Alienware M17X All Powerfull IS IT REALLY???

It appears that my post has been deleted, although I don't believe it breached the Forum Rules, it must be that Dell didn't want people to read the negative user experience, and lack of action being taken. I wish they would be as responsive in attempting to resolve our issues once they have taken the £4k ... (whoops there goes this Post probably! )

I'm copying back in here the CPUID H/WMonitor temps for comparison after playing The Witcher v1.5 for the last several hours all maxxed out settings (1920x1200) and got the following temps FYI:

Degrees C Min/Max (Stock / No Overclocking)

ACPI Tz00 : 47 / 65

QX9300 Core 0 : 45 / 67

QX9300 Core 1 : 45 / 65

QX9300 Core 2 : 44 / 64

QX9300 Core 3 : 45 / 67

GeForce 9400 : 62 / 78 (probably the hottest component!)

GTX280M #1 : 41 / 72

GTX280M #2 : 42 / 71

Generally smooth playing but occasional slowdown/crawl to <3 fps (which could be either driver or Vista).

FurMark 1.7 is another good way to test the max temp of the GPUs - mine maxxed around 79-81 after leaving for 10 mins and held roughly level around there. My M17x sits on a large hard lapdesk so it has plenty of air around it fyi..

Freestylaruk - I indeed hope the occasional FPS drop is some background process going on. I look forward to W7U. One other symptom I get is occasional H/D 'clunk' (like head parking) during normal surfing mode that does likewise cause the occasional 1-2 sec pause/freeze. I have run HD diags without anything appearing so far, but it did give me some concern in case this might be indicative of a faulty drive - I had mentioned this to tech support when I first called them a couple of weeks ago. I have 2 x 500GB in 1TB RAID 0 config.

Cheers

Trelawney

Trelawney,

HDD's should not knock, bottom line, it is one of the criteria of the HDD manufacturing process under quality control when the drives are tested and rated.

HDD's have a certain noise threshold, they have to be within that, NO knocking and efficient quiet read / write access as well as power and heat usage / dissipation criteria. Read up on any HDD faults.......if your HDD is knocking or making any clunk sounds loud pitter patter when reading/writing even if the knocking be very slight can be or may be a sign that the HDD is on its way out, it may still last a good few months depending on use. It could be anything within the drive causing this, the heat, pressure, the heads, the platters. The reading heads are jumping and knocking around hard over the platters searching for data or parking after some long drawn aggressive search. For example after I suffered so many crashes, my hard drive went into some continuous mode where it was tittering non stop activity even at idle with loud knocks/clunks every 30-60seconds.....I didnt ignore it and it still worked, I looked into it with depth, to ease the load and stress on the HDD I disabled Superfetch in Vista which helped but that is when I realised, the HDD was trying to re-organize and search for things and was struggling to index or organize itself, the crashes, the overheated environment and knocks and clunks meant one thing from experience, a damaged drive (I have been there before loud clunks and then a few months down the road a total sudden failure). Proof of this is, when the HDD was changed upon my complaints, I have had one slight knock right at the begining when first installed, but not since, and they sound much quieter that I cant really hear them anymore, which is how they are supposed to be. Heat is not a good thing for HDD's, they should be running at around the 35-45C normal range 50C and above and that is going into the upper orange red ranges, unless if military or specialist grade which they are not.

Freestylaruk

Hi Freestylaruk

I'm not sure what I hear can be classed as knocking during normal ops or games. - More like very occasional head-parking sound 99% of time in near idle situations, or when casual browsing. I was wondering if this might be SMART testing, but no issues appear during any diagnostics.

Unfortunately HDTune Pro can't do tell much about the drive status (apart from benchmarking which although this proved quite poor against my WD Caviar Black WD3200BJKT on my old Dell M1710 - great drive!). Personally I think this is due to the M17x nVidia controller in RAID mode hiding the drive info from HD Tune incl. SMART under "Health" - although nVidia Control Panel tests show SMART passes on both M17x drives.

You sound like you have a lot of h/w knowledge & experience there!

Regards

Trelawney

You are right generally head parking is where that knock occurs or when the drive goes from idle to read access i.e. head leaving parked position, however nowadays drives do not knock and shouldnt knock unless there is some serious drive access going on upon a hard drive that has not been defragged for a long time if ever or there is a problem or damage.

I have enough knowledge to understand how todays machines should work and what they should be capable of (I hope to think so), no expert as such but get by quite easily. I am still waiting for that call from Customer Care for nearly a week now for my promised full refund on my M17X, due to all the problems I have had. 8th Week into now and counting.......

You might want to check out the notebookreview forum for the Alienware M17X (Largest community online for the M17X), all the overclockers are struggling to get the machine to perform be it CPU or on the GPU. The Sager & Clevo crowd with similar hardware have managed to overclock similar laptops (Same CPU & GPU's) to 3.5Ghz with 3Dmark scores nearly twice that of what the M17X is managing at the moment, however with additional coolers "NZXT Cryo LX Cooler" underneath have managed to push to 3.6Ghz stable for a QX9300 2.53Ghz Quad Core Extreme in a laptop platform, that is serious quad power and what I was looking for. The most the M17X can do is hit a pathetic 2.8-2.93Ghz with some instances of 3.06 & even a 3.2Ghz and then only with repeated blue screens when running benchmarks or demanding apps above the 2.53Ghz stock. Useless so far to say the least to have the overclocking facility. The M17X was designed for maximum push on boundaries. Believe it or not the old M17's are running better and faster than the new M17X with older CPU's & GPU's in SLi. even they are making fun of the new M17X in the forums online.............it may have been better possibly going for a dual core with the higher CPU speed at 2.8Ghz, and not forgetting far cheaper. Most who have purchased a QX9300 2.53Ghz Quad Core Extreme do not realise this CPU should be able to go easily to 3.5Ghz and run stable with no problems, it is pointless having it and running it at stock 2.53Ghz in my opinion. The other point to note is that the Nvidia dual SLi 280M GPU's are not mobile versions of the desktop Geforce GTX 280 cards, are being sent out already pretty much at maximum clocked speeds for the 280M (Which I believe is a shrunk version of a Nvidia 9800 GTX+), any attempts to clock higher and again people are suffering freezes and blue screens.

Mine is going back, no matter what..........when it has gone back and a refund has been processed, I will probably just go for one of the competitors, since they have machines that can really be pushed proper with stability from what I can see so far, pretty much the same hardware infact probably better motherboards and also some have a third HDD slot, better screens, yes only downside they look ugly and generally I cant find many people having issues or being upset. I think the M17X has got some serious way to go to claim that "ALL POWERFULL" title if it ever will or can. I dont think It ever had it in the first place! just hype over the physical looks & colourful lighting effects. Looks like the way things are going by the time I get that refund, I may be able to get the next round of laptops entering the market with i7 CPU's and possibly better GPU's, have to wait and see.

I have looked into the NZXT Cooler, triple fan, usb powered or power from the wall, might be handy to have one of them for the future new laptop.

Freestylaruk

Hi there Striker,

Been busy with business end of things past few days, but still waiting on that promised refund for my M17X from Dell / Alienware, update as follows for all.....even though they have sat with me for well over 40 hours on the phone with an identical machine getting the same poor performance and results, so they have proof that I was not lying or making it up, secondly, sent pictures of the poor screen brightness issues compared to my old, but still strong going Toshiba Qosmio, third that Alienware / Dell Tech Support have many times confirmed to me on the phone that the M17X has unresolved complications and issues with CPU, GPU performance and heat that at this moment in time Alienware / Dell are still working upon i.e. acknowledging my problems in full and that they have changed my HDD's and GPU's, coupled with the fact that I am not the only one with these issues, so much so that nowadays this has happened a few times to me now, when you ring Tech Support they automatically know your ringing them about an issue with an Alienware M17X, they ask you "Hello Tech Support...name....how can I help you" and then "is your problem related to an M17X"!!? I call and only have to say "Hello"...........listen and then "Yes" lolol. Anyhow they are now stating they need a technician who has to come out to "confirm the poor performance with the laptop"...????, I told them a technician can visit to confirm everything as they wish, however I now wanted written confirmation that once he does visit and confirms the findings that they already have, it would be the last visit, the last headache and that I get a full refund as promised to me a few weeks back.

I was told they cannot provide written confirmation that I get my refund if the technician confirms the same findings already confirmed with Tech Support......so I am not sure where this is going anymore, looks like a long wait to a likely and eventual refund but they need to waste more time and effort around it, to get to it. I dont believe it is worth a second more of my time personally too busy with the business etc, but I have to get the money back, hence sadly have to keep progressing as slow as it is.

Spoken to my Credit Card company, they told me not to worry, they are used to this kind of thing all the time. The CC company want me to write to them, forward all the emails/pics and details to them, will link these gaming threads as well as the notebookreviewforum for the Alienware M17X as well. They are very confident on finding the resolve I am after. Looks like Alienware do not want to hand back the money. Unfortunately at this moment in time, I am stuck with a "good looking" laptop that is collecting dust on my coffee table, worthless, ok I shouldnt paint it such a bad picture, I can use it for web surfing with a dull screen if I wanted to, but I cannot use it for proper gaming and more importantly work, I am not risking any of my work being business docs, emails, graphics, CAD etc. In all I think I have respawned my system about 40ish times since I have had it (approx 9-10 Wks since reciept) lost count of the crashes and freezes on heavy demanding apps. So far most of my time and effort was spent in trying to re-load and tweak, re-load and tweak repeatedly, thankfully no critical or work related stuff was lost. The machine cannot handle anything heavy for prolonged periods. Cant handle any overclocked setting at all, anything above 2.53Ghz stock results in a freeze or crash.

I think the Tech Support guys are too embarrased, I think they just dont have the correct protocols to follow with cases like mine or maybe they do, which is keep the customer hanging on in there until they change more parts, possible replacement, new drivers, anything... but a refund......who knows?

I am kinda dreading the day now that I picked up that phone so casually and made that order on my way to the office lol, should have waited at least 6 months at least, checked up on the forums and made my decision based upon the feedback out there........9-10 weeks now with all the headaches...... the technician was supposed to call today to arrange the big "confirmation of faults" ........surprisingly no one called to arrange the time.

I have found many M17X users tending to accept the crashes, freezes, lack of performance, continous tweaking with minimal results, reloads, reboots, etc etc etc......I have never had to do this with any of my older laptops, one start from the box, load your programmes and use the machine as it was designed for and much more ( I have 20 or so from netbooks, media, gaming, to mobile touch screen tablets), the peaks for the hardware are out there and comparisons are now also out on benchmarks. If you are serious like me about hardware and performance from what you buy, the M17X is a very very poor attempt to match true power & performance. For those that want to walk around feeling like they have the most expensive laptop around with this in it and that in it and a colourful keyboard........well yes it is all that, and that is ALL it is............. it doesnt do anything better by much than any of my older machines and yet it should be killing them, it compares badly even to Alienwares older laptops on performance??? Crysis Warhead, Microsoft FSX, Call Of Duty WAW, AUTOCAD and other 3D / Cad Apps etc all run fine with high FPS good smooth quality graphics on my Toshiba Qosmio and even my Toshiba Portege tablet PC!! and most even run on my netbook!!! as a test run with an intel atom processor!!! laughable stuff!!! but at much lower resolutions obviously..........there is NO WOW factor in the M17X being able to run any such programs at low resolutions or lower quality graphics (The basic onboard GPU in the M17X in non SLi can and will run most of the games & apps (TRY IT and then ask yourselves)) it is when you turn up the volume and crank up settings to the full resolution, full quality graphics under SLi and kick in the dual 280m GPU's and tweak the individual programs with all the AA, DX, and various other settings to get the best performance for that app etc, is where the machine falls flat on it's face ....PERIOD. Isnt it obvious enough to all out there when you switch that onboard GPU off and kick those dual 280m's in and run the heavy apps and programs, you should be expecting some serious improvements and then further if you purchased an M17X with the Quad Core QX9300 extreme CPU running apps designed for multi core, multi threaded utilisation expecting even more performance.......the actual improvement was so slight in some if not most cases even playing with the settings and lower resolutions, one could say, barely noticable, compared to the single onboard GPU. It all boils down to that magic word that all circuits run from HEAT...........like I have stated in my older post with the Heat issues. 

All or any claim to "ALL POWERFULL" is out of the window for the M17X, I think most people like us who bought the maxxed version know it, but are too heart achingly torn after spending so much money to say it or acknowledge it or believe by pressing another button here or mouse click there will eventually make the problems go away or maybe even aliens might jump out from the machine :-), its one of those spent all that money and embarrassed to admit it was a big mistake thing deep down. Any PC that requires so much time in just trying to get it to run stable at stock settings (not even going into the overclocked scene here) with basic setup is a clear sign it is not working as it should be. Would any of you buy a new top end Lamborghini sportscar and then try to go 150mph on an empty long motorway without cameras or police (after running it in ofcourse), knowing it should be capable of more with ease and still keep it even if it couldnt hit any where near the 150mph .... just because of it's looks when parked up or for people to see you running to the local shops at 10mph..............WELL?...........the problem is, not many people can drive at 150mph+ or have the opportunity to drive at 150mph+......so they do not know any better and think they have a fast car based upon the looks......until they get overtaken and try to keep up then think why did they not manage to keep up with what they know is a slower car?, but by then it's too late, you never noticed or raise the problem when you first got your car, so by default it was always working...... So the problem is or becomes yours rather than theirs.

Been in excess of 250mph :-)  .....performance is everything, the machine has to be working properly as designed, if it is, you can, to an extent "safely" do such things and it will be your error if something goes wrong but an experience to say the least, if it is not working properly there is no opportunity to experience such things just a dream and a risk. Maybe a poor example but crystal clear in what I am trying to say. I like to push what I buy to the max and I like to buy when I can, something that can be pushed to the max, yes fingerprints and scratches annoy me, thats just me, but when it comes to pushing that pedal, is the very reason to make and the very reason I made the purchase in the first place not for that 10mph show trip to buy a pint of milk from the locals......

Freestylaruk

Im the same way. Im afriad their going to put my m17x together poorly because i complained about the time, I mean really though 2 months for a laptop is ridiculous... I mean lets be real, its not TRUE alienware anymore, Its a dell. china/korea... They dont care.

I should ahve done more research... If I knew that Dell/alienware would have done this.. china/korea as well, I would have never ordered in the first place. I Didnt go dual 280m, I went dual 260 sli... Still though, my laptop is 2800$... Spose to be here on the "11th" Which I doubt it will, going ot be pushed back again I'm sure and they are just going to give me another excuse and not let me be able to cancel it.

 

 

I got this feeling that its going to be exactly like you said... To embarrased to show that I paid 2,800$ for something that performs poorly then my old p4 512 meg ram desktop.. I worked hard for this money... and this is what I'm going to get in return =\

 

 

Striker,

I wouldnt panic so much just yet, who knows you may be getting an updated, revised, fixed, fine tuned, tested, better components, better fans, proper heat sink compounds used rather than heat pads in yours etc etc etc........i.e. after us dummies who ran out and bought the first ones right off the assembly line, I am sure AW/Dell have learnt something in the past few months and must be trying to improve as time progresses, it may be the very reason yours has been delayed, in a way If I were you, I may be a little confident in that there maybe a little hope yours may perform better than the first runs off the mill. Fingers crossed.........I would like you to post your opinions when you get yours. I dont think anyone will purposely send you a poor machine dont worry about that, just hope your not sent a refurbished machine i.e. where another has had a replacement and then they tidy up and send you the one that was sent back.......its one of those sad facts of life.

You see the likes of me can never know if there actually has been a change of motherboard or components, better fans, better assembly in later machines which is the very reason they can have their prototype back from me after all the headaches and testing done for them. I have said it before a few times, they released the M17X far too early at the customers expense to finalise operational design and performance in my opinion.

Not sure as to who they think they are since Dell bought them another "Microsoft" with countless updates every time you switch the machine on and if you call tech support and they just arrange a change of parts everytime you run into problems etc......its hardware they are selling not software and should have been tested to the max in both stock and overclocked settings, they should have been able to provide what the maximum overclock ranges are and the settings for them since at this moment in time nothing is stable above the 2.53Ghz on the QX9300 Extreme Quad Core hence I am not sure why the M17X was unlocked for overclocking???? it should have been working as advertised and per the reviews they have put out there with all the advertised perks etc out of the box without the major problems encountered by all so far. Most dont even know they are showing off a glorified average rate laptop. The ones that do, half are still looking for mouse click and button press fixes with Tech Support wasting hours and days for nothing and AW/Dell fully know it, where as the real crux of the problem is a combination of incompatibility on hardware, just about capable drivers, major heat issues, poor screens (I do not believe they are dual bulb as advertised, if they are then one isnt working), poor assembly, possible cheap and quick methods utilised within assembly, over hype, unjustified premium for the brand i.e. price is not worth anywhere near for what the M17X is doing at the moment.

You can buy a Maingear top end redlined desktop (THE MOST POWERFUL PC) built, overclocked, i7 Extreme Core CPU's  with the best of the best triple SLi GTX 295's, 12Gb DDR3, quad 10000 rpm HDDs and serious cooling kits all in ready for you to just switch on for less than the M17X half wit of a laptop in comparison. Yes you cant compare a laptop with desktop but I am making the point of the price they are charging for something that does not work is baffling and amazingly bold to me.......in truth I cant believe they are getting away with it unless we just dont know the real picture and maybe more like me will come out of the woodwork and admit errrrrrrrr yep I also spent a fortune and ummmm not sure what I have ended up with.

Go online and type Alienware Problems, Poor, Heat, etc as keywords.......... In my opinion all this dust will settle, I think say towards October/November when Windows 7 rolls out there is going to be a better M17X out, that may be working properly with all the tweaks and tuning and component upgrades needed, it will appear exactly as the one I have been sent, but the difference will be mine will always have issues as a primary test bed whilst the later release will hopefully work...........if they do not fix the problems........I fail to see how the M17X with its current range of problems and issues is going to make AW a global brand as they want to believe...........they will be like they always were small and trying, I am sure Dell are watching the road ahead with keen minds.

Freestylaruk

Maingear's laptop look great and perform great, nothing but good reports.

When I get my m17x, If I even sense one problem, Im demanding a full refund. And I'm not paying any restock fee. And I'm buying maingear's new laptop

 

Sorry Dell/Alienware, But your doing it to yourself.

Wow... simply.. wow... Remeber guys, I ordered on the 8th of AUGUST...

 

Remember how they pushed it back? to me getting it later? And I called and complained, and they said I couldnt cancel my order, and that it will be here on th 11th of Sept?

 

Welp, Geuss what, I look to at it again today.. they pushed it back again, Good ol October the 2nd...

 

WHAT??!?!?

 

Ok another update for all out there.................................

After having sent a firm email copying in my accounts manager and two global email addresses for tech support that I had, seemed to awake the fact that the promised engineer / technician visit had not taken fruit yet, to confirm the faults with my M17X, that had already been fully acknowledged and confirmed with Tech Support over the past three months. After another week of waiting the engineer / technician finally called on Monday 14th Sep just gone. Not heard anything in return yet, despite the engineer / technician confirming bottom line that my M17X is not working and not fit for purpose and fully acknowledging everything I had already passed onto tech support over the past 12 weeks or so. I have sent copies of all my minidump files the following day after the engineer / technicians visit and screenshots of the long list of faults and errors in the "Problems & Solutions" window under the Control Panel after my last respawn, just to back up everything I have been stating from day one , before I lose them i.e. respawn a final time, find whatever packaging has been kept in the office and get ready to await a pick up to send back the machine for good.

I challenged the engineer / technician to overclock my M17X and we couldnt get anything past the stock 2.53Ghz apart from a blue screen of death or a freeze at the windows load up or when trying to run a bench mark. I have called Tech Support today and once again repeated my request of many many weeks ago for a full refund as promised to me, I have been told the main man who can make the final decision is not around (I had been told the decision had been accepted and was being processed many weeks ago, obviously not) but he will be passed on the message and will be calling me back.

Hoping they keep their word in that a final visit for the above engineer / technician was required to confirm all the various faults, which he has and once they had been confirmed for the umpteenth time, I would be given the requested and accepted full refund. I will post more details as time progresses........what a nightmare this has turned out to be!

Freestylaruk

Final update from me, on this whole saga with my fully loaded Alienware M17X.

Finally returned the laptop and recieved a full unconditional refund, cleared onto my credit card, after over 3 mths of headache and no use of the machine. Thankgod.

The M17X I was sent was not capable to perform properly at all, still believe Dell / Alienware have many issues since the forums are still using workarounds, disabling this and that, which for that kind of money was out of the question for me. No longer a Dell / Alienware customer for now, will wait & keep an eye on what becomes of the M17X or newer laptop models before I consider buying myself a much needed power laptop again, have got my eye on a few Core i7 laptops out there, but want to wait for things to get a little mainstream before jumping in, do not want to make the same mistake again (ever). Will suffice with my older laptops for now.

I still needed a power machine badly, my workload had suffered greatly due to the M17X I was sent, thus had no choice & 3 wks ago I ordered a new desktop rig, had it a couple days now :-) WOW is the only word for it. The new rig (bespoke build) Vista Ultimate, Core i7 975 Extreme, easy one touch overclock to 4.20Ghz at the moment with room for more (Shows 8 threads), Dual GTX 295's for the meantime in Quad SLi (but awaiting the new GTX 300's when Nvidia decide to release might have to wait a couple months), Asus Rampage 2 Extreme motherboard, Creative XiFi Sound Card, 12GB Corsair Dominator Aircooled Ram, 2TB HDD with capacity to add 5 more(going SSD Soon), Blue Ray RW with Lightscribe, NZXT LX Sentry Fan Controller, Watercooled with Swiftech CPU block, pump, dual fan radiator & waterbay all held within a Coolermaster Cosmos S tower and some nice user chosen fixed/changing colour led lighting internally, cost me less than the M17X all in with money to spare!!! and well over 10 times the performance, beats any Alienware desktop EASILY too and looks better than any of the new desktops in my opinion. Truly unbelievable when running Microsoft FSX with REX loaded onto it. Not had a chance to fully test the rig or tweak properly yet, but when I have time, aim to hit top scores in 3D Mark Vantage top ten hall of fame on the P rating. In the upper top 20 at the moment (unsubmitted) run done at 4.2Ghz, no GPU overclock, completely stable, temps at average 52C-57C at Full load on all 4 cores/8 threads. The big tower is also far quieter than the M17X I had, at full loadings LOLOL :-).

For the kind of money Alienware are charging for there laptops and desktops the top 20 on 3D Mark Vantage's website should have alot of Alienware's in there.....(not a single one to be seen from what I can see, they must be, way on down).

Can say I am a happy man now, not because of the new rig, thats secondary, as I still need a power laptop, but because I got my money back (every penny!!), the only nice thing to say about my M17X is, "it looked nice". The purchase lost me well over a week off work in addition to all the headaches. Lesson learnt, to be one of the first to run in and buy on hype. Sadly the M17X did not prove itself to me despite trying everything, there was just too many workarounds being pushed around and no cures however hope Alienware get their act together, will not be long before designer casings for laptops enter the market and you just choose your bespoke build, like the new tower I just had done, for far less money just as good looking & much more spank for your buck.

Regards To All

Freestylaruk

Shame it had to happen that way, but at least you are happy now.

From what I see of Alienware's new desktop offerings I'm glad I got my ALX X58 when I did.

So glad to see you FINALLY got your money back. 

My new laptop froze last week while playing Oblivion the game.  OK.  And I mean froze.  So had to do a restore from my Alien re-spawn.  This is the NEW laptop I got for the other lemon M17x.  I'm stuck now and hope this one lasts and doesn't fail.

Your new laptop sounds fabulous!  Good for you.