My m9750 Dilemma...

I have decided to send this to the Alienware customer support service. Tell me what you think.

Dear Alienware,

I have called Alienware numerous times on this issue and haven't recieved a response that actually helps me at all. I have the 167.46 beta drivers for my SLI 7950 GTX's. They are from November...which is absolutely ancient when it comes to gaming. I can't play the newest games with SLI enabled because of the outdated Nvidia profiles and old .cfgs. I pay $4,350 to a company I trust and they don't release updates so that I can play the newest games at optimal performance. This is borderline false advertising considering you brand your system ULTIMATE GAMING MACHINES.

Here are my concerns - I hope this goes to the top...There are many many others that feel the same way. Just sift through the laptopvideo2go.com or notebookforums.com forums.

Total lack of SLI profiles (in the nvapps.xml file) for any games released after the 167.46 beta were written.

People who own an m9750 with only one GPU CAN use any driver and modified inf file from laptopvideo2go and successfully install the newer driver versions. BUT, people who bought an m9750 with 2 GPU's for SLI cannot install ANY drivers because of the nvidia nforce 100 chip that allows the intel chipset to utilize SLI. This chip appears to require specially coded drivers to even allow the drivers to install let alone get SLI to work (and believe me, I've spent the last 3-4 months trying!!)

As a customer I find your companies policy on releasing driver updates for a PREMIUM GAMING laptop only when "Newer drivers are normally released once we encounter games that are having problems with the existing driver set." very disturbing.
New driver releases by definition fix bugs and improve performance, Alienware should be releasing new drivers in tandem with nvidia's new releases to ensure that their 'premium gaming' laptop performs at a premium expectation level for the people buying it.
Couple this with the fact that your SLI customers are relying on you directly for updated SLI profiles and updated drivers because normal drivers don't work, and you have a situation where resentment and frustration will grow with your customer base because they cant do a most basic thing like update their GFX drivers.
I personally have come to the point where I'm actually beginning to regret buying your laptop because of this very problem, My next PC will most probably be a good ol' desktop built by myself as its the only way i can get 100% driver (and hence performance) upgradability.

I would appreciate it if you forwarded this email to your driver department again and to any individual who has a bearing on Alienware policy as i feel this problem needs to be addressed. You cannot sell "the fastest gaming laptop" in the world and then not bother keeping your GFX drivers up to date!!!!

A very frustrated customer,
Alex

P.S. Crysis (the game you've been advertising for the last few months) runs at 30 fps on my machine. Advertising the game on a system that can only run it this performance level is borderline false marketing.

 

@Silent - Well first I would advise you to try my SLi guide. I'm pretty sure everyone but you has their M9750 working with the 174.16 drivers with SLi with custom profiles and everything. Try following my SLi guide and see if that does the trick, I don't see why it wouldn't.

I am running what you see in my sig with the 174.16 drivers from laptopvideo2go.com and my laptop is running fine with SLi enabled.

 

Does your volume bar show up when you change your volume on the side of the machine?

At what fps does your Laptop run crysis?

 

Yeah.. I tried to help you a LONG time ago with SLI, but you never did come back and take a look at the forums and read anything let alone anything relevant from laptopvideo2go. If anything, you've been brooding over this issue without actually doing any research. Installing SLI drivers from laptopvideo2go has pretty much been a non-issue since November.

Also, Crysis running at 30fps is pretty decent considering most gaming desktop machines can barely get that.

 

There has never been a 'volume bar' that comes up on screen with this system. Nothing that indicates that it's being adjusted in any way. The only way you can tell if it's being adjusted is by listening to the sound OR by openning up the windows volume control. If you do that though, you might as well adjust it on screen with your mouse too. Maybe you can consider that as sloppy from Alienware, but it's never been an issue with me.

 

I have been using the SLI workaround for a while, but it shouldn't be that hard...in the case of the volume - install the old alienware video drivers and turn your volume up and down - Taadaa! A volume bar right on the screen! Plus - who knows how much performance we are losing due to unoptimized drivers made for collective groups of laptops.

 

So far I've had no problem reading the volume bar on any video driver. However i do think that there needs to be an Alienware driver installed for it to appear. So if you have reformatted your system, this driver needs to be reinstalled from the support site.

As per your letter, it has been done before and the standard response is "We are waiting for nVidia". So it wont accomplish anything. And it isnt just Alienware, most gaming laptops are not getting updated drivers on a regular basis. That is why there is laptopvideo2go.

And sorry but 30fps average for Crysis IS really good.

 

i've never had a volume bar issue. i've never really had a sli issue either, and i don't think i used stone's sli help thread either. all you need to do is go onto lv2g and download their drivers and work them as described by the website. you're also asking alienware to update drivers for an old gpu. alienware assumes its customers are gamers, therefore, would probably download their own drivers anyways. alienware is more busy with working on the m15x problems, and trying to market and release the m17x.

 

If you want a constructive response you should maybe start a little less agressively and gradually build up to the tone of your post. That sort of approach straight off will probably wind someone up, and more importantly gives you no scope for ecalation if they don't give you what you are after.

Just my thoughts.

 

I am currently using the 174.16 GFX driver from Ltvg with the modified INF file on my m9750 and SLI works ok. Every driver I have tried in the last 8 months from ltvg has worked for me in SLI mode.
So I would suggest you determine if your problem with SLI is really due to driver support before you send that letter.