M9700 Worries?

I don't have one, but overall, it's sorta something you have to take into account.. when people have BAD experiences, they just love whining and moaning about them, especially on forums like this one.

I've seen m9700's in lots of people's sigs, so I think a good number have them.

I'm in love with mine. I've had no problems thus far. I know that many others here also feel the same way.

Purchased my m9700 back in October of last year and have had only one problem with it and I think it was caused by hooking up an external LCD monitor to it and somehow frying the LCD Inverter but Alienware is going to take care of that for me when I decide to send it in as the external monitor works just fine for right now. First off I'll tell you that the vast majority of the complaints left on the alienware support forum are from people who actually don't know what they are talking about and purchased an m9700 for the coolness factor. I doubt half of them know how to update their drivers properly or would probably botch a ram install on the easiest mobile system to replace ram on (m9700 only 4 screws). The other half who have actual complaints almost always get their problems resolved. I know Hammerhead will reply as he is somewhat of the spokesman for the m9700 and rightly so as the m9700 really is an amazing machine. If you do end up ordering one and you recieve it without problems at the 1st powerup then you'll more than likely be set for a truly wonderful time. I think you've noticed that the m9700 looks awesome in comparison to other notebooks out there. On top of that you get options for SLI. Plus there is the m9750 being released very soon which I would actually attempt to ask you to try and wait for unless of course you wish to get the m9700. Do a search here for the m9750 and you'll find lots of info and speculation on what it will be when released (amazing beast) later this month or early May. This is because the m9700 owners who are very happy with their systems are all too busy gaming away enjoying the smell of barrel smoke after a decent sorty into the enemies encampment. They are also here on NBF sharing their experiences.

People aren't gonna register and post a story about how good their m9700 is (most won't.) People are only gonna register to say how bad AW is and how screwy their m9700 is. So think how many m9700 owners are registered on NBF, what maybe like 1 %? People are only gonna post if something goes wrong, so remember that. Every company has horror stories, and I actually haven't heard a lot of bad things about teh m9700. The only bad thing I've heard of is the heat, but thats easily fixable, and thats a given because its a gaming laptop with SLI. Wait til the m9750, don't buy an m9700. If you buy a high end m9700, you'll be kicking yourself later for not waiting. . .

In reply to the heat issue, wait what heat issue?

If anyone is complaining about how hot their m9700 gets it is because they are placing their hands over the exhaust vents in the back that expel the heat from the GPU's and CPU. If you were to place your hands on any part of the keyboard surface or touchpad you would not feel any extra heat other then what your hands transmit back to the glossy top notch paint job that Alienware puts on their current mobile systems. In truth the m9700 with SLI configured keeps very cool on the majority of the systems owned by NBF members. Far cooler then the single card 7900gs Dell owners. That and I still don't understand someone wanting to place a 9+ lbs notebook on their lap to play a couple hours of a resourse intensive game that obviously is going to cause the system to get warm and then having said notebook on their lap without proper usage of a cooler or board of some sort to keep the underside vents clear to help cool their laptop and then they complain cause their lap is getting too warm.

I think this thread is going to get a whole lot of m9700 owners who actually do love their systems to post. Just wait and see.

Unless you are going with the 512mb cards in sli then I would opt to wait and order a second card afterwards from Alienware as there have been a couple m9700 owners who've ordered theirs with a single 256mb card and then got the second card for only another $230. Also the only way to get the 512mb cards is by customizing your m9700 with SLI upfront. The aftermarket 512mb cards from ARIMA which are at the moment very scarce are selling for well over $500 a piece. One option you may take is to dual boot your os. Install a copy of XP after you order your m9700 with Vista and then when you want to game you boot up with XP. However the new C2D intel chips own all over the AMD single core turion by leaps and bounds. The C2D processors that will be available with the m9750 wil have the 1066mhz fsb and 4mb of L2 cache, also they will be 64bit windows compatible. The single core turion line is being phased out this year and replaced with the turion x2 which the m9700 at present will not be upgradeable to without a complete mobo revision as the turion x2 uses a Socket S1 while the single core uses a socket 754 denoting the number of pins. The S1 only uses 638 pins. Also the general direction for the high end mobile gaming systems are going to use nvidias MXM type 4 structure making it possible to upgrade to the 8xxx series of mobile go cards. This gives you the ability to make your m9750 with a single/dual 7950GTX pump a few steriods and become a DX10 mobile gaming BEAST. The future is soon but for now my m9700 is so very sweet.

Hi there, Hykster. Here's another very happy m9700 owner chiming in. Mine has been faultless.

I've seen speculation that the m9750 will be out in April or May ... but then, if they make that date, there generally is some delay with the first shipments on new systems (but maybe not...who knows?)

I doubt you'll see the AMD Turion X2 in the m9750 (speculation on my part). The original m9700s were based on the Turion because that was the only mobile CPU with SLI support. Most people are probably going to prefer the C2D processors.

There's nothing wrong with going with one video card ... but it seems to me the advantage of the m9700 is having SLI. I say go for it if you can afford it. The nice thing about the m9700 is it does not get too warm ... yes, hot air comes out the back vents, but I've never had a problem with heat on the palmrest area. We won't know how the m9750s handle heat until they are out and in user's hands.

Good Luck with your decision.

I've had no issues with mine, in fact I've seen very few issues here from the many m9700 owners that frequent these forums. Do some reading here.

The AW forums are for support, so the only people you'll see there usually are those with issues.

I run my m9700 about 12 hours a day, and it's been amazing.

Keep in mind the m9750 is about to be released though. With that notebook you'll get a dual core intel processor, DDR2 memory, and 7950gtx video cards. It should be out very soon.

While I understand the AMD vs. intel mindset, you should reconsider.

The Core 2 Duo smacks the turion in performance, and has a second core. Games will soon be taking advantage of multi-cores, so the difference in performance, especially with SLI will be significant.

The turion is being phased out this year, they're very hard to find now if you try to buy a replacement or upgrade outside of Alienware. The single core turion is being replaced with the X2 turion dual core, but it uses a different socket, so you won't be able to upgrade... ever...

With the 9750, you get the core 2 duo, DDR2 memory, and 7900gtx full blown top end video cards. The m9700 has a different cooling setup so it only will support the 7900gs, and likely won't support DX10 cards in the future. One 7950gtx performs just shy of two 7900gs's in SLI.

The benefit of the m9700 over the 9750 is simplicity and power use. The processor and vid cards in the m9700 use less power than the m9750's, though the turion can get pretty toasty...

No.

The X2 uses an S1 socket, that's different than the core 2 duo. Now that the C2D supports SLI, it's the obvious choice for the highest performance laptop on the market.

It's likely you'll be able to get an X2 turion in an mALX if you want to pay for it, but that's a totally different beast than the m9700/m9750.

I expect the m9750 to be out in April. Whether or not that version will support DX10 video cards is the issue that may not be resolved until late summer I think.

Hykster - what ever you decide to do - you will not be disappointed with the m97XX line - These are VERY solid machines - arima has done a more than fantastic job with this platform and since AW was involved with its developement - they have an upper hand compared with most pc companies who merely buy the chasis. My m9700 has been running non-stop for days on end, I have taken it all over the U.S., gone to lan parties (which is fun because my m9700 out-performs most of my friends desktops), and played a lot of very demanding games with maxed out settings for hours and have yet to experience any problems. However, I would probably wait for the m9750, because, just as HH stated You would be a little more "future proof" with the 9750 however...

I've had my m9700 since a few weeks after they were released and all I have to say is WOW. I've never had a computer (laptop or desktop) that has been this flawless. The ONLY problem I've had with my laptop since then was a windows problem, and it was fixed in under an hour via my respawn discs. My m9700 is on 24/7 unless I'm on the go and its being used for 10+ hours a day. Its become my desktop replacement and I couldn't be happier with alienware. I had a couple issues with my order because I kept getting told different things, but it was a pre-order so I'll forgive and forget. My next laptop will definately be an AW.

I'm by no means a fanboy, I'm just thrilled by the quality of this machine.

I am a fanboy, and I'm just thrilled by the quality of this machine... hehe...

I hope the m9750 is as reliable as the m9700. It's packing quite a bit more power, but with Arima and Alienware working together, it should be a stunner.