*OFFICIAL* M11x Owners Lounge - Part 3

my apologies if this has already been discussed/answered.

i got my m11x today and as you may have guessed one of the first things did was oc it. great it ran/gamed with no problems at all. ok next thing i did was download cpu-z to see what the clock speed was... as everybody said 1600mhz... ok i was expecting this. as i read in this forum cpu-z takes a real time look at the speed i moved some windows around the screen and noticed the cpu speed went up, think i saw it peak at 1620 just while i was moving a window around the screen.

so question is, did anybody ever get to the bottom of what the oc speed was ? is it 1.6 or 1.7 (and the intel speed step thing slows it while its got no load)??

also my ram speed is showing 400mhz. shouldnt this show 533mhz while oc'ed ??

lastly. my fan rearly turns off, is this normal?

 

I have no problem opening the case and getting the old drive out as long as it's fairly easy and doesn't void the warranty.

Well, right now the huge production times are holding me back. I think I'm going to hold out until this coming Tuesday to see if the MBP refresh happens. If not, I will probably go for an M11x and at the very least may return it within the 21 day period if I don't like it or something.

 

Hey everyone. Just ordered an m11x and now i'm looking for a good external blu ray drive. Anyone know of a good one?

 

Just going to chime in with my thoughts so far:
There are a few issues that I hope are address in some sort of BIOS update or software update
1.) Fan staying on high even when idle (happened once not sure what triggered it)
2.) OC going to 1.6Ghz instead of 1.73Ghz
3.) fn+f2 turning on/off charging the battery

And then my annoyances that are not fixable
1.) the trackpad is off-center to the left and sometimes my hand touches it when typing and that can be quite frustrating but, I am getting used to it
2.) not having easily accessible battery
3.) pretty thick and heavy* (see below)

those three aren't really a huge deal but oh well...

And on to the things I really like about it
AMAZING value, for $830 I have a laptop that can do the following:
1.) Play all my games on high settings at 1366 x 768
2.) Play games for 2 hours on battery or get up to 8 hours with general use
3.) While it is thick and heavy, it is an 11" screen and the temperatures stay low and the build quality is SUPERB - very sturdy
4.) Feels like a regular notebook and don't notice any hiccups multitasking

Some people are saying that because it is so heavy you should buy something like a 14" instead but I disagree, it is still small the M11x hides behind a sheet of paper for crying out loud. I don't feel like an $800 14" would have the greatest build quality, up to 8 hours of battery life, keep low temps, and have such a fantastic GPU. This is my first alienware and I have no bias towards buying only from one company. (I have owned Lenovo, Dell, HP, MSI, Sager, Gateway, Sony, and Asus)

 

your 1) complaint is very valid. I noticed this right off the bat. I was able to go into settings and turn the palm sensitivity all the way down, and it's helped, but yeah the touchpad being more left is annoying, especially if we're going to game, it should be more to the right so out of the left hand's way since right hand is usually on the mouse.. anyway =)

 

How is it possible to get longer times out of the unit on battery power?

At the moment my M11X is sitting next to me here at work, I'm copying files to it from a USB powered HDD.
It's set to power saver settings, with screen brightness on minimum, battery at around 90% is telling me that the power is only going to last around 3hours? Is this right?? I've got the GPU set to use the intel onboard, and the CPU isn't overclocked, not using WIFI.

Double checking now, the battery is at 88%, estimated time 3hrs 35mins, still seems too low...

Also, the fan on the unit is turning itself up to high say once every 10 minutes for about a minute, is this normal?

 

The tech just came to my house and replaced my screen, but it has sizable specks of dust under the screen. He advised me to call Alienware and tell them that he installed a new screen and that it has defects, because they'll give me less of a hard time than him. On hold now. Wonderful.

 

I think that might be why.

Wait, what? Give you less of a hard time? They are under contract to give you a proper screen. If anything, you should be giving them a hard time.

 

Alrighty -

Tech just left, after replacing my screen for due to the lint/dust spec contained within the screen (i.e. on the other side of the "glassy plastic" - but not a dead pixel).

In short -the guy pretty much had to take the entire laptop apart to replace the screen - down to the chassis.

Some notes:

- Chassis is made of aluminum or some other type of metallic material (reminds me of aircraft parts) - *very* strong - and the key thing that gives the unit it's weight and stability.
- Those of you thinking about adding a WWAN antenna to the screen, by simply taking it apart - think again. When the Tech showed up - he showed up with the *entire* screen/top assembly (i.e. - remove the top screen entirely - put on a new one) - and that's what he replaced. In short - if you want WWAN - you'd better order it.
- The tech was a little flabbergasted during the process (I think this was his first AW he's worked on). However, I made sure to look up the on-line service manual to help him through the process (screen didn't come with any instructions, etc.) There were also some discrepancies with regards to the online documentation versus what was actually on the unit that we had to work through - specifically surrounding when you have to pop-off the palmrest assembly.
- The new screen appears to be flawless. I did notice before that the old screen had a bit of a gap near the top right - whereas the new screen does not - which might account for why dust got into the screen to begin with.

All said and done - I now have a screen I'm happy with..

Now if I can just figure out how to stop the WMIPrvSE.exe program to stop querying the registry all the damn time and causing the CPU to throttle around 8-12% - causing the fan to run all the time.. (see the troubleshooting thread for that discussion)

 

I got the Razer Orochi mouse and Kabuto pad today .... The Mouse works great easy fast bluetooth connection and is fine for WoW and browsing the web. Once you start playing a FPS it's easy to turn the mouse off and plug in the included usb cable and it runs with perfect precision. The portable pad is great and fits the m11x perfectly, highly suggested purchase of both especially if you are a heavy coffee shop user and/or college student in the library a lot.

 

^ totally agree Kahi, I posted a picture of both over in the arrival thread =D

 

I was just wondering if anybody has purchased an anti-glare screen for the laptop yet? Like this one for example http://tiny.cc/100ae

I want to use it in class and not have my classmates' reflections staring back at me =)

 

yeah the screen is very glossy, I've noticed. Here's a review of the anti-glare from viewguard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3426PtxnNQ

*edit* review actually sucked. sorry for sucky link lol

looks like the guards for the MBPs Moshi ones work well, I can assume most other anti-glare films would work as well. Makes me interested.

 

kevin25a and myself have ordered it and it looks like kevin will be getting his M11x first. I'm not sure of anyone else who ordered one, though.

 

@ceolwulf

You were right, with my USB powered HDD removed the remaining battery has 70% and shows over 5 hours of life left.

I didn't realise how much juice the USB HDD required...

 

He was afraid that if he called, they'd insist on a depot repair because they'll pulled similar BS in the past.

So far, Alienware's support has been nothing but completely cooperative. I'm confident that I'll have a screen I'm happy with by the end of this.

 

@Dingotech good deal, yeah USB HDDs take a lot of power.

@fierywater ah that's good to hear then. Glad it's been working out for you so far.

 

Oo sounds great. Looking forward to your thoughts on the screen protector.

And @aznguyen316 that video was helpful haha thanks

 

is this true? i always thought they used a matte plastic type material

 

I have had my M11X since Last Monday, I should have the anti-glare screen protector delivered tomorrow at some point. Soon as I get home and get it setup ill let you guys know what I think.

 

What size antiglare did you order Kevin? Did you do an 11.6" cover or a larger one that you plan to trim down, as the plastic peice that covers the screen is actually larger then 11.6"

 

And....It's...ORDERED!

--neg

 

Outside - yes.. inside no.

 

I have had no problem with the glossy screen. It looks vivid and I have used it in an array of light settings. The only real place I haven't tested it is outside but this isn't a Kindle screen so I don't expect to read it in direct sunlight!

 

I'm trying to work out if mine can take a 3G sim card, where is the sim card port supposed to be on the M11x?

Perhaps the Australian model doesn't come with this option?

 

@Dingotech

I believe you have to have ordered the gobi card.. or something X_x..

 

Yeah if you didn't buy the gobi then you dont have the port.

 

NEW video:
GTA IV
I think this answers alot of our questions.

Edit: It would have been nice to see FPS, though... it looks just a little bit choppy. o_0 although that could be recording, youtube, and my current comp...

 

looks pretty good nice

 

Ah ok thanks for that, don't think that was an option in the Australian build of the M11X.

Spose I will have to consider a USB modem going forward, but dang if they won't be big and ugly sticking out the side of this little machine.

 

the bottom is metal. top is plastic that has a matte paint and feel. i dont know if the black is matte and has the same feel.

 

So how the heck are you supposed to prevent dust from getting behind the screen? Are we supposed to use these things in sterile environments or something?

 

it's there from manufacturing. the lexan is ADHERED to the LCD. you can't affect it.

 

Sweeet, using "sharpkeys" I was able to remap some of the top F row keys to NOT have to press Fn to use, especially the Volume keys, the media keys, brightness and battery. I left the wifi to need Fn+F3 and gfx Fn+F6 just so I don't accidently hit those. Now it's quick access like on the MB to mute/volume up/down, brightness up/down and play/FWD without needing to press Fn. If anyone is interested in this let me know, using the program gets kind of confusing as well as it writes to the registry, although can be undone. I then also had to remap each to to go "backwards" so pressing Fn+F2 for example would press "F2", etc etc.

Remap keys via sharp keys

 

@aznguyen Excellent! Thanks a lot for the link. I was wondering about this myself. +rep

 

i thought the screen was glass and not plastic. i think i either read that somewhere here or saw a video with the aw guy saying it was glass

 

@ceol no problem. It's kind of confusing at first. You want to make 2 strings for each key you want to swap. Like first string, key you press would be F2 then next key Fn+F2 and finish. Add another for Fn+F2 and then second key is F2. So then it gives string to swap each one or else you'll have a missing key function, you get what I mean? lol

@exiled, it's very much plastic from what I can tell. Tapping on it feels very plastic. Whereas you could tell with the MacBooks by tapping on it, they were glass.

 

My service tag on the back is complete gone. Anyone else with the same problem?

 

i thought the screen was glass and not plastic :/

 

glass doesn't flex. the M15x and M17x are lexan also. I took apart my first M15x apart when it had trash behind the cover to see if i could clean it and found that the E2E cover and LCD are one assembly that is sealed and not serviceable.

 

Yeah a bunch of other posters have had this problem. Write down your service tag and save it somewhere.

 

Bought the updated one the same week I ordered. Great recommendation Ceolwulf!

 

Newegg has the Dane-Alec 80gb ssd for $150. Some people said it is a re branded intel x18-m. Anyone has this and is it any good?

 

I think the tag is available in Bios.

 

Yay! Great to hear someone else went with swissgear. Amazon has had some awesome deals on these things lately, my Targus was $75 and was half as good as this new one.

Yeah but if your computer has a problem that prevents it from turning on at all, you won't have access to the BIOS unless there's some way to get at it with the power off.

 

I hope Dell releases a fix for FN-F2 soon.

I've been gaming nonstop while plugged in at 100% and I want that function to work so I can turn off charging to save my battery in the long run.

 

You can go to dell support in IE and it can pull your Service tag info. Then save it in your dell account information. I did that just in case already.

 

Good point lol but the code is on the box too, now if the box gets misplaced and the computer does not turn on then I will be in trouble

 

This might be a noobish but how does that save the battery in the long run?

 

I don't know but I've always been told that charging your laptop 24/7 is a bad thing to do.

I was really excited for the option to turn off the battery while plugged in but too bad it doesn't work.

I've tried turning charging off in the BIOS and that doesn't work either!