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?

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?

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?

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?

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?

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?

7) is there an indicator light during card reader activity?

8) any keyboard flex at all? is it as good as the keyboards of ibm or better?

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.

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?

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

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.

13) what mxm slot does this laptop have and will the 7950 gtx cards from the sager 9261 be compatible?

1) the power button only needs to be touch very lightly and it turns on its not like a mac and you have to hold it down for a couple seconds...
4) most drives bought if they are OEM drive will not come with screws for the drive you can just take two of the screws off the first one and place them on the second...
5) the raid drivers are found on the website just download them and then install the second hardrive
7) no indicator light for the card reader it does show an icon on the screen showing that theres something in there and is working...
9) the finish is really smooth and feels really good. I havnt had any of my finish rub off but thats why u have warranties...
10) the alien head will not be easy to remove you would have to take the back panel off the lcd screen and then this would leave a dip where the head use to go. Theres no feature in the bios where you can turn the alien eyes off...
12) the fan and heat sinks for the second card slot are there when you get ur computer u just wont have ur second card. I have some pictures in my signature of the back cover off when i was installing my RAM...

FN-F10 will disable the Glowing alien eyes.

wow i didnt know it did that well i guess i learned something..

will they still be disabled even after you reboot or do you have to do it every time you turn on the laptop? i would think they had this in the bios options.

mine stays off even after i reboot my computer...

so you said that you have to press and hold for the laptop to turn on?

no u just hit it.. and it turns on no holding like for seconds...

i was talking about a mac where u have to hold them down...them9750 u dont have to hold it down..

ok thats good to know. on the sager 9860 and alienware m7700 (they are the same clevo laptops) you have to press and hold. they do this for security reasons to prevent accidentally turning on the system by something bumping it or it being squished inside a laptop bag but i hate this security feature and just wished it turned on without having to hold it for a second or two.

the m9750 its a light touch and bam it kicks on...

thanks for the help so far. do you think you can test the built in mic by simply the sound recorder and test how loud it is or how loud it can get? i have heard that the mis is very poor. i do alot of video conferences so i would need to built in mic to be at least usable, or as good as the one found on the m7700.

i havent had any problem with the mic some people dont know about the mic boost option and thats why they say its poor... i sync up my cell phone to the computer and then call people...

so for the raid drivers i need to download those off their website and put them on a floppy disk. then when i start to do a fresh install when windows asks to press F6 i need to do that and get the drivers off the usb floppy drive, right?

it would probably be better to get the raid from alienware because after the raid is installed it may interfer with the OS and then that could be a pain to fix..