Area-51 m15x Update from Alienware

Customer satisfaction is of the utmost importance to Alienware, we have setup a unique e-mail address for these m15x related issues to be reported to. Customers experiencing these issues are encouraged to email our support team at [email protected], please include account information, order number and a description of the issue.

 

its nice to see alienware showing support for there products

 

i agree with you. most companies would never talk to us directly on forums. this is pretty cool.

 

Alienware-Frank, will the m17x also go through extra tests to make sure it doesn't have the same problems as the m15x when it comes out?

 

+1
one of my main concerns for m17x...
if they are fixing the problems, then i dont mind waiting this long for it, so long as when it comes out, it will run flawlessly.

 

has anyone's m15x reached 100 degrees? just curious lol

 

I know that my M5550 reached right around 100C. It got up to 98C at its highest, but I'm sure that it ended up going up to a 100C a few times.

Meh I just thought I would hop on since I'll be up all night with school work. Wohoo lab due tomorrow as well as 2 quizzes and 1 test.

Remedy for not going to bed = (2) No-name Energy Drinks 380x2 = 760mg of caffeine or 7 redbulls.

 

I have test too (mostly biology stuff)

 

Heh. I'm not going to bed anytime soon. This stuff has me wired...

 

youtube videos are my caffiene. I was just watching fight science and thinking how bad I want to start mixed martial arts... but I dont have time. I spend too much on forums. Then theres school, lacrosse, football, wrestling, SKIING!!!, band, clarinet, bass. Just the usual stuff. All the while waiting for my computer... gosh I hope they fix it before black comes out.

 

hmm whats a good thing to monitor gpu temp??

 

I think AW have the possibility to release the black ripley with all these issues fixed. I mean, as far as black ripley hasn't came out, they can make it a little bit different, in terms of case materials, or gpu/cpu cooling system, and then test it, to make changes even on silver ripley

 

just played for a couple of hours in Frontline: fuel of war and saw the downclocking issue.... very sad that noone at Alienware did notice that. looks like they just trying to get away with it. Sell it and Forget it
cause very few customers will notice whats actually is happening during the game. I noticed the slow downs in game but i was so in, that i didn't even think what that could, i blamed game first then i got out to windows and saw those barriesrs in Riva Tuner.. arghhhhh

 

how would anyone feel if someone buys a Buggati Veyron (m15x takes same stands in notebook segment in size/weigh/power ratio) and then it turns out that the engine cant handle it due to some reason and cuts the horse power twice from 1000 hp to 500?? How they could let this car go in production? Seems unreal, dont it?

 

Riva Tuner will give you graphs of your GPU temps and freqs.

 

Follow-up email I sent:

This is a follow-up to a response that I had previously sent, regarding a thread posted by Frank Azor, VP Product Group, Alienware, who stated: Customers experiencing these issues are encouraged to email our support team at [email protected], please include account information, order number and a description of the issue

Account Number:
Order Number:

Issue #5: Web Camera software (YouCam) crashes when trying to capture snapshots, capture only black screen when trying to capture movies, and I can no other way to access the built-in camera.

Update: I have still been unable to get YouCam to do anything other than what is described above. Nero video software which is also installed will capture video, but at a ridiculously low resolution (170 x 144). Nero tries to enumerate all of the possible resolutions and fails on anything above 170 x 144. For a 2MP WebCam, we should be able to capture movies at a higher resolution than that, my cell phone camera has a 1MP camera and does a better job.

Additionally, I tried to update the YouCam software from the Alienware support area. I logged into the hive with my account, drilled into my order, and downloaded and installed the "Camera Utility 1.0.0.1120" item. The setup process required me to uninstall the YouCam software, which I allowed it do. The problem is, that once the existing installation was uninstalled, and the new install began, I was prompted for a serial number, which was not provided. Why should I need a serial number for a piece of software that I had to authenticate to download, and barring that question, where exactly is this serial number located, its not in any of the physical or electronic documentation that I can locate.

Issue #6: Integrated touchpad button Right-Click action launches Media Center after holding for 3 seconds.

This seems like a nice feature to have. However, I am left-handed, and have swapped the mouse buttons, so every time I try to drag a window or highlight text and it takes me more than a second to do so, Media Center launches. I can find no option anywhere to disable this feature or make it react to the swapping of the primary and secondary buttons, not within the Mouse or Touchpad configurations or any Alienware configuration software. There needs to be a way to disable or alter this feature, it renders the touchpad unusable by anyone who has a legitimate reason for swapping their mouse buttons.

Thank you for addressing these additional issues.

 

At the present time, we have replicated the m15x issue related to overheating when the system is running at high-resolutions during gameplay. We have determined that the system’s software-controlled thermal profiles are not performing as originally designed. We are continuing to test this over the weekend and hope to provide an updated software build for our customers as soon as possible.

In the meantime, we ask for our customers to continue to send their account information and issues to [email protected] so they will be alerted immediately of an update. We apologize for this inconvenience and we are working diligently to resolve this issue.

 

Great news Frank! Really hope it's just software related. Maybe my m15x will already be without that issue. Good luck sorting out this problem

 

Thx Frank, do you also have some information about the cracking issue so far
?

 

Wow, that's great news Frank, it's nice to see a manufacturer that's willing to help, instead of putting things off.

Thank you very much for your help with this.

Would i be correct in presuming that the same support will be given, as and when the M17X is released?

Lol Don't suppose you know when that is going to be do you?

Once again thanks

OB

 

That is excellent news. After all the negativity, this is a welcome positive. Thank you for keeping us informed!

 

Thank You Frank..

Greatly appreciate the constant updates.

 

Thanks a lot for the update Frank, this issue sounds like it can be fixed relatively easily if all it requires is a fan speed change (I assume that's what this fix is).

 

i'm pondering myself if it will be a fan speed increase or a higher temp threshold before downclocking. the fans get going pretty fast as it is, so my guess is they are going to bump up the temp threshold. bets chaz?

 

I'm not sure, but I doubt it would be an increase in temperature threshold . . . that is the opposite of what the fix is supposed to do. 90*C is too hot as it is.

My guess is as good as any of yours, we won't know exactly what the fix entails until it is officially released. It sounds like Alienware's engineers figured out the problem and I'd take it that means a fix is coming soon.

 

Cheers for the update Frank. I feel confident in sticking with my purchase now. Although due to the delay I'll now have to haul my rotting pile of junk desktop to a LAN event in early April. Nevermind. "Good things come to those who wait"

 

In the Clevo firmware updates, the thresholds actually went down and my system,as all the others`, are cooler than ever.
So my guess is that:
a) they will either make the fans kick in much faster and therefore decrease progressive heat buildup
b) increase fan speed permanently
c) replace the fans if they`re not up for the job...

 

at high resolutions? so is this overheating problems only in the 1900x1200 ones or the 1440x900s too?!

 

im sure the 1900 by 1200 heat up faster but the 1440 by 900 has been confirmed to downclock. Mine is the 1440 by 900 and it downclocks only when doing the intense stress benchmarking by atitool. I can game for HOURS and not downclock and my temps do not exceed 80. Mostly 70-78.

 

great work guys!

Do you know if it is the overheating that may be causing the plastic pieces to crack? Do you have any recommendations for those of us who just ordered the m15x, as far as preventing the overheating from occuring? Does this only apply to certain hardware (processor/graphics). I only have the 8600M GT and the T9300... Would the overheating problems only pertain to the higher end hardware such as the X9000/8800M GTX?

 

The overheating happens when the full power of the GPU is used. The GPU is more stressed at higher resolutions; at lower resolutions the CPU can be a limiting factor but these days rarely is.

 

Thanks Frank.

 

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Wow, that's great news Frank, it's nice to see a manufacturer that's willing to help, instead of putting things off.

Thank you very much for your help with this.

Would i be correct in presuming that the same support will be given, as and when the M17X is released?

Lol Don't suppose you know when that is going to be do you?

Once again thanks

OB
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NotebookReview x64 Team
Dell inspiron 8500, 15.4" 1920 x 1200 WUXGA LCD, 2.5Ghz P4, 2Gb RAM, 80Gb HDD, DVD/CD/RW in Silver.

Just read these posts, As regards the above, I'd kind of prefer that we didn't need to use such support!
The m17x, m15x are somewhat comparable, so whatever about making a mistake once, making the same one twice is a completely different story!

(yeah I know - dual nvidia's in sli but the m17x is less squashed together!)
(I just like to say I'm not criticising Alienware for their correspondance in these threads, I think it's a excellent idea on their part.)

 

mine is 1440 x 900, and it can happen in as little as 20 minutes of COD4 or Source engine games.

and actually, 90% of the time i'm outputing to a 1280x1024 lcd panel, which is a few more pixels than 1440x900 but still far below 1900x1200

 

thanks frank unfortunately i was told by your customer support people that i was of a small minority of people who had the problem. they convinced me to send off my computer for repair. now im with out the laptop for 2 weeks.

 

That's great news. Unfortunate for those who have already sent theirs in though.

 

Regarding the above issue: AW Tech wrote back stating Serial Number is in zip file I downloaded. It's not that I can find, but it is listed right next to the download link in the hive area (yes, i'm selectively blind)

No change after reinstall, still crashes on attempting snapshot, and still captures blank videos. No updates available from Cyberlink's web site.

 

Same here with mine fusion! It does not matter which resolution that I use, it happens about 20-45 minutes into the game!

Maybe I'll get to keep my M15X after all!

 

Fusion, try holding down the FN while pressing the F9 key. That fixed the problem for me!

 

hey, thanks goph. that's the toggle for the camera, and when its toggled off, youcam appropriately complains that there isn't a camera, but when its toggled on, youcam does the crashy snapshot / blanky movie behavior.

i'l tell ya, if i was my teenage stepdaughter this webcam thing would be the worst problem with this notebook. no pose shots on facebook?!!? omg wtf!!?!?

but as i'm a well adjusted middle-aged male gamer, its the downclocking, the camera is just annoying

 

just an update, at this point I have tickets opened for every one of my own original complaints, with the exception of:

flimsy lid issue, as there is nothing to troubleshoot

flexy keyboard, as after some more time with it, i'ts getting better for me, i'm more accustomed to it particular quirks

touchpad controls being difficult to use, as i'm just avoiding using the altogether.

this is feeling like a part-time job

 

just tested 3 cooling pads with no success, then i got zalman nc-2000 which i thought could make a dif. Heres how tested: put it in best position under laptop to make sure it get to vent holes, turn the pads fans to highest level, turned stock clocks 540/800 got ati tool running with stress test (artifacts) and heres what i got fater 30 min of warm up t got to 96C flat with all fans of zalman and laptop as high as it go. So it was 96C then i turned off zalman off and waited for 15 min, and the T stayed the same 96C...................
update: all said above about T stays true, but with one dif: the card will not downclock with zalman 2000 at the same T as it is without Zalman! I got the 3 times downclocking in a row with pad turned off then with turned on pad no drops at all in riva tuner. And the GPU core stayed all that time at the same T - 96 C no matter with pad or without it. So the concl is something else is overheating and cuts off the power from the core and memory.

 

Hmmmmmmm????? Hopefully we will see something from Alienware in the next week. I can't wait to be able to game on this thing like it's supose to!

 

im afraid we will not, it seems like a hardware issue, but i hope for the best
im wondering if anybody knows what are those 2 square blocks on the video card board which is not covered by videocards heatsink...

 

Having a cooling pad isn't a "fix" for the issue. Alienware will most likely have a fix out soon and the notebook will run fine on its own. No one wants to have to carry a cooling pad with them everywhere =D

It's interesting that with the cooling pad you're not experiencing downclocking though, since you said the temperatures are the same :O

 

I still get it regardless of cooling pad or not. And it is still all over the place with regards to temps.

I am just waiting anxiously waiting for a fix. hehehehe

 

after playing some more with this (and seeing a tech article on the hive), apparantly i have to

1) enter youcam
2) disable the camera
3) re-enable the camera

in order to get the thing to work. its still bad quality but it is capturing movies at 640x480, so thats about i can ask of it. since it "works" and i'm never going to use it anyway, i'll stop beating this particular horse corpse.

fair warning though, if i ever hand this notebook down to the aforementioned teen stepdaughter, there'll be hell to pay at that time

 

you sure? if i sent mine in for repair does anyone think they could fix it? im not sure really.

 

To be honest, the issues below is normal quirks of ANY notebook that you didn't have a chance of seeing first, not just AW. Sony has flex with their keyboards, Dell has flimsy screens, touchpad,well that could be any.

 

Well, some dell screens are flimsy. Lucky people get LG screens, unlucky people get Samsung's. I hear Dell is completely removing Samsung though and going 100% LG; LG is a nice screen.

From what I hear the m15x does not have a lot of flux in the keyboard, but the screen is quite wobbly and makes noises. I hear the touchpad on the m15x is also not very good unless you apply the touchpad sticker they send with the notebook. The sticker seems to remove any problems with the touchpad.