*OFFICIAL* M11x Owners Lounge - Part 3

The best way to optimize a system, provided all the drivers and utils you want to keep are available to redownload, is just rebuild it with a completely fresh Win 7 disc. The only things I normally do to optimize a fresh Windows 7 build is turn off auto defrag, windows search, and security account control. That's all that's necessary at that point imo.

 

Mine just went back today via UPS , after hours of intense gaming, hours of leaving it overnight both with integrated graphic on and GT 335M on, fan noise is not getting any better. Though not getting worse, the noise is sufficiently loud to keep me up at night in a quiet room.......sad... its a fantastic machine, will monitor this thread for future improvement.

 

Ok - the "offending" application starting the WMIPrvSE.exe program is - in fact - the Alienware AlienFX program noted in the msconfig (Alienware AlienFX Controller).

Tack on to that - I have been inundated with Microsoft "updates" for Windows 7 / Visual Studio / Office - that also taxes the processor in the background - which in turn, throttles the fan. All said - it's noticeable when disabling the Controller program already that the fan isn't turning on every couple of seconds or so to handle the heat.

 

Eh - turn it off? or how about - put it in another room? Granted the fan is loud, etc. however - considering the amount of heat/type of processor and graphics card in this thing - I'd think it'd be expected..

Especially considering that you could really put the thing into sleep mode at night - it's not going to throttle then..

dunno - if you wanna nitpick over some fan noise - so be it - looks like we've just found the cause though..

 

I don't find the fan that loud, though I do have a cooling pad that I've been using. It's only on when I game, and usually on low. My temps never go above 55 on GPU and 40ish on CPU that I can tell. Isn't fan / white noise suppose to help you sleep? I have two air purifiers that I crank up when I go to bed, lol.

 

I don't understand some of you people sending a machine back without even trying to figure out the issue.

Fan could easily be swapped out if you called Alienware support. Wouldn't even be a hard repair. Whatever though. To each his own.

 

It would've been ok if the fan was running on performance mode, but it even runs all the time during power safe mode, which is not acceptable. Unless you have trouble with hearing, it's a very loud fan I've seen in a while. Even my 5 year old Toshiba m400 is slightly quieter.

I am going to reinstall windows and see if that helps to get rid of some unwanted processes. Btw, for some of you who think it's quiet can you post youtube video of when the fan kicks in?

 

Done.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=463114

 

Agreed -

It's not the fan anyway - seriously. I just disabled the Alienware AlienFX program via msconfig - and it's night/day. I'm running in IGP mode and it's not starting the fan at all now.. now that it's finished downloading all the freaking MS software updates..

plus - add to that - I have the laptop sitting on a desk - it's a little louder when it does fire up..

I imagine if I put it on a softer surface.. it'd be fine. That - or get a cooling pad for it as suggested above.

Now - if I'm playing games in discrete mode - and the fan *doesn't* start up.. then I'd be a bit concerned..

 

Did you reinstall windows?

btw, this really needs a bios update some sort, why not have fan run at low speed. What's happening is that when running on integrated gfx it cpu warms up to 39C, fan cools it down to 36C and turns off. This repeats every 30 seconds or so

 

Yes - though I also installed a new SSD. And - it should be noted that I've gone back and installed all programs/drivers available on the Dell/AW download site and the fan issue didn't present itself until I installed the Alienware Command Center app.

Also - just an update FYI....

After disabling the program / and all updates to other software have downloaded successfully - I've since rebooted. The machine has been up well over 10 minutes and the fan only came on once during the startup process when it was loading everything into the OS.

Now - I'm currently up / running Google Chrome with 4 tabs (different sites) - and it's quiet as can be. CPU is showing 98/99% idle across the board.

It's DEFINITELY the Alienware AlienFX application that was causing the problem.

 

Agreed - and I think that's what the true nature of the problem is. Essentially the fan is either ON or OFF - no ramp up. I'm betting they'll either address this in future updates (there was a similar issue with Fan noise with the XPS 435T that they addressed shortly after launch) - or some enterprising young hacker will figure out how to throttle it better based on actual temps versus just a flipswitch.

 

I did disable the alienware FX to ease the processor load as well as put it on integrated graphic mode.. neither one fixed the fan noise. Of course, these 2 were performed on top of everything else people mentioned above.

Everyone has something they can't stand, to me its noise, low power cpu with 0 to 5% usage, integrated video, power saver on, idling, fan going full blast (its not broken, just loud) to me that's a deal breaker, that's why it went back.

PS: Just realized gaming on a 11.6 in is too small for my tired old eyes, never realized it would be such a strain on my eyes ( my workstation has 7 monitor @ work so 11.6 in gaming really is too much). I'll leave the heavy lifting/gaming to my 24 in desktop and just get an asus ul30 or SOny vaio Y for my long battery portable...... but do appreciate all that have given me suggestions.

 

well, i think I'll try reinstalling windows, because this install obviously doesn't idle at 1-2%, it constantly jumps and causing cpu to work.

 

I thought I saw a thread how to create bootable USB here, can someone point please in the right direction?

 

http://store.microsoft.com/Help/ISO-Tool

and if you need a DVD to ISO tool - there's several - however:

http://www.minidvdsoft.com/dvdtoiso/

Just google "DVD to ISO"

 

cool thanks! I'll make my final judgement on the fan after the install

 

Understood - and to each his own..

I'm just saying - 30+ minutes now - and no fan yet..

 

So what happens when you turn off the AlienFX program? Do the lights just sit where they are?

Like if you set everything to red, or blue, or whatever, and close the application, do the lights stay on or what?

 

The lights stay on. This is useful because you can dual boot Linux and the colors will stay the same.

 

yeah the lights stay, if you want to change it, boot the program back up and change it.

 

alright!! i just entered the 'preparing to be shipped stage'.. how long does this last? anybody. ty

 

First five photos, two more coming.

Alright, the first photo shows everything in the package. There's a couple of LCD wipes and a lot of keyboard/mouse wipes, which just seem to be stronger LCD wipes. There's also a microfiber wipe which they advise you use to wipe off your screen before attaching the cover.

Second photo is a quick measurement. It's roughly 5 inches tall and 10 inches long. It looks like a pretty good product.

 

This is attempting to show the difference in display quality between having the guard and not having the guard. There's really no difference if the screen is bright.

I also didn't take off the protection for the adhesive side; that "VIEWGUARD" writing will be gone.

Edit: Zlog no, it's only the size of the screen, not e2e. I didn't want to cut it because there are reports that it messes with the adhesive if you do.

 

is that actually big enough to cover the entire E2E plastic cover thats over the lcd?

 

How does everyone plan to get movies and such for their M11x? Do most people use something like ITunes or Zune Marketplace? Or is everyone who does a lot of movie watching planning to carry around a portable DVD player?

 

I was plannning to get an external USB optical drive. I'd really like an external BD-ROM to play Blu-ray discs, but cheapest I've seen is around $160 and I didn't want to spend that much on a external drive. Maybe I'll just get an external HDD of 1TB or so, and just load media on there. Probably won't decide until I actually receive my M11x.

 

What's the quickest way to restore to factory setting?

 

there's a recovery partition that's hidden.. could try that.

 

Ok sorry to be retarded but I'm trying to sign up for the Myhive support but I cannot find my customer ID, also i did not get a paper Invoice, but i managed to pull up the online one from dell.com. However, there is no Customer ID, just a Customer number that gives me this error:
! Invalid account number or email/zip code.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, first AW here and so far pleasantly surprised with the quality.

Please PM me since this thread is so huge.

Thanks

 

is there a shortcut to launch recovery?

 

^ I think on boot there's a button you can press, probably stated in the alienware book. I forget what Dell usually has it as..

 

F8

or

Ctrl-F11 - if I remember correctly.. But it should be F8.. It should be in the manual...

 

It says F8, but doesn't seem to work... I wonder if I wiped out something during my clean install...
Ctrl-F11 doesn't work either...

 

Wait - what'd you install? Win7? - and, assuming you did a "clean" install - did you reformat the drive? if so - yes - F8 will do nothing..

 

I didn't reformat, I installed over the top... so it's all should be intact.

 

I'm very alarmed my laptop still hasn't left build while so many orders are being fulfilled, I'm doing something about it but I'll let you know about it if it has any affect on my processing outcome.

Anyone else stuck in this insane boat as I am? I ordered on 2/2!

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=462618&page=9

Yup.

 

I can't believe how bad 2/2 has been for orders!

 

Mine is finally arriving on monday with next business day. Ordered 2/3. So hang in there guys

 

Date of Purchase: 04/02/2010
Estimated Ship Date: 10/03/2010
In Production

Called them up today they say there is a part shortage so they are waiting for that part to arrive

 

@eggs:

I'm in the same boat as you. Ordered 2/2 and has never changed from "in production".

After several calls i've heard things like they'll put an expedition request for me, then i call back to follow up and they see no expedition request. One girl told me that there was a backlog and i wouldn't get it before april 5th. Others told me that everything is fine and i should receive it by my original EDD of 3/5.

No idea what's going on, all i know is calling them tells me nothing. They know nothing. I'll get it when i get it.

I suppose i could rage and cancel, but sadly this system has no peer.

 

Seen alot of complaints on this forum regarding the M11x just want to chime in that this is absolutly a killer laptop,no problems whatsoever,and i am very happy that I ordered it

 

are you implying that you have trouble hearing

I don't have any issues, other then the fan being constantly on and it's quite annoying. I just performed clean install and issue still exists, so I already sent email to Dell requesting replacement.

 

Let me clarify ...
NO PROBLEMS loud fan or otherwise
I love this laptop,have owned over 50 laptops in 2-3 years
this 1 O W N S

yes,I have laptop obsession disorder

 

50 laptops?
So I take it you replace them ever 2 weeks?

 

more or less
I buy em and then sell them on ebay
its a losing proposition ,but I have experienced alot
of tech in the process

THE ALIENWARE IS A KEEPER

 

Update: since I couldn't do recovery, I just performed clean install of Ultimate version and after installing all the drivers fans still work at full speed idle or not. So I decided to put this whole fan issue to rest until I get a replacement system.

 

Agreed. after cleaning it out and fixing some bugs, this laptop is everything i imagined it would be and a bag of chips. best $874 ive ever spent

 

Can you convert the DVD that comes with the m11x into .ISO that can be used as a bootable install from a USB device?