definitely go for a m17x r4, they are slightly lighter than the previous gen and flatter and more sleek, the m18x i found was extremely bulky and hard to hold. had mine since july and loved every second of it. for anyone struggling to find a good deal on the outlet, im selling mine for 1300. it has a 3820qm 16gb ram 680gtx and bluray. want to sell it because im building a home gym and its literally sat here diminishing over time as i dont use it so much.
Alienware m18x or m17x r4?
- Thread starter MINUS12
- Start date
It has been delivered today but I haven't seen it yet.
I've been trying out the Inspiron 7720 over the weekend and I like it a lot more with the backlit keyboard. It looks much nicer than the non-backlit one, although it's still not very nice to type on. I got an i5 and an i7 version to see if I would notice the difference, but I've only tried the i5 one so far, and have only been web browsing so it has obviously been ok for that. The one thing that I have noticed is that the battery life is terrible! On a full charge it lasts less than 2 hours, which is about half of what the M17x does.
Anyone manage to snag the 680M on the Outlet today?
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- 31 Aug 2012
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- 163
Thanks for that Rob. Can't wait to receive my 7720 which I'm hoping will be delivered sometime this week. Mine doesn't have a backlit kb. Can they easily be exchanged as I've always found having a backlit KB is a very worthwhile extra?
Didn't manage to get anything today but some really nice systems there, though all a bit out of my price range anyway, lol.
Didn't manage to get anything today but some really nice systems there, though all a bit out of my price range anyway, lol.
Had a quick look at the M17 that arrived yesterday. It's in good nick apart from a few scratches on the plastic bits at the front. After getting used to the red one, the black case seems a bit dull though. I will have to run some benchmarks later as it's the same spec as my current one apart from the graphics card.
I like the new packaging they are using at the outlet. The laptop is encased in a kind of sturdy bubble wrap type plastic envelope, rather than the awkward stretched plastic job they used before.
I like the new packaging they are using at the outlet. The laptop is encased in a kind of sturdy bubble wrap type plastic envelope, rather than the awkward stretched plastic job they used before.
There's one in my basket right now.
Base Alienware M17X R4
Processor Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-3610QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.3GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0
Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium
Memory 8 GB DDR3 Dual Channel 1600MHz Memory (2 DIMMs) [QTY : 2 ]
Hard Disk Drive 500 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
Media Bay 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
NoteBook Screen Display : 17.3 Inch Wide Full High Definition (1920X1080) WLED
Video Graphics : 2 GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M
Software English Genuine Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium (64Bit OS)
Network Interface Card Wireless : Intel 2230 Wireless Card + BT
System Color AlienFX Colour : Astral Aqua
LCD Back Cover : Soft Touch – Stealth Black
Laptop Battery Battery : Primary 9-cell 90W/HR LI-ION
Keyboard Internal Qwerty Keyboard
Hardware Upgrade Camera : Integrated Skype HD Certified FullHD Camera with dual digital Microphones
Adapters 240W A/C Adapter
Subtotal £970.20 including delivery. Not buying it after all as i would like a 7970. Let me know if anyone wants it otherwise its going out of my basket in 15 minutes.
Base Alienware M17X R4
Processor Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-3610QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.3GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0
Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium
Memory 8 GB DDR3 Dual Channel 1600MHz Memory (2 DIMMs) [QTY : 2 ]
Hard Disk Drive 500 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
Media Bay 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
NoteBook Screen Display : 17.3 Inch Wide Full High Definition (1920X1080) WLED
Video Graphics : 2 GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M
Software English Genuine Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium (64Bit OS)
Network Interface Card Wireless : Intel 2230 Wireless Card + BT
System Color AlienFX Colour : Astral Aqua
LCD Back Cover : Soft Touch – Stealth Black
Laptop Battery Battery : Primary 9-cell 90W/HR LI-ION
Keyboard Internal Qwerty Keyboard
Hardware Upgrade Camera : Integrated Skype HD Certified FullHD Camera with dual digital Microphones
Adapters 240W A/C Adapter
Subtotal £970.20 including delivery. Not buying it after all as i would like a 7970. Let me know if anyone wants it otherwise its going out of my basket in 15 minutes.
Hi guys,
I formatted on the weekend, and the 'Turbo boost' technology doesn't appear to be doign anything.
It's switched on in the BIOS, running prim95 doesn't even seem to invoke the turbo boost and it remains at 2.3ghz.
before formatting, using CPUZ it was showing as 3.2/3.3ghz (whatever it is the 3610 goes upto!)
Any ideas?
Tommy
I formatted on the weekend, and the 'Turbo boost' technology doesn't appear to be doign anything.
It's switched on in the BIOS, running prim95 doesn't even seem to invoke the turbo boost and it remains at 2.3ghz.
before formatting, using CPUZ it was showing as 3.2/3.3ghz (whatever it is the 3610 goes upto!)
Any ideas?
Tommy
Guys - just a price check
basic Alienware M17 R4 i7 3630, 6GB, 500GB Ram, 7970M (No Bluray) for £1,150.00 - Is this a good deal? Its basically from a friend of mine.. its brand new and its not from the outlet. Its just sitting there unopened and i am tempted....
basic Alienware M17 R4 i7 3630, 6GB, 500GB Ram, 7970M (No Bluray) for £1,150.00 - Is this a good deal? Its basically from a friend of mine.. its brand new and its not from the outlet. Its just sitting there unopened and i am tempted....
my new r4 didnt come with a mouse pad, i know other people who bought it told me not to buy one seperately as the one that comes with it is really good, can anyone confirm that you got a mouse pad free with your laptop (as dell claim you have to buy one) , dell are really starting to wind me up now, the blu ray player wont burn, i was told i would get software with it to play movies on blu ray (now ive been told i would have to buy it seperately)
anyone who bought a laptop recently get a mouse pad with it?
anyone who bought a laptop recently get a mouse pad with it?
My M17x r4 did come with a mouse pad, its not hard to miss inside the box it’s a big back pad with a huge blue alienhead on front… Check over your order, it will say place mat in EN/POL/GER etc… Pester Dell for that one.
As for the Blu Ray drive and burner, yep. Alienware don’t really put anything on their image, it has the standard Alienware tools, drivers, skype and maybe steam and some dodgy McAfee and that’s the lot I’m afraid.
Grab the latest copy of CDBurnerXP which IMO is about the best free DVD burner software out there. Google for it, install the latest 64bit version, previous versions won’t work with the drive in your machine.
Sadly for Blu Ray playback, to get this working it’s not so easy. Sadly the software developer has to pay a licence to Sony, so there is, from what I’ve seen no free Blu Ray playback software.
I’ve been using Total Media Theatre for a few years now as even though I’ve got a licensed copy of Cyberlink 11 I think from my previous Dell Studio as that had a blu ray drive, I never got on it with and prefer Total Media Theatre.
Sadly you’ll need to buy it, it comes in many versions with many different features. But the whole suite is $99 and this includes simHD and audio options and plays just about any media file and will upscale DVD’s etc…
I personally paid the fee for it back when I had my Studio and just got a free upgrade a few months back as I was a paid user, its been excellent and even though I now don’t play many blu ray or DVD movies and moved over to XBMC or Media player classic x64, its still useful for the odd DVD or Blu Ray movie playback.
Hmmm You did a BIOS upgrade, I wonder if somewhere its knocked a setting out. Maybe time to dig out the BIOS manual from Dell website and look over it and see if something got reset.
I checked my m17x and CPU-Z shows my CPU is flicking between 3.1 and 3.2 most of the time...
yeah my order does say the place mat thing - thanks
i will get onto the dell rep who sold me it about the blu ray software, he told me it all came with it as standard when i explained to him we wanted a blu ray player in it to watch movies in bed (hence why i paid the extra for both the blu ray player and the hd screen for it), im not really happy about it
im even less happy about the fact it wont let me burn in alien respawn (ive been told to do that before i put in the m4 ssd drive i bought, then transfer it over), im not really good with technical things and i was hoping to avoid a fresh install as someone told me installing drivers on the machine is a nightmare (if done in the wrong order), mind you perhaps theres already driver problems with mine given it wont burn in alien respawn even after ive uninstalled an reinstalled it (it just burnt disc one but is not refusing to accept disc 2 of 2 - keeps spitting it out, no error messages or anything, just spits it out)
i will get onto the dell rep who sold me it about the blu ray software, he told me it all came with it as standard when i explained to him we wanted a blu ray player in it to watch movies in bed (hence why i paid the extra for both the blu ray player and the hd screen for it), im not really happy about it
im even less happy about the fact it wont let me burn in alien respawn (ive been told to do that before i put in the m4 ssd drive i bought, then transfer it over), im not really good with technical things and i was hoping to avoid a fresh install as someone told me installing drivers on the machine is a nightmare (if done in the wrong order), mind you perhaps theres already driver problems with mine given it wont burn in alien respawn even after ive uninstalled an reinstalled it (it just burnt disc one but is not refusing to accept disc 2 of 2 - keeps spitting it out, no error messages or anything, just spits it out)
If you've got a 32GB memory stick I'd personally use this...
The mouse pad - dell will supply one, welcome to the world of Dell customer support, not the best I’m afraid. they are very polite but script driven agents that don't understand what is required, what you need to do is keep calling until you get someone who will help, you will get this sorted just takes time with Dell.
Dell can remote your machine if you struggle to get the respawn completed. But personally I’d find a 32GB usb stick, what I used it worked flawlessly.
The mouse pad - dell will supply one, welcome to the world of Dell customer support, not the best I’m afraid. they are very polite but script driven agents that don't understand what is required, what you need to do is keep calling until you get someone who will help, you will get this sorted just takes time with Dell.
Dell can remote your machine if you struggle to get the respawn completed. But personally I’d find a 32GB usb stick, what I used it worked flawlessly.
Dang it. Annoying really, althoguh it's weird as my 3dmark11 score was exactly the same as before, however this time turboboost doesn't appear to be functioning.
I'll have more of a dig this evening, thanks iv-tecman, you're as ever very very helpful
Dang it. Annoying really, althoguh it's weird as my 3dmark11 score was exactly the same as before, however this time turboboost doesn't appear to be functioning.
I'll have more of a dig this evening, thanks iv-tecman, you're as ever very very helpful
I've just realised what it is... doh. It'll be intel speedstep has been disabled. Enable this again and you'll be good to go. It'll be in the BIOS. Grab the M17x service manual off Dell website.
Its really good and has lots of useful info on the M17x, you can use this to even strip down you M17x to board level, I know as I've seen it done, I've even stripped my old M17x before it got sent back using this manual, for practice lol..
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Thanks mate, I'll give it a crack tonight. Am hoping it'll be disabled for me to re-enable, I shouldn't have done a BIOS upgrade! (Truth be told, I searched for M17X on the dell support, downloaded everything and installed everything, didn't even know a BIOS update was in there until it started automaticlaly installing!
