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OFFICIAL: Alienware M14x / AW 14 Owners Lounge


Brian

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Well.. It's stevenx as if you couldn't tell anyway by all the Zero's and Ones denoting my name next to the thread.

This week, I am a little pleased and a little unhappy with some of my discoveries on the m14x.

I am happy to say playing on battery is fine. Balanced plus 80-90 percent CPU works great.

On a sad note, I installed my optic bay caddy and a 64gb ssd corair nova and I am just not pleased with the performance. Shows up sometimes as SATA 2 and sometimes 1. The throughput is always 1.5 which is very dissappointing. I have tried about every version if Intel RST drivers you can think of. From french sites, dell sites, intel sites, etc... If you un-install RST then the computer will allow the drive to show up but you can't write to it. You can read for a few seconds but that's it. I have tried different intel graphic drivers, cougar h67 drivers, no cougar drivers, default windows drivers...

The only thing I have not tried is a fresh load of windows and using ATA in bios instead of AHCI. I wonder if I shouldn't start searching the net for daisy chain SATA 2 cables or something. If I can find one I may see if I can do that off of the primary SSD and see if that works.

Last.. Happy Memorial Day (early) but I want to say thanks to all of our fathers, grandfathers and so on who have allowed this generation to carry on. If your not American or from America please excuse this comment as it's not meant to offend anyone.

Best wishes, StevenX

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That is some sad news about the optical drive caddy performance probs. Have you spoken to the manufacturer of the caddy about the problem. If we send heat right back at these companies for marketing their inferior product both parties will receive justice eventually. Don't be afraid to call them out on their product. Yes hope you have a good Memorial Day day too. I think more members at Tech Inferno have been having the same issue.

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It seems that "just maybe" the optical caddy isn't the issue. The M14x was advertised as SATA III capable and I have heard that other M14x owners who have obtained SATA III SSD's cannot even get the M14x to run it at SATA III regardless of the drivers. I know the HM67m is SATA III capable so it's something faulty on Dell end.

Could be a faulty MOBO or some kind of restriction Dell has on the laptop that they haven't enabled for some odd reason.

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How many do we know of here called Dell out on this? Some one needs to show this to a rep... everyone exhibiting the probs. When everyones threatening refund they'll be jumping to resolve the matter. You paid for Sata 3 compatibility it better support it. In fact the M17xR3 which has similar chipsets (I could be wrong) had trouble with Sata 3... It worked eventually but needed tweaking... thank you Michael for that info!

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That's bull though... on a tower they would be over Sata 2 or 3 what a crock a crap! +1 rep Titangod nice digging for info... pump those reps for info lol.

Edited by mw86
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  • 6 months later...

:Banane06:Just got my new m14x today and am having a ton of fun on it!!

For those of you that know staff sargent Im his wife, he is the one that talked me into getting an alien to begin with. LOL! His is due in tomorrow so I know he is stoked! I play City of Heroes under the same name as here. Im also going to be starting Americas Army and maybe Call of Duty not sure yet on that one...its one of Sarg's gifts so he has first play on it HEHE.

Anyways just wanted to share a little about me and also share the excitement of finally owning an alien!!!!

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:Banane06:Just got my new m14x today and am having a ton of fun on it!!

For those of you that know staff sargent Im his wife, he is the one that talked me into getting an alien to begin with. LOL! His is due in tomorrow so I know he is stoked! I play City of Heroes under the same name as here. Im also going to be starting Americas Army and maybe Call of Duty not sure yet on that one...its one of Sarg's gifts so he has first play on it HEHE.

Anyways just wanted to share a little about me and also share the excitement of finally owning an alien!!!!

Welcome aboard Sgt. Maj. Wifey, Si... I mean ma'am! And congrats on getting a proper gaming machine. :)

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Thank you Steve,

I do have a question for you actually since I hear your the man to go to for the M14

on the left side of mine the palm rest is loose for some reason if you push on it you can feel like a give to it. It feels like it is missing a screw perhaps I'm not sure and am so afraid to take this baby apart LOL do you know if this is normal or is it something I need to look further into?

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Im not sure if I should of started a thread on this or not so if Im in the wrong spot plz feel free to let me know and move/ delete this post but.......

I was wondering if anyone has been having issues with their batteries?? I can have a full charge unplug it and only have aprox. 2 1/2 hours Battery time. When reading about this particular model it stated I should have up to 6 hours battery time. Im not even getting half of that. any suggestions? My settings are all set to balanced so I know its not that. Thanks for the input

SGT. MAJ. Wifey

Edit: when using battery Im not gaming or doing anything that would cause such a huge drop in battery life at all. nothing more than checking email or reading a book or facebook. So Im not understanding why the crappy battery life

Edited by sgt. maj. wifey
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SGT Wifey - 1. Palm rest. Im not sure on this as every time I have taken the machine apart and re-assembled it I have never had an issue with loose screws around the palm rest. Unless some of the plastic parts around the rest are loose im just at a loss as to what it could be. You can safely remove the spring loaded bottom screws (be careful not to strip them) and take the bottom cover off. Once off see if anything flexes or feels loose.

2. Battery performance. Top 3 things that drain the battery on this notebook. A. CPU (turbo) so make sure your battery profile has the cpu set to disable turbo and you do that by setting the cpu to 90 percent max. Technically 99 percent works but 90 percent to be safe. B. GPU - make sure battery has the dedicated GPU set to balanced and the nvidia control panel profile is set to either Intel HD or Auto. C. The LCD panel light. It has 7 brightness levels and I never keep it above the 3rd brightness (from the bottom). The lower you can keep it the better.

If you can adjust those 3 it should help increase the battery performance. Other items like alienfx eat the batteries but those are the top 3.

Good Luck,

StevenX

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That's great Sargent... WiFi power saving can really lower internet performance so check to see the effects of the changes made. The keyboard backlight as mentioned can be turned off or dimmed even while on battery too.

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  • 5 months later...

@Stevenxowens792: Can you do me a favor and post a GPU-Z log of a GPU intense task, e.g. a gaming session? I want to figure out some things regarding the GT 650m... Since it's a Kepler card, does it come with boost clocks, dynamcic OC etc? Sorry if you already answered this somewhere, can't remember.

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SVL I will post some later today. I have about 50 servers to update/migrate this morning. 5+ hours of work. anyway what I do know is that "Turbo" for the gpu is based on utilization. I have played games that used less than 60 percent of the gpu and they do not engage turbo. Games like bf3 do it automagically. Usually at 95-100 percent utilization at all times except between maps (loading screens). So Turbo is demand based. The 3 "P" states I saw in the nvidia inspector is like 0,1,2 (battery balanced power) (standard balanced power) and (performance). Only performance P state 2 allows for Turbo.

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Alright, cool! No need to hurry :) It would be interesting to see what happens during a demanding game like BF3, a couple of minutes log should be fine, longer is okay as well of course. And if possible a screenshot of the GPU-Z main tab, that would be awesome!

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Bf3 64 man server, this is just a short part as the forum will not allow the entire log. Clocks as shown 135/100 overclock = 969 gpu and 2100 memory.

Date , GPU Core Clock [MHz] , GPU Memory Clock [MHz] , GPU Temperature [°C] , GPU Load [%] , Memory Controller Load [%] , Video Engine Load [%] , Memory Usage (Dedicated) [MB] , Memory Usage (Dynamic) [MB] , VDDC [V] ,

2012-06-09 14:39:01 , 745.2 , 1050.0 , 50.0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 674 , 185 , 0.9500 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:03 , 745.2 , 1050.0 , 50.0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 692 , 190 , 0.9500 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:04 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 52.0 , 99 , 30 , 0 , 690 , 276 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:05 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 53.0 , 99 , 31 , 0 , 694 , 277 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:06 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 54.0 , 97 , 32 , 0 , 699 , 284 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:07 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 54.0 , 99 , 35 , 0 , 699 , 285 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:08 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 55.0 , 98 , 32 , 0 , 700 , 285 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:09 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 55.0 , 98 , 36 , 0 , 710 , 284 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:10 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 56.0 , 98 , 38 , 0 , 724 , 285 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:11 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 56.0 , 98 , 39 , 0 , 740 , 285 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:12 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 56.0 , 99 , 34 , 0 , 745 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:13 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 56.0 , 99 , 39 , 0 , 748 , 288 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:14 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 56.0 , 99 , 35 , 0 , 748 , 288 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:15 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 57.0 , 98 , 31 , 0 , 754 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:16 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 57.0 , 99 , 41 , 0 , 755 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:17 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 57.0 , 98 , 39 , 0 , 758 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:18 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 57.0 , 98 , 37 , 0 , 760 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:19 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 58.0 , 98 , 37 , 0 , 759 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:20 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 58.0 , 99 , 38 , 0 , 760 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:21 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 58.0 , 99 , 36 , 0 , 760 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:22 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 58.0 , 99 , 38 , 0 , 760 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:23 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 58.0 , 99 , 38 , 0 , 757 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:24 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 58.0 , 99 , 32 , 0 , 760 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:25 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 58.0 , 99 , 36 , 0 , 760 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:26 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 58.0 , 99 , 35 , 0 , 757 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:27 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 59.0 , 99 , 35 , 0 , 759 , 290 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:28 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 59.0 , 99 , 39 , 0 , 759 , 288 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:29 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 59.0 , 99 , 36 , 0 , 761 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:30 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 59.0 , 98 , 39 , 0 , 761 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:31 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 59.0 , 99 , 39 , 0 , 761 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:33 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 59.0 , 99 , 40 , 0 , 761 , 289 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:34 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 59.0 , 99 , 40 , 0 , 761 , 289 , 1.0120 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:36 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 57.0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 752 , 284 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:37 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 59.0 , 99 , 37 , 0 , 745 , 282 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:38 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 60.0 , 99 , 38 , 0 , 745 , 286 , 1.0370 ,

2012-06-09 14:39:39 , 969.1 , 1050.0 , 59.0 , 99 , 38 , 0 , 745 , 286 , 1.0120 ,

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