alienware m17 why im returning it

10 reasons

1. the performance is subpar for dual 3870s a qx9300 4gb dd3 this system seems very sluggish and has problems with simple tasks

2. gaming performance is horrid for all the games i play. it struggles in crysis grid far cry 2 and fallout 3. i love those games and it cant seem to handle them

3. under full load this thing sounds like a jet plane

4. i thought i would like the look but i would be embarrassed to pull this out in public

5. the build quality compaered to the m17x seems very much less

6. lack of drivers on their website is disappointing. i constantly found myself scavenging ocz.com for drivers because aw's are all outdated

7. aw support was bad. i was telling them about the problems and they thought because the synthetic benchmarks were ok i was lying

8. the rubber finish can wear off when gaming or when getting a sweat palm

9. aw allows no tinkering ocing or anything which makes me mad

10. is heavy as heck even heavier then my m1730 i had for a while

i thought alienware was going to deliver me what i want but i guess not. i think im just going to build myself a desktop atleast this way if something i feel is not to standard i have to blame myself. overall my aw experience has been meh. i feel they cover up there flaws with fancy lights and uniqueness. but overall im dissapointed

 

sad to hear that alienware support seems to be lacking in many areas yeah, that is one UGLY machine lol i saw it in person as well i havent met a single person who has one that says they wish they went for the m15x/17x instead im shocked about the performance of the ATI's have you done 3d mark and such?

 

yes i score 13k in 3dmark and they says it an "excellent score" ;/ synthetic benchmarks. aw things they show all truth and even that 13k score is low people with lowest cpu get 12k :/

 

I wouldn't jump ship yet man. The M17 hasn't even had it's one month anniversary. ALL, and I do mean ALL new tech stuff has issues at first. I'm sorry to hear you're not happy. I couldn't be happier. What kind of numbers are you getting in Crysis, at what settings?

 

have you done laptop2go drivers?

 

Whoa, you went from...

too...
returning it??? Sorry to hear you are having problems, what are you looking at now?

 

im doing 1200x1040 on medium and am pullin of 35s-40s but then it dips down to like 18s and such horrible like horrible so yah im returning and im either going to build my own desktop or buy a xps 730x off dell.ca that think is amzing. then later in the year imm probably buy an asus n10 for some light gaming on the go laptop

edit- yes those were my first impressions but now im seeing the issues. the rubber is bad because it will loose grip after a while

 

Yeah and i heard that there are going to support Overclock later. but I think xotix pc or rkcomputers is better than alienware. becuase you can open your computer and remove stuff without voiding you warranty

 

You should be getting 14k with the QX9300 at stock clocks.
Sorry to hear, I know it underperforms at Crysis and FarCry 2 (don't know about Fallout3, I'll have to ask in the OCZ section), but it's been pretty much confirmed that the 4870 (x2) will be offered as an upgrade for W840 based notebooks early on next year. But then again, you'll still be limited somewhat seeing as the ALienware BIOS locks the CPU multipliers.

 

This is my first AW product. Have they always disallowed overclocking on their laptops? I also heard that AW will allow OCing in the future. What is the difference between the AW M17 and the OCZ Whitebook? I just built the OCZ over at XoticPC, and the same specs I have with my M17 costed more on the OCZ. Plus the OCZ came with no OS. That's another couple of hundred bucks. If the M17 is a rebranded OCZ Whitebook (which it appears to very much be), why couldn't the OCZ BIOS be flashed to the M17? Please don't reply with the obvious voiding of the AW warranty. And what kind of gains are to be had with OCing the CPU, if it were possible?

 

What other games have you tried. don't base it off of just 3 games. and this might be a stupid question but did you set your power setting to high performance instead of balance.

 

yes they are but i was expecting to atleast play on high settings at a low res. these 3870s are just bad in games that arnt designed for them. only one that it seems to best fast in is devil may cry 4 which i dont really like.

yes power is on hp

also aw commander center is really messed up and this is awer response "there might be a new one in a couple months" :/ alienfailure

 

Aside from potentially voiding your warranty if it's not done right, flashing your M17 BIOS with that from OCZ could also void your Windows Vista license because Vista would think that it's a different system.

As far as OCing the CPU goes, it really depends on the game. It could be anywhere from 1-10% gain in overall performance.

 

Nevermind. I just found E-Wrecked's thread that clearly states the OCZ BIOS can be flashed to the M17 with no issues. Will be flashing it tomorrow, and then OCing the p!$$ out of that X9100. E-Wrecked has gotten his OCZ WB pushing 16K 3DMarks. Since the M17 is the same machine, I hope to achieve something in the 15-16K range.

Jelly, I'm telling you, don't get rid of your M17.

 

JellyBeans, is there any other games that you tried on your system.

 

yes grid ut3. grid lags like no 2morow even on mid setting ut3 plays "ok though"

 

Curiously can you OC any processor? or are you stuck with the extreme series for overclocking?

 

Try updating your gpu.
http://www.driverheaven.net/
Or your chipset.

 

Jellybeans---Couple of ?s
You are going back to Dell after you cancelled your first order? (remember those 8700MGT sli will NOT out perform what you have with the M17 ATI’s dual 3870) another $700 samollias for the Dual GeForce 8800M GTX on the Dell.

Also as said before more support will be out for the ATI on the M17 in the future, but if you want to play these titles full MAX on a laptop you will need to MAX out your options with the cpu and vid card when buying again, then empty your pocket book laying down the cash…?

 

His system is Max out option from AW. qx9300+3870cf. what's Max out that you said?.

 

lol @ juice

um i maxed out the m17 and it still performs horrible.

im going to get a 730x desktop from dell. the h2c cooling is amazing i bet i can hit 5ghtz with the i7 965

 

Would be referring to the Dell M1730 or M17x…fully maxed out on the video and cpu.

A bit surprised with your setup you are having such issues on your M17.

 

i know very unforteunate and strang i feel like im beta testing the m17

 

Oh...we are young grasshopper...we are...

 

Just to clarify, you've updated all drivers, etc., with the newest available? And I don't mean the stuff off of the AW website. I got my video driver from the OCZ website.

And he's right, you can't base your machine's performance on two or three different games.

In the end it's your call though.

 

Yep those were / are my main problems with the M9750 (pretty much same chassis but slimmer. I keep on telling everyone here that I'm embarrassed to pull this thing out in public so I'm glad that someone else shares that with me now.

 

i purchased my M17 about a week ago.
this thread is kinda scary...
does anyone have anything good to say about this laptop?

 

Yes, any positive experiences out there?

 

Well personally I like the build quality of my M9750 a lot and I love the screen on it. The M9750 and the M17 are similar in chassis design so hopefully all of you guys will like it. The matte finish is nice however on my previous one I did notice that when I carried it around the rubber finish wore off slowly.

 

the other thing im dissapointed in is no command center for alien fx the alien in the back stays the color you choise and there no lights on the touch pad. i also frogot to mention that aw tapped my keyboard....

 

The tapped your keyboard or they taped it?

But yea that sucks.

 

oh oops i meant taped haha =D

yea i was EXTREMELY angry when i saw that. returned the dell m1730 because of quality and thinking aw would have much better. i guess not :C

 

its official aw called me and the m17 is going back to the mothership. I dont have to pay anything cause ive tried to troubleshoot and of all the issues. If you have to pay or not is determined by what your case.

 

Glad to hear you had no problem, whats not so funny I wonder who's laptop your video cards will go into so it can be completed in production...slightly used

 

As far as I'm concerned, anyone that consciously buys a gamer targeted machine like the M17 and doesn't even entertain the idea of overclocking it has clearly wasted his money.

Reason? Either you're content with its performance when pushed by the likes of Crysis, or you don't push the machine to its limits, see no reason for overclocking as a result and so on impulse have bought more machine that you require.

- F

 

Could be wrong but is heat the major reason why companies don't want you to overclock? I'm guessing that's the big issue.

 

Companies don't want you to overclock because if they blanket allow it, a lot will attempt it, a lot may succeed and a few may **** things up. It's the latter that Alienware is afraid of, otherwise I doubt they care what you do with your hardware. After all, it's their bottom line that's at stake.

But yeah, next to water and electromagnets, heat is electronics' worst enemy.

- F

 

lol alienware should make liquid cooled notebooks

 

Agreed.

jelly, the issue with the low scores on 3dmark and such is a BIOS issue. Theres another member in the OCZ forum that had the exact same problem. His BIOS needed to be updated to allow for full use of the quad-core setup. Currently, you're wasting money with AW to purchase a qx9300 - It's stuck @ 2.53GHz! Why not buy a non extreme if they don't allow the multiplier changes? Im not saying that you should, because I dont want you to lose the warranty. But, you *could* flash the BIOS in order to unlock your CPU. That thing will go up to 3.4GHz via BIOS alone. Then, you'll notice screaming performance. Right now your CPU is only pushing around 2500-3000 in 3dmark06. It should be pushing 4k+ with no extra cooling or mods. That's a substantial difference my friend. If you're interested in squeazing a little extra out of the machine, or even interested in the BIOS.. check out a lil thread I'm working on.
This thread will provide you the info..if you use it, that's at your discretion.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=325944

Also, I am adding a new 8.11 DNA-Beta driver that KillerSneak did up for me Here's the link for the driver download for Vista - http://www.donotargue.com/forums.php?m=posts&p=2847#2847

 

the dna driver link is not working.

 

thanks ewrecked uve seen to have alot of success with your notebook i wish they had an xotic in canada. alienware is so tight on their warranty its disapointing ive already customized my dell xps 730x so as soon as i get the money 2morrow i will be ordering it.

 

if u buy a car and you tweaked the engine by changing the chip altering the computer timing and stuff like that will void warranty, i don't see why Alienware should give warranty if you are altering the performance of the rig.

Over Clocking it - the word "OVER CLOCKING" is pretty scary in it self and the word itself will void warranty in consumer law.

Over clocking is not a fancy term it is over clocking your clock.

AW is right not allowing people to over clock. If you buy a rig and still have to OC then you are buying the wrong computer. Be it gaming or not.

 

Is that so? The Extreme CPU is meant to be overclocked. Hence the unlocked multipliers. So, why would you sell a computer, meant to be overclocked but not allow it? Doesn't make any sense. The x9100 and the qx9300 should not be available thru AW if they don't support the CPU. Actually, it seems as though they have gone out of their way NOT to support the CPUs. Because the Arima/OCZ BIOS that ships from manufacturing has it supported. But, AW takes that away from you and still sells you the CPU with hopes that one day they may support it.

 

Dude,sorry, extreme parts , X`s, are SUPOSE to be OCed, that`s why they`re extreme.
AW has some subs up their arses since they make low quality cooling systems...

 

Extreme processors are made to be overclocked as the previous 2 people said before me.

 

Does anyone have a m17 that can really prove its just one faulty machine not them all? because i might be ordering one sometime soon...and i thought performance was supposed to be phenomenal

 

I dont beleive that it's faulty machines.. however, it may be faulty users.

 

Well, I just broke the 15K barrier in 3DMark'06 about 10 minutes ago. My machine is good.

http://service.futuremark.com/home.action;jsessionid=57C512623D03FD3B08E01534DF13A06C

You're the man E-Wrecked.

 

Niice. You might want to change your sig cause you have the X9100 now

 

you're welcome.