Area-51 m15x Update from Alienware

yeah, i had to apply the sticker to make it more user-friendly...

regarding all the issues that i've "dropped", my gripes are comparative, basically "this feature on this notebook is below the standards i've grown accustomed to with other notebooks". in all those respects, the m15x certainly does not raise the bar. in other respects of course (lighting, performance for its form factor) it has definately raised the bar.

ps i mistyped my earlier posts, by "touchpad" i meant "touch controls", which are just.. well, i just pretend they aren't there

 

i've completely gotten used to the touchpad... at first it was a pain. now its no prob.

 

I had 2 M1530... Both horrible screens! Dell is not removing any Samsung screens, that's all false information that they put out.
I have to say that hysteria is quite contagious when it comes to finding problems for Laptops... Apart from the heating and the plastics, the M15X seems to be completely normal (apart from some software related issues).
Stop giving in to the hysteria... Most of the people would never notice a problem if they wouldn't read about it!

 

If you play games like Crysis at the high settings chances are you will notice the overheating/downclocking issue. i paid big bucks for a computer that is advertised as the best 15" gaming computer around, expected the best performance especially from the 8800 GPU. Too many fellow owners of the M15X have had the same issue just to be a mere coincidence. Alienware has recognized the problem and to their credit is doing something about it.

 

I totally agree with you! I can't even play games like COD4 or Crysis in MEDIUM settings without very noticable drag. And that's not even in 1440x900..... Lets just keep our fingers crossed and hope that Alienware gets this bios fix out and it WORKS!

 

agreed , i mailed mine in. hopefully its fixable.

 

I had my GPU replaced once already and am now waiting to replace the heat sink. If that does not work, then I will be sending mine in for repair as well.

 

So yea is there any new news on the progress? It seems like we haven't gotten an update in awhile (a day or two )

 

These guys are getting the same problems that I am getting with my m5550. This sucks for the m15x. 2 GPU swaps didn't fix anything. Hopefully a new heat sink gets rid of the problem.

 

@Dhoang417 - A new heatsink/mobo/GPU didn't help my M5550. I doubt that the new heatsink will fix anything.

 

well, it is the weekend..

i personally don't expect any updates til monday.

 

As noted it's the weekend. I would expect updates this week at the latest, hopefully during the earlier half.

 

alien-frank did you receive my PM? thanks.

 

just to cloud things even further, here's a shot of my gpu getting to 89-90 deg and NOT downclocking..

now, i've had it not get hotter than say 85deg in a gaming sessions and not downclock, but this is the first time i've seen it get that all the way up to 90 and not downclock..

<shrug>

 

im confused lol

 

So, I just got back from a one-week vacation, and it appears everything's exploded in the meanwhile

So, is this GPU issue a lot more widespread than we first thought?

 

Sorry for just quoting here... i trimmed the posts above a bit... but i do find thins highly intriguing. I think n0k3p is on to something here.

If all this is true, it doesn't make sense for it to just be downclocking due to high temps. Even if it is supposed to do that, it's not doing it all the time. Therefore something else seems messed up too and the cooling of the GPU should not be to only thing to look into. For instance, IF the system is designed to downclock to prevent overheating, there is a fix to prevent the GPU from overheating so quickly after a few hours of gaming, eveyone is happy... but if something happens and it does overheat and it won't downclock, we have a problem because not all of the problems were addressed in the beginning.

Why is it not downclocking at the high temps? could it be due to something else overheating as suggested or is it something with how the system utilizes power?

 

check your PM. I can't get off too topic here.

 

Let's just wait and see if the BIOS updates solves the problem.

 

well, in my particular case it appear thats its simply gone from

up to 87 deg, full clocks
hits 87-89 deg, underclocks
never saw 90 deg, because it always underclocked before that

to today behaving like...

up to 90-91 deg, full clocks
hits 92-93 deg, underclocks

maybe its because i changed my alienFX lights to blue from orange

and yes this does lend more credence to the theory that its not GPU temps thats linked with downclocking directly, that the GPU temps are a symptom, and something else is actually triggering the downclock.

alienware, nvidia, quanta, etc. should have all the possible conditions that would trigger a downclock to determine which one of those conditions is the culprit.

 

yeah, I can tell you more about this, it is NOT soley GPU temps but also demand. For example, a while back (back when it was only me with the problem ) I tried balancing the computer on its back in order to block the fans. The GPU temp shot up quickly into the mid 90s without any downclocking. However, I have noticed a positive correlation with certain level loads in Crysis (for example) and the downclocking (given you're in the right temperature range). So it's something to do with both temperature and demand

 

I agree, on my system I could never replicate the same downclock at the same temperature.

To me there is something else causing the downclocking, not just temperature related. Or maybe a combination of items. I still think it seems almost like a power issues.

You push the card hard, it get hots but fails to downclock at the same temperatures.
So fo me this downclcoking issues seems to be more POWER supply, then just temperature. I built a high end desktop, and decided to add a second GTX. Well I thought I had purchased a large enough PSU(750w). So for days I was having downclocking issues and sudden drops in FPS. Well because I pushed my CPU to over 3.6 Ghz(QX6850), increased my voltage on my RAM, South Bridge and North Bridge to attain a stable overclock. And adding the second GPU was the straw......

The system never shut down, it would only downclock one GTX. Remove One GTX and the system would be fine. Remove the other, and and test again. All would be fine. So I purchase a 1000w PSU and have had no isues with my Desktop. So that is my only conclusion.

Heck there is alot to power on this system with only a 120w power supply. All my Dell XPS systems had 130 watt power supplies. This GPU is still 65 nm Technology, Granted it doesn't require the same amout of power as the 90 nm XPS GPU's. It's still going to draw some serious wattage.

So to me this seems similar.

 

so can we crudely test this by maxing out brightness, cd rom, pull power with usb hdd (that doesn't use ext power), usb fans, etc... anything and everything that will pull as much power as possible just to see if we can break the downclocking and temp correlation? or at least we may see if we should move towards the theory of whether the downclocking is related to the amount of power the machine is getting in general. Maybe this also has something to do with why the fans aren't kicking into high gear. i dunno

Sorry, all, i can't test these things out myself since i don't actually have mine yet.

 

I guess we could do it that way. But I am thinking more internally and how the board distributes power. So many Volts/Watts to the Ram so much to CPU Core, so on and so on if you understand what I mean.

 

hmm. This is really interesting. So, the BIOS update might actually make the issue worse. The GPU would always be running on full power. So, would this affect the other components of the computer? Very interesting...

 

i'm thinking this too but just trying to rule out possibilities since there isn't an easy way to test this.

@ dhoang417 - we're just sitting here guessing. If AW is releasing a BIOS update, I would think that it'll help. We're just speculating that it may be more than the GPU overheating... as far as we know, AW already knows the problems and are working on all the fixes.

 

all those usb draws and high brightness and so on is a drop in ocean and will not make power brick work much harder. What would make it work much harder however is CPU and GPU in a burn mode. I'll test in a moment....
update: ok, just tested power brick, no downlclocking, no restarts (i've used with zalman nc2000 just to make sure card will not downclock). Power brick is just fine. Look like overheating problem is only power element that distributes the power to the video card (which could be located either on the motherboard or most likely on the video board)...

 

there is one big difference beween your desktop and M15x. As i understood your desktop will downlclock immedeatly after you put together two GTXes and m15x will not downlock for a while, like in the proccess of heating up and then downclocking.

 

We have found no relation between the heat and the gap issue. The gap issue doesn't appear to have any relation to the hardware configuration of the systems. We are still investigating. There have been very few reports to the e-mail address provided about the gap issue, please make sure you've sent us an e-mail if you are experiencing this issue so we can address it. Thank you.

P.S - Our testing went well over the weekend, we plan to have an update soon.

 

Thanks for the update! I'm impressed - Maybe I won't cancel my order which is still languishing in phase 4....

N

 

me, very impressed too! hope AW will fix your problems guy. for now, good work & assistance AW! I think you may only dream this kind of support with other brands... trust me, I know something about

 

interesting i would never have guessed it was not heat.

 

Thank you Frank!

 

Best support I have seen from a PC maker. AAA+++

 

I guess the rumors saying alienware customer support sucks are just.. rumors :-D

 

Well my m15x is still in phase 6 from this, and I also recieved an email stating my gpu was being tested. Wonder if the test are being done to my actual 8800m gtx? ;P

 

More than likely, yes. Which is good and bad at the same time. Good becauswe hopefully they can isolate and fix the problem, but bad because if they find it to be a hardware thing, your system will be delayed, and all of us will have to send our m15x's in to get the hardware fix.

 

Seems they were testing the problem in your unit.

hope it didn't crack from heat test.

 

Over the weekend, we tested several solutions for the m15x issue related to graphics overheating. We have confirmed that the issue surrounds the software-controlled thermal profiles not performing as designed. We have created and will distribute a beta BIOS to all customers who have emailed us at [email protected] regarding this issue.

Also, there have been many forum discussions surrounding the use of Arctic Silver thermal compound to replace the existing Alienware thermal compound on the Area-51 m15x. We have tested Arctic Silver in response to these suggestions and found that the compound did not solve any of these issues, on the contrary it further induced the overheating situation. We strongly recommend keeping the Alienware thermal compound on the system. We understand that some customers may have modified the thermal compound on their m15x in an attempt to resolve these issues. Alienware will be honoring these m15x warranties however we need to work with these customers on reverting back to the Alienware approved thermal compound immediately. Future thermal compound modifications will not be supported. If you have replaced the Alienware thermal compound please email your account information along with the modifications you performed to [email protected].

We will continue to further test the beta BIOS and will provide a final solution for our customers as soon as possible.

Stay tuned!
-Frank

 

Thanks very much Frank, it great to know you guys are sorting out the problems.

@Lessaj7, it may delay orders and cause problems but, isn't it better to have a system that works at full capacity, rather than shutting down half-way through your favoutrite game. I know i would.

I do hope that the "fix" is a biod upgrade/change rather than a hardware issue.

OB

 

Fantastic news! Now if my order would get out of Phase 4!!! I ordered on 2/7!!!!

 

stil in phase 4?
poor u, i am 13 days later than, stil phase 4 as wel
i m kind of pissed

 

Its really heartening to see AW work so hard on this problem..thanks AW-Frank

 

I'm thinking that they have delayed shipping out any more machines until they have found the cause of the overheating and/or fixed it.

Otherwise you would recieve a notebook that needs fixing as soon as you get it!

I can understand the frustration caused by waiting, i know how it feels, i hate waiting (slightly impatient lol) but, surely getting a fully operational and non faulty M15X is good?

OB

 

No, I agree - thats the only reason I have not gone crazy calling every day, but it is sitting on my credit card costing me interest.

N

 

hopefully they r doing what u said
but i mean, from last november, they have lauched this product, it has been 5 months, i mean they should already have plenty time to fix these kinds of problem, y wait til now?
maybe i m too rude, i m sorry about that

 

Oh i see, and you've still not recieved the "cost" in your hands eh?

I'm still waiting for the M17X to finally be launched, it's killing me but...

Keep you're chin up, i'm sure it won't be too much longer until you're holding your new "baby" in your hands, without any issues etc. (",)

OB

 

I know what you mean, November 2007 - M17X, new beast etc...
and i'm still waiting grrr argh!

I'm thinking that there testing wasn't as intensive as the power of the NBR community lol

I'm sure they have tested things just haven't done an almost "take it apart to see what is does" approach to examining the new models...

To be honest i think these few glitches are normal with whatever new product is released, be it Pc's, cars or whatever.

OB

 

Yah, about 2 weeks ago i was told that my laptop is not delayed... my estimated ship date was last Thurs... i'm still on phase 4.

I'm not upset or anything. I told them that i'd rather get it when it's working fully rather than sending it back. The 17" as it is too big for my needs... so if i got the m15x that came with problems, I would most likely return it and go with someone else. I rather AW just hold on to it for a few weeks if it means i won't have to go through the trouble of repair/return later.

@ Nyceis - It does stink if it is costing you interest and you don't even have it to play with.

 

looks like a gpu fan rpm increase is comming your way, m15x owners! hopefully this will not make the system much loud, although i never saw one in person so don't know how quiet they are anyway.