Oh The Irony.... lol... not really

So, I was reallly looking forward to writing a review of my m15x tonight... I was off the walls excited when I recieved it on friday and knew that i was going to play with it for a bit, though I had plans so couldn't spend too much time with it. I loaded up WoW and the expansion and watched in awe as the 8800 rocked the graphics with 50-60 fps at highest settings, including 1200p res... and then I had to go out for the night... I was so ready to write up an awesome review because the keyboard didn't lag, the touchpad was a lot better than i thot (didnt even need the sticker) and everythin was just awesome! Take the all u AW haterz!!!!!!!!!

So I got smashed with my guys, went to my girlfriends, etc etc, woke up drove her to work and got ready to do some dmg and lvl up in style...

Low and behold WoW starts erroring like crazy. I had saved several screenshots of the errors I got, but we'll get to the fate of those later. Anyways, I decide, screw it I'll just reinstall it, the comp was working well otherwise (latency was present though, x34 BIOS still) and there were listings of these errors on WoW support site.

Now I start erroring at 98% complete (and WoW is 4 discs w/o the expansion even) which kills the whole process.... still theres a fix on the WoW support so no biggie? Just copy discs to the HDD and install in safe mode. OK Done, lets GAME!!!!

Or... Not. Wow runs for between 5-15 min and then display starts misproducing textures and colors and its just a friggin mess. Start erroring again so I call Tech Support. After Reinstalling the Drivers to no avail, and BSOD from 3dMark06, and the drivers disappearing, we respawned the OS (i got XP not Vista). Drivers are there, everything is looking good so we run 3d06 again...

I've never used Benchmarking software before so I'm not sure what graphics and stuff you are supposed to see, but it looked like I was having an acid trip. Strange *** colors and leaves and craziness... but little to no observable pictures or video.

I kid you not, i scored 1207 marks.
The GPU temp never got above 50 C

Defective video card, they're going to send me a replacement, but i need to give them a credit card in case i, for some reason, don't send them back the defective one. None of my cards will take a 500$ charge up front, so I need to send the defective one to them first now... but of course Fed-Ex's server is down so I need to wait until tomorrow. At least my AW Tech was a good guy about it, not a comp wiz, but def a good guy.

To top off this debacle, I notice that I have a small, 3/4 inch long abrasion/scratch in my LCD at the bottom left. Its horizontal so it isn't easy to see, but with all this crap going on I've been paying a lot more attention to the screen than whats been going on on the screen... lol

Honestly thinking about calling them back tomorrow and saying, "replacement notebook or refund"

any thoughts?

 

You were saying?

I think you should give them a chance or two to rectify the issue, this way later on you wanting a full refund or replacement will be more justified.

 

Bro, it sounds like you need a slurpee and some twinkies...go hit up a 7-11. If I was in your position, I would be crazy by now. Maybe call AW and get a manger or equal and see what they can do. Due to the CC issue, they will more than likely not send you anything until you send yours. You may want to see if they will replace the whole laptop to ensure against a lemon, but a refund may be the best thing at this point, then re-evaluate and consider another aw or the new sager. GL

 

I'd start slow...try just getting the GPU replacement done and see...perhaps that will be the only issue you'll have and you'll be happier afterwards.

 

Have you tried an updated version of the GPU drivers? I know I had a few BSOD's when I tried playing L2 for the first time on my m15x. Found out that the current drivers installed (the AW drivers) caused errors when it tried to handle shader effects.

If you're willing to try out the GPU one last time, update the drivers to 177.92 from laptopvideo2go. Also make sure you download the modified INF file as well.

When you first extract the driver files, drag and drop the modified INF file into the folder it extracts the files in. Uninstall your current drivers, reboot, then install these drivers then you should be good to go.

It's worth a shot.

As for the scratch, all I could say is "ouch." Sucks to hear you got one.

 

its not like the m15x isnt functional without the 8800. it still works just fine but you just cant play games. just wait for the card to come back.

 

thx oceanus, i just installed the 177.92 only because i saw that the .inf file you talked about was the same file that we kept finding was corrupted during our driver installs and error messages. im running the nVidia stress test right now and will run 3dMark06 after i install it.

either way, i may send it back, i found the infamous bulge over the ethernet/usb ports on the left side, which in addition to my blemish/scratch is unacceptable.

even if the GPU isnt deffective, there's obviously some miscommunication on the 200 point inspection... think they forgot to carry the 5 or sumthin when they added it up and its actually 2 points...

 

tried the 177.92 driver and got 5190 on 3dMark06. obviously that driver works wonders, but there is still something seriously wrong with the card, because if it was fully functioning, it should have been 9-10k right? thats what ive been seen on the forums but whatever im gonna give them a call at like 4pm after my meeting

 

scratch on the LCD? how the heck was that not caught!!!

 

sure you're not in stealth mode, running the IGP, or in power saving mode?

 

IGP def not, as that would give you around 400 in 3DMark06. But maybe Stealth mode? Although the problems with textures and all that, clearly indicates a busted GPU.
MrDJ had the same... very low 3DMark06 scores. But he had a broken Mother Board.

I would def send it back and ask them for a new laptop.

 

Don't worry, I'm getting similar scores with those drivers. It doesn't bother me much since the drivers have pretty much doubled my overall performance (FPS wise) in Lineage II but I'm still looking into it since I'm as curious as you are. I also have Windows XP.

Also keep in mind the new drivers adjusts your clock speed to match your need in certain games. If there's a game that uses less resources and is less graphic intensive, it downclocks itself to save energy and reduce heat. Perhaps that might have skewed the 3DMark scores a little bit. I'll look more into it though.

In any case, try out WoW with those drivers to see if it fixed anything. Maybe you'll get better performance out of it. Until then, I'd call Roswell about your other problems. Save yourself a lot of headaches that way.

 

You should only deal with swapping out internal parts if you're past your return policy window for the full system.

You JUST recieved a brand new product that is defective. Why accept a GPU replacement? This means that you have to unscrew your chassis, which leads to high risk of scratches, broken plastic, etc.

I think that since you spend so much money on a product and you're well within your return window, you should not accept a part replacement at this point in time and instead demand a whole new system until one arrives that passes your inspection tests and level of satisfaction. Otherwise, return the system.

I went through 3x Dell M1730's before receiving one that was up to snuff with what I'd expect from a Laptop producer. I recommend you do the same, do not accept tech support on a product that is still within the return window, get a whole new system.

 

You never dealt with Alienware, did you?

 

how would you scratch the bottom panel by just removing it. you have to really suck with a screw driver to do that. Also the bottom panel wont just break if you remove it. I removed it a couple of times already without it breaking or scratching...