The Official M9750 Owners Lounge

Well my UK order was confirmed on the 11/07 and its still in phase 1! How long does it take to take my money Alienware! I would have thought they would have grabbed it with bith hands.. LOL

I bought a Laptop magazine here in the UK today and they did a labtest of some the current gaming laptops available and guess which laptop won the gold award? Yes you guessed it the M9750

 

lol well it should only take like a day to confirm the payment. But then again i don't know how long it takes in the UK

 

Too long

 

my payment took 3 days to come out, then went to phase 3, next day 4, next day back to 3, 4 days later 5, a day later 6, then 9 ! lol

omino i bought the same mag seeing the review in it, yeh it is prety awsome .

 

jameskirstylou, thanks mate thats good to know I wasn't sure if there was a problem because it was taking so long but I did call them today and they said my order was with the finance department and no problems so far...

I hope my order goes as swiftly as yours did

 

Also noticed today on the UK configurator that the Blu-ray drive is now available as an option.

 

heh mine was with finance too, they said that you dont get contacted if you pay via finance, they just go ahead with it, like i said it was pahse one for longer than it took to get from phase 3 to 9.

and i just saw the blueray drive, for £300 im glad we didnt wait

 

I actually paid by credit card but they said it was with the finance team so I guess they just meant billing processing.

Yeah I agree blu-ray is nice but It's not something I would want in a laptop and especially not at £300! I'd rather get a PS3 or a dedicated blu-ray player and watch the movies on a big TV.

 

My laptop shipped todayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

 

So wait I am now confused. Let me get this correct, if I were to get windows XP and upgraded to 4gb of ram, I won't be using all 4 gb? If so why is this and how can I use all 4 gigs.

 

hey all....long time lurker/1st time poster.

I've been eyeballing the m9750 for months and wanted to wait until after it released to order. I finally did on Thursday the 5th and waited until the following Tuesday to call in. The cryptic "all orders must be confirmed" wasn't clear if I was supposed to call or not I so gave it a few days. The Alien rep tells me that my funds have not been authorized by Dell yet. (I paid for 1/2 the system on their super high interest account, but will pay that off quick / other 1/2 was debit str8 outta my account) After getting told to call Dell at another number and then being transferred twice (once to verification and then to "Alienware" verification), her system was down. She called me back later and left a message that it was fine and to call Alienware back again.

Alien rep says should be fine by afternoon then......

I leave work early and call later in the afternoon and the rep says to give it 24-48 hours (again....?) I rechecked with Dell to see when the original auth went thru and they tell me the 6th. (today is the 10th) I sent an email to follow up.

Next morning and I call and am told will move to new phase today or tomorrow. e-mail waiting for me when I get home says about the same thing. Now I see the Litescribe drive for only $25 more. Naturally, I send an e-mail back and ask "since my order hasn't moved in almost a week, it shouldn't be delayed any longer to up to this drive....may I please? ($25 is about as much as I'd pay, but hey my order hasn't moved so why not?)

I call back the next morning (Thursday) and am told again...it's in Phase 1, but it is ok-it is fine. Get home and see e-mail saying she will follow up on it and upgrade my burner. E-mail back...."Thank you, good job, way to step-up, blah, blah, blah....."

Friday I decide, I'm not sweating it, it's all taken care of, no worries, I'll leave my cell in my toolbelt across the jobsite. At lunch, I see Alien called and want me to call them back. She's not available, but will call me back soon. OK. 30 min later (pretty quick by what I was expecting), she cancelled my order because there are problems transferring the orders from their new Dell financing into the Alien-side computers. Let's cancel and re-place she says. alrighty-then.

she explains that my new drive is on backorder now and keeps telling me the date isn't firm. I tell her it is fine if it is on backorder because you are telling me now and I can know, it is when my order sits in limbo for a week that I get frustrated because everyone tells me "no problem". The T_V tuner is now $189 so I tell her that I didn't cancel my order to upgrade the drive for $25, she canceled it because of the errors and I'd like to take that opportunity to add the drive. She will get her Sup. to take care of the difference.

30 min later we are done and she gives me a new order number. I'm stoked. I don't care that it was delayed a week anymore because it will actually start moving and not be in limbo anymore. (well after the wait for my new burner, but it will be "verified" now). I get home and check my e-mail.....
......
......
well right after the e-mail from them that has someone else's system confirmation and order number on it (2 orders before mine judging by the order number) is my new baby.

check, check, check, check........
no respawn.....
......
part of why I waited (and I know, I know it's not a big deal) until the release was the reps there told me it won't come out until after the system is released...a week, month or never, but I waited a week and got it. Now it isn't there.

I call Sales (because CS is closed and I just placed this order w/ Sales a while ago) and to my surprise he looks up my order, sees the notes and says he will let the rep know and it will all be handled. I correct him on the new discounted amount ($109 difference now because she did not include the respawn amount earlier) and he says "don't worry it is handled once the order can be changed" I ask for an e-mail confirmation once it is complete and he says no problem. I did not have the heart to ask if I could add one of the new Alienware controllers that also works on PS2 for a measly $18 that just got added to the configuration. the Razer mouse I ordered will have to do.

Now, I have dread going into the weekend instead of the joy I felt when it was a new order again and was all verified by phone. I decided to post this for my own theraputic reasons and because I saw some people w/ new "billing issues" posting.

I know many of you pre-orders had long ass waits, and I felt your pain as I read the forums daily. I'm gonna do my best to not look at the order status or call until late next week......but if they call me to say they need to do something, I'm firing right back w/ "Why don't we go ahead and add that gaming controller on while the order is being edited then"

most of the reps have been pretty above average, but please stop asking me to go to your website to give feedback after every call/e-mail. I will give great feedback if/when the rep that gets this going does so. Until then, you probably don't want me to have that representative number you just gave me.

soon I'll be one of you Owners, I hope......as my folder of tweaks and programs to add to my new baby grows by the hour.

 

dang well best of luck to you! hope it gets taken care of.

 

can you suggest a HD for the m9750?

 

it already has hd i pretty sure'

 

I wish I had the full answer. Apparently some versions of windows only recognize 2GB. I don't know what XP pro is capable of, but 32bit Vista is around 3GB.

There is much discussion on this issue!

When I saw I could get 4GB for $200 I decided to max it out and look for a use later. My reasoning... You have to get 1GB, I could upgrade to 2GB for $150 (alienware) or 4GB for $200 (newegg). I wanted more than 1GB!

I don't expect to be able to use much more than 3GB of ram with my current set up. Hopefully this laptop lasts long enough to be able to use all 4GB.

Price wasn't a big issue on this upgrade, so I didn't do too much research. Please let me know if I missed anything key. I think the Alienware ram might have a lower latency...?

So... Pretty sure XP can't use all 4GB, sounds like a 64 bit OS can use more ram.

 

This is what I got from Wikipedia...

If you get the xp pro with alienware is that the 32 bit or 64? Can someone put this in terms, which are more understandable. All I want to do is use all 4 gigs without upgrading to vista.

On a bit of a side note how are these laptop in terms if rendering speed. I am using 3d studio max to do rendering and wanted to know how much performance increase I will expect from a Pentium 4 2.0 ghz, 1gb RD Ram, and Geforce 6800xt 512mb card to and 2.0 ghz Duo Core, dual 7950's (hopefully by the time I buy this the 8800's are available), and 4 gigs ram?

 

hmmmm I don't know what to think about this, but it seems like an Australian based computer company is stating the dual 8700 cards will be available in August. Are the 8700 cards more powerful/better than the 9750's

http://www.pioneercomputers.com.au/products/configure.asp?c1=3&c2=15&id=2218

 

Oh yeah lets not forget it's the "first quad core laptop in the world" Errrr....seriously is this for real? No offense to the Aussies but is this just plane stupidity or are they getting a leg up on things? Hahaha Australia.... random but it reminds me of this
http://www.amishdonkey.com/end-of-world.php

 

Having lived in Australia recently for a few years ... there's no reason a company there couldn't develop a "first." But, practically speaking, it generally takes a few months for the latest and greatest to reach Austraia - this applies to things like new video cards, Xbox 360, etc. Sooooo...take this article with a grain of salt, not because it's from Australia, but because it's from an unconfirmed source.

 

The videocards in the m9750 (7950GTX) can outperform the 8700M GT by quite a large margin, a single 8700 wouldn't be worth buying imo unless its in SLi, then you have DX10 compatability and the resources to play games under pretty DX10 effects, otherwise the 8700M GT is not powerful enough to be a dealbreaker to get DX10, the 7950GTX is a much more powerful card.

 

what i mean is, the m9750 comes standard with a 80gig 5200 RPM HD. but you can have more then one HD installed, so i was asking for a second HD i could buy and install my self and it would be cheaper then getting it on alienware.

 

I've only had my m9750 for one day but after putting like 8 hours into it (mainly downloading and installing all that I want on the HD) here is what I like and dislike:

I Like:
-Great asthetic feel and look...
-Even with one GPU and a 2.0 C2D this thing runs Oblivion very smoothly with the highest specs on the 1920X1200 resolution. Needless to say, it's a powerhouse.
-All of the accessories that come with it are nice.
-Keyboard and touchpad work great!
-The quickkeys feel good to the touch and respond quickly.
-It's pretty light and thin for it's size.
-The screen is downright beautiful...I don't think that it is too glossy or that the 1920X1200 resolution makes text too small. I can read the icon text from 2 arms lengths away.

I Dislike:
-The volume button on the right hand side doesn't stop turning at the max or at the min volume. I'll prolly get used to it but it's still kinda annoying.
-The only button I am having problems pushing is the backspace. It is about a 1/2" small because of the numpad and I often hit the ./del button instead.

I know this is an early review but I hope it helps some of you out!

One last thing...the free cap and mousepad are quite good quality as well!

 

Hm...that quad core notebook is quite a surprise. I thought the resolution odd though: 1920X1680?? Good luck ever finding wallpaper. LOL jk But I spose it was only a matter of time until quad core came to notebooks. I wonder how it'll handle the heat and power usage...

 

I would not trust that Pioneer computers site, they are known for jumping the gun.

 

Oh, and one quick question for everyone; are all the Vista versions that Alienware shipping out 32 bit?? Because I didn't know which version I was buying with Vista Ultimate but I thought it would be 64 bit! Doesn't make that much of a difference to me but I found it surprising nonetheless...

 

Does anyone find the placement of the Home, End, Pg up, Pg dn keys annoying? I'm sure I could get used to it, but I use those keys a lot.

It looked like you had to hit Fn + an arrow key.

I'll use a real keyboard most of the time, just wondering what people think...

I get mine Tuesday!

 

Hm...for me I don't use it very much. I use an external mouse so I just use the scroll wheel. But I hope you get yours soon! Enjoy! It's definately worth it down to the penny. I <3 mine so far.

 

I received this reply from Alienware:

"At this moment, the Vista 64 Bit version is not available on any of our platforms, therefore, the option of getting the Vista upgrade from the 32bit version to the 64bit version is not something we are currently offering."

I thought Vista Ultimate came with a 64 bit version, I guess not from Alienware.

I have hear it is hard to find drivers for 64 bit Vista or 64 bit XP.

 

I used to use home and end a lot, especially during the DOS days lol but since 2000 I've used laptops exclusively and since they don't show a lot of love for the home and end keys I phased their usage out... the discovery of the wheel contributed to the death of the page buttons

 

I thought the wheel was discovered before the page button LOL.

I tend to use home and end a lot for copy/paste. -->home, hold shift, end, cntrl C. I guess I still preffer shortcuts to mouse. I'm sure I will adapt...

 

So I e-mailed Alienware with a bunch of questions, one was "how does the 9750 handle heat"

reply...
"This system (M9750) has one big fan that cools down the CPU and the GPU using cooling copper tubes and thermal pads, in a multi GPU configuration an additional heatsink fan will cool down the secondary GPU."

O.K. we'll rephrase that question next time... That IS an answer, good stuff to know, but I'm laughing my Arss off.

I rephrase the question... "does the 9750 handle heat efficiently, would you recommend a laptop cooler". I have been dealing with a specialist due to many problems with my old 766, mainly fried video cards (I assume due to overheating), the 766 got "canceled", so my agent should understand my concerns...

reply...
"Regarding your question about getting a laptop cooler, this mobile desktop system does not require one; however, if you want to get one, it would do good for the system."

O.K. so not a ton of useful info, but thought I would share it anyways. Sounds like heat hasn't been a big issue yet with those that have one.

 

It is cumbersome. The Clevo/Sager 17" notebooks have the same layout. So far the layout is my #1 con with the machine.

 

Yeah heat isn't a real issue with the m9750. Mine runs pretty cool even when some intense gaming is going on. I'm sure a cooler would help for the most optimum temperatures but it's not a big deal if you don't have one.

 

ya heating is not a problem not even the keyboard or anything in front of the screen has got hot yet after hrs of gaming it really does a good job on staying cool only the back is a bit warm cause of heat blowing out but its like warm-hot air.

 

This may seem stupid but I am not at home where my 9750 is and I was just wondering how to use the webcam. Moreso how to take pictures with it. Is it a combination of Fn and 6 or something? Thanks.

 

I'm getting this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822146230

and for everyone with the whole 'will 4gb work on my laptop?' AW doesn't offer any 64bit OSs so your laptop will only read 3.2 gb ~ of ram.

 

I'm still waiting for my unit. Hey anybody here had some trouble checking their order status online? Their site is broken.


Area-51® m9750

Video/Graphics Card: 512MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7950 GTX
Chassis: 17" WideXGA+ 1440 x 900 LCD - Stealth Black
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7200 2.0GHz 4MB Cache 667MHz FSB
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz - 2 x 1024MB
Operating System (Office software not included): Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium - Without Remote Control or TV Tuner
System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 80GB Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s 5,400 RPM w/ NCQ & 8MB Cache
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 24x DVD-ROM/CD-RW Burner
Wireless Network Card: Internal Intel® PRO Wireless 3945 a/b/g Mini-Card
Sound Card: High-Definition Audio with surround sound
Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support w/ Onsite Service
Alienware Extras: Alienware® Mesh Cap
Alienware Extras: Alienware® Mousepad
Alienware Extras: AlienInspection - Exclusive Integration and Inspection - $100 Value - FREE!

 

Hi to use the webcam you just go to my computer and you wil see something like (bision cam) or something and it goes into a file and you can take pictures and stuff from there

 

Thanks xpbballx99. I'll try it when I get home from work! ^-^' If I could give you more rep I would.

 

Can someone please post some pictures of their alienware with the 1920 higher resolution doing ms word, web browsing, photoshop etc.. Just to get an idea of the higher resolution through pictures rather than words. Thanks. Also if you do have the higher resolution maybe some feedback in pros and cons of the resolution. xD

 

God I want one so bad I'm like staring at my PC screen with my eye on the continue to checkout option on a 4,393 dollar M9750. Dual 7950GTX, Blu-Ray, 2.33GHZ, 80GB HDD, 2GB RAM GOOD GOD I WANT ONE. I'm glad to see you guys are happy with yours it makes me feel okay with buying from AW.

 

Just a few questions, as I am sorta researching...
I was wondering if anyone with the single HD and SLI has managed to get 2+ hours out of the battery with light work, like web surfing and word processing. I am also curious if it is possible to automatically disable one video card when running on battery. Thanks

 

I don't think it is possible to get 2 hours out of the m 9750. Maybe 1 1/2 hours with lesser components (single hdd /video card) but not 2. Your best bet is to buy two batteries.

 

Hi
It's my first post here

So,how long does the batterie last while gaming?
And is it a 9 or 12 cells?

by the way,is the lighscribe burner really worth it?
can i buy elsewhere a blue-ray burner?
thx

 

Thanks Chaz,
What about the SLI though? Wouldn't it sorta be pointless having to power both cards when you aren't gaming? Is there any way to disable one while you are running on battery to extend its run time?

 

It is 12 cells. I don't think SLI works on battery, so gaming performance is not going to be that great. The battery cannot power the video cards. Do not plan to game on battery.

Even if SLI is disabled the other card is still going to get power. Plan on buying a second battery is you need more than an hour or so of runtime.

 

so its useless to have 2 batteries as you cant play?

 

Well, I never said that. I only said that if you wanted to be able to use the notebook unplugged for more than an hour or so that you would need to buy a second battery.

 

http://computershopper.com/shoptalk/2007/06/19/samsung_hard_drive_reaches_1tb

does this mean (for the second HDD) that santa rosa is going to be almost useless as the memory that was on the mother board can now be found in HDD?

and for example,can i play CSS with the battery?

 

lets put it this way.

disregarding everything that chaz said about the battery and SLI and whatnot, it'd be pretty pointless to play a game on the battery as it would probably last about an hour. You could, but your small window of happiness would be extremely short.