Alienware Laptops

[Alexrose1uk]

Spoke to Kobalt a little earlier and my machine should be ready for collection tomorrow unless anything goes wrong

If it is ready, I'll whip out my camera and get some pictures taken before I load Win7 onto it, should have them up by early evening tomorrow.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Typically the HDD they put in failed testing so they're having to replace it, and rebuild the HDD array/win install and test again. Due to my and thier working hours that means I might not see it til next week, but will have to wait and see.

 

[Reeve]

Typically the HDD they put in failed testing so they're having to replace it, and rebuild the HDD array/win install and test again. Due to my and thier working hours that means I might not see it til next week, but will have to wait and see.

My order got delayed untill next Tuesday. I can't say i didnt see it coming, might be quite a while untill i get to see it in the flesh now........

Maybe if i was going to Somalia instead of being stuck on a giant tin can for over a month my order might have been bumped up on the priority list

I will tell my dad he can play about with it for a bit when it arrives. I was hoping to play dragon age (which is waiting for me at home) on my new rig with all the shinies turned on, it should still run on this laptop though.... just barely .

I told my sister she could have this laptop when i got a new one(this was over a month ago when i first ordered) but i guess since she's getting it for free she can wait a bit.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Was speaking to Kobalt a little earlier, as I'd asked whether I'd be able to collect it today; apparently all seems to be going ok now, but they want to leave the machine to stress test and burn in all the components again overnight, to try and ensure everything is working as expected, all going well it is being shipped out tomorrow for a pre-9am delivery on Friday

Hope so, I'm off this weekend and my friends are busy!

Until I had to change it to a more expensive pre-9am delivery, they actually weren't going to charge me for delivery either which is nice, only charged me a tenner as it is, which is pretty cheap for a next day pre-9am (Alienware charge about £30 for a 2/3 day delivery )

Kobalt do take thier time being a small company, but its nice to see they actually put some care into assembling thier products and testing; given my experience Im pretty sure Alienware wouldnt have held it back because they thought a HDD might be failing, or re-burn test it either. (They shipped my M17 back from repair not even booting with a display!)
Much as its taking them a long time, I'd rather a decent job is done with the laptop, especially as Im hoping to have it for the best part of 2 years or so (2 year warranty for £40 isnt a bad deal either).


As it stands, I think the ordering process/speed is probably the worst think about Kobalt right now, amongst general consensus. Things could be a lot worse!

 

[Marky]

Thanks for keeping us updated pal I bet you can't wait now by the way, did you pay £60 for the "No Dead Pixel" guarentee? I was wondering whether or not I would bother with it - especially since they test the laptops so extensively before sending it!

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Spoke to Andy B there 5 minutes ago, I'm on my lunch right now (!!), my machine is apparently boxed next to him and waiting for courier collection

Am 'a little eager' right now haha, I've been borrowing machines for the last 3 months!
I didnt go for a no pixel guarantee, wasn't even aware there was one, it's not listed on the configurator for the Commanche SLI!

Here's hoping TNT get the laptop to me, it should come before work tomorrow, I'm in work til late so will try and get some pictures up early on Saturday.


Update 6:25pm: Andrew has dropped me a note to say my laptop has shipped
Been sent out on Pre-9am so here's hoping TNT dont mess up
*runs off before gets caught on the net at work*

 

[Marky]

Haha nice one Look forward to seeing the pics dude
Ahh right I see... I was looking at the G860 and they have the option for like a "60-Day No Pixel Guarentee" I'd be so annoyed if I got a dead pixel on my brand new laptop However, I think I'd be more annoyed if I got one on day 61 and I brought the "No Pixel Guarentee" pack

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Unfortunately I dont think I've found anyone offering a 'Smashed by Wii Remote and Casual Gamers' Warranty

Were there any particular pictures of anything about my laptop you wanted, or just some general ones so you can see if theres any obvious areas where there's been a lack of care?

 

[Marky]

Unfortunately I dont think I've found anyone offering a 'Smashed by Wii Remote and Casual Gamers' Warranty

Were there any particular pictures of anything about my laptop you wanted, or just some general ones so you can see if theres any obvious areas where there's been a lack of care?

Haha if only I could live without fear of chucking the remote through the TV

Hmm... yeah just general ones really... not sure if I'm willing to spend that amount on the SLI model so I'm not looking to see what it's like (Although, I'm sure after seeing the pictures, I'll probably rip out a monster loan for the beast haha ), just would be interested on the quality of the laptop I am really interested in the G860/G870 models, as it's nearer the amount I can afford/want to spend

By the way, your sig has moved into 5 lines again

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Well, to be fair I didnt spend as much as the site suggests you might on the SLI model, as Kobalt agreed to fit a processor, RAM and 2 HDDs I'd bought aftermarket for my Alienware model, and took about £200 off for me, on top of the £75 deduction for using my own OS. Im paying about £1650 for this model [by the web config it should have been a shade under £1900], quite a lot, but then it's a lot of laptop, and nowhere NEAR the Alienware M17x in cost region. (I'd be paying £2.3k for a similar spec)
I can put up with the wait when they've given me that sort of discount! Plus, they charged me £10 for delivery pre-9am (they were going to do it for free until I had to call back and change it to a more expensive option), and Andy B shipped my parts to them without charge, which was excellent and sums up a lot of what I've heard about thier aftercare (they actually care).

Thing with me is, I shifted from a desktop for flexibility [my family care for kids for social services, so being able to take my main PC away easily if Im unhappy is useful], noise, power (pleases the family) and mobility, I couldn't see myself being happy right now with a single mobile GPU or not as happy as I could be, whereas dual setups are close enough in performance it doesnt feel like I've spent money to move backwards.

Kobalt also promised me in writing that if an upgrade comes out that fits the Commanche SLI (the M980nu chassis supports the new MXM3.0b standard that just came out), and theres the BIOS/Availability they'll sell me the upgrade, so Im really waiting for the 5 series ATI mobile parts to come out or the GT200/300 Nvidia ones, throw in a Quad QX9300 or a 9200 ES from the bay, and I've got a machine that should last me a year or two easy, which is NOT something that can be said for a lot of power laptops, and not something I could have got with Alienware as they've already decieved a load of people on the upgrade status on the M17, which was MEANT to get the 4850s for months as an upgrade, but ended up just being available to new owners, in very limited amounts.

And hopefully thats the sig issue sorted...gah I can see why people do them as pictures now, at least those show the same on each machine!

 

[Marky]

That's pretty cool - it's nice that you can upgrade them further in the future...

When you get the laptop will you also give some benchmark results if you are loading any games on it

 

[alastair]

I've also been looking at Kobalt Laptops... anyone had any experience with them?

Happy with my machine and service. Also considered Alienware and OCUK. OC didn't have any in stock, and heard some poor build quallity issues with Alienware (overheating), and customer service issues (or lack of customer service should I say).

Also, Alienware warrenty is very expensive; says to me they don't have much faith in their kit.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Still at work (on the evening shift) but I can happily say the machine arrived today, and well...tis a bit of a beast

Appears very well put together, wasn't even much in the way of fingerprints/grease on the machine from being worked on. I haven't had much chance to play with it yet, however I will run a full ream of benchmarks once I've got it sorted.

The machine looks very well put together, the only flaw I've found in the build quality so far is what looks like a very very minor flaw in the underside of LCD glass...basically gives the impression I've got a tiny (perhaps smaller than a pixel) dark spot in the far north almost at the top of the screen. It's very hard to see though unless the background is white (I only noticed it because I was cleaning dust off the screen whilst the first bench in the Vantage suite was loading, I thought it WAS dust it was that small!). So even if it is a dead/stuck pixel, I really can't complain too much, its my only minor niggle with the entire thing so far.

I'm running Win7 Home Premium x64, and all seems to be running fine so far, very nippy, fresh install as I wanted to change the RAID0 stripe size from 128kb default to 32kb.

The machine came with virtually no bumph installed as standard Im happy to report; screenshot of Add/Remove included below.

I have run Vantage quickly to check all is working, and promptly discovered either 195.39 betas are terrible, or they just didnt install properly so for now I've whacked 186.81 mobile drivers on the machine. I havent got the 'VantageLOL' or normal pic uploaded to photobucket yet, so you'll have to wait til tomorrow for those as I'm still at work. I might try reinstalling the betas again to see if it goes better the second time!


Here's some initial eye candy, I uploaded to photobucket on my lunch, to enjoy [all can be clicked to see a higher quality 1024x768 version...3000x1600 ish ones from my camera might be a little excessive ]:

Oh the lights on the front, back and a few of the buttons can change colour or 'rotate' as I discovered whilst uploading these
















I will be running an extended set of benchmarks over the weekend, including uploading Vantage, HDD readings from HDTACH and HDTune, Street Fighter 4, Last Remnant, Devil May Cry, Unigene Tropics etc, and will get those uploaded either tomorrow night or during the day on Sunday, will upload Crysis if the damned benchmark works this time etc.

I thought you didnt want to buy one of these Marky

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Right sorry for not coming back earlier in the day, family and all. I had some better benches than these earlier, but then I ended up troubleshooting a windows bug (I've left windows 7 stock drivers on in the end for audio), and after the reinstalls and testing I did, my figures were no longer quite so good, still for honesty heres some intial results.
I think arguably they show that, especially when some drivers with new profiles come along that aren't bugged, this should stay playable til at least new GPUs come out, with decent settings:














The final awful score above was the one I mentioned previously, and why I'm NOT using the 135.39 betas, I dont want to have to hunt down what ELSE is broken.

My HDD setup stripe size has been changed from 32KB to 64KB. Whilst it doesnt feel quite as responsive, it benches higher and knocks about 5% off of CPU usage, so I figured the slight loss in response was probably worth living with.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Shifted back to 32KB stripe while doing a reinstall. It just feels that bit more responsive, even if benchmarks/cpu usage/access times arent quite as hot.
Im guessing that this is due to more Windows files taking advantage of the striping than with 64KB, which helps boot times and prefetch files and the like.

Also, if anyone gets this machine, based on mine, Id recommend sticking with the official Clevo realtek drivers as they use the speaker layout slightly differently, and sticking with stereo (or 5.1 setup, but with rear/center speakers disabled).

Reason for this is that at least with mine, when you use official Realtek drivers, then the laptop resorts to using one speaker in the screen hinge, and sounds like it tries to use the subwoofer as another, giving a slightly disjointed sound. Im not sure if this is due to one speaker in my Clevo not working properly or what, but seeing as all is fine in stereo Im not going to play around at the moment and find out- I've been without a machine for pretty much 3months, most of that due to Dell incompetence.

When you stick with stereo and the Clevo customised drivers, it uses the speakers in the front of the laptop, which seem to work much better (louder and none of the issue of left sound coming from the speaker hinge and right from the subs direction [bottom right side of the laptop]).

Either way, its a good machine,and I cant wait for new GPUs to be released next year, I dont really need them as its more than potent enough right now to play pretty much anything decently, but throw a quad and new architecture mobile GPUs into this (with a mild CPU overclock) and I dont think this laptop is going to become unusable for relatively demanding gaming, for at least the 2 year warranty I have on it right now.

Thumbs up to Kobalt Computers. Cheaper, more personal experience than any other reseller of this unit, and works a treat too, hell 7 detects almost everything bar the GPUs if you dont want to change drivers, even runs RAID right out the door without any needs for drivers.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Oh and as everyone seems to care about the Crysis Benchmark, I just got that running, 64bit version. DX10 very high average 34fps, DX9 High 40fps.

Id say thats capable enough

 

[Marky]

That is one sexy laptop and...

I thought you didnt want to buy one of these Marky

DAMN YOU!!

Thanks for taking the time and effort to doing the benchmarks and pictures etc. It certainly looks pretty good build quality wise!!

It's also nice to see Crysis working at 40fps in DX9 That is a very comfortable framerate - any times in the game where it just stutters at all? Or is it completely smooth?

Did you go for a creative sound card or is it just the normal internal sound card?

I currently have some Aego M speakers - and I wish to keep them and use them on the laptop, so hoping they will work nicely

Is it very loud when gaming? (By this, I mean do the fans bump up a lot and make some noise?)

What does the 2 year warrenty cover?

Thanks again Alexrose1uk Hope you're happy with the purchase

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Those Crysis results were at 1920x1080 by the way, using the benchmark, with the Very High DX10 the lowest framerate was around 25 (maximum of about 50), with the High minimum framerate was about 30 (maximum of about 60), looked like it'd be pretty damn playable (using 191.07 drivers with laptopvideo2go inf to install), I ran the GPU benchmark as it pretty much covers average playability

Oh, because of the speaker/audio issue I mentioned I was experiencing and a related intermittant random audio stutter bug, I spoke to Kobalt today on lunch about what was going on and what I'd tried and they've arranged to get the laptop collected to take it back and check it out in the workshop tomorrow.

How's that for service?

Just normal internal realtek sound, I didnt bother with the creative as I'd rather use the money towards a decent external amp like the Headroom Total Bithead (USB DAC/AMP) or just run a digicable to my AVR.

Your Aegos should work pretty well, especially if you save the creative cash and use it to buy a small USB DAC.

Noise wise it's not silent, but its definately not terrible either. My Cryo LX laptop cooler running on full is comfortably louder than the Commanche SLI even when its been stressed, although the Commanche is slightly higher pitched which is how I can hear it over the Cryo haha

The 2 year warranty is collect and return on all the hardware purchased from them...no complaints there. Basically the same warranty as AW offer. Apparently I can contact them up to 3 months before it expires and pay another £40 to take it to a 3 year warranty as well.

Im very happy, just hope the audio issue gets sorted out or reduced, as thats my only real niggle with the machine, and they're not exactly trying to avoid looking at it for me.

Thumbs up!
Just as a warning though, the machine is not tiny, its definately that little bit bigger than my M17 (not x), but its still quite a bit smaller than the HP HDX Dragons. (which are rediculously big).

Alex

 

[Marky]

Sounds all good dude

I've started communicating with them on the actual Kobalt forums now - I didn't realise they have their offices in London! I might give them a call and ask if I can go down and take a demo of their laptops!

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Hahah I just saw, yeah Kobalt are based in South London.
You might need to try the phone a couple of times as they're busy, but they're usually pretty friendly so see what they say