Future new owner

Hello all. I finally broke down and ordered two AW systems to replace my aging/dead computers at home. I got what I feel to be a really fair deal on a nicely spec'd M18x and M14x (for traveling). They are both in production now and am hoping that by the time I get them, I will have the mSata and SSD I ordered for the M14x. I do have a few questions about being a new AW owner. (First new PC in over 5 years).

For starters, I only have 1 year complete coverage warranty. Can that be upgraded at a later time for a fee? I'm sure it'll be a lot, but I had to get within a certain budget, so I lowered the warranty for the time being.
Second, I'm going to be installing my copy of Win7 on the two systems shortly after I get it. What is the correct order of installing the drivers and applications from Dell?
Third, before I begin any of my own modifications to the systems, I'd like to stress test them to make sure everything is good to go, that way once I start with my Win7 Install, I know that by the time I'm finished, everything's in working order.
Fourth, both machines are coming with 6GB of memory, which I feel should be enough. I'm not going to be running multiple instances of VMs or anything like that. But in the case that I want to upgrade the memory is there any downside to running the 6GB kit alont with a 4GB kit?

Sorry for all the noob-ish questions. Just want to make sure I don't screw anything up too badly.

Thanks!

Well found the answer to number two already. Sorry about that.

 

First off welcome to the Alienware Community

1. Yes you can upgrade your warrenty after your original purchase of the system, but it's usually a lot more expensive.

3. Well there is a few different ways to stress your systems. You run 3dmark 11 and monitor temps with HWinfo64 and make sure everything is where you want it to be. You could also then compare your score to other machines and make sure your stuff is in the same ball park. Other options you could also do are just pop in your favorite game and monitor temps, or run prime95 and MSI combustor at the same time and see how you computer handles it.

4. You could always go that route, but with RAM being so cheap these days, just make sure the Ram is sodim laptop memeory and has a similar clockrate. No use spending extra money on 1866mhz memory if you're going to pair it with the 1600mhz sticks currently in your systems.

Hope this answered your questions and again welcome to the community.

 

If you end up upgrading the warranty within the first 29 days of ownership, you can get it for around the same price as it was when originally ordering. If you wait longer than a month, it becomes much more expensive (around twice as much.) If you're getting any rebate gift cards from ordering, you can use those towards warranty upgrades, just make sure that you get it done within the first month of receiving the notebooks.

Enjoy the new laptops!

 

According to the policy you can extend the hardware warranty even after it expires but the complete care warranty is kinda harder, it has to be within the 1st month.

 

Thanks for the welcomes and quick replies. That's good to know about the warranty. All this info will be helpful for whenever my two beasts arrive. I am getting a little scared about the m14x, reading the horror stories that are popping up about updating the nvidia drivers and having crappy performance in game. I'm hoping that won't be an issue I have, but I won't know til I have the machine sitting in front of me.

Anyway, I've gone and downloaded 3dmark11 basic, uniengine haven basic, and the log on screens to get it back to an OEM look. Next on my list is to download all the necessary drivers for the two machines and get them primed and ready.

Well, thanks again for the info guys. Back to getting the old XPS ready for ebay!

 

I'm actually confused on the warranty options for Alienware if I wanted to get the 3yr warranty with the accident protection option am I correct in saying it will cost $349 + $199?

 

Aside from a little bloatware that is easily removed, I've got no complaints about the M14x. Updating video drivers works exactly the same as it does on my M18x (or any other notebook I've owned) and gaming performance is admirable, especially once you flash a modded BIOS and remove the overclocking limitations.

 

So just downloading the newest nVidia drivers from nVidia themselves seems to work ok for you? And I'm not looking to do much OC'n with the m14x since it's going to be for travel purposes. The M18x however, I may read up on some of the overclocking threads about it. I know the 680s are beasts at OCn, but I don't know about the i7-3740 will be a good contender for it. I know that the XM is the best thing out there, but I couldn't justify that price point lol.

 

You should be fine when it comes to drivers as far as I know. I usually double check the forums here first though to make sure the specific version doesn't have any problems though. As to the processor, that should be plenty of juice for some time to come. My 2630qm is still hanging in there and it is almost two years old now.

 

I'd like to offer another option to bigtony's excellent first post, if you don't want to pay for 3DMark11, the latest version of Heaven Benchmark is free, a 3D tess crusher for a realistic test of your gpu(s) compared to just torture that is Kombuster. Unigine has other benchmarks also.

 

Thanks! I downloaded the basic versions of 3dMark11 and Haven, so I will be able to test with those as soon as I get the two machines. I'm hoping I have no major issues. Hopefully I get the laptops before this upcoming weekend. Would be nice.

 

Well, they both should be delivered today! I can't wait to unbox them and stress them for a few hours. I hope everything is a-ok with both systems. The 128GB mSata for the M14x and the 4GB kit for the M18x came in yesterday as well. So I'm ready to rock and roll. Will post with any issues/concerns, or if I'm just happy!

 

Well they arrived safely yesterday. Typing this on the M18x while the 14 is getting a fresh round of installs. One thing though, I have both the Intel video driver and the newest nvidia driver installed. I think I'm currently running on integrated only because I can't launch the nVidia control panel. If I do the Fn+F7 switch, I'll be in discrete mode permanently, correct? Is that how Optimus works? Or am I missing something?


EDIT ** Just answered my own question.

 

...and the answer was....?

Is it a permanent switch or until you shut down ?

 

It is a permanent switch. At least until you do the fn+F7 button press again. At least this way I know I'll be in dedicated graphics mode and I won't have to worry about whitelisting my games to use the nVidia card. I still have to finish setting up the M14x fully, but I did get to play a bit of SW:ToR on the M18x and it ran beautifully. Averaged about 70-80FPS, never dipped below 30fps. Hoping to boot some SC2 soon and see how that goes.