The Official m15x Owners Lounge

That is a terrible heat sink design, seriously a stacked solution? It's more expensive, more time consuming and performs much worse, so why the hell did they bother with such a design?

If its boils down to that heat sink causing the heat problems (which I wouldn't be surprised about), AW should really offer to send you a new heat sink you can install that works, or allow you to send it in for them to update it.

 

That GPU in the pic is not an 8800M-GTX but the 8800M-GTX does have the same exact cooling solution. The plate is just bigger over the GPU.
I agree with you, either the heatsink needs to be changed or the fan needs to spin faster. One way or another I don't like the cooling solution for the GPU . . . as I and several other members have found, it does not work that great.

Yeah you can't change those settings on a notebook, I just checked. That entire section except for the temperature checkbox is greyed out. As noted by another member a few pages back, there is no fan attached to the GPU itself, only a system fan attached to the motherboard.
I hope we can work something out too.

 

Good work everyone here. We NEED to let Alienware to know about this big problem in the design of the cooling system for the m15x. Chaz, you will make a big difference since you are a respected reviewer for notebookreview. They cannot ignore you. Keep pushing this issue at Alienware. This is the only way they will do something about the problem before it is too late.

 

Am i mistaken or is it already too late? A lot of people have received m15x's and the amount of people making returns / complaints just makes Alienware look like a poor choice of a company. Thanks chaz for taking the time to research this issue. I'm finally glad we all know the answer to the trivial over heating problem. It would be nice if the m15x wasn't like this.... but unfortunately it is and i've decided to swap to a dell m1730. I should have done this awhile ago anyway when dell offered me the 20% discount.

Anyways, good work chaz and good luck to everyone.

 

does anyone know if the laptop boots up every time defualt to stealth mode? is thier a way to check rather than pressing the button?

 

i've found that it doesn't any pressure at all, just variable time touching them. the bluetooth button seems to work just fine by barely touching it for a split second. command center i need to touch for at least a whole second before it responds, and the stealth mode takes about 5 seconds before it responds.

volume controls i havn't quite figured out yet either.

 

Good luck with the new Dell. Yes, unfortunately, Alienware hasn't done enough testing on the heating system yet and there are a lot of returns and complaints. But, let's hope that they will come up with a solution soon before they lose even more potential customers. How did you get a 20% discount though, that's very nice?

 

re: the heat issue discussion: on my m15x with an 8800M i've been playing COD4, and havn't hit 90 degs yet, i think its barely broken 80. I am going do some more serious testing tonite.

I just got mine a couple of days ago, i switched to Penryn mid-order, maybe this is something they sorted out already. but that's just speculation..

also speculation, but based on experience: your ambient air temp and machine placement matter a lot. if you are running this thing on your lap and blocking the air intakes, you're going to overheat. if you are running it in a room thats 80+ deg, its going to impact the heat dissipation negatively. if you have it in an enclosed space. and its constantly reusing hot air that it recently blew out as its intake... overheat.

 

ironically I DO use this on my lap and still don't break 80 degrees. However I balance it on one knee and then use my other to maintain balance by touching the right corner of the laptop. That way I keep both fan vents completely exposed. I am pretty much just blocking the ram. The problem I have with a lot of coolers is the added bulk weight and they can scratch the laptop if you aren't careful (my coolermaster notepal did badly on my dell).

I am sure a fan program that can force the fans to kick up the power a bit will fix this issue. However it would be nice for alienware to add a bit to our warranty as we shouldnt have to force a fix that causes more strain on any component (fans or not).

 

it would also be nice to receive a better heatsink with more copper so the fan won't have to kick in double time (more noise and more power consumption)

 

No it does not. Mine boot up to high performance mode every time. I found the touch button frustrating so I gave up using. Just set it once and leave it there. I control vol thru taskbar.

 

ok here's my highly unscientific test results:

no cooling: max GPU 84 deg, avg GPU 80 deg
with cooler: max GPU 84 deg, avg GPU 78 deg

This is an m15x, penryn 2.5 ghz, 8800M.

Ambient Room Temp was about 72 deg (F)

I ran COD4 "War Pig" level through twice. Took me between 20-25 minutes each time.

First pass was a "normal" run, notebook sitting in open air on top of a Zalman NC-1000 that was not powered and therefore not cooling other than by its ambient aluminum chilliness.

Second pass was the same physical layout, but with the NC-1000 powered and pushing cool air at the notebook.

You can see from the attached images all the key stats about max and average heat as logged by everest.

You can see that the max on the GPU in both cases was 84 degrees. and when going through the logs i see that the 84 degrees was reached within the first 2-3 minutes of the session, and quickly fell back down nearer to the average, because that's around when the fan kicked up to its highest setting.

My anecdote earlier that i had not seen it go over 80 was because I was just doing the "quick! check the temps after you exit the game" thing, and the temps drop so fast after load ends, it was always back down in the high 70's by the time i saw the numbers.

At no point did the GPU underclock, not according to everest or gpu-z (sensor tab) nor based on my observations. I will say the everest logging gave a nice little stutter now and then though.

and the cooler did marginal help for the GPU, only about 1.5 degrees cooler, but did more like 4 deg cooler on average for the CPU, and kept the max CPU 3 degrees from where it hit when not cooled. doesn't really answer all the "do i need a cooler?" questions, but should help answer "what measurable effect does a cooler have?"

 

fusion that is what I have believed about most notebook coolers is that it gives an illusion of really cooling but its only cooling the case and that makes it "feel" like its really working. I don't think cooling 2 degrees is worth it. Obviously I could be way wrong on this but I just have not had much luck with cooling. I am still very interested in hearing alienware's response to NBR.

 

i'm just concerned about not swapping my order to the dell and then receiving one of the m15x's that DOES have an issue. Dave how's your CS:S fps been?

 

CS:S is perfect but its an older game thats cpu dependent. I get steady 80-100 FPS in-game and 200+ on the stress test with some AA enabled. COD4 gets a steady 45-90FPS in Game maxed. UT3 is 60FPS constant maxed. This laptop is amazing.

 

As far as I know, it only downclocks after passing 90C.

 

Alienware official website is down as for right now. Maybe there will be new updates soon. sniff sniff, I smell something sniff, and it seems like, sniff it comes in black.

p/s: I dont know where to post this, but I dont feel it deserves a new thread. So I'll post it here. And what if it was just weekly reconstruction. Hopefully they'll surprise us.

 

alienware m15x - $3000

hunk of aluminum with air to put it on - $42.99

your thigh flesh not getting all roasted to a crisp - priceless

 

Chaz inspired me to run a self test at home to see the temps on my m15x mind you i am Running mine on a laptop cooler a notepal infinite. and the only difference in system specs between My m15x and chaz's is my chipset.

The first picture is my m15x Idle.
The second picture is me doing the test, and if you look at the timer results it surpasses chaz's test by quite a bit. It shocked me because i thought my m15x would tap out at the 02:02:83sec mark, but if you look at the pic it goes to the 07:38:19sec mark and didnt even hit 89c but stayed at 83c
*note both the idle and heat test were done with a Cooler Master notepal infinite*

 

Just took a look at my 8800Mgtx and the heatsink on my GPU doesn't resemble any o fthe pictures. From what i can see it almost looks like a single piece heatsink.

I have included some photo's.
http://img135.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03864jw2.jpg
http://img135.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03865je1.jpg

So far I haven't had any issues with the GPU overheating.

 

Maybe this is a revision, and maybe this is the real reason behind the chassis delays? Someone did say in the UK Phase thread that a member of customer services told them some chassis due for 10th of March were rejected and now they're due in late March.

Notice the revision 3A too. Anyone with GPU overheat problems care to check the design/revision of theirs?

 

I noticed that as well. The date is for December aswell. My system was delayed aswell when I ordered my unit, by about 2 weeks. I was told it was due to QC issues

 

Very interesting - apparently my notebook is an anomaly. Thanks guys for posting your results, I am glad this is not a normal issue for the m15x. I am inquiring with Alienware right now to see what they have to say about this.

So at this point, we can confirm that this is an issue with my notebook and the notebooks of a few other members - the overheating 8800M-GTX problem is not native to the m15x based on the above tests done by two of our members.

Much appreciated.

 

Yeah but to be fair it's not just a one-off. So it would be nice if we could isolate the difference. Whether it be a chassis revision or contact compound application etc. You're in a very good position to get an answer out of AW on this Chaz. Are you allowed to open it up to inspect your GPU heat-sink as per the other pictures here?

 

As I said earlier I could take the heatsink off, but the problem is I don't have any spare thermal compound with me so it would defeat the purpose.

I'm interested to see what Alienware has to say too. If they did release a different revision of some part or of the notebook itself, those customers with the ealier revision need to have theirs replaced. fusioncon/EdiT808, could you take pictures of your heatsinks if possible and send them to me? If you do take pictures and don't want to post them on the public forum then just PM me and I'll give you my email address.

 

One more thing i would like to add which i have forgotten to mention during my heat test run. the room temperature while i did the test was @78.1F. No ac running nothing just regular night air.

 

You shouldn't have to remove anything. Just a picture with the case backing off is enough to see if you have the sandwich arrangement, or the one piece unit.

How do you find otherwise Chaz? What's this about the keyboard having a delay?

 

Chaz I am running ATI Tool now and I have been runnning for 10 minutes so far and my max temp was 82, it is staying stable at 80 right now. Will test some more and confirm.

 

Ill try to take a picture sometime tomorrow its almost 4am hawaii time ha. Stupid question but im askin anyway. Does taking a picture and showing i took apart my m15x void warranty? HAHA

 

You'll have to check back further in this thread, I don't have any keyboard issues. Apparently there some delay issues with one member's unit but we pretty much determined that his whole notebook was FUBAR.

Well, I'd like to have pictures of the non-overheating notebook's insides so I could compare to mine. There's some numbers printed on the heatsinks and I am wondering if they will give any clue as to what the difference between the notebooks is (if there even are any - could be a faulty thermal paste application, I don't know).

LOL - feel free to send me a PM and I'll give you my email if that makes you feel any more secure.

 

I got a question for those that ran the heat test as well. Are you running the m15x with a merom chipset? or a penryn chipset? Also the ones with the heat problems same question Merom chipset or penryn?

 

I have the Core 2 Extreme X9000 Penryn, but the CPU temperatures are fine, you can see in the screenshot I posted. Still, that's a good point.

 

Lucky you Chaz, my CPU is the one thing giving me troubles. My touch controls work fine, a bit slow but other wise usable all the time. My keyboard is fine no Delays. Just wish this CPU wouldn't downclock all the time.

Well hopefully we can get the heatsink issue sorted out.

Ok an ATiTool run for over 25 minutes. Highest temp was 83, and that is where it stabilizes.

 

ok thanks for comfirming that the 8800 does indeed use the better of the two cooling solution, with the single larger heat plate. this is the one pictured in the 2 smaller pics on that link.

i am still surprised that it is not enough to cool the gpu.

 

i'll post up pics of mine in a bit... but from memory it matches newfie's.

 

Well I just bought the m15x with the T9300 and 8800m gtx this morning and was very happy with what I had bought.I was thinking it would be super fast and last along time.......but after reading through these post Im scared I made a mistake....lol

 

Congrats and don't worry too much. Only a couple of people had problems with the downclocking GPU so far. Hopefully you didn't also get a lemon.

 

Well Thanks....I hope I dont get a lemon,that would suck...lol

I thought I had read somewhere that the 3dmark 06 scores were coming in at around 9000 on the m15x.Does anybody know if that's right ??

 

more tending towards and a little bit over 10000, in the standard resolution, 1240*900 (WXGA screen)

 

here's mine, matches newfie's like i recalled, rev 3A, 12/07 build.

yes, yes, crappy pictures, i need to invest in a better camera

 

can someone tell me if the alienware head flashing randomly (yet very slightly) after its fully charged is normal? also somtimes when its charing it flashes more colors than i programed it to. very small issue i know but just cuious.

 

also got just over 10000 in native laptop resolution (1440x900)

got just over 9000 running at 3dmark06 defaults when hooked up to an external LCD.

 

So we're leaning towards this heatsink being the "better" one so far right? As far as we know right now, it is possible that anyone who has a heatsink other than this Rev 3A 12/07 on a 8800mGTX may have overheating issues. Those who have this exact heatsink have not had any problems staying under 90c so far - in turn not having underclocking issues. Is this correct?

 

gunna open mines when i get home, and we shall see.

 

Chaz, can you confirm that your notebook has a different heatsink then "rev 3A 12/07"? I think all 8800m GTX have that one. The smaller one that was seen in the pictures ( the triangle shaped one ), I assume is from the 8700.

 

Congrats alienware for fixing heat problem with new heatsink now i have no more worrys other than dead pixels, and keyboard/touch controls problems

 

For some reason i thought i read that Chaz had a different heatsink... just went back to check previous posts and realized that he hasn't confirmed if his was different or not. My bad...

I don't know if this has been confirmed.

 

I compared heat sink rev 3a 2007.12.04 with older one, and its different, people with new one dont have problems, yup its fixed.

 

thats great thanks

 

Yes, Chaz can you please confirm this with alienware please?