It Has Arrived!

Woohoo my m15x was waiting for me at home when I got back from school .

Finally arrived! Will post a review and some pics in a bit .

I have to say I got that nero error as well and touch controls not working .

 

congratulations crystak
i hope its error free for you.

 

Yeah since crystak is also a UK resident, i hope his M15X is in top form that would dispell any uncertainties for me...

 

Well it's definitely a beast! I'm currently installing Crysis and I've just installed 3DMark06; let's see what it can do!

The only problem I've had so far is the volume and the other touch controls not working! They only worked when I first booted up then after switching to the 8800m GTX all stopped working!

The touchpad is hard to use.. very sticky

So yeah, I'm pleased overall - also the speakers are appauling.

I'll be on the phone with tech support later to sort out this touch controls problem .

Came with Bios vX30 so I better downloaded the upgrade; let's see if it makes any difference.

 

Touch controls become disabled if you put your computer to sleep (among other things). That doesn't fix itself until you do a full shutdown (i.e. choosing "Restart" won't fix it, you have to manually restart it)

So, if that sounds like what you did, then you don't need to call in since that is a m15x-wide issue which hasn't been fixed yet (and tech support wouldn't be able to help you now).

 

Right, ok I guess that's fine.

Regarding the bios update - do I really have to burn the 2MB file on a CD or can I use Daemon Tools to run it?

 

you have to burn it to a cd. daemon tools needs the computer to start up before it works. yes its a waste of a cd but u need to burn it.

EDIT: make sure it is a cd and not a dvd. dvds didnt work for me for some reason.

 

why are these bios updates not done by alienware before they send out?

 

the keyword is updates. updates are usually always done by yourself. AW does load the most current update before they ship your laptop out. a bios update is really easy to do anyways.

 

Congrats Crystak, btw you are on my Hate list now!!
Can't wait to see your review and pics. haha

 

Congrats Crystak let us know if you have any more problems!~

 

Strange, mine seem to work after standby/suspend but I wish I could trade in this problem for the one I currently have :/

 

Well, something strange happened; none of the touch controls worked then I installed this X32 BIOS and even though it's not supposed to fix this problem, they work now.

Even when the system returns from standby/ restart, etc. However you do have to press them quite hard.

 

Hey, you're right. I have to say, I hadn't really checked that whole standby/touch button issue since X27, but now that I check again (with X32) the problem has been fixed. Thanks for the tip guys

 

1. silly question but could someone tell me how to check what bios update im running
2. want to get into my hive to have a look around but dont have an account number. any idea where i can get one.
3.guess what, im actually using the beast at last.

my touch controls are working ok today so far.
i dont have to press them that hard. when i was on to support they said press harder. if i had done that it would have dented the case. mine only started working after i pulled the external audio card out in anger.

i loaded my external sound card last night using the cd (it says only use with xp). it said i already had the software loaded but i could not find it anywhere. after using the cd it worked fine. time to wake the neigbours up with my 1000watt speakers
loaded some other software but it still gives me the error box of administrator. right cliking and ticking run as admin does nothing so i have no idea what to do next.

im going to ring support to see if i can keep the option open to return in a few days as theres no way i can get time of work at the moment.
ill ask if i should load respawn and do an install.

just a quick pic to prove its still working with backup close by

 

well nice to hear you're getting somewhere. sorry if i'm annoying you, but as of now, what are your issues with the m15x?

 

You should have a file on the destkop called "My Alienware PC Information". Everything you need is in there - account number, bios version as well as all the other driver versions.

 

MrDJ: Download CPU-Z
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

Click the Mainboard tab in the program. There it will show information on the BIOS (including version)

edit: that's true, I forgot about the PC information file. If you deleted yours, a backup copy exists in C:\Windows\System32\Alienware. thx crystak

 

I just played a round of Crysis without any benchmark behind. I've put it on all high and about 95% of the time I had great frame rate - it sometimes froze for a second but then it went back - this was without any patch and without the natural mod.

I want to run RivaTuner in the background while playing the game and I'll probably post the log I get as I'm not an expert in interpreting it.

On another note, is this lightpipe on the screen meant to be hairline thin? I can hardly see it.. . And does anyone know how to turn off light from the Alienhead? When I select black it just doesn't select it - strange!

 

maybe Fn+F10? It's working on mine...

 

the touch controls are intermitent. one minute they will work the next they dont.
that is the main problem now at the moment.

i was going to put the full main reason but it will take too long and has already been posted before and i dont want to take over crystak,s thread.

thank you crystak. i did look in there yesterday but it doesnt make a lot of sence to me so i closed it. ill take another look.

thanks for the link GRB

mine is the same crystak. looking at the pictures on the main page it looks a lot thicker.

 

Right, I played Crysis for a bit and the right side of the laptop got quite hot! I downloaded RivaTuner but don't know how to use it . How do I access those graphs that tell you whether it downclocks or not?

My touch pad now also doesn't want to start working. I have the mouse plugged in and even though I press Fn+f12 to enable the mouse pad it doesn't do anything .

 

Pressing Fn+F12 will only turn on the lights crystak -- there's some setting I hear in the control panel you have to change to allow the pad to work with the mouse as well, but I don't know it/haven't changed it myself. Also, yes, the light pipe is hairline thin and yes, you can't turn off the alienhead light (because it is attached to the touch button lights, and those lights you can never turn off)

 

Okay thank you - I'll take a look in the control panel but I looked briefly and couldn't see one.

By the way, anyone knows why when I ran 3DMark06 now I got such a low score?

And in the laptop's documentation it says it got about 10.5k?

I ran it at 1440x900, would this be the reason?

 

Still seems low... have you checked for downclocking?

 

Also the resolution is 1440*900. I believe the settings have to be 1280*1024 to get 10k points

 

If you have a mouse plugged in you will not be able to have the touch pad working by default. My M15x is back at AW for repair (another story for another time) but I do know I had both working at one point. There is an option within Alienware Control or maybe simply in Vista's Control panel to allow both to be on at once.

Wish I could give you more to go on but I only had my system for 5 days before it had to go back for repair.

Regrading you 3DMark scores, Make sure you do not have Stealth Mode running. It will affect your scores like that.

 

To restore the touch keys WITHOUT A REBOOT,
Simply press [Fn]+[F1] - Suspend (wait for system to suspend)
Then press [Fn]+[F1] - Suspend again and your system and touchpad will be back WITHOUT the need to do a full restart.

 

Nope, because I have no idea how to check .

 

Nope, stealth mode was not enabled. Maybe it somehow downclocked or it's just because of the resolution I ran the scan in.

Thanks for the guidance but I simply can't find any control for this touchpad - I have enabled it in the Mouse Properties -> Device Settings but when I click on it to check the settings it says "Please enable it in order to access the settings" even though it says it's enabled.

The touch controls work now, no problem.

 

not a brilliant score crystak. i would have thought yours should have been about the same as mine.

but look at that fastest speed

 

There should be an applicaton for the touchpad (maybe an icon running at the bottom right in the running tasks). Open that and there should be a setting to allow both touchpad and mouse at the same time.

 

Well it should be because we have identical machines, only the RAM differs. What resolution did you use?

Believe me it's not there. When I unplug the USB Mouse Receiver, the touch pad turns on then when I plug it back in, it goes off again. It might a Windows Vista thing that I can't control or maybe it's set like this in the BIOS.

 

Download GPU-Z and watch the graphics card speeds

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

 

Is the synaptics touchpad driver installed? If yes and there is still no tray icon, check mouse settings in the control panel!

 

Thanks you - I also managed to get Riva Tuner working and there appears to be no downclocking while 3DMark06 runs. At the end where you see the dip is where I pressed the stealth mode button just to see what happens.



I don't know what the reason for such a low score is then - in my documents it said it had about 10,300.
I also ran the test at 1280x720 and it slightly improved by one or two hundred .

I've re-installed the synaptics drive and there is a tray icon but it's got a cross through it. I've tried every option I could see and didn't lead to the touch pad enabling.

 

Ok that means the driver is installed and displays a tray icon, but the red cross means the touchpad is disabled. Disconnect your mouse and see if the enabled touchpad gets you more options!

 

Are you running 3dmark on battery? Make sure your plugged in when doing any benchmarks....

 

Also make sure your power setting is Maximum performance. My system in Balanced still would not allow full performance of the GPU. I had to manual adjust the setting in AlienFX under the advanced tab.

And then set your GPU to max while in Balnced mode.

 

yeah make sure your plugged in and that your power plan is set to high performance.

 

That seemed to have been the problem - it was set on balanced.

Well, I ran 3dmark again and got 10300 .

And the touchpad/ mouse problem is still unsolved. I took it in to college today for my friends to have a look at it and they couldn't find a way to enable both either; heck even my computing teacher had a wack at it .

 

Two things I've noticed that work, both related:

• Uninstall the touchpad driver. This seems to have the bonus of fixing the typing issue that Callidor (and I) have noticed. But this means you lose out on the nifty features of the touchpad, if you use them.
• Install a newer generic version of the touchpad driver. This means you get to keep the nifty features of the touchpad.