Alienware Newbie - Questions!

Hello, i just recieved my Alienware M11x i5 as it was just delivered. I am still messing around trying to figure out everything and what's the deal with all the options and settings available and noticed a couple of things.

First of all my "ALIENWARE" logo under my screen isn't lighting up? I went into FX and tried messing around but it's the only thing that didn't light up.

Second of all, does the graphics card switch automatically?

I'm sure ill be updating this thread with more questions, but please answer these two if you are able to find a solution!

 

Congrats on receiving your m11x. I'm sure you will love it as much as I love mine.

1) Not sure about the logo issue.

2) The graphics card will often switch automatically, but it is a better idea to "whitelist" any applications that you want to run on the nvidia card. I have run into issues where it wasn't auto switching and thus was experiencing a crappy gaming experience. Look around the various threads and you will find on on how to whitelist, but you may be able to figure it out yourself if you go into the nvidia control panel.

Have fun!

 

I already love it, but yeah i am confused on why it isn't lighting up while everything else is.
Sounds good i'll find out about "whitelist" as soon as possible.

Thank you for the reply btw

 

The alien head on the back of the screen is white and will always be white, thats because it takes the light of the screen.

 

He is talking about the logo right under the screen... Mine lights right up, I would suggest calling alienware... it could be a loose connection.

 

Yes. Call Alienware. It might be loose or defective. Definitely nothing you're doing wrong.

 

It's always my luck. I stayed on the phone with Alienware for 2 hours and in conclusion they are sending out a representitive with an LED light to replace it at my house infront of me. Very good tech support and the proccess was smooth. i am glad that its something simple like the light and nothing else was wrong with the system..i am currently downloading all my games and waiting for everything to be complete. Enjoying simple surfing so far, and the compact size is perfect. Let's hope it performs like everyone is claiming.

 

My money is on the cable not being connected to the controller board.

 

Is it easy for me to check?

 

Ah, the Turing test.

Have you used an anti-static strap in the last 20 years?

If the answer is no, stick with your Alienware or Dell rep.

If the the answer is yes,... then that's interesting and the test would then dictate more questions.

Oh and believe me, my dark side is soooo wanting to say yes.

My money is in my pocket.

 

lol, well currently im facing low performance issues with WoW's FPS..

 

What drivers are you using?
The default drivers on the M11x are old and obsolete.
The new drivers should help.
The 258.96 driver should do the trick:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...r-258-96-whql-discussion-relating-m11xr2.html

If you however are indeed using newer drivers, have you made sure to added WoW to the whitelist.

 

I just got off the phone with support and after 2 hours of installing drivers, the representitive downloaded 257.30 and told me those are the best ones since they are from the dell website. Yet when i entered world of warcraft i couldnt get higher than 35fps on full settings with shadows on low...but on high everything went smooth. But i know that this machine should be able to handle those graphics since Call of Duty black ops works perfectly fine as well.....Are the 258.96 the best ones? How is your WoW performance?

 

NVIDIA DRIVERS 260.99 WHQL - 260.99 the latest drivers available.

Not sure how it's compared to the 258 drivers in terms of fps on WOW (as I don't play it). But hopefully the latest drivers might help.

 

Im using the 260 drivers, can anyone confirm which is better?

 

i just downloaded the other ones and performance in wow is same pretty smooth but call of duty was very choppy, ill probably go back to the 260.


UPDATE: the 260 from nvidia seems to be the best so far, but for some reason i still feel like this laptop isn't executing
WoW at it's full potential.