Alienware Area-51 m7700

I got my system completely default, 3 GHz processor, 512 RAM, 6800, yeah, anyway here we go!

The day I got it my girlfriend was over, so I couldn't play with it! But the second she was gone I made a mad dash to my room to play Oblivion! The first thing I did was install new RAM, 2 512 chips I got from buyaib.com for $71 Total price. The next thing I did was overclock my video card, I overclocked to about 390/1.05, I wanted to be pretty precautious this being a new computer and all. The next thing I did was played Oblivion and Oh.....My....God.....AMAZING. I turned everything to MAX and it played beautifully, the only time the fps dropped to unplayable was when I was facing 5+ enemies. And the blind swinging was still fun! So I get done being amazed on Oblivion and I go into 3DMark05 to check myself out. I run it, 4117, not bad, better than factory testing. But I'm not satisfied. I run systool and overclock my processor to about 3.25 GHz and my GPU to 500/1.50. The second I hit write I use the FN+F2 command to keep my temps down. Then I use the ol' screwdriver trick and wedge it underneath where the video card sits. I run 3DMark05 once more and O....M....G....5367! AMAZING AGAIN! Oblivion runs with no drag at ALL and..... what else is there?

Final word:Screw the 'overheating issues', mine runs at under 60 when playing FEAR maxed out AND overclocking the CPU!, screw your SLI!(JK I wish! lol), this thing is a BEAST! Lets see you give it something it cant handle. It takes FEAR and eats it for breakfast with EVERYTHING maxed out! Computers, and especially laptops don't get any better than this folks! GET A M7700 TODAY!!!1

It's been about a month now since I recieved my AW M7700, and I held off writing this review for a reason, and that will come later in this review.
The packaging of this thing was supberd, there was never a doubt about that after reading several reviews stating this fact.I'm not going to bore you with those details anyway.
Here are the specs:
P4 3.0 proc
Screen resolution is 1400/900 and is the matted screen not the glossy (which I prefer the matted)
1 Gig of ram
60 gb hard drive 54 rpm
standered CD/DVD drive (slot loading-think of your Cars in dash CD player-pretty damn cool)
6800 Ultra Vid card

This thing has played every game Ive thrown at it flawlessly, and all settings maxxed. Oblivion plays smooth as silk as does World of Warcraft and Doom3. I see these games in a whole new light and It is utterly amazing. I appreciate my game time alot more now that I can see my games run at a decent frame rate.
As far as games goes, this machine gets a Ten out of Ten.

Portability? Thats another story, This Notebook weighs about 15 to 20 lbs (I must admit I never did weigh it-I'm guessing) You wont be carrying this with you to the local Wi-Fi Coffee or hot spot thats for sure. Since it is a PC powerhouse and the 17inch widescreen combination, doesn't fair well with battery life. I'm lucky to get just over an hour surfing the net and less than 45 minutes watching a movie, and even less playing a game. So if portability is an issue, this Notebook isn't for you. Six out of Ten for Batterylife and Portability. (Thats not a bad thing mind you)

Overall quality is ACE, there is not a single flaw in the construction of this Notebook, all LEDs are lit, Alien Eyes still glowing ,all USB and other ports as tight as they where when I cracked the box open.
Ten out of Ten.

So how does the AW Area 51 7700 measure up? I just can't think of a reason to give it less than a Ten, I have no complaints whatsoever.

(Sorry theres no pics, my camera was stolen along with the previouse Notebook I had )

Now onto the purchasing experience.
The first thing to pop into my mind when I think about the buying experience is how much a nightmare the wait was. I'm a pretty much a patient and understanding fellow, but AW support is anything but supportive. If it wasn't for boards like this one, I'd have cancelled after a month of being stuck in Phase 3, but in all fairness[ this was my first experience with AW and I honestly didn't know what to expect, had I known I may not be writting this review on an AW and I shudder at that thought. In other words, it is a double edged sword. There was a mix up at one point on which Vid card I was actually getting, and that sort of stolen the moment of joy when I fired it up for the first time, but It was an honest misunderstanding so there is no reason to go into that here.
Purchasing Experience I give it a GENEROUSE Eight out of Ten (and I am being realy realy nice)

Final Thoughts:
The Area 51 7700 is a sweet machine, It does what I wanted it to do and has exceeded many expectations I had, and thats always a good thing. The portability issues are a minimum to me, I have it plugged in all the time anyways. It is still nice to be able to move it around the house with ease and theres that side effect of the increase of my upper body strength .
Sorry for the delay in this review, but I wanted to give it a good run and actually USE the thing before I could give it a fair review.
I'm happy with my purchase, though I'm not sure I'll be willing to go through the Phase game anytime soon. It sucks.
Those of you caught in the Phase Game know this, your prize will arrive. Hang in there and be strong. Your baby is on the way!

Thanks to so many on these boards for the support and Information.Thank God for boards like this.

Catch you in WOW (maybe lol )

Evandino

Lets get right down to it

Aurora™ m7700

Processor: AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 4400+ with HyperTransport and Dual Core Technology
Operating System (Office software not included): Genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2
Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support w/ Onsite Service
Display: 17" WideXGA+ 1440 x 900 LCD Display
Motherboard: VIA K8T890 + VT8237A Chipset
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR SO-DIMM at 400MHz - 2 x 1024MB
Video/Graphics Card: 256MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7800 GTX
Hard Drive: Extreme Performance (RAID 0) - 160GB (80GB x 2) 5400 RPM SATA
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 8X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24X CD-RW Combo w/Software
Secondary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 24x10x24 CD-RW / 8X DVD Combo w/Software MPEG2 Decoder
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster® Audigy® 2 ZS PCMCIA
Primary Battery: Alienware® m7700 12-cell Lithium-Ion Smart Battery Pack
Communications: Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet & 56K V.92 Modem
Wireless Network Card: Internal Wireless 802.11b/g miniPCI Card
Floppy Drive: USB Floppy Drive
Mobile Transport : Alienware® Odyssey Backpack
AlienRespawn: Alienware® Respawn Recovery Kit
Mouse: Logitech® G5 Laser Gaming Mouse
Alienware Exclusive Offers: GameFly - Unlimited Game Rentals for 15 days - FREE TRIAL
Alienware Exclusive Offers: Gamespot Total Access - Free 90-day Trial (a $17.85 value)
Alienware Gear: Alienware® Alien Head Poster
Free Alienware T-Shirt: Free Alienware® T-Shirt - Black
Desktop Enhancements: Exclusive AlienGUIse Theme Manager
Free Alienware Mousepad: Free Alienware® Mousepad



Ordering
5/5 - Ordering was very easy, i ordered from there website and got a call to confirm my order in a hour or so. I also got an e-mail showing my specs, total price, order number and how i could look at my phases. Overall ordering couldn't have been easier.

Phases
5/5 Well, phases are just a fact of life, get over it. The phases were terrible to wait through. I ordered March.30 and it shipped Apr.10 (1 day BEFORE estimated shipping date) I found when i checked my phases, it was very accurate and was the same phase as the AW rep told me on the phone, so i guess they updated my phases good. The phases are hard, but worth it, so another 5 for alienware.

Packaging
5/5 Great! you could drop a bomb on it and it would be safe. Packing peanuts everywhere, foam inserts etc. The laptop itself had alot of plastick stickies on it protecting the paint. I inspected it and there are no scratches! yay. The laptop was in another box inside the main box. When i first opened it, i found the manual, cds, respawn, and that agent card they give you. then after some more foam, another black AW box. Openening that i find my laptop inside! AND the AW t-shirt and mousepad. The small brown box had my sound card, gaming mouse, backpack and carrying case in it. Great packing in the smaller box, lots of foam peanuts. Also, i got a cylinder tube which had my poster in it.


The laptop
5/5 EVERYTHING worked fine when i first booted it up, right out of the box it had 89% power left, altho, 1% last like 10 seconds.... anyway, i got my battery to last about 1 1/3 hours just being on the desktop. and about 20mins worth of playing a game. (starting at 100%). The screen had NO dead pixels, and no light leakage. All the fans worked, they arent to loud, not any louder than my desktop is. I loaded in F.E.A.R to test it out, Max graphics detail and High computer spec (Because i got the 4400) Runs very smooth, only laggs a little when something huge happens, but lowering my computer speed to medium solves this very nicely. So overall everything worked. Both dvd drives work, the audio dj is very nice, I did notice however the sound quality isnt great so im lucky i got the sound card. For the internal Wi-Fi i get about 108 speed or so. also, decent range for an internal card.

The other stuff
The sound card is great, it improves alot. I also got a lapcool 4 from newegg, this lowers the temp greatly when im playing games for hours at a time. If i have the lapcool on, usually the AW fans dont need to come on. Along with that i got the laser gaming mouse that AW offers, I LOVE it, i like changing fps, the weights are awsome, and it feels smooth to use it, and great to grip it.


More to come but i know your dieing for pics! 56K WARNING (click on a picture to enlarge)

this is a short review, which I will update as i further in the game.

Monday the 26th i placed my order over the phone, a rep named George helped me with my purchase. I checked the phases on AW's site and I progressed to phase 3 (before the change to 10 phases). I woke up the next morning around noon and had to check it again... phase 9 over night, I was super excited!


I was getting worried Tuesday the 28th when all day it was stuck at phase 9, especially when I know FedEx usually picks up around 5-7pm. sure enough at 6pm eastern I checked the phases out and i was phase 12! Whoa.. I thought I couldn't lose. I checked one last time around 6:30 just cause I was at work and I had nothing better to do. It put me back to phase 9 and I picked up the phone to call to see what happened to it... I looked harder at the page and saw that i was on the second to last step cause they had changed it from 14 to 10! WOW so here I am with a tracking number from FedEx and an arrival date of 10/4, thats Tuesday! If it does arrive on Monday that would been a week exactly from the date I placed the order... lets just hope the machine has as good luck as I did in the phases game! I will keep you updated with how the machine arrives!


THIS MACHINE ROCKS! although the Fn key's dont work and I cant seem to get the media center to work on the front display...pm me if you can help

Post Review Update 4/08:

Well, the machine is no longer with me. I have moved onto a m9700. I loved the m7700 until the day I had to let it go. It was a great machine, ran Guildwars like a champ and multi-boxed Diablo II like no other . Unfortunately I kept running into problems with my graphics card artifacting, I had to get two replacement graphics cards within the year I owned the machine.

I got very frustrated with Alienwares' Technical Support Department until I was escalated to a superb gentlemen by the name of Marco. Marco was great, him and the COO of Alienware are all that kept me around. Marco would call me when he said he would and would be in his office the same. I had to send my machine in for repairs because it started to smoke, Marco called me to let me know that the motherboard had burnt, the CPU had fused itself to the heatsink, the graphics card had died, plus the internals of the machine had melted all the plastic in the case. After they received it they worked on it almost the same day and Marco returned a call to me with an update stating what they had found and that they had already got my machine up and running again. He said they replaced both of my HDD"s and panels A, B and C, I was impressed.

I got my machine back with nice new panels and all the others, it fired right up. I usually let my machines run idle for around 250-500 hours before I do any benchmarks or gaming. During this period, well about 5 hours into it my machine bricked again, but this time without the smoke. I called Marco and he said he would get back with me, he said he was about fed up with the troubles I had gone through. While I waited a friend who runs another forum gave me the COO's personal email to "voice" my story to him. The next day Alex called me personally to tell me that with the recent acquisition by Dell that Alienware's components were about to get much more reliable and he felt that I deserved the new m9700. He gave me the go ahead to "spend a few extra bucks" if I wanted . This is what being a Computer company should be about, hardware fails..it just does. I don't hold a computer company responsible for bad hardware as long as they keep up their end of the deal with the service. I can go get a Samsung HDD anywhere, but who deals with my warranty is a whole other story.

Enough of that, the machine was awesome. Although I couldn't recommend this particular model to anyone because of the grief it caused me and being near 3 years later, all the problems it caused everyone else, but I would highly recommend Alienware.

I figure since this forum has given me a bunch of info and help I shall give what I can in return. This is my review of the new 7700 laptop. I have never done a review so bare with me. I will break it down as best as I can. If you have any questions please feel free to ask and I will answer them as best as I can.

Ordering
I used Alienwares website to place my order. After I roamed around this forum for a few weeks I finally ordered the 7700 laptop the day it came out. Well that was the easy part, now I had to wait. I had the typical buyers remorse and second guessed myself everynight for a week. After talking with Craig for awhile I decided to scrap the 7700 and go with the Aurora desktop. So I called up AW and talked with a rep who was very helpful. He changed my order and I was off and rolling again, or off and waiting. So a two weeks go by and then the next problem rears its ugly head. I change jobs and houses. To make a long story short I decided once again to go with the laptop. Now fastforward to 12/8. I call up AW again, and ask them to change my order back. Not a problem and its $78 dollars cheaper. Cool so now I am back on track.

Phases!!!
Well for those that have been through it know what kind of hell it can be. It is not much fun but there is no way around it. I called the AW reps everyday for about a week untill I realized there was nothing they could do and all I could do was sit back and wait. So I would check the email everyday just hoping to see this huge jump to phase 14. As you would guess it never happened. Phase 3,4,5,6,7,8,13. Wait 13, holy crap I jumped, I jumped phases. Then it started to really set in, I was going to be the proud owner of the new Alienware 7700 laptop. I had to call AW just to make sure I read the email correct. I did, it was on its way. I had an estimated ship date of 01/15. My lappy shipped 12 days early. I felt kind of bad because I have read so many horror stories about people having to wait months and months and here I am 12 days early. I guess I have nothing to complain about now.

It shipped!
So I got the tracking numbers emailed to me. I check the Fedex site about twice a day. I watched my lappy travel from Flordia to Phoenix Arizona in about 3 days. Then from Phx to my city (Prescott, AZ) in a day. Then it gets better, "Out for delievery". Sweet. Well the doorbell rings about 2:30 pm. He asked for a signature, crap all I wanted was the big black box. I think I signed with an X I was so excited. I dont even remember. I got my laptop!!!!

Open it up!
A big black box and a smaller brown one. Which one do I open first? I go for the smaller one. After I get through AW excellent packing I find a few games. Then its off the more important big box. Fly through all the foam and pull out the carrying case that they give you free. There is a smaller black box that has all the extras, cd's, cables, ect. Then its through some more packaging. There she is, my baby. Sitting all nice and pretty. So I finish unwrapping and pulling out the folder and mouse pad in a tin box. Snap some pictures and then its time to fire it up.

Fire it up!
Push the silver button on the right. She comes to life. Bios screen flew by. I think I had about 2 seconds to hit f2, i barly saw it. Go through all the windows loading stuff. Looking around at the huge screen, not a single dead pixel, not one. So I threw on some games, Hl2, battlefiled, ect. This machine handles them with ease. Not a single problem. It flew through the 5 disc hl2 loading. What a dream. I have never had a pc so quick. Im in awe to the day, she just keeps on amazing me. I downloaded a few benchmark programs. I will update this post after I get the benchmark results. I will also do a battery test. ***Battery test results. I was able to play HL2, CS, Battlefield 1942 for 1 hour and 7 minutes before the lappy screamed for a power outlet. I surf all over the internet for 1 hour and 41 minutes. I used the internet for 20 minute, then played HL2 for 20 minute, then back to the internet for 20 minutes, ect for 1 hour and 22 minutes. The screen dims a few clicks when the battery is being used. With the default settings in place the processor runs at 2.6ghz. During the tests I ran the processor at a full 3.2ghz. There where no visual changes between battery and regular wall power. The computer acted exactly the same.
The specs
P4 3.2GHZ
1 gig Corsair DDR2
NVIDIA 6800FXGO 256meg
60gig 7200rpm x2 Non Raid
8x DVD RW
24x CD RW
and all the other basic goodies, xp, card reader, 7.1 sound card, ect.

Final Thoughts
Damn, Damn, Damn, what a sweet computer. What a great company. What a great experience. Not a single problem. The computer was set up the way I had dreamed. The phases went quick, the aw reps helped as best they could. I would do it all over again. I do believe my next pc will be an Alienware. Hope this sheds some light on my experience with Alienware. If you have any questions please ask away. Please let me know what you think of the review, hope I did not bore anyone to death. Good luck with your Alienware and believe me the wait is well worth it. Ryan

Links to the Pictures.....http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=58237




The benchmarks.....

I know nothing about benchmarking or OCing. I just downloaded and ran the programs. Please let me know how they are and if I can make the computer run better. Thanks Ryan

3dmark05 - 2709
3dmark01 - 16061
3dmark03 - 7142