Hello all, I've been reading about the spate of recent negative comments on AW notebooks and would like to add my 2 cents here. Around the end of last year, I purchased an Area-51m 7700 with a P4 3.4GHz 2GB RAM Geforce Go 7800 GTX config. I received that shipment in 10 days, all the way from Ireland to Hong Kong, where I live. The service was fantastic and in the last 4 months, I've had absolutely no problems with the notebook whatsoever. It has performed flawlessly. In February this year, a close friend of mine offered to buy the notebook off me and I took the opportunity to order an Aurora m7700 FX 60 unit. Would like to provide some feedback on the ups and downs of my experience.
(1) Ordering
I ordered on 22 February with an estimated ship date of 31 March. This was far from smooth. In the first week, the customer support staff had many problems with collecting payment despite me having bought from them 2 months before. To cut a long story short, there was some miscommunication and after 1.5 weeks of faffing about, they finally collected payment. Towards the end of March, I was told there would be a delay due to some parts being in shortage - one customer support officer told me the "D900T Clevo video card was not in stock". Anyway, I was told my order would be given priority and should be shipped within 7 working days from 31 March. And then, voila, on 6 April, I actually received the unit all the way from UK to Hong Kong, earlier than expected! A pleasant surprise, "only" 6 days late which I have no problems with. All in, roughly a 6-week wait....not bad...
(2) Initial setup
I set about installing various software and games over the last 4 days or so. On the 2nd day, I started getting the famous BSOD (blue screen of death) intermittently. Thinking oh no, here we go again, all the stories are true (even went out and bought myself some new RAM thinking it may be some bad sticks)....I figured I should uninstall some of the software which I had installed just to make sure it wasn't software-related. When I uninstalled the first software I had installed prior to the BSODs, Kaspersky Anti-Hacker firewall (oddly enough), the BSODs stopped! I can't quite figure it out (I'm no novice, but not exactly a pro either) but the BSODs have not recurred ever since. Fantastic! (had not changed the RAM sticks) 3 days later, I am playing HL2 and Fear with absolutely no problems. Also been putting the system through some 3DMark05 testing with no problems. Running smoothly and a real monster performance. The FX60 chip is so much better than the P4. It seems to run cooler. I was very pleased with my Area-51m but the Aurora FX60 really kicks it in the teeth.
(3) Benchmarks
Initial run with the Nvidia 79.31 driver clocks in at burn-in mark of low 6,800s with 3DMark05. With the 84.20 driver, it clocks in at 7,100, with Zone Alarm and Kaspersky Anti-virus running in the background! Huge gain with change with the new driver! In contrast, my Area 51m with P4 3.4GHz clocked in at 6,400 (81.94 shipped) with some small gains with the 84.20. Haven't yet run 3DMark06 but I'm guessing a roughly 10% improvement over my Area 51m score of 3,277.
Added 11 April: 3DMark06 score comes in at 4,085
(4) Games
With the inbuilt test module in FEAR, I was getting average 58fps with 4xAA and 4xAF everything else at maximum (except soft shadows off) running at 1024x768. At the exact same settings for the Area 51m, I was getting average 50fps. Roughly a 15% better performance. On HL2, which has a known stutter problem due to the way audio sounds are loaded, I needed to use the "Maldo fix" (head over to Steam forums to find out) to get rid of the sound stutters on my Area 51m (and a very good fix it is). With the Aurora, there was no need for the fix, the game runs smooth with no lags or stutters. I have also been playing Pro-Evo Soccer 5 on the Aurora with a marked improvement in speed over the Area 51m - I've even had to turn up the resolution to the maximum possible to slow down the game as it was running TOO FAST for me to get a grip on the game. The ball was zipping around like no tomorrow. The FX60 really kicks P4's a*se.
(5) Overall
After a shaky start, I am very very happy with the Aurora. No BSODs over the last 2 days playing games and running absolutely smoothly. After reading the horror stories here, I considered seriously cancelling the order over the last 6 weeks. However, in part because of my promise to my friend and in part because of the innate optimist in me, I stuck it out. And I have to say, I am very pleased with the result! Remains to be seen whether the BSODs will return....has not returned even once after I uninstalled Kaspersky Anti-Hacker, which I find slightly odd (given Kaspersky's good rep) but such is life and computers. The optimist in me tells me it will all be fine. I hope this story helps to console some of the other people out there waiting for their Auroras! My conclusion: customer service 7/10, notebook 9/10 (assuming no more BSODs), not 10/10 probably because of the cost. One final comment, my Aurora actually had the D900K and not the D900T in the end.
Here are my specs:
Processor: AMD Athlon™ 64 FX-60 Processor with HyperTransport and Dual Core Technology
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional UK with SP2 - English
Warranty: Aliencare Free Phone 1-Year 24/7 Warranty
Case: Alienware® m7700 Case with 17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 Display with Built-in Camera
Memory: 2GB DDR PC-3200 400MHz - 2x1024MB
Video Card: Alienware® m7700 NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7800GTX with 256MB of DDR3 memory
System Drive: Dual Drive Configuration - Non RAID - 200GB (100GB x 2) 7200 RPM SATA
Optical Drive One: DVD-Burner: 8x Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24x CD-RW Combo w/Software
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster® Audigy 2 ZS PCMCIA
Wireless network: Internal Wireless 802.11a/b/g miniPCI Card
Home Video Editing: Pinnacle Studio version 9 SE
AlienRespawn: Alienware® Respawn Recovery Kit
Floppy Drive: USB Floppy Drive
Modem: 56K Modem with V.92 Technology
Ethernet NIC: Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (DSL-ready)
Bluetooth: Belkin® Bluetooth™ USB Adapter
Keypad: Mobile Keypad - English
(1) Ordering
I ordered on 22 February with an estimated ship date of 31 March. This was far from smooth. In the first week, the customer support staff had many problems with collecting payment despite me having bought from them 2 months before. To cut a long story short, there was some miscommunication and after 1.5 weeks of faffing about, they finally collected payment. Towards the end of March, I was told there would be a delay due to some parts being in shortage - one customer support officer told me the "D900T Clevo video card was not in stock". Anyway, I was told my order would be given priority and should be shipped within 7 working days from 31 March. And then, voila, on 6 April, I actually received the unit all the way from UK to Hong Kong, earlier than expected! A pleasant surprise, "only" 6 days late which I have no problems with. All in, roughly a 6-week wait....not bad...
(2) Initial setup
I set about installing various software and games over the last 4 days or so. On the 2nd day, I started getting the famous BSOD (blue screen of death) intermittently. Thinking oh no, here we go again, all the stories are true (even went out and bought myself some new RAM thinking it may be some bad sticks)....I figured I should uninstall some of the software which I had installed just to make sure it wasn't software-related. When I uninstalled the first software I had installed prior to the BSODs, Kaspersky Anti-Hacker firewall (oddly enough), the BSODs stopped! I can't quite figure it out (I'm no novice, but not exactly a pro either) but the BSODs have not recurred ever since. Fantastic! (had not changed the RAM sticks) 3 days later, I am playing HL2 and Fear with absolutely no problems. Also been putting the system through some 3DMark05 testing with no problems. Running smoothly and a real monster performance. The FX60 chip is so much better than the P4. It seems to run cooler. I was very pleased with my Area-51m but the Aurora FX60 really kicks it in the teeth.
(3) Benchmarks
Initial run with the Nvidia 79.31 driver clocks in at burn-in mark of low 6,800s with 3DMark05. With the 84.20 driver, it clocks in at 7,100, with Zone Alarm and Kaspersky Anti-virus running in the background! Huge gain with change with the new driver! In contrast, my Area 51m with P4 3.4GHz clocked in at 6,400 (81.94 shipped) with some small gains with the 84.20. Haven't yet run 3DMark06 but I'm guessing a roughly 10% improvement over my Area 51m score of 3,277.
Added 11 April: 3DMark06 score comes in at 4,085
(4) Games
With the inbuilt test module in FEAR, I was getting average 58fps with 4xAA and 4xAF everything else at maximum (except soft shadows off) running at 1024x768. At the exact same settings for the Area 51m, I was getting average 50fps. Roughly a 15% better performance. On HL2, which has a known stutter problem due to the way audio sounds are loaded, I needed to use the "Maldo fix" (head over to Steam forums to find out) to get rid of the sound stutters on my Area 51m (and a very good fix it is). With the Aurora, there was no need for the fix, the game runs smooth with no lags or stutters. I have also been playing Pro-Evo Soccer 5 on the Aurora with a marked improvement in speed over the Area 51m - I've even had to turn up the resolution to the maximum possible to slow down the game as it was running TOO FAST for me to get a grip on the game. The ball was zipping around like no tomorrow. The FX60 really kicks P4's a*se.
(5) Overall
After a shaky start, I am very very happy with the Aurora. No BSODs over the last 2 days playing games and running absolutely smoothly. After reading the horror stories here, I considered seriously cancelling the order over the last 6 weeks. However, in part because of my promise to my friend and in part because of the innate optimist in me, I stuck it out. And I have to say, I am very pleased with the result! Remains to be seen whether the BSODs will return....has not returned even once after I uninstalled Kaspersky Anti-Hacker, which I find slightly odd (given Kaspersky's good rep) but such is life and computers. The optimist in me tells me it will all be fine. I hope this story helps to console some of the other people out there waiting for their Auroras! My conclusion: customer service 7/10, notebook 9/10 (assuming no more BSODs), not 10/10 probably because of the cost. One final comment, my Aurora actually had the D900K and not the D900T in the end.
Here are my specs:
Processor: AMD Athlon™ 64 FX-60 Processor with HyperTransport and Dual Core Technology
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional UK with SP2 - English
Warranty: Aliencare Free Phone 1-Year 24/7 Warranty
Case: Alienware® m7700 Case with 17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 Display with Built-in Camera
Memory: 2GB DDR PC-3200 400MHz - 2x1024MB
Video Card: Alienware® m7700 NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7800GTX with 256MB of DDR3 memory
System Drive: Dual Drive Configuration - Non RAID - 200GB (100GB x 2) 7200 RPM SATA
Optical Drive One: DVD-Burner: 8x Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24x CD-RW Combo w/Software
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster® Audigy 2 ZS PCMCIA
Wireless network: Internal Wireless 802.11a/b/g miniPCI Card
Home Video Editing: Pinnacle Studio version 9 SE
AlienRespawn: Alienware® Respawn Recovery Kit
Floppy Drive: USB Floppy Drive
Modem: 56K Modem with V.92 Technology
Ethernet NIC: Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (DSL-ready)
Bluetooth: Belkin® Bluetooth™ USB Adapter
Keypad: Mobile Keypad - English
