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

Easily resolved - Call Support, tell them its bugging you and they will send out a replacement keyboard. You can either install it yourself or have the on-site tech take care of it. Once completed, the original will need to go back to Dell (they send a pre-printed shipping label as well).

 

Ah ~ okie dokie thanks for letting me know ^_^

 

Yes, you
10 char

 

Yo everyone whats good?

My old dell inspiron 1520 died 2 days ago with a blown up motherboard. Decided to call in some big guns because while my old laptop was able to play WOW perfectly fine I've been wanting to play some newer games like the new Batman game or MW2. Anyways I've been browsing the site for years and look forward to contributing to this forum in the future!

Ordered: Nov 17
EDD: Dec 11

 

Welcome to NBR ^_^

 

Enjoy that notebook man!

 

I think I'm in the minority that thinks the 900P would be better for a 15.6" system than 1080p. Welcome to the long wait!

 

You've got some awesome upgrades there. Which SSD?

 

I am using an OCZ Vertex SSD. I went with it due to it being on sale at microcenter and the default firmware 1.4 had trim support.

 

WoooHOOOOOOO!!! I just checked my Order Status and my M15x shipped today, EDD is tomorrow!!!

What a surpise

 

Sweet! Must be exciting..so tempted to order my own M15x. Hmm lets see if I can find some good deals. I wonder if I can convince the gf to give me the M15x and she take an Asus G60 instead?

 

Our Alienware M15x review is now live:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=5360

 

w00t awesome! =D

 

Nice review, thanks! I hope my battery life will be better with the 720QM processor and a solid state drive.

 

Decent review, I think it could have used a lot more gaming benchmarks. Also, the cons of the notebook (especially price) were due to the 920 processor and the required 9 cell battery as noted so it shouldn't have been a mark against the notebook. If it was configured with an 820qm, it would have been considerably cheaper and the performance difference wouldn't have been much. Thanks for the review, glad to see more are beginning to surface.

 

The M15x just hit the boxing stage! Looks like production was very fast. I wonder if it will get here by Monday or Tuesday. Seems like it will at this point! Awesome!!

Time line so far:
-Ordered on Nov 12th
-Order canceled and reordered on Nov 13th to include the free mouse + headset and upgraded to free NBD.
-Went into production on the 13th.
-Boxing stage on Nov 18th.
-Delivery? EDD is Dec 3rd but I'm guessing Nov. 24th-25th.

Anyone know if Dell does Saturday deliveries with the NBD option?

 

Dell does not do saturday deliveries if you chose next business day. Mine was shipped on a friday and I did not receive mine until monday.

 

How long was yours in boxing?

 

Three rounds in boxing.

Rocky = UPS
Clubber T = M15x

 

Got a mail from Dell Customer care telling me that the order is cancelled due to an expiry of a "bundle offer"(??!!??) and that i needed to contact the sales agent again to re-book. but in 10 mins a call followed from a customer care agent telling me it was their fault and they have prioritized my order and gave me a different order number. ;-) I hope it reaches before the end of this month xxxfingers crossedxxx

 

have you noticed any issues with the blu ray play back ? Im experiencing stuttering and bleeping issues with mine. and its taking forever to get tech support on the phone to try and see what the issue might be. It could be a bad drive, but I hope not. let me know what you think. thanks

 

for now i have to settle with watchin BR movies on my ps3, but when im on the go it would really be nice to watch them on my m15x. the picture looks amazing in full 1080p. if you have that display you will drool when you see the quality. I really hope im able to watch a full movie without any issues, they are very annoying , and it looks like it might be a pain to remove the BR drive. has anybody had experience with removing the drive on the m15x and if so is it as difficult as it looks ?

 

Nice review, but I have a couple of points to raise. You mention that you like the "arched" spacebar. What on earth are you talking about? My space bar is not 'arched' - just a standard 3/4 length notebook space bar.

Also, on the battery life, you state that you were using Stealth mode. Stealth mode doesn't work running on battery power and you actually get a warning pop up if you even try to enable it. I think you might need to update the review with timings for Window's standard Balanced profile and Power Save profiles - that would be far more valuable. While I'm sure that 920 sucks more power than my humble 7 series, I am able to hit 3 hours on power save mode with a 9 cell battery.

Finally, I may have missed it, but which version of Windows was in use, and was it 32 or 64 bit?


All in all though, a good review - thanks for getting it posted so fast.

 

That's great - I know you only just ordered it but it feels like you've been on here so long talking about it. I hope it lives up to your expectations (I'm sure it will, although the size and weight may be a shock for you coming from the Asus).

Mine was in boxing stage for 4 or 5 business days.

 

A few days ago, I was working in adobe premiere pro, when all of a sudden my screen froze and the whole image got distorted (Everything, including the taskbar got whiped out to the right of the screen). I immediately cut the power, and felt the backside of the laptop, which was very hot. The fans didn't start spinning or anything when it happened, so I guess it was a heating problem.

Now I'm a bit weary about my laptop, could this have caused permanent damage? I'm still getting the same Vantage scores, but it feels as if I have lost some performance, but that might also be my mind playing games on me.

 

If you're getting the same Vantage scores I'd be inclined to think that this is your mind playing tricks on you. The more worrying concern though is that the fans didn't kick in when you had your crash.

 

Wow that's quick. I ordered on the 10th and mine is still in production phase.
I was wondering if it is possible to include the mouse and headphones now if I call them about it?

 

Others on this thread have asked similar questions and I think the general consensus is that if you do that, they cancel the order and re-create it, causing more delays.

I'm guessing their assembly line has a process for just rejecting an entire in build machine, and a process for picking then assembling a new order, but not a process for modifying an order already in build.

 

Howdy folks,

For the uninitiated (see wall of text in previous posts on this thread) I had some problems with ordering (initial order was cancelled) and various shipment delays, culminating in the fact I received two red chassis's when I ordered a red and black chassis.

Anyway, I just got off the phone with Dell and they have now initiated a refund for 150 GBP, this is on top of an earlier 100 GBP, so in total they have refunded 250 GBP (approx 450 USD). So I just wanted to say if you have any issue with your order make sure you complain and escalate. In the end you may find yourself with a nice amount of cash back!

Thanks Dell, you came through in the end...

 

I watched Oceans Thirteen last night on Blu-ray, I did not experience any of those issues. :-\ Maybe it could be a bad disc?

By "arched" spacebar I meant that the bar itself was slightly rounded off at the top i.e. not a flat surface. It made it a bit easier to touch-type quicker.

I used the balanced power saving profile and then enabled Stealth mode on battery; I didn't receive any warning messages, and I wasn't aware the feature did not work.

The OS was 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

 

Well I guess we have similar machines, you need to throw an SSD in that bad boy.

 

Yeah, I'm still at a loss at the cause of the crash. I was simply idling in Premiere, skipping through some video. The CPU, and definitaly the GPU shouldn't have been under load at all.

I'll install the new BIOS tonight too.

I did a clean install with the Win 7 DVD, so it might have been related to that, though I'm pretty damn sure all my drivers are installed and up to date.

Tried the Left for dead 2 demo, and did a quick bench with fraps and that came out at:
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
4453, 60000, 44, 115, 74.217

So comparing that to the reviewed M15x I guess things are okay (got a i7 720 instead of a 920). The search funtion on the forum isn't giving any results for "M15x benchmarks". Has anyone done a Devil may cry 4 benchmark?

 

They sent the wrong color? That's a pretty big oversight. I told the rep black over the phone, hopefully he got it right. This is what it says on the order status page:

224-6812 BASE,NBK,ANW,BLK,M15X

 

you should be fine.

 

Like a day. Mine took 3 days to build, 1 day in boxing, and next day it was shipped lol.

 

My M15x has landed at home!!! It's going to be a long, long, long 3 hours before I am able to leave work.

 

I'm glad froogle that you caught this too -- i was mentioning this on the discussion thread for the review.

Yeah Chaz on our systems it doesnt work ... maybe you could make a note of that for the alienware peeps or ask them when you return the system? Becuase i could definitely benefit some more juice savings if i could use power saver AND stealth mode ... on my old m15x, thats how i got away with 4 hours or more... quite good if all you're doing is word processing or researching on the go!

 

the stealth mode surely does not work on battery. Everytime I try to enable that the message pops up saying : " stealth mode not support on battery ".

 

ok, i think i got everything squared away with the issues i was having. the only thing now is a annoying little green pixel on my screen. looks like im gonna have to get a new screen

 

sorry to hear that vek, also anyone interested in a 9 cell battery??

 

Hey everyone I've finally decided to settle on getting an M15x but here's my new issue. I'm planning on upgrading the GPU to the nvidia 3xx series when they drop, so should I bother with the GTX 260M now or just stick with the 240 till they drop?

 

Depends, if you want to game right now then get the 260m. The price difference isn't much anyway. Getting the M15x with a 240m is useless if you're a gamer.

 

Would the 300 series even be compatible? Plus it seems it will be awhile before Nvidia releases anything for notebooks. I was banking on this happening soon, so I could get a fresh notebook for the holiday season with a new video card, but now having other thoughts.

First I gotta get rid of the Toshiba that I have....

 

I think nVidia is going to be toast in features for the upcoming Q1 2010 GPU revisions. There's no way they will have mobile fermi (300 series) until late 2010. ATi should have the mobile 5800 series out by February-March and it should be mxm 3.0b compatible (meaning we can upgrade to it). DX11 with a new architecture vs nVidia likely shrinking down GT200 and adding in dx 10.1. It will have the performance but lack DX 11.

 

Wow that's fast!
I'm in the same exact boat except I canceled and reordered on the 12th, so hopefully that means mine will be ready soon too!

Make sure to post some unboxing pictures when it comes in!

 

Ya Nvidia suddenly doesn't look too promising. If we can upgrade with the new ATI cards that would be pretty sweet. Q1 2010 should have some interesting stuff happening...

 

That's a big "if" because no ones really sure if the ATI cards will work in the M15x regardless of it being MXM3.0b

 

Anytime there is a new graphics card release there's an "if" associated with it. But I'd say there's a greater chance of it being compatible than not.

 

I plan to write an in depth review once it arrives along with pics + vids. The games I plan to benchmark are:

1. COD6 MW2
2. L4D 2
3. Frontlines Fuel of War
4. Fallout 3
5. Crysis Warhead
6. Far Cry 2
7. TF2

I'm looking for a good RTS game to throw into the mix just to balance it out. I don't have WoW so I won't be doing any MMORPG testing.

System tests I'll run include:

1. 3dmark 06
2. 3dmark vantage
3. SiSoft Sandra
4. HD Tune
5. Furmark
6. OCCT

Then just general commentary on the build of the system and what I think of it compared to other systems I've used recently (Asus G51VX-X2A and Sager 8690).

 

I hate dell. I canceled and reordered on the 5th, and they promised that they would prioritize my order, but it never happened..as my EDD is still the 24th.