M15x Problem/Technical Question thread

Nah nothing is cast in stone yet it might just be a good opportunity to get most of my money back while sealed and brand new.... Not that i really wanna switch because frankly im not sure what else i even want lol.... Just thinking out loud kinda sorta .... I do switch machines alot but its usually not because i didnt like something but more because i wanna try something new .. Just not sure what new thing that might be ...

 

hahahah ok i got cha. well i hope you do decide to stick around with the M15x, otherwise we are gonna miss ya,lol.

 

Well thanks for that ..

Even if i got rid of it im not going anywhere ...

I am all over the place in other forums even if i dont own the machine anymore as usually i grab enough knowledge from my short time with a machine to still be helpful ...

 

well either way, i wish you luck. heading over to a powder coat shop to see if i can get my baby powder coated, hahahah

 

lol....fix'ed it for ya.

 

inap what color are you hoping to powder coat it ?... Hopefully not Baby blue lol...

 

hahaha thanks mandrake. naw going to do yellow. trying the bumble bee look. hopefully when i'm done my M15x can transform, lol.

 

back on topic please - take the side chat to the OL or PM.

Thanks guys...

 

Hello. My M15x arrived just yesterday. I have installed Left for Dead 2 and Bioshock 2. I just observed a very weird thing today. While playing Bioshock on battery, it was running perfectly on full resolution. No lagging. But, when I plugged in the AC cord, it slowed down!!! I have read the topic wherein a person has experienced the opposite of what I have mentioned.

I tried this several times and each time I am on battery power, the game is smooth but when I plug in the power cord, it slows down. Can somebody please help me?

Thanks in advance.

Alienware M15x, Core i7 740QM, 6gb ddr3 RAM, 1gb Nvidia GTX 260M, 500gb HDD 7200rpm, Full HD screen

 

double check if you are not on stealth mode. More info on that here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m15x/488201-new-m15x-owner-information.html

 

Thanks Wattos. I will try it and keep u posted.

 

I turned off stealth mode and it worked like a charm. Thanks again. Looking forward from more tips and suggestions from you. Cheers.

 

Hi

I'am new, and I got a problem with my Alienware M15x.
Sometimes the buttons on/off button or the media buttons (volume, stealth etc.) the light of it goes out. I have to put it on by going to command center and then change the color of the light and then back again. It started a month ago, but when I wanted to go to command center I couldn't access it.
So I reinstalled it and now I can open the command center again but the light problem is still not fixed =/. I hope someone can help me

 

Hi all.
Been trying to overclock my GTX 260M for some time now, and here are my problems:

1. nVidia system performance: Constantly forgets my OC settings for several times, then completely refuses to apply said settings, as in: "The chages made were invalid and will not be applied."

2. EVGA Precision: the maximum clocks I can set are only about half of my standard clocks. Cut off at around 400+ for memory.

3. Rivatuner: Same problem as above.

I've tried 197.16 drivers, as well as 257.21. Started out with 18x.xx as well, and the problems never seem to be solved.

Googling has proved to be extremely frustrating, with only "USE RIVATUNER/EVGA" being thrown about incessantly.

Hoping to hear from you guys soon.
Cheers.

 

you need to do a power drain. turn your computer off, unplug the power adapter, remove the battery, then disconnect the cmos battery which is located underneath the bottom panel(a round black button battery connected by wire), and hold the power button for 20 seconds and reboot but before you power back on put everything back and see what happens

 

Hi I have a problem with my webcam. It works fine when using it the problem is just when trying to login using the biometric facial recognition. Just a day or two ago it started to take like a good minute for the light indicating the camera is on to turn on compared to the seconds it normally would and then once it does turn on the picture quality is all blocky-esque so the system cannot recognize me.

If anyone has encountered this problem and/or know of any fixes please let me know. It's not a big issue for me but I would like it to work considering it's a feature of the Alien command centre

Thanks......p.s. if it's of any concern the laptop is rather new as the receive date is in my sig.

 

Tuenkamen: Forgive me for my ignorance, but how do you disconnect the CMOS battery?

P.S. Somehow my Alienware logon screen got reverted back to the Win7 one, at random. Anybody know how to fix this?

 

don't i was a little clueless when i first got this machine the cmos battery connector is in the middle of the machine under the plastic bottom panel which you have to remove the battery and two screws to get at. the battery is a black cased coin battery. the connector is in the open area of the chassis next to it connected to the mother board

 

Seems a little tight for my fingers to reach the connector... Any specific stuff I have to do so I don't destroy it?

 

Experienced another problem. The left speaker is jarring a bit. Is it normal? It's not in specific songs or games. Happens when the volume is more than 50%. Should I return it?

 

hi all ...... my problem is weired when i listen to music the voice is good and clear but when i record my voice ,,, it isint clear dunno why

 

Hi guys, got a major problem with my Alienware m15x.

Lately my computer been crashing. Screen would go black and my laptop crashes and the only way out is by hitting the power button.

I've also received this message but just once:

"Your computer has just recovered from a serious error, 257.21 display driver nvidia windows kernel mode has stopped working".

My screen went black and my computer almost froze, but then it went okay. Could this be the one?

I usually get these errors when I'm running Google Chrome and Winamp. I totally have no clue why my computer's acting like this.

Any help would be appreciated as I'm desperate for one

Thanks in advance.

 

update the graphic drivers to the latest version available on nvidia web site and it will fix our prblem, i had the same as you, but with the 258.96 beta version it works fine

 

^^^ I had the same problem but with the ATI 5850 gfx card. My screen would go black and then come back but with a larger screen resolution, go black again and then go back to normal. Is this the same problem like what the guy above had as well. I updated the ATI driver as I hadn't updated it since I got it a few weeks ago. So far in the hour of internet browsering I did with it I haven't had any problems. Will definitely have to try it out later with some games when I get home from work

 

Thanks a bunch, don't have any more crashes now. I actually contacted Dell yesterday and told me to go to their website and download their version of graphic driver. Now everything's working fine. The problem is exactly because of the graphic's card.

 

1. right click the speaker icon in the bottom right corner of the start bar.
2. click "recording devices"
3. highlight "Microphone Array" and click "properties"
4. click the "Microphone Enhancements" tab
5. try unticking each of the boxes, the 3rd one (aggressive beam forming) especially. alternatively try clicking the bottom box (disable microphone enhancements) and see if that helps. I found this to be the problem while using vent/mumble voice client with online gaming. people found i wasn't clear until i took off the 3rd tick.

 

Oh yeah, I've been looking, and I i'm trying to figure out how to fix the audio crackling problem. When I'm on full blast, the music gets distorted. It's rare, but it happens. Anyone got the fix ?

 

get the M17X R1 audio drivers

 

which drivers you using anyways?

 

if i tilt my laptop up too high something weird happens. if im in WoW my character starts rotating to the right a little bit every second. if im watching a youtube vid it rewinds a little bit until its at the start again. weird stuff, whats up?

 

seems Dell accidentally put a gyroscope in your laptop. LOL

honestly i have no idea and have never heard of that happening. Maybe yours truly is, from another planet.

 

its the accelerometer for the hard drive lol causing you character to do that i think.

 

Hi guys,
I just did a fresh install of windows 7 (well it start automatic after I put windows 7 disc in). Then I went to Dell website and install drivers in the order of: chipset, OSD, video drivers, network. And everything works fine except for my wirelesscard. There is one driver in the network section that I couldnt install and my computer also told me that my wirelesscard needs driver install after I dignosic it. The driver that I couldnt install is intel wifi link 5300. My wireless card is the default one. What should I do now?

 

i would've done:

chipset
video card
network
& osd last.

but lets see...Did you try uninstalling the current windows driver with in control panel? Once uninstalled, run CC cleaner, shutdown. Do a bios reset, and once booted to the desktop, try again. I think that might solve it...

 

After updating windows, the wireless card works now. Never thought that updating windows would be that important... Thanks for the help guys. I have one more question though, so if I want to make a clean install then I just put the windows disc in or I have to reboot through BIOS?

 

So after I somehow manage to make the wireless card works again. I decide that a clean install of windows 7 would be better. So I booted from windows disc and reformatted my hard drive. Now, I have install all the network drivers on dell website, but the card just would not work. I can see it in my network connection but always stays as disable (It is enable in bios and my bios default is A06). So can any kind souls help this poor fellow out? especially those that had fresh install their windows. Thanks.

nvm, got it fixed now and I dont think I will have any problem with it anymore.

 

I just recieved my new M15x and I've noticed that my left grill lights i are brighter than my right grill lights. Is there any fix for this, or will I just have to deal with it. I'm just weird about the little details

 

well if you just recieved it, then complain to dell. I'm sure they will send a new part for you.

 

I did some tests today and found out something quite peculiar. I started my machine with the ac adapter turned on and the graphics were choppy. So I decided to try and take the ac adapter off and then plug it back in while I was gamming. For my surprise, after a few seconds the game was running flawlessly. I dunno what happened but everything was working well after I did this.

After what happened today, I tend to think that this isn't a BIOS issue, because the low fps started when I updated my gtx260m drivers. And even under the A06 BIOS, when I revert to the 195.62 nvidia driver, everything works ok.

It seems to me that something changed on the NVIDIA software settings after the 197 and now the 257/258 came out. It must be a little tweak they made thats driving me nuts lol. Any ideas?

I have an Alienware M15X, core i7-720QM, GTX260M, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 320GB 7200RPM hd, Windows 7 64bit just recently formatted and 258.96 clean installed driver.

Also, do you know if the M15x supports two simultaneous hard drives? (like a SSD and a SATA HD)

 

good info. yes you can have 2 hdd but you will have to lose your optical drive. here is a link to a guide.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...drive-hdd-caddy-installation-56k-warning.html

 

Question! Does the M15x's screen tough and get scratched by the keyboard like the M11x does? Thanks in advance!

 

M15x has little rubber feet which keeps the screen from touching the keyboard. you get marks from the little feet but it can be easily wipe off.

 

hi.. i just did a fresh install of my m15x because of CC issues. everything is fine now Except for my webcam and OSD.
1) cant find a webcam driver (pressing fn+f9 does nothing)
2) OSD doesnt show up when i press any of the functions in the keyboard,

pls help me. m15x is not worth my $2k if it's not as useable as it should be, right? T_T

 

Locate the Command Center install.exe

and do a repair, then shutdown and do a bios reset.

when you reboot, it should get the aliensense login working.

If your OSD still doesn't show, do the same with the OSD install.exe.

Solved this problem for me at least a handful of times. CC and the OSD are extremely sensitive, and are often the first things to go screwey when you make driver changes to your pc... annoying i know.

 

yeah the above step will get your osd back. also a good idea to do a power drain. to get your webcam up you need the youcam software in your resource disk.

 

Guys, I've had this consistent problem with HWMonitor where it doesn't detect my 5850. I'm using 10.6 drivers, but for some reason it never shows the temps for my video card. Currently I'm using HWINFO32, which shows the temps fine, but HWINFO32 is a bit too complex and slow for my tastes. For one thing, it has four different temp readings for the video card alone?! One seemed to be about 85 degrees-celsius the other ones were in the 70s, when I played a game for a few hours yesterday. Any help there?

But ya, more importantly, I'd like to know why HWMonitor doesn't work. Or alternatively a more simpler program which shows all temps quickly.

 

make sure you have latest version of hwmonitor, its working for my 5870. multiple temps for the card is normal, it monitoring different zones on the card. highest one is most likely your vram temps.

 

Will check when I get home, but I just reinstalled it yesterday, so I'm certain the version was 1.16.

 

wierd, i'm using 1.15.0 and working fine, need someone with 5850 to confirm.

 

I want to use the control bar to adjust the sound of the speaker. Is there anyway to set it up so that it will only adjust the sound level of the speaker itself and not the application I am running?