*OFFICIAL* "All Powerful" M17x-R2 Edition Owners Lounge!

Well then the question would be, has anyone at all who has a 720 or 820 reported any issues with gaming on the m17x?

All this doom and gloom feeling in the AW forum is kind-of a downer. I was eagerly awaiting the m17x, but now I am kinda scared that it will have issues...

 

I don't have have that problem... But I find the touch controls to be a little unresponsive at times...

 

so far, only those with the 920xm have problems, all the others are throttling-free, or they all shut their mouth about it

 

Is anyone else having this problem with the OSD?

????

 

I definitely hope the 820's are glitch-free.

 

Keep in mind that only a small portion of Alienware owners are on this forum. There are probably hundreds to thousands of other M17xr2 owners out there with no problems.

Just because a couple people on this forum are having problems does not mean that everyone is going to have the same or is having the same problem.

 

I agree.... whatever b-school graduate that talked Nvidia into the decision should be fired.... PC folks have loooonngg memories of such transgressions.

 

What is a good program to monitor the temps and let me see how they fluctuate over time. I know I've seen it mentioned, but I can't find the program.

 

whats the hell..

 

you know what's funny is that even though the re-branding from nvidia is annoying, amd's "new architecture" mobile 4870 barely beats out the "crusty old g92".

Nvidia hasn't changed the design cause they didn't need to. Until now of course with the mobile 5870. I like ati alot, but I'm not that impressed by them yet. I hope the 5870's sell me.

 

Yeah it's kind of funny that the slides from AMD show the 5870 beating the 280 by around 20%. Shrink the 280 to 40nm and they'd probably break even.

Where Nvidia really loses is that the DX11 ability is just ridiculously behind. Given that the next generation of consoles are going to be DX11, and the amount of game code that gets shared between the platforms, it's likely that missing out on DX11 is a longer term bad thing. Could make for a lot of pissed off Nvidia customers in a year or two (or poorer ones if they just buy the DX11 chip).

 

I wish people wouldn't complain about AW releasing these machines with less than perfect testing. If you read the forums over the past couple of months you'd find folks foaming at the mouth for them TO be released. How many of you counted the days/hours till they showed up at your door. There is a lot of pressure brought onto AW to release "new" stuff ASAP. That tends to make us our own worst enemies. To hear folks say "release it release it release it" and then complain "it wasn't tested fully" just feels a bit unkind. I realize it's a lot of money we are talking about so some degree of good QC is expected, but that's why there is a return policy. If the machine isn't ready for your use, or you aren't satisfied, you should send it back.

I know it's human to want value for good money spent, so I'm not trying to be very harsh in saying this. I'm just saying give Dell/AW a bit of understanding in this area because we are asking them to move quickly. Sometimes that will work out fine and sometimes it will have some growing pains.

 

Ok separate posts was to keep each topic readable and separate.

It CAN still be a power issue and be the 4870's not the CPU, or a bit of both. Roughly speaking the CPU and the 2 GPU's each draw a similar power amount, but only IF they come out "within spec". AMD is kind of infamous for having QC issues, and one of those issues can be (and has been in the past) excess power draw beyond spec. If pushed to the limit a system will try to feed power to all 3 devices, each GPU and the CPU. If a GPU is beyond spec it will try to draw excess power to do it's task. If the power is denied (the budget is spent on all sources) then you can have glitches in the performance of the task. This would be further evidenced by the disabling of CF bringing the system within power budget, and thus all the parts performing their job correctly, giving you a proper image.

If I were "betting" on which component is operating "out of spec" and trying to draw too much power, I would bet on the AMD parts being the culprit over the Intel parts. Intel has been known to fail, and build a bad chip, but AMD has far more of a reputation for doing such things than Intel.

So wait and see what Joker's machine yields for information, but don't be at all surprised if the 4870's, possible both of them if they are all "out of spec" and trying to draw too much power, are the culprit.

There are FAR too many 920's out in the wild right now, and they are not exhibiting nearly the degree of problems for us to assume that 80% of the ones in the AW machines are somehow bad. There are almost NO 4870's out there, and thus I think the rat is there.

$.02

 

Companies released products based on market conditions, strategic goals etc. Demand might be a tiny portion of that but to have a go at people on forums for putting pressure on the big multi million company is a joke.

 

sigh...reinstalling windows again. guess i won't mess with modding video drivers this time. and i guess it will give me a chance to install the drivers in the correct order this time

 

Can someone clarify one thing here

Do all the ati drivers for the 4870s require Modding ?

 

Yes.
10char.

 

Yes because the 4870 drivers are for desktop. Not Notebooks so you have to modify them so they are compatible with Notebooks.

 

So there is no easy way to update drivers for the gpu?

 

I guessed I missed the talk about the modding for the ati drivers. Sorry.

 

The primary difference between the Catalyst drivers you can download from ATI and the modded drivers is the addition of mobility hardware strings in the driver configuration files. This allows the installer to recognize your mobility hardware. Supposedly, laptop OEMs don't let ATI & nVidia include those strings for whatever control-freak reasons they have. Thus the need for MobilityModder.

 

The Modding program is easy to use. Just annoying to do.

 

so why would ati release mobility cards but not any drivers to support them i find it weird they would support there desktop versions but not there cutting edge mobility versions? I hate haveing to f with my drivers i just want my games to run awsome is that to much to ask

 

Ikuto....Thanks...is there a link to show how to use it or download it. Im watching Superbowl so I am distracted right now or I would search my off

 

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/modtool.php

 

Thanks!!! I now have it.

 

i may try one more time. reng posted his modded driver file and i may give it one more go later

edit: and got the modded cat 9.12 working

 

I meant it more as a caution than "having a go" at forum members. Apologies if it came off too harsh.

 

Overall, how's the R2 ? Does the flickering happen with all the screens ? What are the other "big" issues ?

 

Did I just miss it or no temps screenshots from the R2 owners were provided so far?? Don't you keep track of your temps guys? C'mon, it would be very interesting to see if there's a difference in cooling power of R2 vs R1 (especially the CPU and chipset)

 

my CPU hits mid 60's in gaming ... at least intensive ones

 

Could you install Everest Ultimate and look at the rest of the temps? It will most likely show you the chipset as well and the GPUs.

 

they all run just as cool

 

Hey folks, anyone running GTA IV on the rev 2? Can you tell me the settings you run and what the benchmarks and framerates are like?

 

I just reviewed an i3 system with 5650 and after 8 hours of Mass Effect 2 the fan was barely audible and the hottest area of the case was 42 Celcius.

These new CPUs are very, very awesome.

 

I'm more interested in the chipset temps as the MCP on R1 runs crazily hot...

 

My CPU temps max at 61 and 57C

my GPU is 60C using Everest (I can't figure out how to track temps in Everest just see the current ones).

I pretty much just been doing browsing and I've been playing Guild Wars full screen at 1920X1200 (so not super intensive) and also running Firefox (with like 5 tabs open).

Hope that helps, I'll probably start up Mass Effect tomorrow (or finish Half Life 2, yeh I'm quite behind in gaming) since work is closed for snow.

 

Thanks for the info, Matt. Your temps are ok (the GPUs jump fast with multiple firefox' tabs loaded with flash, so 60c is ok. I have the same in R1. The CPU is also fine, I imagine that you could easily drop 8-10c just by replacing the thermal paste.

 

Perhaps, then again the fans have barely cycled up all night. Everest says that it's at 30% so the temps could easily be lower if I used some sort of fan utility.

 

I just thought I would chime in. I am having the same problem as this video. I also get a similar problem with Badlands. I seem to have no issues when playing World of Warcraft.

I am awaiting a replacement system for another reason though. They spelled my name wrong on the nameplate . I will post again when I get the replacement system.

 

How did WoW run with the dual 4870's? Did you get good FPS in-game compared to what you had before?

 

WoW runs like a charm. I have everything set on ultra except for the shadow quality and view distance. I get a steady 60 fps with vertical sync everywhere I have been. Haven't tried without since I hate the tearing you get when you turn it off. Haven't been to a raid yet.

 

tearing ewwwwwwwww. Has anyone tried Crysis on it like actualy playing it what were the settings at?

 

I would think tearing wouldn't be a problem if you turn vsync off. I have it off on my current laptop which uses an old 3650. I should have my R2 by Tuesday and can't wait to try WoW on it. Especially in Dalaran in the evening when it is very crowded.

I am just wondering the difference between using one 4870 and two in crossfire.

 

Yeah I tried Crysis, I get the exact same thing that Brandon1337 has. I guess I forgot to mention it in my original post.

Oh and my settings were on High.

 

brandon

I get that same flicker when I oc my 5830 core too high.

I bet one or both of your gpu's are bad.

 

besides the flickering what kinda frames were you getting?

 

I was getting 27-29 fps average.

 

I disabled XFire and the flickering goes away, on both Crysis and Badlands.

 

WOW should not play better on the R2 with ATI compared to the R1 with ATI. The CPU should have only minor effect on FPS for that game.