generally running my machine comes smoother with quad, and W7 is amazing with a quad

Given hindsight even with a few stutters here and there which can be cured instantly by unplugging mains and replugging the 2/3 times i have had it. I would still plumb for the quad i think.

But as i say people have a very high success rate with the copper mod which is easy to do. I consider myself to be one of the more lucky ones which doesnt really need to do it

Pete

 

Yeah, I agree, as soon as Callpella [spelt wrong probably] and the mobile I7 designs are out, a lot of the manufacturers will probably shift over to that.
Would be very interesting if they brought some out using the same sockets, that we could use with our current mainboards; but who knows until they're released?

I haven't had a chance to play around with W7 yet, so Im quite happy to believe W7 will play nicely with a quad, that said I've never been unhappy with Vista64 using a quad or a decent dual core either.

The other downside beyond the possibility of the stutter bug, is that the quad would cost me more that bit more. Might sound silly when talking about a £1750 laptop with £400 of upgrades, but the extra £100 the quads seem to be going for at the moment does give me that extra stumbling block to consider; when I was originally wanting to buy an MSI GT725-087UK, but got put off by the out-of-stock for a month; (not to mention the increased power from this); I'm pushing the budget already quite heavily; I've doubled it!

That said, I will be looking into the copper mod etc; Im very fond of power/speed, and quads do have it [well, at least when they're running at a decent clock speed!]

 

What's the latest graphics driver you guys are using? Moreover, where do I get the latest that can be loaded to the M17? I know I have to install the modder to go beyond the OEM. Thanks!

Have any of you experienced a "lag" when streaming down a video, say from Netflix? It goes fine for a while then seems to start taxing my processor about 3/4 of the way through the movie...

PS: UltraMon seems to work great. I haven't tested what happens when I disconnect the externals and reconnect them yet. But I really like the extra task bar on the second monitor and the wallpaper/screen saver added functionality with regards to the dual monitors.

 

Just download the latest 9.6 catalysts, the latest mobility modder, follow it's instructions and you should be away.

 

Download and MobMod the 9.6 drivers. They work great. There is also a beta 9.7 floating around, but I'm going to wait for the official release to kick in before bumping up again and possibly making something worse again.

-Edit- *Echo* hehe. We must've posted at the same time.

 

Haha fair play.
I'm actually using the 9.7 betas at the moment, seem to work fine. The new CCC is a little odd though!

 

Any improvements in gaming performance and such? I heard about the new CCC (never tried it), but I hear its a pain to get around.

 

can't wait to get to install CCC again

 

Do you have the optinon in the CCC to use two LCDs (notebook + external) as one big?

Greetings
Julian

 

Used to, can't say I've bothered to look recently, would have to see what custom displays and hydravision do atm, I tend to just run clone with my desktop for various reasons.

 

First post
I'm a noob in this forums
A friend told me this is the best forum for notebooks
Can someone tell me how can i buy a second hand Alienware M17
Ebay has nothing

 

Well, I've heard they're better with ARMA and a few games, I certainly haven't noticed worse performance with anything.

The new CCC is just different. I think it'll be fine once we're used to it; but I've been using CCC for years, so its a bit wierd, it was wierd shifting to the current/old one from the original panel layout too!

 

If you're in the UK, drop PmanUK a PM, he's selling his M17 as he's getting a GTX280 SLI clevo model

 

Ooops, question time.
Does anyone know if this laptop supports DDR3 1333 memory as well as 1066, just thinking it might give me more headroom with an X9100 for overclocking (IIRC due to the way the current DDR3 laptop chips and boards are already running at 1066), unless that OCZ bios allows you to unlink them? The price difference direct from Crucial is like, £10 so worth getting possibly

Anyone have a scooby about this?

Edit - wait a minute; dopey moment, the X9100s are multiplier unlocked up and down aren't they?

DOH!

 

Thanks, cant write pms

Other posibilities?


BTW When will i be able to write pms ?

 

It works but it will downclock to 1066.

It really is a waste to get the 1333 since there is already some headroom built into the 1066.

On top of that is the fact that the memory timings are better with the 1066 so you're better off using the 1066 anyway.

I have an X9100 and using Setfsb, I'm able to overclock to 3.57GHZ. I think my only limitation beyond that would be gone if I could raise the CPU voltage.

It could also be the memory crapping out beyond the FSB setting that allows my CPU to go to 3.57.

 

I am parting with my m17, are you based in the Uk?

 

If you're worried about your memory crapping out, wouldn't it be worth trying that OCZ bios if there's nothing wrong with it, as didn't it somewhere it gave you access to the multiplier on unlocked AKA Extreme Edition processors. I'd forgotten about the X9100 being multiplier unlocked, which you're right, makes it pointless grabbing 1333 RAM, as by multi-clocking, Im not touching the FSB or RAM.

If it does, you could try overclocking your processor higher by pushing the multiplier up instead of the FSB

Also, how have you stress tested? Is it IntelBurnTest/Linpack stable?

 

No, but im in europe
my budget is 1750$
how can i write PMs ?

 

sorry i cant let mine go for that, Uk price appears to be higher then everywhere else.

Cheapest i would let mine go for without the quad is £1400 with it £1800

still alot cheaper then buying a new one and its only couple of months old

 

Do you know of anyone selling alienware m17x/m17 in the US?

I know its wrong to write here
But i have no other option

 

not at the moment

few guys from europe looking for cheap ones, but if need be i will stick it in a bag and wait for someone from the uk who wants it

or stick it on ebay

But i cant let it go for silly money which no offence under $2100 is very low for a UK m17

 

None taken
Far from offence

im hoping that after my tenth post i will be able to write PMs

 

Ok. Updated my ATI drivers to 9.6 modded. Now Windows Update wants to install an update for the gpu's... Ignore it?

 

Definately! Haha. 9.7 officials should be coming soon though.

 

Okay. Yeah, I figured it was attempting to roll me back to 8.57.

 

Finding any early performance improvements with your crossfire?

 

Not sure if it's the crossfire... Was having problems with Windows saving/loading my dual monitor config on a regular basis. That's why I modded and upgraded the driver and I'm testing out UltraMon.

The OS would swap my monitor order, or outright omit one, and sometimes it would be my primary. It was quite frustrating. So we'll see how the new ATI drivers do.

 

Considered setting up a CCC profile so if it does, loading the profile swaps you back?

 

Yep, did that already. Well...AFTER all the frustration!

 

Haha. I know the feeling. I use my AV amp and GPU as the sound card for my desktop, so I have a profile cause flicking the TV on and off, Amp on and off etd don't have cause the drivers to get in a tizzy, now I just load the pc however, as long as the TV is off, and load the profile, and it fixes all double quick

 

I didn't get the TV tuner with my rig. Are there any good, inexpensive alternatives out there?

 

I think when you put it it by yourself it's not realy expansive to buy the "modul" from AW?

I think it's about 50€ and that's what I pay for an external TV card as well ...
And to be honest, a internal is even better in my oppinion^^ I hate wires

Greetings
Julian