unreal25

OK I just installed the fan back. I haven't actually checked whether the green wire actually does stop (and I am not opening this thing again) but it sure looks like it does:

Dell OEM Alienware M17X Left GPU Video Card Fan F603N AVC BATA0812R5H | eBay

lol'd.

EDIT: I don't think it actually disappears in the shrink tube. Because I cut the thing open. I'm quite sure it actually goes into the fan -- but I still have no clue whether it actually does anything.

LOL! Just curious, what's the color of the unconnected wire on M15x?

Yeah weird! Well the fan does make ocassional noise so I ordered another one for $19 (mainly because my eBay bucks certificate of $5.55 was about to expire), if for nothing else then just to have a spare one. I just recently swapped the fan on my Thinkpad that also started not spinning and producing fan errors and also had the spare one.

Yep, HWInfo64 can read it out and I can set it to whatever through Fan control dialog.

'Sup.

I was wondering if anyone knows what's the green wire on GPU fan used for?

Last time I pulled out the GPU fan for cleaning, I accidentaly tore apart the green wire (the connector was completely jammed in so I had to use a lot of force to get it out). In any case last time I assembled it back I soldered back the wire, but apparently I didn't do a good job and the wire was disconnected again for some time. The connector is practically microscopic and it's pretty challanging to solder it back.

However, the fan seems to work just fine except it was making a slightly weird noise when going on full speed. I was just wondering if anyone knows what's it for. I'll resolder it back tomorrow, but if its still going to be making noise I'll just buy another one.

This thread is 2 months old. It's quite likely that the OP has made up his mind. Do we really have to lock every single old thread to prevent people from ressurecting them ?! (with really no new information)

LOL. That brings a totally new meaning to the expression "power brick". And I thought M17x was big and heavy!

Wow, so many official AW folks! Welcome!

The lower sound quality on wireless headsets is to be expected. They should be fine for gaming and chatting, but they are very expensive for what you get IMO (which is that they are typically comfortable and have microphone fixed close to your mouth). As far as the "surround" sound goes, I only tried Logitech G35 and its pretty much a joke (in Starcraft 2 at least).

4 hours on wireless is really low, I agree. :-/

AMD Trinity seems much better for gaming.

X230 is out, so it's probably a better choice. That said, I use X200T and don't plan on replacing it any time soon (the proper dock station is simply a killer accessory). HP Elitebooks are also good, but in the US they seem a bit more expensive than X230. I suppose Elitebook 2570p is comparable to X230 but it has far inferior screen. Then there's also a new Thinkpad X1 Carbon and ASUS Zenbook that svl7 bought (its an ultrabook with an amazing screen).

I like thinkpads since they can take ocassional roughness.

I think there are usually some Power Savings feature active by default on Intel integrated graphics (that would explain the colors). For gaming it might work for some games on low resolutions and very low graphic details, but yeah -- it's not really a gaming card.

Hm the pricing is kind of steep compared to 7970M. In any case I'm looking forward to see the performance!

Wow nice! How much does this card cost? (Bought as a single item with cooler and essentials). I'm having trouble navigating through Eurocom website.

Thanks!

Yep, other manufacturers follow Apple like sheep.

Welcome. Its nice to have some official folks around.

Interesting suggestion.

In any case now you know you should use some form of backup for your documents. Dropbox / GDrive and similar cloud services are really great for this kind of stuff.

Really can't tell much, as I said, didn't do a lot with it so far, but the screen is reason enough to get an ultrabook of this series, really. I also like the design, in real life it looks much better than on the pics. There's also the UX32VD version, with a Nvidia GPU, but I heard that the build quality is lower and no unibody... So I'd recommend taking a look at the UX31A or UX21A.

Keyboard... it's okay, but I really need to get used to it.

Edit: By the way, after deleting the recovery partition and reinstalling Win7, drivers and only the Asus software I need, I got 219GB free space on the SSD (out of a total of 238GB). Stock was only 182.5GB free space...

OK uh my mistake, I got confused. I thought it was the same laptop as 13" version (which isn't unibody)! The thing with ASUS in the US, they don't have a central website for shopping, but you have to go through resellers which may or may not have the exact models that one wants. For this laptop, I don't even know where would I go about if I wanted to buy it.

Oh right.

I don't think it's a unibody like Macbooks, however. The specs look pretty sweet. Whenever you'll have more time, can you comment on temperatures of the CPU and chasis? It's really interesting they went with i7 CPU in that thin chasis. With USB 3.0 dock station you'd be able to hook up a lot of things and I am guessing get great speeds.

@svl7, can you post system specs? You know these things are like porn around here.

rofl.... that preview image & accent = win. :D

Oh OK. I asked since I don't see them listed on their website.

StamatisX, how much did you pay for it?

Graphic card power if we're talking about gaming. I mean.... M14x has a native resolution 1366x768 or 1600x900. When you play something at say 1920x1200, the computer has to deal with 120% or 60% more pixels. That will translate into a bit of FPS loss. Unless the CPU is something pretty old, it will make about zero difference in just about any game that is not a crappy console port (i.e. GTA4).

My opinion on M14x, is that its half way between a portable laptop (such as M11x) and a powerhouse (such as M17x/M18x) and neither portable or powerful... or it can both, depending what you accept as portable or powerful for yourself. For example, if you bike literally every day (like me), there is no way in hell I'd carry M14x (or any other laptop with that weight) daily in my backpack. On top of that it is missing a lot of other features I prefer and some of its components would be a big downgrade even for my Thinkpad (screen and keyboard for example).

But you have to see for yourself whether an how you plan to carry it around (M17x becomes very portable if you drive a car ). If it's just going to sit on your desk all the time, might as well just get a desktop. M17x is the better choice if you don't care about portability and M14x if you want something more portable.

You may find you need quite a bit more power than M14x to game on higher resolutions (on that external monitor). I am not liking the new Alienwares tbh, nothing interesting for me.

Skyrim flickering fixed. Lol, finally... too bad I'm not playing that anymore for a while now. -.-