M14x r2 on the way- anything to do straight out of the box?

Hi all. My m14x is on the way to my house as I type this and will hopefully be here shortly!

However I have a couple of questions and feel free to teach me how to "suck eggs" as I only have a very basic level of computer knowledge.

Basically I was wondering if there was anything that I should do straight out of the box? I have read about people formatting it or removing a lot of the unnecessary software that comes with it. Any advice/recommendations of what to uninstall would be greatly appreciated!

Also any other info would be great!

Thanks, Greg.

 

My advise.
Turn it on, play video games.

There is not much in the lines of un-needed software on alienware computers, everything is pretty much set up to game right out of the box.

 

It's not Asus, there aren't tons of bloatware. What I'd do, is check if it came with the most up to date graphics drivers and update if needed.

 

Agreed. If you are a beginner, don't try anything slick. You will likely end up with a non-functional AW and return to this forum with more issues. Just stress test the notebook asap. Download Unigine Heaven and Furmark, etc. then pound the notebook a bit to make sure everything is behaving. I would eventually replace the thermal paste, but that's the one critical fix that all AW notebooks should be getting.

 

This is the best way to ensure a proper working laptop so follow these steps.

Start checking the build quality to make sure it is in great quality control condition - dead pixels, defective hinges/keyboard etc..

After thoroughly checking build quality, move on to the software and hardware aspect of the laptop and thoroughly check those

Start by making sure you have all windows updates and stable updated drivers and make sure your device manager doesn't have any yellow exclamation point.

Next is to make sure your audio is working and testing external speakers and plugging in your headphones/earphones works too and then go to Run and type dxdiag to make sure your Display/Sound/Input tab shows no problems found.

After doing those, make sure you test optical drive, card reader, usb ports, ethernet and also test all the keys on the keyboard that they all work by typing each one individually.

Then the most important thing is to check for throttle/overheating possibilities. Do this by downloading hwinfo32 for system info and cpu core activity and also sensors for gpu/cpu then get msi after burner to track the graphs of your gpu temperature, gpu usage, core, memory clock etc.. then download benchmarking tools 3dmark vantage, 3dmark06 and 3dmark11 then the latest furmark burn in 15 min test.

Then do some gaming that you want, usually the fastest way to test a game that is still demanding to this day to test your temps is Crysis Demo. It's only 1.7gb and you would be able to test it right away instead of downloading steam games over 5GB.

Oh don't forget to download FRAPS, FRAPS is crucial when monitoring frames per sec for possible throttle, the trick here is to stay at one spot during gaming so u see a stable frames per sec continously and if that one drops significantly after a certain period maybe a few to several minutes then it could be possibly throttling and you are only going to rule out that the change of fps is not done by the things on the game is by staying on one possible spot and the perfect way to do this is the crysis demo game. You can also do this on other games of your choice if you prefer.


There could be more that you can do to test the stability of your machine that i've forgotten but you have to do this right away if you have time while you are still within your return period.

Let us know

 

Wow couldn't have asked for any more information! Thank you very much for all your help.

 

How is the sound on the M14x R2?

I used to own a XPS 17 with JBL audio + subwoofer and the audio from that machine was NOTHING SHORT OF AMAZING.

I'm disappointed with the audio from my M17x R4 even tho the speakers are Klipsch.

 

I had an XPS15 (l501x) and the sound of the xps is the best I've ever heard in notebooks. The M14x sound is quite ok for a notebook but not comparable to the xps.

 

I agree, the best thing you can do is start using it for whatever you will use it the most.

 

If you are familiar with reinstalling your OS, I would suggest you do so. Always good to do so now rather than in a few months after you have installed all your softwares and files. It will only take you a couple of hours if you do it now. This is not needed but it will get rid of anything that was installed by dell that you might not want.

 

Sad to hear, my friend owns the L502x and that's what she really loves about her laptop. I'm trying to convince her to get a M14x R2.

So, out of 10, how would you quantitatively compare the XPS 15 audio vs M14x R2 audio?

I hope Dell goes back to sourcing JBL for their speakers instead of Klipsch.

 

Could you elaborate on what to look for in terms of hinge defects on the M14x- series?

 

Just open or close the lid normally by holding it in the middle, not on the sides and listen for any signs of creaking sound or rattle. Also check if the hinges have any cracks or if it is lined up correctly.