My m9750 review

Today when I got home from school, my alienware area-51 m9750 arrived. Here is the unboxing video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLZWLG6QU2s - sorry I had it linked on other pages I just didn't have it posted here. As you can see, the alien head on my box was grey and not white.

Specs - On my sig but here they are...
alienware area-51 m9750
1gb ram (upgrading soon)
512mb nvidia geforce go 7950gtx
vista home premium sp1
2.0ghz intel core 2 duo t7200
dvd+-rw
160gb 5400rpm

Here are some pictures

1 - this is a picture of the back
http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/9390/laptop1fr8.jpg

2 - this is a picture of the installation of vista sp1
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/7803/sp11gu9.jpg



The following are burn in test results from alienware
(C:\Windows\System32\Alienware\My PC Information.XML)

Doom 3
Doom 3: 103.6 fps
3DMark 2006
Customer Information:
3DMark Score: 6,041.00 3DMarks
SM2.0 Score: 2,533.00
HDR/SM3.0 Score: 2,687.00
CPU Score: 1,702.00
Game Score: 0.00 Points
SM2.0 Graphics Tests
GT1 - Return To Proxycon: 20.82 FPS
GT2 - Firefly Forest: 21.39 FPS
CPU Tests
CPU1 - Red Valley: 0.54 FPS
CPU2 - Red Valley: 0.86 FPS
HDR/SM3.0 Graphics Tests
HDR1 - Canyon Flight: 23.22 FPS
HDR2 - Deep Freeze: 30.52 FPS


My thoughts

OS: Vista sp1 took about an hour to install. Not noticeable differences. only restarted 3-4 times.

Harddrive: Out of the 160gb's, with grand theft auto san andreas installed, plus a few small things, 125gb's are left. There is probably things like respawns stored there so it's ok.

Ram: Actually, runs pretty well for 1gb of ram. I will be upgrading soon, because 1gb is obviously horrible. I have not tested anything like crysis or photoshop yet.

Graphics: Great for me - read about this later

Keyboard: A little too big for me, there is like 5 inches between the keyboard and the bottom. Still, it has no flex which is good.

DVD+-RW drive: well from what I can see. It does take about 2 seconds to open after clicking though.

Screen: (1440 size) A great screen, very bright glossy.

Wifi: About normal, neighbor's wifi working well mostly.

overall look: Great. The alienhead was a little bigger than expected, and it is matte, but some fingerprints get on it.

overall rating from me: 9.5/10
pros - all but size and sideways usb ports

Oh, I also like how the important ports are on the back. The power cord is running behind my newly installed desk which is cool.

A few gaming thoughts...
I played grand theft auto san andreas, and was suprised. My old laptop with integrated graphics got 2-3 fps for 1280 res and 3x anti. This, with one gpu, got 25 for 1440 and 3x anti.

This is a great computer, and I will try to post more as I have the unboxing, just not able to upload it right now

____________________
3/29/08 -- Tommorow will be the first trip for the laptop. To detroit for Tigers opening day. I'll make sure it doesn't get scratched

 

Sweet laptop!

 

You are going to lose 20GB of space to Vista Restore or w/e it is called. I have it configured so that it can only take up 2.5GB of space at the most .

 

Thats one great thing about having Ultimate, you can make a complete image of your hard drive in case something happens.

 

what was your total price?

 

Lol I'm sure that Ultimate uses Shadow Copy as well which is taking up space on your hard drive too.

At OP - Don't post the Alienware burn in benchmarks. That 3dmark06 score they post isn't a valid score since they crank down the resolution when they do it. Do your own tests and post those here instead of using theirs.

 

sorry i was busy
the total cost was about $1670, which is REDICULASLY overpriced for something with those specs... A dell with a 17" screen, 3gb ram, 250gb hdd, and a 2.2ghz dual core was $999 at staples.... I get the looks tho

I don't have 3dmark yet - i'll try to get it and post later

 

Hehe looks like you should have gone for the Dell . Nah w/e you want man its your money and as long as you enjoy it that is what matters the most.

If you need any help with your M9750 I will do my best to help you out since the only reason I'm really here on NBR is to learn new things and to try to help people out as much as possible with their notebooks since I kinda like doing this for some reason. Oh and meet a cool group of people that I will never meet in real life... not

 

No it's my parents money

 

Well you know what I mean lol. As long as your happy with what you put the money toward that is what matters the most.

 

Is there a way for me to play my ps2 on it?

 

You can use the SVideo input to play video on your M9750. I recommend against it though as it really does not look too good.

 

If I wanted to play the ps2 right now on it, there are two ps2 cords. 3. white yellow and red. What do i put in what space?

 

You can't play PS2 right now on it. You need an svideo cord that matches the Svideo input on the back of the M9750. You can't use red/white/yellow cables with the M9750.

 

@Travis - Bisoncam refers to the Bison Camera. In the program however, they refer to it as bisoncap because you are using the "Bison" to capture. Kind of weird though.

 

If I wanted to upgrade to a bluray drive in a few months, how much would that cost? also, could I send it in to be upgraded if it had non original components eg. corsair/crucial/kingston/patriot/sony ram?

 

does it come with 7950 GTX? its the reason why m9750 cost more

 

gratz on the machine looks sweet. hey it might have costed some more than it should of but cmon do u wanna be the average dell user or when u have project in school and whip out this huge 17 inch AW... did u get the SLI by any chance?

 

no, i don't want it to overheat
having grown up with nothing more than 64mb integrated graphics, 512mb is mor than enough for me. I am having problems playing grand theft auto san andreas on line.... when I try to log in by doing shift it crashes

 

Upgrade your graphics drivers to the ones in the m9750 sticky thread. THe stock AW drivers suck.

 

ok i'll try it thanks tokaygecko +rep

ugh when i messed with the hd audio now i cant hear anything can someone help

fixed it..

 

Have you tried any other games besides GTA?

 

Glad to know your happy with it, Travis! Your one lucky kid to have such a piece

 

ok i fixed the audio
also fixed gtasa

so sp1 works fine with it
i will try games later - i dont know what game to get... thinking about cod4 modern

 

I like that black!! Nice review Travis!

 

okay, with one 7950gtx, and 4gb crucial/corsair/kingston, how much memory will the computer be able to use on 32 bit?

 

2.5GB, for some reason the motherboard Alienware uses in the M9750 only uses 2.5GB (probably lack of testing...), the rest of the memory is useless.

 

those pictures were bad on the first page here is a better one
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/7577/alienwarearea51m9750pichi9.jpg
i love how you can see reflections in the moniter

 

LOL a Windows ME bible.

 

Nice notebook. Is that the brightest the screen can be?

 

CoD4 is an amazing game in both single player and multiplayer. You won't be disappointed at all. You should also consider Bioshock and Unreal Tournament 3.

 

I think it is the brightest. It's bright from here though.
yea windows me.. I like collecting old computers/books because I grew up on a windows 95 and like the feel/structure of them


also, I can't change the shadowstorage size on sp1.. I've opened vssadmin.exe, opened other things but it just closes... How do i set it to have a shadow storage of 4gb's for sp1?

brb i'm posting a pic in a min


these are some of my favorite books
http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/3...ekitboork3.jpg
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/7615/dosbookzg4.jpg

my unboxing video has been posted on youtube and is processing
ill post it here as soon as it's done

Here it is! hope u like it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLZWLG6QU2s

two annoying things about my alienware
1. the fan IS loud when idle, if the room is silent
2. When you move your hand over to keyboard to feel the heat on the back, it sometimes brings up the ie/windows mail quickstart buttons

 

Grats on your laptop man.. Good to see you finally got your AW

Watching the vid as I type.. Well sorta.. Hehe
I'd suggest getting UT3 or wait for Starcraft 2.. Comin this summer I think

 

i was just looking at your screenshot of ur desktop...why are the icons so big...or is there an option to have smaller icons?

also...1400x900 is matte screen and not glossy right?

 

welcome to club young buddy

That's a sweet machine you have there, I have the same problem opening up the quickstart items, usually when I'm typing though I hit it with my pinky finger...I'm not a big fan of that quicklaunch bar above the keyboard anyway...

Congratulations!

 

the icons aren't big... If you want to see big icons get a 800x600 vista..

- i could fit 152 icons on my desktop

 

is the 1400x900 glossy or matte screen?

 

Glossy, Alienware doesn't offer matte screens.

 

yea - my screen is glossy, but it is not bad in any way for me

 

okay - tried to install 174.16 vista x86 drives for my 32 bit vista
i have 1 7950gtx

after extracting, clicked the setup exe, it said it could not find compatible drives and it closed..

 

You need to download the modded inf from the same page and have that one replace the one that came in the driver package.

Read more about it here : http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14640 and http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=8128

 

ok i installed it thanks dready +rep
now im going to see if it solved my gtasa problem

 

My pleasure

 

ok after installing that, gtasa worked with multiplayer. Either the driver did it, or the system restart did.

 

Did you follow the directions in the SLI sticky at the top of the forum? You need to uninstall the existing drivers by removing your video card in Device Manager, then reboot, use Driver Sweeper to wipe out any remaining registry entries, reboot again, then use the setup file.

You also need to download the .ini file associated with the driver and copy it over the existing one so you can use the drivers on your laptop. Follow the step-by-step directions in the SLI sticky and you can't possibly have a problem.

 

all i did was do the ini and install it
and no, OBVIOUSLY not
if I don't have sli why would I read it

 

Okay, I just wanted to let you guys know that I have purchased call of duty 4 modern warfare, and am going to post fps soon. It's installing now

 

There is something really wrong with my laptop
after installing it, I forgot to click yes on install dx9
so I uninstalled it and installed it again
after starting a game, the performance was HORRIBLE
for a game that needed a 128mb graphics card, I have a 512mb 7950gtx
during the game, it froze for atleast 3 seconds at a time, and I was getting no more than 3fps at any one time
I might have to return this piece of crap

im so pissed im going to play gtasa right now
atleast that works

o yea, also the game froze for like 2 minutes so i did a hard shut down
after starting again the screen started in 700x500 res and i had to change it

 

@Travis - A thin smile just broke across my face. After you ranting about how you will never buy from any company than AW because you love them so much, you call your M9750 a piece of crap

PM me if you need any specific help

 

I want to know why the hell this 1600 buck computer is a piece of ****
why is it getting 3fps and freezing half the time on cod4