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Originally Posted by Argh  i am on the verge of ordering this thing but have some nagging questions left.
1) do you have to press and hold the power button for a few seconds in order for the laptop to power on or can you quickly press and release the power button?
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The m9700/m9750 turns on with a click to the power button, no hold necessary.
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| 2) it appears the built-in mic is located just underneath the "L" and in between the "I" where it says alienware on the monitor screen. want to check on this. and does it do a decent job? |
Mine works great. I've used it for internet phone, messaging, and used it to record a neighbor's dog barking to play for animal control. It's as good or better than any internal mic I've used. It's not going to match a good headset though.
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| 3) regarding connecting this laptop to an hdtv through the s-video port. my tv does not have a vga or dvi connection so i can only do hdmi or component for high def. does the laptop come with a component dongle and does the s-video port support the component hook-up for high def? |
The S-video ports aren't connected to anything unless you buy the internal tv tuner. It will accept any S-video cable you can get at circuit city, best buy, etc... My m9700 came with a few cables, but they're in the box in storage so I can't confirm for sure whether an S-video cable came with it. I have a monster cable from an earlier purchase, but I don't use S-video due to it's poor quality when compared to the other options.
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| 4) what about adding a 2nd hard drive yourself after you purchase it? will you need to order screws to mount the hard drive to the plastic from alienware? |
I bought a second drive from Newegg. It was OEM, so it didn't come with the screws. I just took a couple from the first drive to secure the second to the tray, then the tray slides into the chassis and is secured by another screw. Not sure if AW will sell the screws seperately if you don't buy the second drive from them. AW does give upgrade discounts to customers.
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| 5) it appears that the raid tools are built into the laptop so you do not need an usb floppy to load raid drivers if you rebuild your array or format, right? |
The RAID drivers are available through AW's driver download page. If you use the respawn, you won't need to load the RAID drivers, but if you're installing RAID yourself, or rebuilding with the OS disc after a reformat, you will need to load the drivers. You can do that with a floppy, a thumbdrive, or use a program called nLite to slipstream the drivers onto your windows install cd.
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| 6) is the tv tuner on the m9750 the same one used on the m7700? because i have a dead sager 9860 (same as m7700) with the standard tv tuner and would like to put that into the m9750. i do not see any tech support regarding adding a tv tuner yourself on alienware's site. and why is it only available with windows vista, won't it work on xp? |
The tuner in the m9700 (not sure if it's the same as m9750) is a lifeview MiniPCI tuner. If AW only sells the tuner with Vista, it's because they've tested and certified it for Vista. Doesn't mean it won't work with XP, but if they don't sell it with XP they won't support it.
As long as the tuner fits the port, and has drivers, it should work.
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| 7) is there an indicator light during card reader activity? |
Not unless the hd light works while reading memory cards. There is no light next to the slot.
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| 8) any keyboard flex at all? is it as good as the keyboards of ibm or better? |
No keyboard flex.
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| 9) does the finish feel good to the touch or is it rough? and do you think the finish will wear off or is it high quality? i know the chassis is reinforced plastic so thats cool. |
The chassis is metal, the case is plastic. I have an m9700 and the finish is durable and well applied. Can't comment on the m9750.
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| 10) i do not care about the alien head on the laptop (looks childish) so i am looking at maybe removing it or putting black tape over it so i cam curious at how dificult that would be. can you disable the glowing eyes in the bios? |
Fn + F10 toggles the eyes. When the eyes are off, the head is all silver, you can't see the eyes are different. If you remove the head, you'll have a depression in the case with holes for the led lights, so I'd just leave it. I suppose you can paint it black if you have an issue with it.
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11) how is the wuxga screen compared to the ones found on the sager 9860-9261 models? one thing i love about my wsxga screen from sager is that it is the best i have seen and would hate to downgrade from that quality. i am not looking forward to going wuxga screen as that is too much but i guess i will have to get used to it |
I've seen next to no complaints about AW screens. I've seen a few posts from 7700 owners that bought m9700/m9750s, and the comments were the screen is more vibrant. If you get clearview, it will be glossy.
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| 12) i am thinking of getting one gpu now and upgrading to sli in the future when prices drop for the 7950gtx so i am wondering if the laptop ships with both heat sink and fans even for single gpu setups. would hate to order a heatsink and fan assembly as well as the gpu. |
With the m9700, the complete heatsink assembly shipped whether SLI or not. The m9750 uses a different setup where the cpu heatsink serves the second vid card, but I'm sure AW doesn't have separate heatsinks depending on the order. If you're concerned, call and ask sales to be sure.
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| 13) what mxm slot does this laptop have and will the 7950 gtx cards from the sager 9261 be compatible? |
No idea. I do know Dell vid cards won't work in the m9700, so I wouldn't count on it.
