M17 Ati Radeon M98 1gb Hd4850 :(

I almost wish I had never stumbled onto this forum.

I was perfectly content with my soon to arrive m17 3870 x2 system. Then I found out about 4850s from here, and it set in motion a "need" to acquire them.

I have fully read all the threads on the topic, and realized how hard it was going to be. And true enough, it took HOURS and HOURS and HOURS (mostly all wasted), trying to get SOMEONE at alienware to order me a set.

And then it happen.. I found her And I thought, oh man, if she will let me order 2, perhaps I should order 2 more to be safe, for backups, or to even help some fellow seekers on here finally get their hands on them. She said sure. Order placed. for the next few days I watched email, and CC like a hawk. Sure enough they charged me, sure enough (even though they sent it to wrong email address) they sent an order email stating all parts. Yippy.. but still held my breath, I knew without a tracking number I was still in trouble.

3 days later (today), alienware calls me, sorry charlie, no 4850's for you! I beg and pleaded with the guy, and he agreed to give me ONE. (And then at some point he is going to refund me back the other $700 bucks worth he was canceling.

Now what do I do? (1) 4850 card can't beat my 3870 x2 system, but I dont want to give up. But they definitely are quite serious about these cards staying in inventory ONLY to take care of CURRENT owners of 4850 cards. NOT allowed for upgrade, and NOT allowed to buy a spare EVEN if you legitimately have a 4850 system gotten directly from them.


grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Jon

 

if u have the original transcript of the conversation you had with the first sales rep you can really stick it to dell.
The first conversation was a verbal and formal agreement where by Dell offered you 2 cards and you offered them your money. By taking your money out of your card/account was a formal agreement from dell to honour that deal.
If they call you now and say they cannot give you the card take them to court. The moment the money left your account was the moment you and dell entered a legally binding agreement. It can be easily reinforced. tell dell to give you the 2 cards infact better yet. tell dell to give you a compensation by attempting to get out of their contract =)

 

lol, not worth it. I was already in litigation over something trivial, where a car lift company that I purchased a tandem 2 car lift, promised me in WRITING a $1000 payment for how bad they screwed up so many things with my delivery and installation. Since I have a close buddy who is a lawyer, when they wouldnt pay and stopped returning my phone calls, we sued them and WON in court by default because they just wouldn't show up to court. Although even if they did, they would have still lost, its in writing, with a signature by their VP of operations. But winning is nothing, getting them to pay is a whole nother thing. And had it NOT been free for my buddy to do this for me, it easily would have cost me more in legal fees to fight for this $1000 bucks they owe me.

nah, gotta pick my battles here, wont make any friends by going that route.

Jon

 

I guess maybe a few side questions might be in order:

1. Do the 9800m GT SLI's work in the m17?
2. What about those 4850s that are only 512k, are they available? Are they decently faster then the 3870s?
3. Is there anything better then the 3870 for the m17 that are actually readily available for purchase?

Thanks!
Jon

 

Contact someone who has had luck getting them from Alienware here and ask him/her to buy them from you.

 

I had 'luck' getting one from them, and JUST one Hell I have 2 personal serial numbers assigned to me, both still within the 90 days warranty period, and they wont sell me one, and when I am lucky enough to get a sales person who will, the stock boy figures it out, and says NOOOOOOOO....

If anyone knows something I don't hook me up!

Jon

 

Well I guess you have 3 options:
1) sell the 4850 and it will net you a good amount of cash. You can earn like a 150-200usd from that card alone.
2) sell the 3870s and put in a single 4850 like myself. 4850 is quite up to par with 3870x2 in my opinion especially when AA is enabled because of the newer architecture and extra memory.
3) try ordering one more for crossfire.

 

9800m gt's should work

The single 9800m GTX was planned but never released

 

This CERTAINLY is what I am going to shoot for. Hell I had NONE before, 1 is a start .

But man it honest to god, took hours and hours and hours to get this... this is a VERY poor waste of my time. But then again, when I am away from family and the viper, what else do I have to do with my time... lol.

 

I would want SLI, IF its at least better then the 3870 x2 system that my laptop comes with. Is it? Or is SLI even an option?

Thanks!

Jon

 

yea they are much much better card

 

hmmm.. where to get? Alienware said that the 3870 x2 was it for the system, nothing else I could 'upgrade' to.

Details on where to get, including the necessary SLI cable?

Thanks!

Jon

 

just go for 4850's

its a safer choice and cheaper

 

I guess that's only one option left which is to get a second card if you want more performance. Don't think SLI would work in m17 though.

 

safer? (cheaper sounds good 2 me ) as I know the 4850s are better then the 9800m in the performance tests I am seeing.

Ok back on track another 4850 or BUST!

Jon

 

Good to know! If 9800m sli doesnt work in our machines, then forget it, I already have the 3870 x2 and 1 4850 coming.

 

you can always tell Alienware that your card is defective and require a replacement, then they will have no reason but to give you another 4850. But then the problem is 4850 master and slave are physically different so it would not work that way. I guess you should keep ringing Alienware until they give you the second card. I believe it is doable if you're really free

 

it can work as far as i know unless there is a chipset issue...

It was never supported but neither were the 3870's in the M9750

 

But I tried with the master card in the slave slot it wont physically fit. There's something blocking the mxm slot due to the extra power tab that the master card has.

 

Oh ShinJ, thats good to know. I also believe Moo is talking about using the 9800m in SLI, not the 4850 dual masters thing.

I swear Mandrake had done something with flashing his master as a slave? no?

Mandrake could certainly answer this.

Jon

Ps. The guy did say the slaves are out of stock and they need ati to make them more, but then I said, well send me a second master and I'll flash it to be a slave, he said I was lucky to get ONE, he didnt even want to give me that.

 

try a guy named johnathan he offered to sell me them

 

ya you can always flash it from master and slave and from slave to master. But the problem is the cards have different dimension. Look at this thread then you will understand. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=437795

 

lol. I need a little more then a common name like that.

Dell, alienware, on here? Where? Last name? Contact information?

Again remember I ordered 2 masters, 2 slaves, 2 cross over cables from a tech that was MORE then happy to do it for me. But then a 'supervisor' in order fulfillment said its not allowed and was going to cancel the whole order , I barely got by with just the one master. Seems that they are having a number of problems with the slaves, and are out of stock on them?

Jon

 

Yeah, I see what your saying, but it actually looks like the tab is unnecessary

per the link you sent me to, the guy put it in the master slot and it worked, so a master card that has that tab removed, probably would work just fine in the slave slot. Again, I don't think that section has any 'real' connections. It might be a huge ground, or a huge positive, but it might not actually be anything functional. I'd have to see the circuit board to determine if thats the case, which I'll do when I get my master card.

Also: This link explains, its only a power tab, so I'm sure the master needs it for the extra juice of being the primary, but a MASTER made to a slave wouldnt need it: http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/Tech_13.html

Jon.

PS. I even remember some graphics card 'testing' they did where they had an x16, that they throttled back to an x8, then an x4, and then an x1, all by way of 'tape' to show how much of a 16x slot is actually being used. And I was very surprised that a card that had a number of its 'pins' covered still worked.

 

Ya you're right I can confirm that there are no connections on the extra tab. And I'm also aware that you could slap a slave card inside the master slot. But you don't wanna chop off your $250 card just for that reason do you? Just wanna share my experience as I once thought master and slave card are the same and realized after that they are not and end up selling my other card.

 

Certainly not fighting with ya, I completely agree there is a 'physical' difference between the two, which I did NOT know until you told me that, but I assure you, if getting a 2nd master is my only option, I certainly have no problem lobbing off that extra power pin. I would NOT however, run two slaves (one being made a master). If you havent sold your 2nd master, lets work something out, I'm game to try it.

Jon