So my brand new Alienware M17x R2 arrived on Friday.

I've had a couple issues so far:


1. Alienware Support

Where the hell do I get support? support.alienware.com asks for some Account Number, which, i do not have. Googling this brings up a forum post stating that my Account Number would be in the manual booklet that came with the computer on a little card but I can find no such thing in my manual.

support.dell.com ... well, this asks for an asset tag. And sure enough, there IS an asset tag on the bottom of my computer. But Dell's website rejects it. Is my computer too new?? I can't post the asset tag in here right now -- i'm at work and my computer is at home -- but I can post it to this thread later tonight.


2. Virtualization

This is kind of a deal breaker for me.

I fire up Virtual PC and it tells me I do not have hardware assisted virtualizion enabled. I assume VMware will say the same thing. It says to go to turn it on in BIOS. Except there is no such option in BIOS.

Researching this seems to bring up that a BIOS update for the Original M17x (Update A01 I think) Added in Virtualization Support.

There is no such update for the M17x R2 that provides this.

I need to be able to run Windows 7 XP mode among other things. This really is a deal breaker for me, and if there is no forthcoming update for my laptop that can do this I am going to have to resort to a refund (or at least exchange for a simliar specced laptop that CAN do it..)


3. Hyper Threading

I'd like to be able to turn it off. No, it doesn't make your computer faster. You only have 4 cores and if you think seeing 8 in task manager makes your computer faster you are fooling yourself. 4 cores are 4 cores and can't magically run faster by creating logical or virtual processors. Running CPU intensive tasks on a HT enabled processor ALWAYS runs slower. There's plenty of information, research, and documentation online that supports this. Please go educate yourself and don't go spamming me for being an idiot for wanting to turn HT off.


In summary:

- Turning HT off isn't a deal breaker; not having virtualization is.

- And if anyone can figure out how I can actually contact Dell/Alienware support via email I will.

Thank you for your help, I really do appreciate it. :)  I'm just frustrated I spent $4100NZD on a laptop and have essential features missing :(