Alienware Sentia m3450 (Review Soon) - Page 4

Hi all, and many thanks to Wiccaan for the review and the high-res pics!

I already posted this topic in Guerrilla's review's thread, but I thought that two heads were better than one, this is why I'm asking you this same question.

I intend to buy an m3450 soon, but first I have one little thing to ask to the lucky owners of this PC:
How customizable is the notebook once you have bought it?

What I mean is: Is it easy to change the original components? Especially, is there an easy access the memory and the hard drive? Do you just need to remove one or two screws, or is it more complicated? Is the CPU also accessible (and why not the motherboard?).
I'm mostly interested by adding more memory later on, and having a larger hard drive in case I need it...

If it is not too difficult, and if you have some spare time, would you mind posting a few pics of the memory and hard drive compartments?

Thanks a lot in advance...

Ackeron

Allright, if you have not read the other thread where I asked this same question, here is where you can find info on how to change the hard drive :

--> http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/a...i=&p_topview=1

Thanks very much for the info

Thank you very much for this information. I have one on order that I should receive in about 2 weeks. My only concern was with the 14 inch screen. I was not sure whether to go with the Sentia or the Area 51. I decided to go with the Sentia due to portability considerations. I ordered the fully loaded version with the 100 gig 7200rpm hard drive and the 2.33 ghz processor with 2mb of ram. I hope it is as good as it looks. Is the screen big and clear enough on the Sentia? Thanks again for the info and pictures!

Great, thanks again.

Yah, didn't really mean to reply and have the whole thing come up again. Thanks for the reply. I guess you are still enjoying the Sentia then. The pictures really look great and were a big help in my decision making process. I googled Sentia and was lucky to find your thread with this information because there is not much info out there yet on this machine. I saw that they only came out with this machine at the end of August, which I had no idea. I searched around for the most powerful small notebook I could find, and this was definitely it. Most of the other companies don't allow you to build such a power machine unless you buy their top of the line computer, and the looks of the alienware are just unreal. You really did everyone a great service by putting those pictures, thanks again from a fellow New Jersian.

I have the 3450 too I love it. It's slow to boot up at the beginning, but all computers need a break in time. It basically just sped up within 10-15 minutes of use. I usually take my laptop to class, but I do have one complaint/question. I don't know if it's my harddrive (100gb 7200rpm) or my cpu (Duo 1.8ghz) but it makes a lot of noise. I believe its my cpu fan that is making the noise. When i take it to class, theres a humming that makes a pretty annoying noise that sometimes annoys other people as well as partially drowns out my teacher. It's not that loud, but it's enough to cause discomfort. Is there any way to slow down the fan or something or my harddrive (or basically just whatever that is making the noise) so that I can actually use this in class? Thanks.

Chris,

Wow mine is so quiet I didn't even realize the fans were kicking on! I have the c2d 2.0 with the 100 gig 7200rpm drive btw.

Has yours always done this since day one? Is it still under warranty at all? Maybe call AW and explain what its doing, they might walk you thru a few things you can check or whatnot inside and outside to confirm or diagnose it.

If its under waranty tho id be makin a call for sure especially if it just started the noises.

Mine is so quiet i honestly was scared the fans WEREN'T coming on when I felt the fan exhaust area i felt air coming out tho, and I installed that Notebook Hardware Control app http://www.pbus-167.com/ so i can see my cpu & hd temps and a by the minute type battery monitor which is also handy.

I run about 98 hd / 108 cpu on average & my fan kicks in low occasionally but only once for about 5 seconds on high (and I did hear that) when I switched resolutions one time while using photoshop.

If you install something like that notebook hardware control though or maybe speedfan (another app try google) it might give you insight as to why the fan is kicking on (sounds like its kicking on HIGH right?) cuz if your base temps are high especially on the cpu it could be an issue of thermal paste user SKYlegend i think it was had that issue, it ran hot fans going all the time shut off even on him, so he had to send it back in to get thermal paste re-applied.

Maybe he will read and chime in, if that higher mode was on all the time for me that I heard for about 5 seconds the other day yeah that would annoy me but in low mode i can't feel or hear it even, so I sure am wondering if you have a thermal issue (cpu paste even) that is causing the fan to kick in high mode. Have you had any application give you temps yet?

I would imagine too if your fans are kicking in high like that often and for long durations its gotta be killing your battery life too.

Bill

I'm on the phone with an Alienware tech right now actually. I think it's just the way my system is which kinda sucks. All of my friends' systems are all dead quiet wheres mine just spools like turbos in a car lol...But i don't think theres a solution for this really. I'm gonna check those programs out and see how it works out.

well after being on the phone for about 2.5 hours...and taking apart my laptop pretty much with the tech. he came to the conclusion that a can of compressed air and some spraying is going to fix it. boy do i love tech support. i think there's a defect because there's no way that my laptop can make that much noise. there are lesser laptops (in price) as well as larger laptops (in size) that make far less noise than this one. it seems to be running on super high fan mode or something. i need to get this fixed or find some way to swap out for another laptop from alienware =\ gonna give them a call back i guess.

with the NHC installed i have some readings. Unless these are wrong, i'm reading: CPU Temp 47C and HD Temp 35C. My fan is still blowing hard. FLOTSM, are your readings in F or C?

You'll get readings in C. Google SpeedFan and download it. You can manually lower the fans RPMs and see how fast it's going to begin with. SpeedFan will also tell you temperature, ect. Since SpeedFan directly controls your fan you might see a difference just by running it and having Smart Fan enabled in it.

Interestingly enough, speedfan actually made my fan stop. But then again, now my fan doesnt want to run at all haha...I've been using my system for over an hour or two, and temp readings are ranging from 40-50C (50 when i play counterstrike). Is it normal for my fan not to run that whole time? some settings i should be tweaking or anything that makes my fan run when it needs to? as of right now, its not running at all.

Are you sure SpeedFan shows your fan has stopped?

My Sentia's fan runs so silently it sounds like it isn't running. 40-50c seems fine. I never pass 45c, but 50c shouldn't be an issue, but if it goes any higher that there'd be cause for concern. Especially over a 2 hour period, 40-50c is normal.

It is also normal for the Sentia fan to only "kick on" where you hear it only occasionally when the temperature calls for it.

yeah. i dunno my fan just likes to do what it wants apparently haha... before speedfan it kicked in constantly. you couldn't hear anything except for the fan and that sucker spun like it was on crack. but then after speedfan, the fan doesn't seem to be on. i am feeling for air and i can't feel anything. dunno. i'll give it a day or two run and see if it improves. if not then i guess i'll call up alienware again and see if theres anything going on with it.

i must be running speedfan incorrectly because speedfan does not recognize my fans. now my fan has been running on high again constantly. my temperature range (with no tasks running) is 40. When i was running counter-strike yesterday, it boosted to 60 which was starting to scare me. i'm becoming really dissappointed with this system. the system is suppose to be quiet and the fan just likes to run nonstop. i shouldn't really expect much from the graphics card, but i thought it would be a bit better than the 50 or so fps i get from counter-strike, which usually comes up not so smooth. but hopefully i can fix the fan problem. guess i'll have to call alienware again.

i would love to have them take it back. question is do i have to pay for the shipping. i'm sure it would take a lot to have them pay for the shipping but i guess i'll try everything to get this sucker going.