Party time, excellent! (my m15x arrived ;)

So my m15x finally arrived this morning when I was on the doorstep on my way to college! I could only take a short look at it because class was waiting (still came too late but was worth it

Here are my first impressions:

Pros (besides the usual stuff everyone knows):

• After a first check, no obvious flaws, the finish has no scratches (just some really really minor you have too look for), no cracks, overall build qualitiy was as good as expected (but not more)
• Nameplate present and correct name was lasered (heard about missing plates in a german forum)
• Stealth Mode really makes this baby silent

Cons (or better call them minor glitches or stuff I noticed but that doesn't really matter):

• Screen wobble: I'm really afraid to touch it, wobbling and creeking everywhere :/
• White light is "dirty", means it has influences of other colors in it
• Standy-By-pulsating of the alien-head is kinda choppy, it only has a few steps to go through... I guess the AW engineers never saw how good this can be made, just look at a mac!
• ExpressCard-hatch is blocked half-way when something is put in the slot, but opens fully with a bit more force
• Alien-Head on the front is a bit shrugged on one edge

I hope in the next days I will have time to post a full review and some decent pics!

greetings


Update 1
First issues show up

Update 2
Made some pics and more issues appeared

 

Wow nice congratulations! Pics and review soon pleease!

 

Congrats Crizzler!

 

Hey, that's great news! Pics please

 

Congrats!have fun!

 

Congratulations on the machine, I'm looking forward to your review.

 

nice one crizzler, congrats and lets hope all is ok once you fully test it.

 

Great, congratz! Can't wait for the pics and review .

Still waiting for mine; currently on

Last track event: General status. Departure(Outbound Gateway): Dublin / IE, 2008-04-21 pffttt how long does it take .

 

I'm afraid to disappoint you all but I think there will be no review just some pics, but not those you actually want to see coming from a m15x:


(those red dots are not supposed to be there:/ )


(the blue actually should be just white... )

Thats what my screen looked like after the first time I switched to binary... Funny thing, I first made a simple screenshot because I thought the integrated gfx is damaged, but the screens looked normal on my other computer. So I had to make those pix with my digicam to capture the error...
Furthermore, these errors sometimes dissapeared when I wobbled the screen. But the worst is, the screen at times stays just dead black and vista dos not even boot when I switch graphics again and only pure luck can make it work again...
So I think, the display must have a loose contact or so.

I really don't know what to do right now, of course I have to send it back (after about an hour of time I could actually play around with it), but do I really want them to "repair" it or a new one? I'm so fed up with this bull**** right now, I think I just want my money back (besides the 1440x900 display I have is on backorder in the EU and I'm shure it will take another 3-4 weeks until I would get it back...)

So many issues with a laptop that costs so much... theres definitely something going really wrong :>

 

wow that sucks does it do that when its on dedicated too?

 

OMG

this is out of hand... its impossible to make up my mind .. looks like drivers or heat or some such my retailer is ordering one in for me 2 play with... lets hope its not a wonder1off like chaz one that seemed to be issue free..... (ei the CEO built it not the dodgy workers that do the rest).. shame on AW shameeee suprize suprize build quality is more important than how photos hoped your website is

 

well that decides it. IM going to order nice and early before my trip (ordering now) that way it will arrive at my relatives house just before i fly over so it can be sent back for its expected repair. IM hearing way to many faulty item reports from people for comfort. It will have just enough time to get back to me beofre i go back to the EU.

 

I think it happened with both cards, not shure though

 

Thats it im cancelling, its awful quality, its over-rated.

 

@crizzler: Here's the guide to reseating the LCD cable

http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/...nBfc2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9bTE1eA**&p_li=&p_topview=1

 

yea, I was about to post it, and you beat me to it GRB! +1rep Hopefully this helps you out Crizzler.
Maybe the LCD cable got lose during the shipping. I know AW won't ship that out to you like that...

 

hehe, this is what happens when you have too many people wanting to help

 

If you want to be safe, I'd recommend you and others who are worried about AW's problems to wait for the Sager or go for Gateway.

 

Thank you very much! But I don't think I can do this on my own without voiding the warranty, do I?

Btw, I was able to kinda reproduce this faulty behaviour:

1. when everything is running fine on dedicated, I press button to switch to binary
2. System reboots, the first time the integrated gives out an image, the screen starts to display errors
3. Now when I switch back to dedicated and reboot after the system powers down its not coming back any more, screen just stays black, fans run, touch-controls are lit but no sign of booting :/

Small Update:
My "Bugfix" so far: waiting... After waiting about 10 minutes with no power on the system, it boots normally on dedicated o_0

 

I would think you can, but if you want you can always email AW support to be sure

 

If you have an external display or monitor then try plugging the computer in and see if you get the same troubles on the external. If you do, then it's most likely the video card giving you the trouble.

 

he tried that. look back in posts

 

I'm sorry for your missunderstanding, but I could not try an external monitor (no HDMI-cable available), what I meant there was I made a screenshot (pressing print and then saving with mspaint) when the errors occured and looking at that screenshot on another computer it looked fine.

Well something good to note, installed crysis last night and it ran fine with high settings (about 20-30fps sometimes lower) and then bioshock, but is it me or does it look odd compared to crysis?

 

oh no. so sorry to hear your troubles crizzler.

shall we start our own club up
hope they sort it for you. ive still not had a chance to ring support yet.
got the return number for dhl and everything but i will have to take a day off work as you cannot re package the system before the dhl driver checks it first,then you can seal the box in front of him. i understand that i could send a box with a brick in it but what a pain.
good luck

 

I know this is a relatively small pool of opinions (I assume Alienware sell more than 5/10 laptops!) But the systems getting a pretty poor rating. It's not like people have been scorching the laptop by playing it too much - these are like out of the box systems.
Doesn't really instill much confidence in potential buyers...

 

thanks

What about " The official m15x-with-issues short-time-owners-that-had-to-send-it-back lounge"? I'm shure it will hit 200 pages in no time...

Btw called CS this morning about this and sent the pics I made, but he couldn't definately tell me whats wrong with it, might be the inverter board of the lcd or the integrated is damaged... He tries to find a solution that does not include sending it back (hm how high are the odds?), will call back tomorrow. On the good side, he sounded very competent and eager to help me, not a default "please respawn yadda yadda"-person. Maybe the german cs team is small but skilled hehe

Another thing, while waiting I did some smalltalk about the new bios (he very well knew about the 32 and downclocking/overheating issues, didn't expect that!) and he told me it was developed mainly for the US market and will only be installed on machines in the EU where downclocking does occur, and that the systems they get with downclocking are still very very few!

So far for now...

 

Well, at least Crysis works...lol

Good thing the TS is trying to help you out by not making you send it back though

 

I actually had the same thing happen to my 22inch monitor. I had it on low or high resolution and then i used nvidia Ntune to switch it. When i did, the colourse were legible... but a bit spotty like you showed. perhaps you just need to give that lcd a resolution adjustment. Give it a go.

 

I went through some resolutions and color depths with both cards, no help WHEN the lcd decides to spit out an image but one that shows these errors, then they can be seen already on the POST screen while booting... I still think its a hardware probleme somewhere between the integrated, the display and the BinaryGFX system, but thanks for the tip!

 

I feel for the CS ppl as they have to try and fix all these issues, that the 200 check should have spotted, fixed issues...

I think my management are a gang of muppets.. if I worked for AW I would have gone of the rails.

 

the point is that there is NO 200 check. that is just BS that AW invented to make us feel that the machine is high quality.

Obviously they dont check.

 

you wouldnt happen to be the same Kiaserphoenix thats on xbox live would you?

 

Heliosvector: There is a kaiserphoenix on xbox live?? how did they come up with this name? he must be into dragon quest....

No sorry I dont even have an xbox

 

yeah he is on my friends list. same name as yours.

 

dude just because some people have bad luck doesnt mean urs will be messed up too

 

@crizzler,
The guide listed above really is easy enough for anyone who knows the difference between a Phillips head and a flat head screwdriver. You'll be fine. It will NOT likely void any warranty as there will be no trace that you even opened the case. The guide listed above is direct from AW for users with graphic issues.

I'm no PC technician but I've built enough systems and trouble shooted enough to think that this is not a software problem. And if you are seeing the color shift at boot up while in BIOS it has to be hardware. The fact it's happening in both graphics modes means the hardware to check is the monitor and it's connections.

Follow the guide and check the cable. I have seen this very issue on desktop machines that had a loose VGA cable. Unplug and replug and POOF it's fixed!

Give it a go. You have nothing to lose and knowledge to gain.

 

Since I still have my m15x I made at least some pics! Cause there are
already so much normal images around, I made some closeups.

Aside some nice pictures I unfortunately discovered more flaws with my cam,
but please read on...

First the good ones

Fronthead lit in white:


Some keyboard-shots in different colors:







(looks a bit strange due to compression )

Powerbutton morphing thru blue/white:


Touchcontrols unlit:












Keyboard unlit:


Touchpad unlit:


And now the "bad" stuff...

A small scratch on the fronthead (nothing serious...):


Hairline cracks on the transparent Alienware Logo (a bit alarming but still
nothing serious or something I would mind alone...):


A small gap under the headphone/mic jacks, I wouldn't have noticed it when
it would not be the source of a snapping sound that I hear when I lift up the
system with both my hands...


... and thats what it should look like:
Again, I wouln't mind it when it would not make that strange sound every
time I pick up the system (and I'm careful with it!)


And then I made a closer look to the cracking issue point...
From above everything is fine:


And above the ethernet port? Wait...


...zooming into the top right corner...
Is it a shadow?
Is it a hair?
Nope, its a hairline CRACK!



At the moment it's barely visible to the naked eye and maybe I'm
exaggerating, but please remeber, this system is about TWO days old, and
I'm handling it carefully and I didn't really move it out of my room in this
time... And I can confirm it's a flaw in the plastics, when I light it up from
the side with a flashlight, it breaks the light (strange to explain but in real
there is no doubt its a crack...)

Thanks again and I know the guide's easy and I shure know how to handle a screwdriver, so thats not the point The problem itself is not so easy do track down, and if I would be shure it could be resolved by a simple loose cable I would have done it already! At the moment, these errors only appear when I'm on integrated. When I use the dedicated, either the screen works perfectly normal or stays dead black and the system does not boot at all. Only thing that can make it work again is waiting for about 15 minutes, then it boots and spits out an image like normal...
But I agree with you, must be hardware!


geee and sorry for that long post, hope you all enjoy the pics!

 

Nice camera you have

Thats an awful lot of flaws for a new system! I wouldnt send it back if it where me but i would want some money back and if they refuse i would cancel and buy another brand. Just my oppinion. But who wants to send his new lappy back after waiting for it for so long?

 

nice pics Crizzler and a well done puting the point across of unacceptable conditions to the mega priced laptop. the casing looks like glitter effect plastic of sorts.. dissapointing. Sad to see you got the now wide end of the problem stick.

 

Nice pics +1 rep.

 

I'd request a new one be sent. The different colors on the backlit keyboard look amazing, though. I'm pretty sure the white is supposed to look like that. I'll have to agree that the casing looks cheap up close, and, those scratches on the Alien head and the "Alienware" under the screen are unacceptable. Requesting it to get fixed isn't a good idea since they'd need to replace the entire notebook anyway, so just ask for a new one and tell them to make sure it's in perfect condition or you'll return it.

 

Sweet pics!

 

I'm sorry to hear that... You helped me deciding. No M15x for now... It's shocking what's going on, really.
Good luck and hope you sort out all your problems.

 

Man it's so upsetting to see all these problems out of the box. Sorry to hear all this Crizzler. Hope you get it all sorted out..and I'm realizing that in the grand scheme of things, I was pretty lucky. Hopefully when I get it back, it'll be 100%

 

OMFG!
so sorry to hear of even more problems crizzler.
some great close up pics you have taken there. i will certainly be taking a closer look at mine tonight.
+1 rep

 

First thanks to all of you for your kind words!

Now a small update, spoke to the CS again today and they unfortunately had no other solution but to let me send it back
So about 5 minutes ago a DHL express courier picked it up and gone it was... Let's see how long this will take and how it will come back, keep you all updated!

 

I hate to hear about things like this. I feel bad for crizzler hope everything works out for you.

 

nice close-up pic i ever seen...

yeah, hope everything a-ok~~~ i guess some of us just got lucky, getting a 100% working m15x...

it feels like you are on a battlefield and the survivor are the people who received their m15x in good condition

GOOD LUCK SOLDIER!!! GODSPEED!!

 

ive just checked mine over and i cant see any scratches or cracks. sorry it had to go back but its defanately for the best mate. it will get vip attention now, but isnt that what it should of got before it left the factory.

 

Sorry to hear that Criz... It's really sad and frustrating!
Hope it will be all ok and... you should sell your close up photos to AW. That's class work!