The Official m15x Owners Lounge

Ioaniro,

Be careful chief, That man w/o screwdriver is a god in this forum. u are playing with fire. He can make u and me disappear from this forum forever.

Just for fun - no offence

 

I'm a forum atheist, there is no forum god

 

I have the 4GB and have no problems going in and out of sleep mode (besides the touch control issue, but that's what everyone has)

btw, I'm now down to that 8200 again as I ship my m15x off for the repairs tomorrow

man this 4:3 chassis is narrow

 

LOL guys.

Thanks for the compliment. It's a fun job, and it helps me help people out.

I definitely have to take good care of this machine, Alienware wouldn't be too pleased if it was returned in less than operational condition.

 

How much you want for the extreme processor? Ups, i thought this button was to send a private message .

Never mind me, I'm again at 5AM at work. Hope you write us a nice review and give us some tricks to improve our computers in the same time. And most of all have fun with it .

 

alright so i just got my m15x. very happy so far. everything is perfect but:

-they forgot to give me the tshirt i ordered
-touch controls are not the best. in fact the volume one almost does not work at all. very annoying. i would have settled for push button controls that actually worked.
-sound is quite low, even with headphones. i probally will buy speakers.
-crysis can not run anywhere near maxed. i can run it at all high, medium on some options , no aa, etc.
- for some reason cs source looks like crap on this computer.
- alot of older games (BF2 for example) dont support widescreen so there max res is 11XX x 9XX. kind of disapointing.
-screen could be a bit brighter.

 

How would you compare the touch controls to, let's say, the controls on the newer HP dv series?

 

BF2 doesnt support widescreen???
how to solve this problem?

 

there might me somthing to do in the console but its sad, i dont know much about this but. Team fortress 2, cs, etc dont support our native 1440 res. max is 1200 ;(. touch controls are a joke, im not familar with the hp dv sorry.

 

I have a question - which side of the m15x is the GPU located? I can't figure it out, both sides produce an almost equal amount of heat.

 

I think it's on the right side when you're looking at the keyboard. I believe it's in the middle of the right side.

The left of the middle is the CPU and
The HDD is towards the front (under the right side of the touchpad).

I don't know how accurate this is but you can go to the AW site here and it shows you in the flash header.

 

As memory suits me correctly the GPU is situated on the right side with the laptop facing yourself. I believe you can reference Alienware on their graphics menu in the m15x bio theres an interactive pic depicting the GPU.
http://www.alienware.com/product_de...Code=PC-LT-AREA51M15X-AI1&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT
Also a video reference provided by lessaj7 (i hope thats correct, but it is close.) shown 9:30 into the video.
http://files.filefront.com/m15xcloseravi/;9684800;/fileinfo.html
hope that helps he shows quite a bit of the machine's innerparts, gave me a good idea of what this beast looks like on the inside

 

<.< NNugles beat me to it lol, sitting here dinking away never clicking 'post'. You win this battle NNugles! but more to come, rep to you! lol

 

wow. it produces the same amount of heat? mine would heat up EXTREMELY on the right side.... man, my m15x was royally screwed up wasn't it?

to all m15x owners... does your m15x heat up a lot on the right side palmrest or was that just me?

 

Just seen that Cnet has the review for the M15x finally up, really bad review in my opinion for what its worth. But thought it was worth mentioning and there are a few new pictures some might wish to see. But ever since James Kim passed there haven't been any good things posted.
link
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/alienware-area-51-m15x/4505-3121_7-32815586.html?tag=prod.txt.1

 

If i buy my system around mayish, end-aprilish time, will that be enough time for them to fix all bugs in m15x, because i will go crazy, if my m15x came with low sounds, or touch control problem. Why can't they build all systems the same way, for some systems they use full concentration (thats for -people that have it great) and for some systems they slack off and just screw it all on like puting cake on a plate. (for people that have it with lots of bugs) Arn't these people payed? They should work at their maximum ability, and make sure the consumer is happy doesnt every one agree?

 

Thank you thank you! I guess it paid off working 3am this morning.

That should be where your hdd is. Maybe something wrong there?

I second that James Kim remark. I was deeply saddened when i reading about Kim while all of that happened. He's a hero in my book.

About the m15x review, i hope Dan Ackerman is less annoying in writing than in his video reviews. Not really he's not that annoying.

One good thing is that you'll get it with Vista SP1 (coming out this month). but really it's not the just bugs only, they can build a quality system now... except for the touch control since that problem is universal. It really comes down to QC letting the systems go out without checking things like "will the keys fall off after just touching it" or "are the screws in the lid so loose that the screen warps and cracks just lifting it".

 

Dan ackerman wiggles around a bunch on the videos, thats the only thing I can't stand. I agree with rebelijah, the cnet review was pretty lame.

 

Ah that was a great observation, thanks.

My m15x stay relatively cool all over the surface, no real warm spots at all. It's a very cool-running notebook. Your m15x must have been majorly messed up.

 

I wouldn't say extremely hot, but there was a noticeable difference between left and right sides after playing games

(btw Carnyl just in case you didn't see I sent in my comp this morning, so we'll see what happens now )

 

I sent my m15x back monday, called today and I should get an answer on its status by email soon. The person I talked to today was really nice and I asked her if they could change my cpu thermal paste while they were at it and they will do it. Someone posted pictures of bad paste application earlier and i'm pretty sure I had that problem since my cpu would get to like 88°C while rendering in 3dsmax. They should ship it back next week from what I understood, I hope it doesnt get delayed cause of the lcd backorder thing.

 

Alright, I did some testing today and I did get that underclocking issue. The default clocks for the 8800M-GTX are 500MHz core: 800MHz memory. When the card gets to hot or something, it goes to 275:300. There is a short slow-down in-game.

My GPU got up to 91*C, I am not sure what temperature it downclocks at though.

 

Now that is a huge bummer. I thought out of all the units they'd send, your review unit would be flawless...I'd better re-check to see if this doesn't happen...

 

I might end up having to open it up to see what's going on in there. Ugh, I'll just take a quick peek.

 

Well, I looked and didn't see any problems. Only the GPU was underclocking, and I am assuming the CPU was fine. I think if the CPu was overheating I would have noticed it by now. There's only one heatpipe coming off of the GPU heatsink to the vent, I think that is the weak point. It could use another pipe, would solve all the problems right then and there. Of course there is not a whole lot of room to put another pipe so . . .

I wonder how manufacturers test laptops to see whether their cooling systems are adequate. Maybe they just do the math and say "we need x CFM and a heatsink to handle this TDP . . . " and go with it. I still can't believe the 8800M-GTX is only a 35W part.

EDIT: Okay, I was in the Command Center software and I found a GPU setting. Apparently mine was on "Balanced" even under the "High Performance" plan. I set it to "Max Performance", I will test later to see if that made a difference or not.

 

Hey I ran into a problem today I want to know if anyone else has had this issue. I was trying to burn a dvd and it told me that the max I could burn a dvd was 2.4x but my cds do burn @ 24x. I updated the firmware still didn't work called AW they are sending me a new dvd drive. Any one else have this problem?

 

I hope i don't have that problem, i am starting to get the feeling my m15x will arrive with bugs. I am thinking of invest in Dell instead. SHould i? because it doesn't seem like alienware is fixing bugs...

 

well thats up to you not sure if its a bug I haven't heard anyone else having this problem. The good thing is that they are going to send me a new dvd drive so we'll see if its a bug or just a faulty dvd drive

 

How was the AS5 applied on the GPU, Chaz? Did they do a good job with it?
This is a very big issue...

 

Is there anybody out there that has an m15x that IS working properly?

 

this is very disturbing. we are getting very close to officially stating the m15x is a fualty design.

 

It was set to Balance even in High Performance plan? That's a little strange to me. It would make sense to be that way for when you're running on your battery but not when you're tethered to the wall (at least while in High).

Hope the testing runs better on Max with no downclocking. Waiting to see the results.

I would've figured that if that was the case, AW would have already rectified this whole ordeal and told someone that we could fix all this alleged downclocking business by changing the power plan. I'm sure they've received many calls about it.

 

I'm not going to take off the heatsink because I don't have any spare thermal paste with me. Sorry.

Mine is working properly, for the most part. I haven't determined that the thermal design is at fault . . . it looks like it but I need to do more testing before I make any conclusions. The funny thing is, this machine did not complain at all in Crysis, and the GPU never went over 88*C. In CoD 4, which was what I was playing earlier, the temp went into the low 90*s and that's when it underclocked.

 

Keep on diagnosing, Chaz! We need to clear up these issues. A lot of people are placing a lot of money on this notebook.

 

Yeah it was set to balanced, I'm not sure why either. That was the default. I'll play some more CoD 4 later and see if there is any difference. I don't think there will be one but . . .

 

is GPU temp of 85-90ish dangerous at all? If not, and if this is the mark where the card downclocks, shouldnt AW be able to make a hotfix for that -> software problem?

 

yea so i resolved all problems. i would know say the only thing i dislike on the laptop is sound volume. speakers are low. and even headphones. it looks like external speakers are the only way to go here. im probally going to go for really nice 2.1 setup or a cheap 5.1.

 

It's not dangerous, no. The GPUs are rated for 130*C I think, but it would never get to that temperature . . . not the way the chips are designed. As we have seen, the m15x's 8800M-GTX appears to downclock at 90*C or so. It would be useful to raise the limit to like 100*C - it probably wouldn't reach that temperature and therefore we wouldn't have any downclocking problems.

Refresh my memory, which problems did you resolve?

Yeah the volume level of the speakers is rather low. They're decent quality speakers for a notebook but could use a boost. Still, nobody buys a notebook based on its speakers so it's more of a minor thing. I have not tried the headphone jack.

 

Ok, so I've got a question, just for worst case scenario. I've had my m15x for just over a month. I have a couple of problems so far. My stealth touch button does not work, my volume touch button might as well not work, and I've also experienced the underclocking problem on FEAR (after the laptop had been on for awhile). If it is discovered that these problems all come from a faulty design, and that this laptop simply cannot stay cool, how hard would it be to get it returned?

 

Does a notebook cooler help lowering the temperatures any?

 

Attention:

For those who wants to beat XP speed - Try this tweak on your m15x. Beats XP hands down on speed. Now I open excel and words and outlook at almost zero seconds.

http://mztweak.bravehost.com/MzVista.html

Edit: Combine this with this http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=166532 & u wont believe this speed is coming from vista. U feel like u just installed windows 98. Ultra fast speed for launching program,shut down, shut up etc...

 

I like doing the tweaks myself, so i know which files I edited. I don't trust programs, because they tend to overwrite original windows files. and sometimes when you uninstall the tweak program, it leaves the file overwritten, and then it causes problems.

That's what I've found. I use to have a program for XP called System utilities or something along those lines. when i uninstalled it. My computed never booted up. I had to reinstall windows.

just my $.002

 

well said, Ricky. But, not everyone is a pro. at tweaking windows.

 

Yeah I know what u mean. But I was a bit disappointed when the m15x feels slower than my Asus g1. But Now its so fast I never seen any speed like this.

Try it dude. Back up registry and go. U never look back. Really.

Disclaimer: Dun hold me if your m15x crash.

 

The touch controls are hit or miss on this machine, I find I have to use more pressure than I would normally use to activate the buttons. The volume controls take some getting used to. I have yet to test a notebook with good touch controls.
I would be very weary of calling the design faulty . . . it's not proven. I think with some properly applied AS5 on the GPU it would run cooler. I have not opened the heatsink in the review m15x because I don't have any more thermal paste with me at the moment.

It should definitely help because the m15x has a lot of vents on the bottom. I can't prove it since I haven't tried it, but based on my experience with notebook coolers there should be a noticeable improvement. I remember when I had the m5550 it overheated (the GPU), and by just using the Targus Chillmat, which is a rather weak cooling pad, I had no heat issues playing games - and that was in the middle of the summertime. Try a Zalman NC-1000 or NC-2000 if you can find it.

 

i find that putting all 4 fingers (minus thumb) on the touch volume slide is the only to make it work well.

 

Just a small note to those worried about Vista problems who have/are planning on getting Vista Ultimate with the m15x, in case you didn't know-
"Microsoft has admitted that service pack one (SP1) for its Ultimate edition of Windows Vista will not be made available to everyone in mid-March as originally planned, because of a delay with 31 of its language packs." It should come out "later in 2008" was all that was said.
The SP1 for Windows Vista Home Premium (& family) will be released shortly.. My guess within 2 weeks time..
Happy Shopping

Ps. Chaz's Review FTW !

 

Saw this review on Cnet http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/alienware-area-51-m15x/4505-3121_7-32815586.html?tag=cnetfd.mt

 

That review sucks, they don't mention SmartBay, StealthMode and barely mention AlienFX, they also say the Gateway P-FX series uses the same 8800M card and that the m15x is 1.7" thick (it's actually 1.3" thick).

 

I think they may have included the rubber feet in the 1.7".. And I do recall there being some talk about this in Mr Waters and Shima's review where they said it is thicker than 1.3"..
And hopefully they'll add the Smart Bay and Alien FX bits in the video review.. Which would be fun with Dan Ackerman