Alienware M17x R4

[SoulWitcher]

Sorry, just my experience so take it with any others you have seen . This is by far the worst (and best sometimes) laptop I have owned but that needs to be seen in the light that I have purchased hundreds of dell laptops for my company and the failure rate has been very low.

I do have quite a bit of experience with dell support in a few countries (mostly N and S America), and have found the Dell support to be nothing short of excellent, even when extended traveling to other countries they send someone to the hotel to fix! Of course this is business class support but it all falls under the same ethos, (or seems to) and is sold under the same simple levels and pricing.

Support will be different in different countries mainly due to local laws and regulations but sometimes it's just what they want to offer in that country. I found I was unable to get accidental damage protection in Mexico or Brazil with the sales rep quoting 'cultural differences', read into that what you will!

All I did with staff transferring to a different country was to fill in a form on the dell site to transfer the warranty and you get the standard level of support they give in that country - laptops travel, sometimes permanently, so shouldn't be any issue with you sourcing from Canada. Just look at what Dell direct offer in SA and that is what you should expect.

R4, I would hope that Dell made some changes that are not so public, to address any common problems but of course we have to wait and see..

Thanks, will Chat with Dell when I receive my Laptop.

[MickyD1234]

Thanks, will Chat with Dell when I receive my Laptop.

You're welcome, good luck!

[SoulWitcher]

My laptop is coming with a 750gb HDD and a 32gb mSATA caching SSD is there any way to set the caching SSD as my boot drive?

[andrewk36]

I recently bought an m17x r4 with an 7970M and I want to be able to switch between integrated and discrete graphics (F7) on the fly WITHOUT rebooting, for convenience. I know this was possible in the past with other graphics card configurations. I could use the application specific settings provided by catalyst control center, but those don't allow for true maximum performance for me like running on ultra settings. And I hate having to reboot when I finish playing a game and want to browse the web and save battery. Any solutions?

[DirtyTrickster]

From what I've read, it's driver issues. Dell hasn't released a driver that utilizes the switchable function yet.

Just hang in there, it document be too long. (hopefully)


---
I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?vpretv

[andrewk36]

Oh ok, figured it was a driver thing. I actually read a thread somewhere else that said something about no drivers that allowed it yet. Glad to have that confirmed.

[Xenn0X]

will 1333mhz ram work in R4? i have it in my R3 which will be replaced for an R4.
saves me 100 bucks upgrading to 16gb 1600mhz ram if it does work.

[Mitchell2.24v]

will 1333mhz ram work in R4? i have it in my R3 which will be replaced for an R4.
saves me 100 bucks upgrading to 16gb 1600mhz ram if it does work.

It should work just fine. It might be a little blot slower than the 1600Mhz RAM, but I'm not sure you'd even notice.

[majikdragoon]

My laptop is coming with a 750gb HDD and a 32gb mSATA caching SSD is there any way to set the caching SSD as my boot drive?

This a good point.

Mine is coming with the 500gb/64gb mSATA drive. I kind of presumed that they would install the OS to the SSD portion. Is that wrong!? Will I need to re-install myself once it arrives?

[Mitchell2.24v]

This a good point.

Mine is coming with the 500gb/64gb mSATA drive. I kind of presumed that they would install the OS to the SSD portion. Is that wrong!? Will I need to re-install myself once it arrives?

Mine also comes with the 64G SSD, and I assume they will install the OS there as it is marked as a boot drive on the website.

My guess is that you can change the SSD behaviour in the BIOS, but I'm not sure about this.

Maybe someone who has already received their R4 can enlighten us?