My one-week-old-M15X and his weaknesses

i am a owner of a new m15x, luckily with a 3-year-warranty (i´m sure i´m gonna need it).

having the laptop now for 1 1/2 weeks, i already experienced the following issues (x34 bios):

- issues as described in this thread

- non-responding touchbuttons for stealth, sound, etc.. (sometimes they work, sometimes they do not)

- power-up problems in battery and non-battery mode. this problems can be described as:
-- system does not react at all after pushing power button
-- system starts to boot and shuts down again after 2 seconds (just after all the lights have gone active)
-- system starts up and enters a status of "whitescreen", only way to reboot: remove battery-pack

- wake-up-problems:
-- system crashes/reboots when trying to wake up (especially in battery-mod)
-- touchbuttons are non-responsive

i mailed to the german alienware-support (i´m from austria) - no response so far. guess i will have to make use of my service contract.

my specs:

Screen: 15.4" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD-Widescreen (1200p) with Webcam
OS: Original Windows® Vista Ultimate SP1
GPU: 512 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 8800M GTX
CPU: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9300 - 2,5 GHz 800 MHz FSB with 6 MB Cache
RAM: 2 GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM mit 667 MHz - 2 x 1024 MB
Turbo Cache-Speicher: Intel Turbo Cache Speicher 1GB
HDD: 120GB 7.200 U/Min SATA mit Free Fall Protection™
OPTICAL DRIVE:: DVD-Brenner: 8x Dual Layer (DVD±RW, CD-RW)
Sound: Intel® High-Definition Audio (24-bit, 192KHz) mit Surround Sound
Keypad: Alienware® Area-51 m15x AlienFX®-Tastatur - Deutsch

 

What operating system are you running?

 

vista ultimate, i updated the 1st post with my specs.

 

hmm,i sorry to hear that

 

Thank you. I think your best option right now is to contact Alienware to see if you can get an m15x that doesn't have these issues or do a clean installation of Windows Vista.

If you would still like to try and fix these issues, you can try the steps below:

For your responsive issues with the touch buttons, try and uninstall the Command Center and the OSD drivers, then reinstall them in this order:
#1) OSD drivers
#2) Command Center

Both of these can be found in your MyHive. I can upload both of the OSD drivers and the Command Center if you would like.

For your "wake up" issues, you may have to reflash your computer with the X34 BIOS (also found in the MyHive).

 

hello again,

i just had a 30-minute-talk to a quite friendly alienware-supporter in ireland and guess what, i got a newer BIOS than X34.

and it seems the new bios solved my powering-up problems.

Filename is "m15x_MMB_41.zip".

But it did not resolve the high latency issues, but at the moment, i´m quite happy that my system boots as i expect it to boot.

right now i´m re-installing the mobile command center after having already re-installed the OSD-drivers and hopefully, things will work out step-by-step.

 

Oh my. Glad to see you've found some assistance!

 

Just to let you know
the file you got is an update for touch buttons only
so you are still using x34 bio

 

The touch buttons need very little pressure, actual if you apply any pressure they won't recognize it. And requires you finger to be on it for about 2 seconds, my guess to make sure you didn't accidentally hit them. I have a old Olympus M:Robe 100 MP3 player and it uses the same technology so I am used to how much pressure you have to give.

 

after playing around with the m15x since yesterday, i found out:

- MMB are working more often, but not always
- power-up problem still existent, but not that often as before
- wake-up problems still occur on a random basis.

i´m thinking about downgrading to xp, but i have turbo memory installed and i am not really a fan of letting the vista ultimate license unused. :\

while typing this posting, i booted the m15x and touchbuttons worked. after submitting, i rebooted it and touchbuttons don´t work. i´ll see if i can take a short movie with my camera

if the buttons don´t work, the background light of the volume-sensor is permanently on.

 

I had the issues you have and tech tried to help me over the phone but one of my lights ended up dying (the alienware letters!) so it had to go into the shop where it was fixed and has been running great for a month now (its a few months old now) I now run ultimate and have no issues any longer

 

hm, wish there is an dedicated alienware-shop somewhere around here.

my alienware laptop was assembled in ireland and sent to me via DHL Express.

 

This issue may be a Vista related problem. I would run Windows Update to see if there are any hotfixes/updates available for your Vista.

 

i left my laptop in the bag for the last two weeks and yesterday, i decided to try out windows xp pro.

after formatting and installing and patching to XP Pro SP3, i installed all the drivers and stuff.

but i still experienced:

- slow or very slow responding multimedia-buttons
- random crashes when using FN-1 for sleep & power button to wake again. (thats the most annoying thing - the laptop just seems not to be reliable.)
i can accept a missing on-screen volume-slider and things, but i just want a laptop that is working as intended in it´s very basic functions.

things seemed to work out fine at first yesterday, but problems increased with every minute my m15x was powered on. i´ll give it one more try today but i guess, i´ll call AW for a tech to take a closer look at my m15.

 

sent my m15x back to alienware [europe] on monday, they are going to take a closer look at it.

got multiple bios versions, no improvements. problems occured totally random, making it a lottery everytime i used it.

hopefully they send it back in a better state.

 

got my alienware back today.

turned it on, booted twice, had ALL the hardware problems i had before, hard resets, all that stuff. called alienware, tryed to stay calm and friendly. AW told me the changed the whole motherboard + casing.

finally, we tried all things without battery and allthough i´m just in the middle of testing, things seem to turn out fine. AW already decided to send me a new battery pack because mine seems broken.

 

How's your lid doing? Any creaks or severe wobbles?