Birdalicious

Hello All, I just finished ripping this laptop apart and doing a CLU repaste on all heatsinks. WOW, needless to say, I can not believe the difference in temps with CLU - Hats off to you Mr.Fox for the video on tearing this thing down. previous to CLU I could not get past about 4.0 to 4.1 stable for more than about 10 seconds. Now, I want more. Using the XTU settings Mr.Fox supplied in an earlier post, I believe it was 941-4.3, I can run that stable, with out reaching above 90 degrees according to CPUID. Max Package drew 101.66 watts. Whats the best course of action to push it a little bit more? I am definitely a noob to overclocking. Also, which vbios do I use for the 780M, I see one there for the 780, but unsure if the M makes a difference. Laptop is sitting on a custom built cooler, seals all around with "Door Weatherseal" with 3 120mm Corsair fans pushing though the stock laptop fans - maybe why im not running into excessive heat? Any Help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks In Advance, Bird 4930MX, Quad 256gb SSD, 780M's in SLI, 32 GB

Hello All, From The Newbie! Just flashed A06 from A04. Fans do not ramp up at all. Hit stress test in XTU and 5 seconds later - meltdown protection. Fired it back up, let stress test run for 2 seconds until temps hit 90 or so, stopped for 2, on for 2 - basically bouncing off the 95 degree mark, not a peep out of the fans. dropped back to A04, and everything works fine. Got A05 and tossed that in - All is good. A06 - NFG. Tried using all factory settings and Mr. Fox's settings. Just heats quicker with the OC. Anyone else experiencing this? As an update: No matter what bios I flash to now, fans do not kick in at all!!! They do spin up to full speed during the flash, so it's not a hardware problem.

Hello All, March 27th, A06 is released. Just fired loaded 'er in, and have a wee bit of a problem now. Hit any type of benchmark/stress, within 5 seconds system shuts down due to over temp, Fans don't even attempt to spin up. Restarted, loaded XTU, hit stress test start, stopped it 2 seconds in as core temps hit 95, stopped for 2 seconds, back down to 55, not a peep out of the fans. Reverted back to A04 and fans ramp up. I didn't have a copy of A05. Cant do too much benching in 2 seconds! Anyone else getting these results?

Well, as an update, I decided to keep my Monster of a machine.. Although I am not impressed, it's far too big of a pain to deal with the swap out... I'd imagine they would do the "Spit on the hamburger" prank with the new laptop anyways! Just noticed they released A06 for us today.... Doesn't say anything useful is fixed, but we shall see!

Hello All, I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but here's the story: I ordered and received an Alienware 18, Fully Loaded (4930MX, 780SLI, Quad 256GB SSD Raid, 32 GB, Win8) just before December this year (Build Date Dec 7). I did not really get a chance to "use" the laptop for a month or so after ordering. As soon as I did, I immediately noticed the performance issues - especially with the overclocking. Spoke to Alienware Tech's, and they tried for about 2 hours to overclock this for me (which now I realize was pointless). As they were trying, I noticed them downclock 3/4 cores to 36x, and bring one to 43, 44, and 45x, then run Prime95 on ONE core. They still couldn't touch the advertised speed on one core. Of Course I inquired about their one core crock of BS, and asked them if they ordered a car with leather seats, and it came with one leather seat, would they accept it? Engineering contacted me a few days later, saying they "Did not have a fix at this time, but were working on it." Gave them the benefit of the doubt and waited a month and a half. Called again, basically was told still not possible. Asked why I paid $500 for an upgrade to a 4930MX. They said "well what do we need to give to compensate you for this not preforming?" I replied a refund for the $500 upgrade as either cheque or "Dell Store" credit. The guy actually laughed and said "There is no chance of that happening, I was thinking more along the lines of a mouse pad, and since you have had the laptop more than 21 days, it is not returnable, so should I ship a mouse pad?." Hung up instantly before I got ignorant and vulgar. Next morning March 10th I think, I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau regarding this information, of this being advertised as "Overclocked to 4.3Ghz" and not "3.0 Ghz, with the possibility of 4.3Ghz when our engineers around to fixing it" My requests when filing the complaint were any of: a) Credit for upgrade b)Fix it c)Letter stating that this will be fixed. Also, aside from that, I requested Dell remove the "False Advertising off the website." Just received call from Dell Customer Resolution/Relations, and here is what I got: "At this time, Dell Engineers have been informed of this issue. It has been brought to our attention before. We are not sure if or when this problem may be resolved. Even though you have had the laptop for over 21 days, we will allow you to return the laptop for a full refund, minus the Dell Promotional Card that you received when you purchased this laptop. As for the website, that is a sales issue and it has been forwarded. and blah blah blah blah blah." Spec price on this machine was 5100 on Dell's website and with Loyalty Bonus's and Discounts, I paid under 50% of that price. So I'm up in arms what to do, as I cant really complain about the price for performance issue. I think I will wait it out. I was not really expecting that as an answer, was more hoping for the fix it or letter deal, so we could all have some hope/insight. But, if they are offering to let me return the Laptop after 3+ months, rather than any of my requests, and lose a 10 year customer, I don't think they anticipate on fixing the problems. So, that being said, anyone who wishes to not deal with the headache, I'd suggest filing a complaint with the BBB and returning the laptop. If you would like a copy of the letter I wrote to get this out of them, feel free to ask. Sorry for the long schpeel as a "first post" but I thought I would let everyone know. Bird