TurbodTalon's M17 Review (PICS)

I had originally ordered an M15x. On the morning of November 3rd, I saw the M17 available on the website and promptly canceled the order. My M17 order was officially placed on November 5th, 2008. It shipped on the 13th, and arrived on the 20th. FedEx took their sweet time.

In the package was an AW baseball cap, the AC adapter, an owner's booklet with a plastic membership card, and the laptop.

As you may or may not know, the M17 chassis in not new. It is also used for the OCZ Whitebook. It's sturdy though. When I'm lugging it from place to place, there isn't any of the creaking or twisting I've encountered in other laptops.

The keyboard is full-sized with a slightly modified 10-key. The optional illumination of the keyboard cycles between OFF, RED, GREEN, and BLUE with the FN+F10 buttons. The top of the laptop is the Black Skullcap design, and there's no mistaking that it's an Alienware. The Alien Head illuminates blue, and does not change color.

A rubberized finish covers most of the notebook, and is an excellent fingerprint repellant. The touchpad is roughly 1/16th of an inch below the rest of the palmrest, not flush. The mouse keys are one large button that rocks on a fulcrum, much like a seasaw. Both keys can be pressed at once, if need be, by applying a bit more force.

The fingerprint scanner is on the bottom right of the palmrest. I've never had one, but after registering my fingerprint, one swipe is all it ever takes to log into Vista. You can also use Alienware's facial recognition software, coupled with the 2.0 megapixel camera just above the LCD, to log in.

The disk drive ejects toward the user. You'll have to move the notebook forward if it's on your lap, or the drive will hit you in the stomach. This really isn't an issue though.

On the left side of the laptop is an exhaust vent, a reset button, both hard drive bays, a card reader, and a smart bay. The front portion of the machine contains the left and right speakers, and the afore-mentioned disk drive.

On the right is a volume wheel, headphone and microphone jacks, 1394 port, 2 USB ports, and an optical audio port.

On the back are the DC in, a coaxial jack, eSATA port, VGA port, HDMI port, one more USB port, an ethernet port, and two more exhaust vents. The bottom of the machine has a large cover that is easily removed to gain access the the CPU, GPU's, and other hardware. This will also be incredibly convenient for users who must regularly clean the crud off of their heatsinks.

I primarily play WoW, which the M17 powers through at full graphical settings, 1920x1200 resolution. There is one odd glitch. When the shadows setting is maxed, ALL of the shadows in-game flicker badly.

Alienware DOES NOT condone any type of CPU/GPU overclocking. It will void your warranty.

BUYER BEWARE! ATI graphics cards rely on the horsepower of your processor. If you choose the dual 3870 option, and opt for the lowest processor, you'll be kicking your own butt later. Trust me on this, as I got the P8600 initially and then was lucky enough to find an X9100 on Ebay. Don't misunderstand, ANY of the available processors will work fine. But the faster the processor, the better your graphical performance will be.

Alienware M17
Vista64
ATI HD 3870 X2
Intel X9100
2GB RAM
1920x1200
2x160GB RAID0

3DMark'05
20,576 Default settings

3DMark'06
15,134 Default settings

3DMark Vantage
P7,126 Default settings

Super Pi
14s 1M
34s 2M

CS:S Stress Test
222fps

Call of Duy World at War (FRAPS)
50fps All settings maxed, 1920x1200

Passmark Performance Test
1248.2

 

That would suck. Hope I'll be able to overclock my QX9300, because Extreme processors were designed with exactly that purpose in mind.

- F

 

No, the Xtreme line of processors can be overclocked. Sorry. Should have specified. So you're in business with your CPU.

 

Umm nice pics! Hope you won't have any problems with it .

 

Umm please use an online uploader like photobucket so your images aren't all 19910491042x1209410422

 

wow, i'm surprised there's only one cooling fan for both GPUs. OCers, beware...

 

Have you not read the 19992838483983292 posts saying "GIVE US MORE PICS"? Not going to change anything unless a Mod tells me to do so. Sorry man. These images are from Image Shack.

 

u cant oc ieven if u have an extreme cpu unless u want to void your warranty

 

I OC'd both cards 100MHz over and can only hit 85C. That's not to say that a overvolt won't jack the temps up real nice like. That fan moves some serious CFM.

 

turbod u do know your warrenty is void now right....?

 

I'm well aware of that sir. Alienware doesn't honor it anyhow. Remember Fusionsenses' M17 that had the tape between the GPU core and the thermal compound? He had to fight them tooth and nail to even get a replacement, and it was THEIR FAULT. This is a gaming machine, and I'm gonna get my money's worth out of it. Would I recommend this to someone who is new to OC'ing or BIOS flashing? NO. I've done all this before though.

 

Isn't there a way to hide the fact that you've overclocked your GPU? Can't you revert back to the original settings?

 

he doesnt seem to care about warranty , although its very important for an expensive system like that, anyways TurboTalon, Beware from the temps, ATI cards should be a lil cooler than Nvidia ones.

 

A software overclock is loaded whenever Windows starts, or whenever you initiate it. When you re-flash the VBIOS with higher clocks, that is permanent until the user flashes it again. At any rate, the manufacturer can't tell the cause of a fried card, well, because it's fried. To my knowledge, there is no way to tell why a GPU failed. When I've had problems in that past, that I caused myself, I just buy new components. There are folks with less integrity that ruin components by OCing them, and claim a manufacturer defect.

 

I have that same problem with the flickering.

 

i pm messaged him about that. And he seems he doesn't care.
well, did he show his order number or acct number? if he didn't, he probably still have warranty.

 

Yeah, I've tried several drivers. It never goes away. LOL, you quoted my whole post!

 

ugh, come on Mike...

at any rate, yeah, the warranty's a goner.

 

Do you guys realize that GPU's have been getting OC'd for quite some time now, against the manufacturer's wishes? I do get it, and I know what I'm doing. As soon as the M17 becomes more wide spread, no one will care. No one is asking either of you to do it.

 

at the post quote, atleast cut the images out.

Flashing a BIOS my void the warranty, but there's no way to prove such things. Overclocking isn't noticeable if you reset clocks in a BIOS, or if it is fried they can't get anything.

 

it's not about the actual OCing, it's more about the fact that now, AW won't do diddly to help you with any technical problem, GPU-related or not.

 

So best thing to do is to turn of shadows?

 

It is possible to check if someone modify the bios unless the whole bios is on fire. But the cost to check is often higher price than the gpu itself.

Once, there is a professional disk recovery guy tells me that it is possible to recover hard drive files even after "0 format" it up to 7 times. Even if it's not seriously burned, they can still recover most of the stuff. He explained each time a magnetic field state is changed, it leaves trail to the surrounding, that's one of the many ways to get data back.

So, I wonder what do the CIA/federal guys do to clean hard drive before throw them out. Do they format it 8 times and burn with fire, and then put acidic chemical on it, then cut it to 1 million pieces and send it all over the world? Or just use quick format to wipe the table, and that's it?

 

Formatting still leaves data scattered about the drive; stuff that can be reassembled by a patient person with the right tools. Secure deletion involves wiping drives by repeatedly writing random data to the drive. CIA, if anything, probably wipes their drives and then physically damages them. No chance at recovering anything after that.

- F

 

I am talking about more detail stuff here.

Your "formatting" is just deleting the table which is not even really deleting, 0 formats + random write format is the basic of secure format. Physically damage is not enough. It has to be chemically damage and cut into to million of pieces and send the pieces to million different places.

 

Hey buddy, just thought i'd toss on some stuff about WoW Shadows.

My desktop with Dual 8800 GT's has AWFUL flickering with shadows on high, I believe its a problem with WoW so don't worry about that being a problem of the laptop.

 

Reduce picture size?

 

Congrats on the new ride, have fun and do with it as you wish, its yours!

Some good info guys keep it coming!

 

btw,no need to quote pictures too...

OT:thanks for review and nice pictures

 

No, if you have the shadows set at 1/4 of the sliderbar, the flickering stops. It didn't do this with my GO 7950GTX on full shadows.

 

Dude, why? This is a review. Wouldn't you want nice big pics of something you were about to dump ~$2,500 on?

 

There is big, followed by too big.

Yours are a tad too big, you can't see it all on a screen.

A smaller 800x600 or something that linked to a bigger one is the way to do it

 

I can just see them all, and I have WUXGA+!

m17 Extreme CPUs are not allowed to overclock either. Alienware locked the multiplier.

 

Well, three of you can't be wrong. Although I still disagree. I'll fix them.

 

I've dealt and deal in data security. Wiping drives is a world above simple formatting. Wiping involves writing several passes of random data to a drive, the entire drive, until there's absolutely no hope in retrieving the original data, full stop. Consider it the electronic equivalent of incineration, shredding, or even the crude process of scrawling layers of cross-hatched ink over a sentence of writing. The National Security Agency uses wiping as a means of making sensitive data vanish forever, if not making the drives molten by cooking them to death in a furnace.

A combination of wiping and/or extreme physical damage is about as total as it gets in putting away data for good. Anything over and above that makes the process redundant, and perhaps a trifle paranoid.

A touch on the idealistic side, that.

- F

 

They completely destroy the drive. I used to be a "they". Only certain machines are allowed to have restricted or "classified" material on them to start with. Those machines are only allowed to connect to "SIPRNET" which is a government only, secured, intranet. They are also labeled with a HUGE green sticker on the deck that states that it is a classified computer. These machines are monitored closely by the administrator, who has a TSI security clearance. In short, there would be no way of recovering data unless the user assigned to that machine did so before the drive was scheduled to be destroyed. And by doing that, that user would risk many... MANY years in jail for violating the national security oath he or she took prior to having a clearance issued. The feds do not play around with information security.

IMHO.

 

Hello,
This is my first post on this forum.
I received my M17 last week and its configuration is basis everywhere + keyboard backlight.
I was very surprised that your keyboard can switch on in red or green, mine is only blue or disabled.
How did you change backlights colors in red or green?

Thanks for your answer and congratulations for your M17 presentation!

 

Press FN + F10 !

 

Thanks I already have tried it but it only switch on/off

In BIOS I only have enabled/disabled

option too...

 

I was hyped for the m17, but after getting my 1737 T9400 2.53ghz for Christmas, its enough.

But I will jump on a new m17 when the i7 Cores arrive. Plus by then ATI or NVIDIA should have some GPU's whch are 45nm, and stay much cooler than the 3870's

they will have a new mobo be very energy efficient and run circles around any m17 on the market today.

I know my 1737 with Ati 3650 can keep me happy for 10 months.

All I really want to play is Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3

 

Then your illuminated Keyboard is also broken, my Keyboard lights only red!

But, if you wish a red one we can change, i wish a blue one!!

Joke apart, maybe a Keyboard Bios update will fix the problem, KBC 130D should be the newest one!

 

Thanks for the advice!
No I prefer my blue one but I think the green is better to type in the dark!
Where did you find this information about a BIOS update?

 

I think you need to wait 4 more years.... there'll be some better CPU, GPU and motherboard....