Alienware openly lies about M9750 capabilities

REMOVED (ten)

 

pretty shady business practice indeed...

 

Well, out of that whole conversation, I figured this:

- you tried to get him to say that Windows 32bit will use 3.2gigs out of 4 repeatedly.
- the guy actually says, more than once, that Windows will not address the entire 4gigs. But he doesn't say how much, he just says yes to your question above.
- you never even mention 2.5gigs because of SLi, I wonder what his response would be to that
- in that note, the conversation is never about Windows / or the laptop itself, with all the limitations, not being able to address more than 2.5gigs instead of 3.2 which would be the normal case.

I don't know what to say really. His voice, and the way he actually asked you to repeat a very clear question, like he wasn't paying attention... Meh. I mean the whole attitude in his voice really threw me off.

If I ever buy an AW laptop, and get this guy on the phone, Jesus Christ! I might as well don't buy from them.

Just because you start and end a conversation with a bunch of pre-written words, doesn't make you a good support dude.

Anyways, good luck with your m9750.
Sorry about your situation!

 

Yeah. Despite the fact that they sell very good looking products, their customer service and their business motto cancels that appeal out. And the fact that upgrading to 4gb is like an extra $700 adds insult to injury. A part of me wants to give them the benefit of the doubt b/c they're not the ODM of their notebooks, but the way they handle it from the Tech Support front is quite disturbing.

And I'm pretty sure that AW can fix such a thing with a BIOS fix, but refuse to seeing that it is a 945 based chipset which can support up to 4 gigs of memory.

 

Fair opinion? I didn't saw anything wrong about the AW rep, beside he could be more direct or "clear".

He stated that he "isn't familiar with how much ram each software uses" (at 4:10). And he repeated that the operation system atm will not handle/adress more that 3,2GB ram.(windows vista 32 bit (sp1 i think) does "sees" the 4GB, but don't adresses more that 3,2GB)

At all, he tried to explain like the Answer ID 1289 at AW help website.

Would it be useless go for 4GB? If you considerer 500mb extra ram useless, them Yes. If not, then no. So it's a opinion.

For this one i think it was an overreaction.

Just my 2 cents.

 

Stone, I understand your frustration but honestly I think you might be fishin for bass in a street puddle as we say back home. The guy told you repeatedly that Vista 32 bit does not utilize the entire 4 gigs. I think he got a little confused and thought you were asking if the "machine" could handle 4 gigs. Either way, I don't think it's necessarily shady business practices on the part of AW because we're really in a state of flux right now between 32 and 64 bit OS. Many people are already using Vista and XP 64 bit and in a short amount of time many people will continue to shift over to 64 bit so in a way it's future proofing the system. Everyone knows 32 bit systems can't address 4 gigs so it shouldn't be a big deal. Any SLI system is going to use up a bit of Ram and if you have a 32 bit system the best way to give you the maximum amount of Ram that you can use is to have 4 gigs in your system. I mean, what would make you happier, AW pushing 3 gigs instead of 4 on you when you purchase a 32 bit OS? Then you'd lose even more Ram by roughly 200mb or so. Would that make things any better? Of course not.

 

I dont understand you'r frustration beacuse u seem to be quite knowlagable about tech.
get over it you should well know that 32bit and SLi has memory limitations .. and your ordering from a enthusiast brand expecting to be given baby steps (which was provided with via support any way )... its your own blooming fault and really not even classed as a issue.

 

Does this apply to desktops? SLI = 32bit. hmm NOPE, then why should it apply to us.

 

Yea honestly guys I was just trying to help people here understand that TS isn't helpful at all. First of all, please don't post here if you don't know what you are talking about.

1. I'm fine with the 3.2GB cap of windows vista 32 bit, I know that already.
2. I'm not fine that even though I asked WITH MY SETUP if I could use the 4GB (minus the 32 bit OS limitation) he told me that I would get the 3.2GB out of the system which is a lie as I can only get a maximum of 2.5GB out of the system.
3. Do you really think that I researched an entire motherboard before I got the system? If I knew that I could only use 2.5GB I wouldn't have gotten this.

I'm just really annoyed that I'm stuck with a max of 2.5GB's as all of us should be.

@Heath - I'm not sure if you are an AW fanboy or something but you can use 4GB (-32 bit os) + 1GB video memory with the M17x which is completely different. With a desktop that SLi memory factoring into the motherboard doesn't apply either. The M9750 has this issue which is different.

@CDNalsi - That is why I asked him to look at my system config in the notes so that he could give me a proper response.

 

GUYS Stone's point is.. you cant sell a system with 4gb ram and then say oh. it only can have 2.5gb out of them, and some AW reps tried some BS ways to prove me wrong that i have 32bit OS, i went to the market and BOUGHT a 64bit OS and didnt get even 1mb of ram more.

 

Stone, I'm a little unclear as to what exactly you're so mad about. The Ram available in Vista SP1 (as I understand it) is your System Ram - Video Ram. In your case that would be 4gb - (512 X 2 + 256) so ~2.5 is in the general ballpark of what I would expect. This is in all systems not just the m9750 so what's the big deal? Even desktop systems have this problem.

 

I think he is trying to say that AW is wrong for selling a system which can´t handle (adress) 4Gb ram without warning that the system will only adress 2,5GB or 3,2GB, right?

I think it is a little overreaction, since the AW rep does says that the OS will only handle up to 3,2, nothing more. And this "shaddy" ram politic is in 99% of the market companies, a plus that it isn't AW fault, it is a general limitation.

Personally i don't know much about this issue Ram with Video ram and the 4 Gigas limit, but there is already a topic going on about it.

 

Yes, but my argument is that this isn't specific to the m9750 or even to AW computers. That's EVERY computer. He also mentioned the fact that they didn't warn him that SLI would make the available Ram even less.. and again, that's ALL systems not the m9750.

 

1) the memory limitation is due to chipset, not 32bit OS nor SLI
2) especially they are enthusiast brands, they should be providing nothing but the finest customer service. well, at least that's what Porsche did for me.
3) how the heck is that customers fault? AFAIK m9750 is the only machine that can't address 4GB of RAMs even with 64-bit OS.

You don't understand his frustration because your knowledge of tech = zero.

 

Customer service has been really awesome for me. The Roswell Crew emails me even after a week of not responding to them, just to ask how my m15x is going. Every single email I send to them has been responded to and all of my touch buttons issues were solved by their help.

 

Only thing I'm annoyed with is not being able to upgrade to the 8800gtx's

 

Nirvana, the problems is Vista, not the 945 chipset. The chipset supports 4gb, it's Vista that requires 8gb of addressable space as a requirement for 4gb utilization by the OS. So, as I see it, it's more an issues of MS to blame than Intel or AW.

Intel 945 chipset:

1.1.2 System Memory Support
• Supports single-/dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM
• Maximum Memory supported: up to 4 GB at 400, 533 and 667 MHz
• 64-bit wide per channel
• Three Memory Channel Configurations supported:
— Single-Channel
— Dual-Channel Symmetric
— Dual-Channel Asymmetric
• One SO-DIMM connector per channel
• 256-Mb, 512-Mb and 1-Gb memory technologies supported
• Support for x8 and x16 devices
• Support for DDR2 On-Die Termination (ODT)
• Enhanced Addressing support (XOR and Swap)
• Intel® Rapid Memory Power Management (Intel® RMPM)
• Dynamic row power-down
• No support for Fast Chip Select mode
• Support for 2N timings only
• Supports Partial Writes to memory using Data Mask signals (DM)

Taken from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605

For Windows Vista to use all 4 GB of memory on a computer that has 4 GB of memory installed, the computer must meet the following requirements:
• The chipset must support at least 8 GB of address space. Chipsets that have this capability include the following:
• Intel 975X
• Intel P965
• Intel 955X on Socket 775
• Chipsets that support AMD processors that use socket F, socket 940, socket 939, or socket AM2. These chipsets include any AMD socket and CPU combination in which the memory controller resides in the CPU.

 

Interesting, found this tidbit in an older thread... The AW UK site has the following warning on the configuration screen:

Due to limitations with 32-Bit OSs, if you select 4GB of RAM all of it may not be available to the OS. However in order to achieve the maximum 32-bit OS memory capacity you must have 4GB of memory equipped. For more information please see our FAQ here.

The U.S. site though, sadly does not...

 

thanks for the info groove75, that's something I never heard of before. what about 64-bit XP?

 

Before dropping bombs, ppl should calm down.

Even if the m9750 isn't able to adress 4Gb ram, you can't blame AW for it. Since Intel states that the 945pm chipset is able to use 4 GB ram:

( http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/945pm/)

for a comprehensive ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_chipsets)

If anyone has any fault it is Intel, not AW. And the point here is, the AW rep didn't said any lie.

I know it is frustrating, but we need to be fair (and yes, intel once f!ck me up too).

 

Np, and I'm not sure about XP... I'll try to find out.

 

around half year ago, there was a long thread in this forum regarding the memory issue of m9750. and we whad pretty much concluded that the problem is due to chipset. so what you said today is quite interesting.

 

That should clear up some misconceptions. So, theoretically, people who are running XP should be able to use all 4 gigs right??

 

I am pretty sure someone tried x64 XP but still couldn't access all 4GB of RAMs.

 

>.> stone I can understand why your upset, but the way this thread is setup is like this is new information, which it is not. Nirvana is correct about there being a thread on the chipset limitations of the m9750. >.> You and I both received our systems at the same time, you decided to stick with alienware and I decided a defective system was not worth keeping. Between that and the misinformation from alienware reps and the fact that they kept lieing to the BBB about my case, they are just a company worth avoiding.

 

Nope, 64-bit XP is going to present the same problem. It's due to MMIO (Memory Mapped I/O) introduced by Intel back in the 80s. Check out this 4 part article for an educational read: The links to the other corresponding parts are at the top. The article is here.

So, you can partly blame Intel for this one. I suppose you could blame AW or Arima for the choice in 945 chipset, but then again this was pre-Vista and I don't even think 2gb sticks of Ram were even out yet at m9750 debut nor had manufacturers had adequate time to figure out all the inherent problems with 64 bit OS and current chipsets. It was also a time to market thing. The 945 was probably exactly the right choice for them when they were doing R&D for the laptop. It's simply too cost prohibitive to do a complete motherboard revision every time a new chipset comes out. No manufacter would consider doing that and it would hurt sales of current gen hardware. It's just rotten luck and bad timing IMO.

 

so what's the catch? 945 or OS?

 

I would agree with you about that point except for one thing. Someone questioned an AW admin here as to why AW does not sell a 64 bit OS with their M15x systems and he basically replied, "Alienware does not sell hardware that is incompatible with software" or vice versa, something along those lines.

Point is, why sell 4GB of ram with a system that can only use 2.5GB with SLi. By the way I have no idea who was talking about this being a software problem because it certainly isn't.

 

I was wrong, it's chipset. I knew about the MMIO but I thought that was a logic stipulation by MS within the OS and not Intel. After further reading, the buck seems to be passed back to Intel on this one. The OS, to my knowledge, can't circumvent this.

I mean, Vista is right in saying that you NEED 8gb of addressable Ram and a chipset that supports this, but it's not due to inherent design by MS, it's due to Intel x86 and chipset design/architecture.

 

@Bwh - When I first got the system, there were no problems whatsoever, or so it appeared. I had never worked with SLi before that so I was unfamiliar with all of the performance increases and limitations and whatnot. After around 2 months is when I really started to realize the mistake I made

 

Stone, the SLI woes I can definitely relate to and that's the same reason I sold my m9700. I don't think people realize all the game compatibility, driver tweaking, and hair pulling that SLI can bring. I'll never buy an SLI system again until it has matured and is more well supported. I truly hated all those issues. It wasn't AW's fault in my case, it was Nvidia.

It worked, it didn't work, new drivers made it work with this but broke it with that. it would shut off at odd times and you never knew when it was working unless you closed the game, opened driver panel and enabled green bars, then closed panel, booted up game.. green bars are on, great it's working, close game, open panel, turn off bars, close panel, boot up game... LOL, damn I hated those days.