After what seemed like forever, fedex dropped off my lappy. I was so excited I could hardly contain my self. I opened the box and there she was. I removed the lappy from the box, set it on my desk and turned it on. Nothing!!!! Not even a flicker of the hard drive. The battery was loose and didn’t make contact I guess. After that problem was solved, I plugged in the power supply and was off.
First impression. This thing looks beautiful. One of the best looking laptops I have ever seen in person. The paint was smooth and glossy. Zero flex in the chassis. Solid laptop.
Paint: Don’t know how tuff this paint is, and I really don’t want to find out. But I would hate to scratch it or chip it! I would be very careful!
I read the system info that AW so kindly left on the desktop, I was disappointed in the 3dmark 05 score that I seen. 8500, that seemed a little low for 2x 512 meg SLI cards. never the less, I installed a few games. BF2, WOW, Guild Wars. Playing WoW at 1920x1600 with everything set max ran a bit choppy for me. So I lowered the res and backed off some settings. It ran better, but it wasn’t what I expected though. I moved on to BF2. set everything to max. Still choppy. Now I was starting to wonder what was up. My Dell I9300 ran games better than this... Guild wars had problems right off the bat.
I did a little reading, tried to find some updated video drivers. I was amazed at how many different drivers I seen. I didn’t know where to start. After spending about 1.5 hours looking for drivers and info, I decided to format and start fresh.
WinXP Pro installed FAST. I was impressed with that. I popped in the xp disk, rebooted the machine and walked away. Fixed something to eat and BAM windows was done. It couldn’t have taken more than 15 min.. I popped in the driver disk that AW sent with the computer, hit auto install. It installs almost all of the drivers but the cam, tuner card and Bluetooth.
I let windows update (takes for ever). I now had a fresh install. Installed 3dmark 05 and let it run, 5400 points!!!!! OMG I'm going to die!!! Well it seems like it only installed one video card driver. I had SLI checked. I uninstalled the drivers. Disabled one of the cards then installed the drivers again. After that was done I enabled the other card and installed the drivers. Everything looked good now. Ran 3dmark, 8900!! Way better that the 5400 but still not what I expected. Decided to reinstall the games again. Now I can’t explain this but everything runs so smooth now. WoW @ 1920x1600 max 60 fps in Ironforge. BF2, awesome. smooth and silky. Guildwars looked great. I installed Half-life 2. Couldn’t believe how well it looked and ran. Although I only scored about 400 points higher than before, it was like a whole new machine.
Pros: Built well, easy on the eyes. Screen has zero dead pix and looks awesome. Not as heavy as I though it would be. Heat is not a problem at all. I was surprised at how cool it ran. Love the volume dial on the side. Front cd tray is a plus. (Always have something on the sides on my lappy). I will put battery life in the pro side. If something with this much power can last over an hour on a battery it is a pro! 2 hard drives is an A+.
Cons: Although the keyboard feels really good, some times my fingers get caught on the side of the direction keys and feels like the key is going to pop off. Always worried about scratching the paint or chipping it. Not AW fault. Price could always be better. But if you pay for a viper you get a viper!
All in all this is one beast of a laptop. Form, function and factor! Looks better than almost any laptop out there, performance is top notch! If you are in the market for a power house of a laptop. This is the laptop for you. I would and have recommended the m9700 to several people already.
This lappy should last me several years instead of the one or two years that most laptops last me.
First impression. This thing looks beautiful. One of the best looking laptops I have ever seen in person. The paint was smooth and glossy. Zero flex in the chassis. Solid laptop.
Paint: Don’t know how tuff this paint is, and I really don’t want to find out. But I would hate to scratch it or chip it! I would be very careful!
I read the system info that AW so kindly left on the desktop, I was disappointed in the 3dmark 05 score that I seen. 8500, that seemed a little low for 2x 512 meg SLI cards. never the less, I installed a few games. BF2, WOW, Guild Wars. Playing WoW at 1920x1600 with everything set max ran a bit choppy for me. So I lowered the res and backed off some settings. It ran better, but it wasn’t what I expected though. I moved on to BF2. set everything to max. Still choppy. Now I was starting to wonder what was up. My Dell I9300 ran games better than this... Guild wars had problems right off the bat.
I did a little reading, tried to find some updated video drivers. I was amazed at how many different drivers I seen. I didn’t know where to start. After spending about 1.5 hours looking for drivers and info, I decided to format and start fresh.
WinXP Pro installed FAST. I was impressed with that. I popped in the xp disk, rebooted the machine and walked away. Fixed something to eat and BAM windows was done. It couldn’t have taken more than 15 min.. I popped in the driver disk that AW sent with the computer, hit auto install. It installs almost all of the drivers but the cam, tuner card and Bluetooth.
I let windows update (takes for ever). I now had a fresh install. Installed 3dmark 05 and let it run, 5400 points!!!!! OMG I'm going to die!!! Well it seems like it only installed one video card driver. I had SLI checked. I uninstalled the drivers. Disabled one of the cards then installed the drivers again. After that was done I enabled the other card and installed the drivers. Everything looked good now. Ran 3dmark, 8900!! Way better that the 5400 but still not what I expected. Decided to reinstall the games again. Now I can’t explain this but everything runs so smooth now. WoW @ 1920x1600 max 60 fps in Ironforge. BF2, awesome. smooth and silky. Guildwars looked great. I installed Half-life 2. Couldn’t believe how well it looked and ran. Although I only scored about 400 points higher than before, it was like a whole new machine.
Pros: Built well, easy on the eyes. Screen has zero dead pix and looks awesome. Not as heavy as I though it would be. Heat is not a problem at all. I was surprised at how cool it ran. Love the volume dial on the side. Front cd tray is a plus. (Always have something on the sides on my lappy). I will put battery life in the pro side. If something with this much power can last over an hour on a battery it is a pro! 2 hard drives is an A+.
Cons: Although the keyboard feels really good, some times my fingers get caught on the side of the direction keys and feels like the key is going to pop off. Always worried about scratching the paint or chipping it. Not AW fault. Price could always be better. But if you pay for a viper you get a viper!
All in all this is one beast of a laptop. Form, function and factor! Looks better than almost any laptop out there, performance is top notch! If you are in the market for a power house of a laptop. This is the laptop for you. I would and have recommended the m9700 to several people already.
This lappy should last me several years instead of the one or two years that most laptops last me.
