*OFFICIAL* "All Powerful" M15x Owners Lounge, *Part 3*

Well, apparently it doesnt have to use the CPU at 100% to throttle. L4D2 throttles without using the CPU at 100. Though I can imagine it uses the 2 virtual cpu s at 100% (making the total CPU utilization about 30%). So yes, It DOES throttle in real games (L4D2 and assasins creed confirmed)

 

Crysis was confirmed before too.

 

Er... Sorry, I have never used a laptop before, not even a LCD/LED Display. I don't quite get why it should be a problem.
Isn't it possible that I choose a 1080p display right now and if I don't like it, just configure it to the lower resolution?

 

Well, if you have never used a lappie before, I would advice you to go to your local PC store and check out a 15 inch notebook with both resolutions. I personally would never go back to a lower resolution than the 1080p (I had the "1200p" in the old version). Its really really sharp and you have a lot of screen real estate. Moreover, if you find everything too small, you can still use 1080p and use the windows zoom function thing where everything becomes bigger.

Generally, if you lower the resolution, it wont be native and may appear a bit blurry since real pixels will have to share the "virtual pixels".

I really can recommend the 1080p screen. Games also look flawless, MW2 or L4D2(when its not throttling) run at max settings on the 260M.

the screen (independant of which resolution you pick) is fantastic. Im really in love with the screen. At the end of the day, its really personal preference to which resolution you pick (there are people who prefer the lower resolution), so I would really advice you to check out the resolutions at a local PC store

 

Yeah, anything but the native resolution is going to look blurry for the Windows desktop. LCDs only do one resolution.

 

I'll go check out that in a store. That really helped, thanks a lot!

 

Looking at this Lappy for upgrade to current Gateway FX.
My FX has a T9300 with 8800GTS in it...looking at a Core I7
with good GPU for moderate gaming. Looking long term, will be moving overseas in 2011, and like this Lappy to last beyond this timeframe..like 2012 or 2013. Wondering if the M15x will be able to upgrade GPU to next current best thing? I would love to get the M17x, but the C2D/C2Q are getting long in the teeth and the I7 will be better long term. Thx for the help in advance.

 

I don't get any throttling in those games, I play those game on max settings perfectly, are you sure you didn't turn on stealth mode by accident.

 

throttling only happens at L4D2, not MW2. Stealth is off

 

I am using the latest drivers I could find 195.62 and Rivatuner 2.24, New Bios and tweaked some settings for speed and not quality to get a good rating. Now that i have, I'm not using these settings anymore for just .1 gain. But it is fun while it lasted.

 

Does anyone with the 1080p regret not getting the 900p? I choose 900p cause I think the 1080p is too small.

 

I've got a 1080p studio xps 16 (same panel used in the M15x) right next to me and in my opinion, the 900p is better for a 15.6" size. Things are easier to read and gaming performance is better. Everyone has different uses and preferences though, some need the extra desktop space for work and other tasks.

 

I also had trouble deciding between full HD and the 900 screen.

The 900 screen is perfect for the smaller screen. A lot of games do not scale real well with their user-interface and display mini-maps and such in absolute pixels (like 100x100). With the 1600x900 screen these are a decent size.

With clear-type tunes and Anti-aliasing you do not notice the "larger" pixels.

I also have a XPS M1710 with the Full HD screen on 17" and do not really use the extra screen-estate (but the LED screens is vastly superior in white-color and equal-lightning).
I do use smaller scroll bars and smaller title-bars so i have i heave an equal amount of usable space.
Like 5150Joker says, i think it is an advantage, less pixels to calculate gives better FPS or lower temperature.

 

Is there any card at all you can put in the M15x at the moment, which is better than the 260? I remember a couple of months ago, a lot of craze due to the MXM 3.0 or something... Or are we having to wait for cards in the future, which will be useable?

Would you consider the M15x somewhat futureproof, although I probably shouldn't worry as I don't play heavy FPS games - no chance of arrandale etc having any dent against M15x in the next 6 months is there?

 

I heard that some people put 280 in there.

 

any source?

 

Sley0 did it and it worked

240m gt
280m gt
4870m
260m


only 3.0 high end cars out right now

 

Only 8 more hours of bus rides and I can finally be with my Sheela. She's sexy, black, large and in charge, and an i7 w/1080p. 8 more hours and the unboxing begins.....MWAAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!

 

Hey guys, I would really like to know what do you think about the quality of the audio jack output sound? Mine has a lot of noise like jerking and popping sound.
All the popular solution has been applied and still no fix. With powermizer turned off still it has no effect. I am feeling very disappointed about this laptop. The only thing that made me kept this laptop until now is the gaming performance and the looks.

 

Whatever you do, don't play games on it... Dell intended Powermizer to limit you from exactly that...

 

I'm sure you're joking, but Powermizer doesn't cause problems with games normally. It kicks in at the Windows Desktop (assuming you're not using it for something else), but should NEVER be triggered when it's rendering heavy duty stuff, obviously

 

Oh that is cool, that is probably what I would like to do (4870 in an M15x). Did he have any issues?

 

the downthrottling scares me a bit.. any issues found for the 260m in the Asus models of G60s?

I can get the M15x, 260m @ $1400 or 240m @ around $1250 after tax & shipping and after my Dad's work discount (21% off starting price), wondering if I just opted for 240m for the time being, maybe I could upgrade to a 4870 or 260m when I need to. B/c I really only have just around 1200 to spend after selling my Dell in my sig. Would the 240m @ 900P be suited for the games I'm playing? MW2 and DA:O? If I wanted to upgrade my card, would I just have to find a reseller that took it out of their mobile system like via ebay? Thanks.

 

i spoke with someone at microcenter who bought the M15x and he saw me standing there looking at it and said it was a great system
this was just a week ago when i was out of town mine had alreayd come ot the house but i was out of town so i wanted to go somewhere where they had one jsut so i couild mess around iwth it
he said he put a 280 m in his

and i didnt aks him where he got it from

does anyone know where to get the 280 at i have looked on eay and other sites and cnat find a 260 or 280

 

why do you need the 280? the performance gain isn't really worth the price, at least I don't think so.
But if you really want it, there is a furom member selling used ones, his name is dondadah88.

 

Sheela is beautiful, and build like a Mac truck but of course there had to be a problem somewhere. I'm here for the next two weeks and I can't get my wireless connect to work. My family uses an AT&T wireless router and I'm using the correct password but it just won't connect. Something to do with the IP address.
Anyone else ever have this problem? Do I need to reinstall Windows?

 

congratulations on your new toy!
Try hard wiring the internet first and then add the remote/wireless afterwords: its a win7 thing getting comfortable with your router.

 

try putting the newest firmware on the router

 

I noticed some people getting the 240m with 1GB on their M15x builds. Now all I see is 512MB option or 260m 1GB. When did this change?

 

it never did ... they must be mistaken( or i am crazy)

 

I've seen it a couple times in people's sigs.. 240m with 1GB and even elsewhere I thought.. anyway.. just trying to decide where to cut costs to get an affordable M15x =)

is 1333 DDR3 ram worth it? For gaming that is. I'm definitely going with the i7 720 processor, 7200RPM HDD, and still unsure about the gfx card just yet 240m vs 260m (whether to upgrade now or later as I've seen eBay 260m go for ~$200, near Dell's asking price now).

 

id get the 240 now and then sell it and then get the 260 and save money

1333 ram is useless practically

 

I really appreciate your input. Thank you. The reason I also am leaning toward not getting the 260m yet is the throttling issues. I'm seeing people get better results from 240m than the 260m..well just no lagging issues, I know the 260m is far and away a better card. I can either build a 240m now and have it ready for me by Jan 12, or wait another month, save up some money and hope the 260m problem is fixed..but then that means I'll have to wait even longer to get my build in. I need my PC gaming! =T

essentially I sold my laptop in my sig for exactly the amount I can get an M15x configured with the i7 720, 4GB DDR3, 240m, 900P, 320GB HDD after discount. I'm just trying to make sense of my "trade up" on the fact that the 240m is better than the 3670 and that the Alienware is a well built system and is upgradeable in the future.

 

the 240 will still play games pretty easy


Also you have extra money left over you can save up and get a card later and use it then. Plus you can sell the 240m gt and be good to go

 

Im guessing the gpu on the M15x is some kind of MXM slot then? Care to elaborate?

 

mine is one of the 240 cards with 2x512 mB capacity: wasn't advertised as such and it may be ours were just some of the first off the line, but everything in my system that can check specifications (BIOS, device manager etc) confirms that I do indeed have a 240m card and do have 1GB to accompany it.

Despite the throttling question, the 260 is still more of a performance and gaming card -- the reason errors may not be being reported witht he 240 could be simply a function that anyone who has the 240 is using less intensive apps and is unlikely to ever stress their system to the max that would induce the throttling, whereas the 260 guys are seeking to push the limits on their systems.

Know what you are going to be doing: some gaming, regular computing, the 240 is a great card. Heavy gaming and more intensive graphic apps, the 260 is a better choice from all that's been posted.

 

ok guys need some help.. for some reason I can't adjust the screen brightness?!!! the screen is nice and bright but its too brigt hurting my eyes... If i press the fn keys I do see the dim/brighten logo(and see the slider adjusting) but the screen stays the same brightness.. If i uplug the power then it does dim..

also, in device manager it says "generic pnp monitor" is this correct?

thankkssss

 

If you right click on the battery icon by the time you get an option for Adjust Screen Brightness, hopefully that'll work.

 

I tried that and it moves, but it doesnt actualy dim/brighten the screen... also when i use the fn keys i also see that slider moving, but it doesnt adjust the actual brightness

 

Could be a power profile setting since unplugging it dims the screen, does changing to balanced or power save make any difference?

Edit: Mine also says Generic PnP Monitor.

 

thanks for the response... i fixed the problem.. upgraded to latest x64 nvidia drivers instead o the ones that came with it, and worked right away

 

Cool, good to hear. Do you still plan on posting some pics? Not many silver pics so far so I'd be keen to see em

 

will do tommorow.. its dark i only got energy saving sh*t lamps over here (temporarily in europe ) so will do that tommorow when there is daylight

 

Hey everyone, for those of you who have iPhones I thought I'd mention that the A02 BIOS update does infact fix the sync issues I was experiencing (aka not being able to sync at all). Glad to know that this got fixed with the first update.

 

Nice.....this is the first reason I've heard that makes me want to update the bios

 

as promised






also closeup for the screen is to checkout the 1600x900 resolution.. its beautiful.. most beautiful screen iv seen as of yet..

 

Would you mind if I copy those pcitures to my picture thread here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5632758 ?

 

go for it

 

That's FANTASTIC news Avengement! That and the throttling are the only two things keeping me from the system, and I guess nailed one of them

(although I have to wonder...how does Intel and then every major OEM ship a chipset without testing it with the iPod/iPhone? :lol: )

 

I don't see this posted yet, Joker has found a work around to fix the throttling issue until Dell does it properly:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5648271#post5648271