*OFFICIAL* "All Powerful" M15x Owner's Lounge, *Part 2*

Time for Part 2 folks. The original thread has grown quite a bit and its time to start *Part 2* of the *OFFICIAL* "All Powerful" M15x Owner's Lounge.

The original thread (Part 1) can be found here:

*OFFICIAL* "All Powerful" M15x Owner's Lounge

 

First to post in part 2 thread! let me check UK prices to see if the reduced price is reflected in dell UK.

Edit. UPDATE:
sorry folks, looks like UK is not getting the price reduction blessings like our US friends here. prices for each parts upgrade are still as high (or even higher, GTX260M is now 20 Pounds more expensive than before, 1080p LCD now cost 80 Pounds more! OUCH!) as ever.

 

Woo Hoo 2nd person to post on the thread !!! :laugh: Still like my 1st gen M15X but like the new looks of the new generation one. Maybe next year I will get one. God Bless

 

I have seen some postings about Win 7, so here is my (out of topic) question:
Are you able to use the Win 7 RC key in order to use the Win 7 upgrade disk, or you need another previous version of Windows to qualify for the upgrade?

 

Is the battery life any better with win 7 ?

 

Hi guys, Just ordered mine yesterday. Here's the configuration

Alienware M15x : Base Cosmic Black
Processor : Intel i7 720QM(1.60Ghz, 6MB) Mobile CPU
Display : 15.6in Wide HD+ (1600 x 900) WLED
Ship Accessory : English Docs
Resource DVD : Alienware M15x
Memory : 4096MB (2x2048) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Hard Drive : 250GB Serial ATA (7200RPM)
Optical Drive : Slot Load DVD+/-RW (DVD, CD read and write)
Power Cord : UK 220V
Power Supply : Alienware 150W AC Adapter
Battery : Primary 6-cell 56W/HR LI-ION
Graphics : 1 GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX260M
Wireless : ROW Intel WiFi Link 5300 (a/g/n) Wireless LAN Card
Wireless : Europe Dell Bluetooth 370 Card
Keyboard : Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
Operating System : English Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
Avatar : Alienware Logo
AutoMatic Updates : AutoMatic updates - On
Wallpaper : Alien Cyborg Wallpaper
AntiVirus : McAfee Security Centre 10(30 day subscription)Software MUI
(UK,FR,DE,ES,IT,DK,NL,SE,NO,RU)
AlienFX Colour : Astral Aqua
Name Plate Engraving : Generic
1Yr Premium Warranty Support
3Yr Premium Warranty Support

Total: £1491.01 (shipping included)

Order status says I am in phase 3 now with EDD on or before 16/11/2009 :O. Does anyone know how long from phase 3 to delivery normally takes. I can't believe it takes 4 weeks. Another thing is about the 3 year premium hardware warranty. Does it apply when I go abroad or I have to stay in the UK if I want to undergo the warranty service ?

 

Mine is meant to be delivered to me this friday !! I will enjoy my week end

 

mines coming on monday, i have a weekend to stare out the window and tap my fingers.......

 

Thanks for the new thread.

 

New thread yay.. Now just need that bios update

 

the win7 upgrade will be a disk... cus i'll have to pay for delivery myself to recieve it. about the partition, for some reason it does not go away. when i installed xp on my m9750 the respawn prompt still used to come before loading xp. i guess the partition is undetectable by other os. dont have any other explanation. since i definetly will upgrade to win7 no point in having that big fat 11GB partition for vista. is there a way to burn it on to a disk like a recovery disk?

one more question regarding the 260. not too long ago, with SLI (512 x 2) cards, people were getting benchmarks and were impressed. im just wondering with these 1GB 260 would the performance be upto par as the games are still the same?

 

hope you wont have nightmares like some other owners are having now with stealth/battery mode.

 

Howdy y'all,

I ordered my laptop at the end of last month. I am in the UK and the specification was:

Alienware M15x : Base Cosmic Black 1 S
Processor : Intel i7 720QM(1.60Ghz, 6MB) Mobile CPU 1 S
Display : 15.6in Wide Full HD (1920 x 1080) WLED 1 S
Ship Accessory : English Docs 1 S
Resource DVD : Alienware M15x 1 S
Memory : 4096MB (2x2048) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel 1 S
Hard Drive : 256GB Solid State Hard Drive 1 S
Optical Drive : Slot Load Blu-Ray ROM Combo (Blu-ray read only, DVD, CD read and write) Drive 1 S
Power Supply : Alienware 150W AC Adapter 1 S
Power Cord : UK 220V 1 S
Battery : Primary 9-cell 85W/HR LI-ION 1 S
Graphics : 1 GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX260M 1 S
Wireless : Europe Dell Bluetooth 370 Card 1 S
Wireless : ROW Intel WiFi Link 5300 (a/g/n) Wireless LAN Card 1 S
Keyboard : Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard 1 S
Operating System : English Genuine Windows Vista SP1 Home Premium (64 BIT) including Media 1 S
Avatar : Alienhead 3D 1 S
AutoMatic Updates : AutoMatic updates - On 1 S
Anti Virus : Norton® AntiVirus Gaming Edition - 30 day Trial (UK,FR,DE,ES,IT,DK,NL,SE,NO,RU) 1 S
AlienFX Colour : Mars Red 1 S
Name Plate Engraving : Generic 1 S
1Yr Premium Warranty Support 1 S
No Warranty Upgrade 1 S
Alienware M15x Order - UK 1 S

The price was 1536.52 GBP + VAT . Has anyone tried to gauge the performance of the SSD driver versus the 7200 RPM hard disk? My main reasoning for the SSD drive was to improve boot up speed. Does anyone know if the SSD drive will also improve the battery life as well? It sounds logical that it might.

 

is that 1.5k inc VAT? cos either way you got a good deal there, mine was a similar price (inc VAT) and i dont have the Blu ray reader or the SSD, and in fact the SSD wasnt even avilable last month when i ordered mine!

just checked now and the SSD still isnt avilable! wth

 

Biggy! Sorry, that does not include VAT. I ordered through my business as this is obviously a critical item to do my work and therefore a business expense ;-)

Hope I did not give you a heart attack on the price.

Re: SSD
I also noticed it was not available online (UK site) so I called Dell direct and they said it was possible to configure the system with the SSD drive for a UK order.

 

Did you receive CD's with your M15x? If so what were they? Dell tells me that don't include a resource CD anymore and that everything can be downloaded from their support site. However I saw in the M17x review that system restore CD's were included.

If you can provide Dell part numbers too I'd appreciate it.

So far lovin' my M15x

 

Maybe the respawn is hardwritten into the bios, so it will always pop up. The partition may not even be there when you are in windows... can you verify if the partition still exists when searching through windows? if it is still there then im stummped

as for the last question... when comparing lets say a single 260m vs a 8800m, they are spec'd the same but the 260m has slightly higher clocks and 16 more cores. So there will be better performance, but not as much as one would expect, and the main problem relies on the memory bus bandwidth, they are both 256bit and that can bottleneck the 260m from have a considerable jump over the 8800m. The 260m is 55nm (less heat) whereas the 8800 is 65nm. Nvidia's MO is rename and rebrand......... same crap slighly higher mhz...
Edit: for got to mention they are two different architectures... but still..

 

oh joy my bluetooth is dead ...

 

man these dellboys sure take their time releasing an update lol, i hope they are doing some epic testing to make sure it is perfect.

 

further to my nightmare....as detailed in the first thread

I received the order that dell customer support confirmed was never processed (my bank account and the laptop say otherwise).

Having foreseen that Dell would likely screw up (never trust a big vendor) I found out the process for returning at the same time that I confirmed the order hadn't been received or processed.

Calling dell I hit reception, who then transferred me to customer service that then dropped my call after 15 minutes on hold.

Called again and was transferred again and on hold for 35 minutes - spoke to a CSR who was plainly not interested in helping (or even bothering to listen - you can always tell when you're asked a question that has nothing to do with what you've been talking about) I was transferred to Online sales.

After a 15 minute wait I spoke to the online sales who said that customer service needs to process the return. Transferred back....

...but was transferred to reception. On hold for another 30 minutes then finally got someone who could help...

Besides all the hassle dell will not process my refund for two weeks after return. I wonder how much revenue a company can generate by sitting on other people's money when they screw up

 

i agree with the hardwritten theory... cus when in vista/xp the partition does not show up. furthermore i noticed when i used to do a fresh install of the os the partion didnt used to show up there either. also i think the os which is shipped with aw systems is slightly different to normal retail os version. this i noticed when i used my os disk which came with the system to do a fresh install on my desktop, it installed fine using the different serial key and it still displayed the alien head in the conrol panel. dont know if it'll change since this will be from dell.


now about the GPU... i was asking more in terms of memory. i know its not the right comparison but comparing 1GB in sli, 1GB 260 should be close... right??? i mean crysis is still crysis and if 1GB in sli used to run it good then there should be no problem with this 1GB 260m

 

well, first up the good news:my M15 arrived yesterday and it is indeed a beautiful laptop. Great keyboard, no lag problems on mine, awesome screen -- the HD 1920 picture is great -- good sound and very fast. I have the 240 card and battery life is showing up at 2:15 or 2:20 with everything set on balanced and no tinkering,
The laptop is a bit bulkier and heavier than the xps15390 it is replacing, but its also far more machine.
Wifi is good: consistent 200-240 Mbps, down to 90-120 -- quick enough, especially as the wireless N means terrific range and high contact levels.
Came with win7 upgrade that is being shipped Nov 3 and both vista 64, Alienware system disk and a nifty baseball cap.
The facial recognition thingy is good and much better than a fingerprint scanner.

Now the quibbles: first the annoying but understandable (and resolvable?) There is no connection utility for the Intel 5300 that works with vista ultimate 64: vista connects just fine but there's no little smybol showing you your connection strength, nor have I found a sidebar gadget that does it -- found a fix which uses the diagnostic page within vista and puts it into quick launch -- better than nothing. BTW, none of the drivers on Intel's page resolve this issue.

otherwise its great: just my machine arrived and has no lights, nor can I comment on stealth as I have yet to find where the button is as my media lights don't exist -- yes, AlienFX the neat software that provides the glowing speakers lights, keyboard/touchpad, power etc. lighting effects, none of that works on my machine.
....so after poking around, I called ALienware tech support, ended up getting a tech gal who did the Go To Assist thing which was great: downloaded the latest command center application from the Dell site and I thought I should have done that, until she tried in vain to install, uninstall and install to get the thing to work all in vain -- long story short, the piece of hardware the Command Center software/firmaware can not communicate with is the video card and the laptop has to have a new motherboard. The tech said they would send a rep and have them install on site, so I hope that will happen.

The irony of course is if you look at my sigare, h latop that I am replacing is an xps1530 because of its ongoing motherboard/video card failings....
I was too bummed to be angry: it is just very ironic -- Dell steps up to replace my dead xps with the wonderful new M15 and sends my one that needs a new motherboard.

Anyways, hopefully I will report back with pictures of the laptop with FX effects before the weekend.

p.s. the build quality is superb, much better fit and finish than the xps and the whole magnesium thing is a non-issue -- it looks and feels great -- better with lights maybe...

 

Hi lgsshedden,
Sorry to hear your story. I can't believe DELL sent you an M15X without AlienFX since I thought they would have tested it before sending it and if the tester was not colour blinded, then how couldn't they see that the lights do not work and fix it ?? Anyway, how long did it take for your machine to come ?

 

lgsshedden did you get the 9 or 6 cell battery?

 

I have a question with regards to the SSD drives that come with either the M15x or the M17x - does anyone know what they are like? As in read / write speeds etc..?

Is it better to buy one yourself and install it? Like an OCZ Vertex or something fast like that.

 

6 cell battery: getting 2:15/2:20 on balanced power use doing web stuff, email, word, not gaming. GPU temp says my temps are at 43c even after a couple of hours use so no heating issues.
The order went in Oct.12 after my inital conversation with Dell Oct. 9: delivered Oct. 20 -- so quick.
Just received confirmation that I am getting an on-site repair and new mobo. The issue is classified as a mis-aligned part, which is perfectly reasonable and could be a function of shipping: it left the factory in good working shape but was not fixed into place properly rather than the mobo being an issue in itself.
Through this all (and the frustration of which number to call, calling the number listed on the Dell website and that number not being operational, etc.) the tech support at ALienware have been superb and have stepped up to quickly resolve things: they are sending on on-site repair even though my original warranty is only return to depot, so I am impressed and once the thing gets fixed and flies I shall have no problem reporting that: growing pains, which is what you have to expect when you ar ean early adopter of any new technology.

My favorite part is the screen: it is stunning in its clarity and tried a few videos online today and the resolution and speed were terrific. Device manager confirms the HD LED panel is an LGD020B

Off to go download a game or two to try...

 

Hmmm is it just me or does anyone else come into these threads looking for some pretty pictures get nothing but text?

 

as soon as I get lights, I'll post some pictures!

 

TBO, I prefer single card solutions (with higher memory) over dual (less memory) when they have the same specs like my example earlier 1GB 260m vs 512MB 8800m in SLI. The 8800m SLI is sharing 1 GB of memory, but at any one time when the 8800m is rendering, it only has 512MB of memory resources. Usually people use AFR 2 and this means one gpu will render all the even frames while the other renders the odd. So at any given frame, only 512MB of memory is available. This will start to suffer when you up AA, AF, and resolution. Ideally at 1680x1050, 512MB will suffice for all settings set to high. When you get to 1920x1200 then 896MB-1GB cards will be more practical.

So basically memory plays a big part in how much rendering detail can be done sufficiently to allow great FPS. Of course dual 260m's in SLI will always out perform a single 260m. I am just comparing a 1GB card vs 2-512MB cards in SLI.

Yes there are other ways SLI scales, but let be honest, nvidia recommended settings is usually AFR 2... the other modes may share the rendering to take full advantage of the shared memory, thus using 1GB total at all times, but how many times do you use these settings. They do a crappy job in the other modes.
Edit: you need a desktop with x2 gtx 295 in quad sli and a i7 OC'd to at least 4GHz to play crysis on everything enthusiast crazy high and shootout 60fps smooth.

 

I haven't read anything regarding this, but has anyone heard anything about the bios fix for the stutering?? Just curious.

 

thanks for the update! I am sure you will love it even more when you have the flashy lights haha, well 2hour ish is not all that bad considering that is with the 6 cell also, is that about normal or better than those with the 260?

 

YES !!! IT HAS ARRIVED AT HOME !!!

my girlfriend has took it from the post office, can't wait to be back home tonight !!

 

whats the dimentions of the HDD in the M15x?

im looking at SSDs and other fast large capacity 7.2k drives and i cant seem to find the height measurments for the slot.

Im going to get another drive for it in a month or so and load win7 onto it and keep the original vista 64 install as a backup perhaps ven load different games and media on to it :0

 

2.5" same as every other laptop. Just don't get a 12.5mm thick one, it won't fit.

 

thats the bit i wanted to know!

perfect thanks .

*goes shopping*

 

decided on the m15x over the envy 15:

1 224-6810 BASE,NBK,ANW,RED,M15X
1 317-2396 Intel Core i7 720QM 1.6GHz (2.8 GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
1 317-2403 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz 2 x 2048MB
1 320-0936 15.6-inch Wide FHD 1920x1080 (1080p) WLED
1 320-0938 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M
1 341-9756 256GB Solid State Drive
1 330-6174 Personalized Nameplate

 

so your your saying that M17x with its 2GB in sli would still be not as good as the spec u just mentioned

i'll be happy as long as the games run smooth

 

Has anyone been able to do a Side by side with the 900p screen vs the 1080p and see how much of a difference there is?

 

lol I was exagerating because crysis is a benchmark killer. The M17x with 280m's would def deliver a very good playing experience in crysis (at certain settings if you want to reach 60 fps, so not all this enthusiast and high resolution). But with the specs I mentioned, that's just comparing apples (laptop) and oranges (desktop). I think you would see less drops or spikes in gameplay, thus have smoother gameplay when using a beefy desktop gpu because mobile cards are restricted to heat and power. Desktop gpu's do produce a lot of heat too, but usually you have a well ventilated case and a bigger power supply to draw on. This is where laptops have a limitation, a laptop chassis is basically a huge freakin heat sink and mobile gpu's tend to overheat in such a small space. They can't push gpu specs a whole lot because they will overheat, die, and then everyone RMA's. They have been stuck on GDDR3 + 256-bit bandwidth bus, but new GDDR5 in moble gpu's will improve performance alot.

 

wel after all that explanation... i just hope that this lasts me atleast 3-4 years. then i'll to busy with kids lol and i'll build a dektop myself. sleyo upgraded his gpu so there is room, what i was wondering was that could it be upgraded to higher gpus as the ddr5. sager seem to have done that? bu i guess that would be pushing it cus of the heat.

 

I'm seriously burned that Dell dropped the prices on upgrades that much... I would have saved like 200 bucks which would have pushed me over the edge to the 820qm. Anyone here think dell will give me my money back? If not I might just send mine back and reorder. 200 is alot of money during the school year, this is BS.

 

Just a quick question: does the power brick of the M15x, get really hot?

Not sure if this review of the M15x has been posted before, I will post it anyway: http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/alienware-m15x.aspx

 

Hey everyone the news you're all waiting for is here. The BIOS update is finally in finished form and ready for download. I'm not sure if its on the webpage yet or not so go check it out if you have time. The AW tech I've been talking to said its 100% done now and will be on the website when their web people get it up.

 

It really depends on what game you like to play. Single player games are usually graphically intense and need more horsepower. But multiplayer games are usually made so that mainstream users can play them with high settings (ie L4D, TF2). I think 3-4 years is being very hopeful. I give you a solid 2 years. Yes you can upgrade to a 280m, but lets be honest, you will get a 10% increase in performance, you can just slightly overclock your gpu instead of paying $400 for another card.

I guarantee you will want a new laptop by the time you start thinking about upgrading (specifically for gpu's). Just sell this one to fund the new one.

 

I am surprised they didn't send you a link first to try the bios Uro! I hope this helps the problems with the M15x, because if it does, I maybe coming back.

 

Sweet! Mine is still in the building phase so it should come with the fix

 

i doubt it will honestly.

i've got my fingers crossed that this goes better than the m1730 i ordered last year. i updated the drivers for the sli and the whites went yellow.

dell's reply was "use our year old outdated drivers, not the new ones from nvidia". needless to say it found its way right back to dell.

cant wait to see how fast win 7 boots up with the SSD!

 

Alienware tech support really came through for me, sent a new motherboard and wiring case and arranged for on-site install -- guys who did the job were skeptical not thinking it was a mobo issue, but once the new board was installed, instant lights and full ALienFX effectrs just like its supposed to -- is it ever sweet!
Great, great machine: heavier and less portable than my old xps1530 but in every way a far superior laptop.

To the question about the power brick, yes it does get hot but the laptop itself is well moderated. Off the download the new Bios and will sort out some pictures to upload.

Last point. Alienware support is still getting set up in Canada: meanwhile the tech support has been working from the US and they have been great. Might be what some of you are used to, but any newcomers to Alienware will be pleasantly surprised and I expect the M15 will attract a lot of new people to Alienware.

 

Some one wanna throw up a link for the new bios?

 

good call: not posted yet anywhere on the Dell site and I can't access Hive as I am not in US