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SagerMeister's m7700 Aurora & Odyssey Backpack Review - Page 2

post #21 of 124
1/20/06 at 8:22pm
That score is right on parr with mine (7600). Good job.
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post #22 of 124
1/20/06 at 10:34pm
Thread Starter 
My scores are lower. I found the Alienware burn-in benchmarks. It's contained in an XML file on the desktop. It came in with a 3dMark05 score of 6724. I just ran it again and got 6626. This is straight out of the box without any tweaking, etc.

I'm not really a gamer, so I won't spend years trying to jack these scores up by tweaking, but if any of you have easy suggestions to try, let me know and I'll give 'em a shot.
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post #23 of 124
1/20/06 at 10:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SagerMeister
My scores are lower. I found the Alienware burn-in benchmarks. It's contained in an XML file on the desktop. It came in with a 3dMark05 score of 6724. I just ran it again and got 6626. This is straight out of the box without any tweaking, etc.

I'm not really a gamer, so I won't spend years trying to jack these scores up by tweaking, but if any of you have easy suggestions to try, let me know and I'll give 'em a shot.

After reading your post I dug around in the administrator folder and found my factory benchmarks. If you are not a big gamer I would not worry about doing all the tweaks just to get a good benchmark score. I see it as a fun challenge but that's what I'm into. Changing drivers would make a bit of a difference for you but you will need to download a fixed inf file in order to get them to install (laptopvideo2go's website). I'll be writing my review over the weekend and look forward to comparing my thoughts of it to yours once your done. Here is what I found for the factory benches.


III. Burn-In/Benchmarks

Doom 3


Doom 3: 103.5 fps

3DMark 2005


Game Tests
3DMark Score: 6,717.00 3DMarks

GT1 - Return To Proxycon: 29.07 FPS

GT2 - Firefly Forest: 20.43 FPS

GT3 - Canyon Flight: 32.66 FPS

CPU Tests
CPU Score: 5,096.00 CPUMarks

CPU Test 1: 2.48 FPS

CPU Test 2: 4.66 FPS

Hope your liking it as much as I am Sager. It's one heck of a laptop.
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post #24 of 124
1/21/06 at 12:27am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by hulioni
Hope your liking it as much as I am Sager. It's one heck of a laptop.
Absolutely! I just finished my review (re-edited my initial post) with my thoughts and initial impressions.

I've got a whole bunch of stuff to do, such as transferring all my data, configuring ColdFusion and IIS and getting VMWARE on here along with Win2k3. Once I get to steady state, I'll have some time to play a few games and will probably try some of the tweaks you suggest. LOL...by that time, the lappy will be so loaded down with my crap that it'll probably score less than 1000 on the 3dmark05 test.

Anyway, enjoy! I know you will.
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post #25 of 124
1/21/06 at 12:55am
I want to thank both of you for your impressions. You've helped me make up my mind. I'm going to buy one of these beasts for primarily gaming and also classes every other Friday and Saturday. I don't see a problem lugging it to classes if it's only every other week. Anyway... thanks for the in depth review with all the care you put into it. Thanks also for the heads up about the soundcard. I'll definately opt for the card.
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post #26 of 124
1/21/06 at 1:14am
Once again I get a chuckle from your amazing sense of humor. Very good write up and dead on in my opinion. You have most definitely earned that beer my friend. One thing, can you test out your audio dj thing and see if it is working? I just got off the phone with tech support (very quick and helpful I might add). I updated to the 1.00.04 bios as told and it still doesn't work when I have the secondary drive in. Works if taken out and I only have the primary. Once I swap the primary out and put in the secondary as the main drive, no worky once again. I would think it is something with the second drive but it works just fine when in windows. Hell I don't know, they'll get it worked out I believe. Once again cheers on the new laptop and for the great review (I'm workin on one).
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post #27 of 124
1/21/06 at 2:06am
What a great review! Very nice lappy. I'm jealous. My ship date is the 24th.

Enjoy, and keep us updated down the road in a few months.

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post #28 of 124
1/21/06 at 2:10am
Awesome, my m7700 should be with me hopefully this week, makes me all the more anxious
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post #29 of 124
1/21/06 at 3:24am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by hulioni
Once again I get a chuckle from your amazing sense of humor. Very good write up and dead on in my opinion. You have most definitely earned that beer my friend. One thing, can you test out your audio dj thing and see if it is working?
Thanks. Spending a few years on a submarine hones one's sense of humor. I look forward to reading your review.

Not sure about the audio dj thing...how are you accessing it? It's not readily apparent on my setup. All I see is the RealTek sound manager crap.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Vek
What a great review! Very nice lappy. I'm jealous. My ship date is the 24th.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mipac
Awesome, my m7700 should be with me hopefully this week, makes me all the more anxious
Thanks guys! I enjoyed writing the review. It's a lot of fun to share the excitement of the moment. Just think, shortly you'll be able to do the same thing, and if your experience is anything like mine so far, it'll definitely be worth the wait!
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post #30 of 124
1/21/06 at 3:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SagerMeister
Thanks. Spending a few years on a submarine hones one's sense of humor. I look forward to reading your review.

Not sure about the audio dj thing...how are you accessing it? It's not readily apparent on my setup. All I see is the RealTek sound manager crap.

You should be able to turn the computer off, close the lid and use the front panel buttons to run the audio dj. It should allow you to eject the drives, and play audio disks without the computer needing to be powered up. So far this is the only thing keeping this machine from being a 9.5 to 10 for me (the functionality of the computer so far is perfect). Mine isn't listening to my cursing so far, but I'll keep trying. The new bios seemed to take the 12 hour clock out of the bios since it didn't work anyway. I also think the fans on auto run a bit different. Not worth the flash if you don't need it. I want to take a few days on my review to make sure I'm not premature (insert best joke here) on my initial impressions of the machine as a whole. I upgraded from a 2.4 (non HT) with a radeon 7500, so the difference is overwhelming at the moment. Just glad the deadex guys finally got your laptop to you in one piece, and you are enjoying it.
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post #31 of 124
1/21/06 at 5:38am
Hey guys,

Have any of you 2 tried out the internal wireless cards yet? I'm curious as to how the range/signal is doing for ya. I come from the Area-51m 766 model.. and some of you guys know the internal wireless issues that laptop had - so I'm a bit skeptical. Anyhow, I didn't order mine with one, but I'd like to know just in case I decide to later down the road.

Great review by the way, very informative. I wish I would have ordered the Alienware Backpack too!
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post #32 of 124
1/21/06 at 10:00am
I meant to ask also: how loud are these laptops? Are they going to be a problem in a classroom setting?
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post #33 of 124
1/21/06 at 11:18am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by hulioni
You should be able to turn the computer off, close the lid and use the front panel buttons to run the audio dj.
I went to bed at 2am and the damn kids woke me up at 6am. Coal in their stockings next Xmas!!!

LOL..oh, ok...I just didn't know the "audio dj" was the name of that built-in functionality. Let me check it out to see if it's working. I had the same thing on my old Sager and I don't think I ever used it. Always had the machine open/running and played tunes off the hard drive.

I'm hesitant to do a bios flash with such a new machine--at least until I feel comfortable with its normal operation. Anyway, I'll let you know if it's working.

Keep cursing at it, or better yet, show it a big ol' hammer.


Quote:
Originally Posted by shadered
Have any of you 2 tried out the internal wireless cards yet?
Yes, that's the first thing I fired up after turning on the computer. My router is in the next room, so my results aren't a very rigorous test, but it's 5 x 5 and unwavering at a short distance (like it should be). It's nice enough outside today (high of near 65 in N. Va! in the middle of January!) that maybe I'll take it outside and test its range. If I do, I'll let you know.

Quote:
Originally Posted by msduncan
I meant to ask also: how loud are these laptops? Are they going to be a problem in a classroom setting?
These machines are only loud if you're doing school work. If you are playing games they are super-silent!! Muahahaha...if only that were true. It's early yet, but it's certainly no louder than my older machine. Fans tend to get louder with age as the fan bearing wears, but overall I'd say my new machine is quieter right now than my old one, especially if I'm not stressing the CPU. I wish I had a sound pressure level meter to give you some quantitative measures, but I don't.

I think in a normal classroom with average ambient noise, it won't be a problem. If you're sitting in a very quiet library, then yes, it will be audible. Expect it to get louder the longer you own the rig.
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post #34 of 124
1/21/06 at 12:20pm
Dang that's awesome. I'm SO going to own one of these as soon as bonus time rolls around next month.

Thanks! Oh...and for a gamer would you recommend the FX-55 or 57 or the 4800?
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post #35 of 124
1/21/06 at 12:28pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by msduncan
Dang that's awesome. I'm SO going to own one of these as soon as bonus time rolls around next month.

Thanks! Oh...and for a gamer would you recommend the FX-55 or 57 or the 4800?
I'm not the best one to give you gaming advice, but if you're a hard core gamer, ALL you do is game, and you want to squeeze every extra ounce of gaming power out of your chip, then you'll probably want the single core variant. If you need the computer for both gaming and work, then dual core is the way to go. The added flexibility of the dual core chips allows seamless multitasking without much of a gaming performance hit.
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post #36 of 124
1/21/06 at 1:04pm
4800, but now u can get the fx60 with is best
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post #37 of 124
1/21/06 at 1:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DarthBeavis
4800, but now u can get the fx60 with is best
For pure gaming perfromance, the fx-57 is still awesome. The fx-60 is basically two fx-55 cpu's in one, both cores are clocked at 2.6 ghz. I can only dream of the performance that it would give.
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post #38 of 124
1/21/06 at 2:15pm

Plastic?

One Question : What do you think the chassis is made from - both screen/lid and base?
I routed through the alienware site but couldn't find a reference to it.

I thought that it may be plastic and that was putting me off, but as you said the build quality was very solid, so im not quite so concerned anymore.

I’ve seen my dads very old AJP plasticy lump of a laptop almost dissolve through use. The screen hinges were horribly creaky and it seems that it was spray painted silver because through years of use the paint wore off on the wrist wrests. He must have acid sweat. I guess I must inherit these alien attributes.

By the way what a great review, I’ve been hanging back waiting to hear how these newies perform. I'm going to get one of these beasts for Architectural work and naturally a game or two.
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post #39 of 124
1/21/06 at 2:44pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by hulioni
You should be able to turn the computer off, close the lid and use the front panel buttons to run the audio dj. It should allow you to eject the drives, and play audio disks without the computer needing to be powered up.
Looks like I've got the same problem. Can't eject either drive, although I do see the green light on the top drive as if it's trying to access something. Turning on the DJ shows the time counter, so I know it's getting power there, but it just stays at zero. Obviously it's not communicate properly with the drive. I haven't tried the removal/reinsertion yet.

The DJ panel is responsive with the machine powered on, but that doesn't do us much good, eh? I did notice that the stop/eject button will stop the disc, but it won't eject with the computer powered on.
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post #40 of 124
1/21/06 at 3:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SagerMeister
Looks like I've got the same problem. Can't eject either drive, although I do see the green light on the top drive as if it's trying to access something. Turning on the DJ shows the time counter, so I know it's getting power there, but it just stays at zero. Obviously it's not communicate properly with the drive. I haven't tried the removal/reinsertion yet.

The DJ panel is responsive with the machine powered on, but that doesn't do us much good, eh? I did notice that the stop/eject button will stop the disc, but it won't eject with the computer powered on.

That is the exact problem that I'm having. Mine also doesn't eject the drive when powered on, but not sure if it should. Seems to have to do with having two drives. They told me they knew about the problem and to call them back in 4 to 5 days to see if they have a fix for it. I wouldn't bother with the bios flash or removing the drives, as that doesn't seem to be the problem (at least it didn't fix it). Maybe a newer bios is coming. Oh well, it is still better than I thought it would be.
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