Avocent Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 (edited) Hello Everyone, long time lurker, first time owner. I received my M17x R3 yesterday from the dell outlet, and I must say so far I am extremelt happy with the look and feel of it. My Specs are -Alienware M17x R3 I7 2630Qm 2.0 1.5GB Nvidia GTX460M 8GB DDR3 1333 Dual 320gb 7200rpm drivesWay faster than my old Dell Latitude 6400. Thanks to everyone here for helping me with my buying decision with all of your informative posts. I have a couple of questions.....1) So far the only thing I have done to the system is the MSFT updates and I worked with Alienware on updating there recommended drivers. I also installed Star Wars The Old Republic and 3DMarks. My 3D Marks score seems to be waaay lower than it should be, and even the 3D Marks software says it is low for machines with similar configurations as mine. (3DMarks Score 1781 and its stating the Graphics driver is not approved) Im assuming i need a new driver or a video card flash maybe any ideas)What Setting do you recommend for optimizing performance? I havent decided to overclock yet but I would like to make sure I am using the latest and fastest drivers and tweaks to maximize the system. 2) WARRANTY - So I decided to get the extended warranty because I like this computer. Thank God I read these forums! So I called in to get a 3 year extended warranty with Accidental and these guys send me back this THIS IS FOR THE WARRANTY ONLY NOT THE UNIT Quote Details Quote Number: xxxxxxxxx Item Number Quantity Item Description 939-0360 1 Dell Limited Hardware Warranty Plus In-Home Service After Remote Diagnosis (Service Tag XXXXXX) (Expiration: 01/12/2016) $645.60 996-1975 1 Warranty Support Service (Service Tag XXXXXX) (Expiration: 01/12/2016) $30.00 996-7196 1 Accidental Damage Service (Service Tag XXXXX) (Expiration: 01/12/2016) $479.01 Subtotal: $1,154.61 Shipping & Handling: $0.00 Tax: $95.26 Environmental Disposal Fee: $0.00 Total Price w/Discounts: $1,249.87 After my hair stopped standing on end I told him this was TOTALLY unacceptable, and give me the three year standard warranty, he comes back with $675, again as I wasn't interested in owning his wife and kids, I said $675 was not going to happen. I specced out a new machine online and looked up the warranty price at the time of purchase and they have the 2 year listed at $279. So I ask for that and he comes back with "That is a pre purchase price and the best he could do on the 2 year is $450 and he could give me 3 dell credits for $25 each! For a total of $375! Keep in mind I hadn't had the system for 6 hours yet! So after reading these forums I was about to call back and get a manager involved. Luckily I did not get the same guy and the very next warranty guy on the line sold me the warranty for $279 with no BS whatsoever, took all of 5 minutes. Moral of the story is don't bend over and take it, Read the forums an get as much information as you can, become an informed consumer and you can save yourself a bucket of cash. Even after that experience I am still loving this machine, now if someone can just help me tweak this thing for optimum performance I would be ever so grateful :Banane05:Happy to be a part of the Alienware family. Edited January 17, 2012 by Avocent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder Brian Posted January 17, 2012 Founder Share Posted January 17, 2012 (edited) Avocent welcome to Tech|Inferno and the Alienware owner's club! Glad to have you with us! Before we get started on troubleshooting your 3DMark performance problem, I'd suggest you edit the photo above and remove your service tag (or I'll do it in the next 5 minutes). In the future be sure to always black out your service tag, its a good precaution to take to avoid any kind of warranty fraud on your service tag. Now as for your performance problem, which version of 3DMark are you using? (e.g. vantage, 11, 06 etc)? Make sure your power settings are set to balance or performance. In the nVidia control panel under Manage 3D Settings, click "Restore" to reset your 3D settings to default, for reference it looks like this: Click Restore After doing so, run 3DMark again and see if you get any improvements. If not, then we can try installing the newest nVidia driver using the following steps: [*=left]Go to World Leader in Visual Computing Technologies | NVIDIA and download the latest 460M series mobility driver.[*=left]Go to system control panel, select Programs-->uninstall a program[*=left]Select nVidia Graphics Driver and uninstall it.[*=left]Reboot your system.[*=left]Install the new nVidia driver you downloaded and then reboot.[*=left]At this point you should have the newest nVidia verde driver installed. Afterwards, try running 3DMark again and checking your score. For your information, even if it says your score may be low for your system, just ignore it. Glad you got the extended warranty for a good price, the key with dealing with Dell sales is always to haggle and if the person is unwililng to help, hang up and try again. Edited January 17, 2012 by Brian 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avocent Posted January 17, 2012 Author Share Posted January 17, 2012 Thanks Brian! I didn't realize the service tag was in there lol. Glad you took it out.I checked my settings and my power options are set for performance.I removed the Nvidia Driver and rebooted, let it install the new one and rebooted again.Originally when I looked before uninstalling it was Nvidia Graphics Driver 267.64Upon Reboot it says Nvidia PhysX System Software 9.10.0514 Not sure if it installed the 3D as I no longer see that driver on there but I wasn't planning on using it for quite some time so its ok.When I try to run 3DMark11 it is now stating "DirectX 11 capable Hardware is required"Should I try the Nvidia website for the full version of the software or in another post I saw people going to laptopvideo2go for some reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iloveb00bs Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 congrats on the new alienware man. awesome price !!!! wow!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avocent Posted January 17, 2012 Author Share Posted January 17, 2012 congrats on the new alienware man. awesome price !!!! wow!!!haha Thanks man, but that price above was the WARRANTY price I was quoted not the unit price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avocent Posted January 17, 2012 Author Share Posted January 17, 2012 Brian I downloaded the drivers from Nvidias Website which are version 285.62 but they wont installError - NVIDIA Installer cannot continueThis Graphics Driver could not find compatible hardware.It does unpack all the files but fails on install. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iloveb00bs Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 haha Thanks man, but that price above was the WARRANTY price I was quoted not the unit price.hahah crap maybe i should learn to read. lolz but holy hell they were trying to screw u , hahahah good job in getting a deal on warranty. i always go 4 yr accidental too. me being retarded and all so its a must, hahah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mw86 Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 Avocent nice acquisition congrats... with a little tweaking you'll be moving right along Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder Brian Posted January 17, 2012 Founder Share Posted January 17, 2012 Brian I downloaded the drivers from Nvidias Website which are version 285.62 but they wont installError - NVIDIA Installer cannot continueThis Graphics Driver could not find compatible hardware.It does unpack all the files but fails on install.That's strange, I've never had an M17x-R3 to test with but you may need graphics drivers from laptopvideo2go.com Try these: Drivers | drivers for mobile cards and laptops | laptopvideo2go.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robby001 Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 With my R3 when I had the Nvidia 460M I ran into driver issues and was told both from Dell (AlineWare) and Nvidia that the only drivers they will run with are the ones available on Dells Driver Download. I too looked at the laptopvideo2go and go figure the updated driver for the GTX460M was not avalable. Not sure if you found these but I went looking and found and URGENT update for the BIOS for 460M vid card Drivers and Downloads | Dell [united States]Also found this vid card update Im sure you found this one for sure. Drivers and Downloads | Dell [united States] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avocent Posted February 2, 2012 Author Share Posted February 2, 2012 Thanks for the updates all but I sent this one back and I am configuring a replacement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mw86 Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Thanks for the updates all but I sent this one back and I am configuring a replacement.. i hope your replacement is satisfactory. Good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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