Newbie Alienware User - general data performance ?s

Question

Just rec'd my M17x R3 yesterday. Wow, it is beautiful but... it just seems like the hard drive is very slow. Basically, not even close to the performance I was hoping for at any price. I work in IT and just developed our company's OSD mechanism so I am no novice to imaging Windows 7 machines. When I extract say a compressed installation file already on the disk to another folder on the same disk, it seems very sluggish. Almost taking me back to the days of dialup. Windows Update downloads take much longer to complete than on the old x200 Thinkpad I used right next to it (IE 9 download my test example). Has anyone read about or experienced this type of behavior on a M17x? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I have done the following prior to calling Dell Support (which I will probably do tonight). Was hoping someone out there might be able to save me some time on the phone if at all possible. Thanks in advance.

Updated the BIOS from A03 to A04 (which came out this month 4/07/11), checked for recent drivers, Googled all last night and even tried a defrag of the hardrive.

My sepcs are:

1 225-0536 Alienware M17x Soft-Touch, Stealth Black
1 317-6114 Intel Core i7 2720QM 2.2GHz (3.3GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
1 317-6119 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz (4DIMMS)
1 331-1347 Alienware M17x 240W A/C Adapter
1 320-1933 17.3-inch WideFHD1920 x 1080 60Hz WLED
1 320-1938 1.5GB GDDR5 Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M
1 342-2220 750GB 7,200RPM HDD
1 331-1350 Custom Nameplate
1 330-6106 Personalized Nameplate Trigger
1 313-8792 AlienFX Color, Quasar Blue
1 421-4655 Alienware Command Center Software, M17X
1 421-1398 Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate, 64bit, English
1 420-9691 DataSafe Local BackUp
1 420-9956 Vista PC Restore
1 421-0092 DELL-DOWNLOAD-FLAG
1 410-1883 Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.0 Multi-Language
1 318-0396 Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW)
1 421-4541 Roxio Creator Starter,No Media
1 421-4550 Power DVD 9.6, 3D
1 318-0424 Internal High-Definition 5.1 Surround Sound Audio
1 430-4021 MOD,CRD,NTWK,6300,ANW
1 330-6348 Automatic Updates: On
1 939-0320 Dell Hardware Limited Warranty, Initial Year
1 939-0340 Dell Limited Hardware Warranty Plus In-Home Service After Remote Diagnosis, Initial Year

XMill · Answer

Thanks... I thought I checked that but I'm new that command center and could have missed it. I would think that the hard drive would be in high performance mode while plugged in by default. Also, when I initially opened the Command Center program, I clicked the turtorial button. That generate a Flash error and the tutorial still has never displayed yet. Even with the latest version of Flash install. Something about a %variable being invalid. Maybe I'll create another fresh Admin profile and see if that resolves that specific woe. Anyway, if it's a power setting... I'll figure it out.

Thanks again.

GabeZ · Answer

Make sure it's not in stealth mode. Open command center and check the power options.

Edit: The R3 doesn't have stealth mode. Check to see that your power settings are set to "high performance"

Thanks,

Gabe

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Newbie Alienware User - general data performance ?s

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