Alienware M14x Thoughts

[MastuhWaffles]

So I have an alienware m14x I've had for many years. It was a birthday present, and is now finally coming to the end of its life. I'm moving on and building a really good gaming pc, but I've had some thoughts on this thing.

 

I got a lot of crap for having this alienware (still do), and yes its true, you do pay way to much for them. But as this one was a refurbished on sale, its not so bad. The biggest issue with these laptops is cooling. Now this thing gets up to very high heats, like I'm not sure how it hasn't hit critical meltdown yet. Cooling fans do little and are not much use. You know when it gets hot when your keyboard becomes a handwarmer.

 

But performance wise, it hasn't been bad to me.

With the i5-2410M and a 555m graphics card it's able to pull its weight in most games, except for some which are not optomized very well (yes I'm talking to you World Of Tanks) but overall it's done a good job. 

 

Portability hasn't been great to be honest. I though having this would make it easier to take around, but really, it's not anymore easy than lugging around a full desktop.

 

Maintence has been a pain with this, I try to keep it clean but sometimes you have to take the thing apart to get in there and get all the dust out. And they have a little perfrated section on the speakers which cannot be cleaned.

 

Construction quality is pretty good, for being able to put up with the wear and tear of me on a daily basis, and only ever having the hinge break in the many years is pretty a lot to say.

 

But overall, its done it's job, and served me well. And I think once I build my desktop I still will find myself using this on the go occasionally, but I need to take it apart and pretty much give it a refresher. But hopefully this will last me about another month before my pc is ready to be built.

 

[D2ultima]

I got a lot of crap for having this alienware (still do), and yes its true, you do pay way to much for them. But as this one was a refurbished on sale, its not so bad. The biggest issue with these laptops is cooling. Now this thing gets up to very high heats, like I'm not sure how it hasn't hit critical meltdown yet. Cooling fans do little and are not much use. You know when it gets hot when your keyboard becomes a handwarmer.

 

I though having this would make it easier to take around, but really, it's not anymore easy than lugging around a full desktop.

 

And I think once I build my desktop I still will find myself using this on the go occasionally, but I need to take it apart and pretty much give it a refresher

Because the M14x is a piece of crap and I have no idea why Alienware thought it was a good idea to make that thing. It's nowhere near on the level of their other legacy machines. Nowhere. The M17x or M18x models would never have such issues with heating up the keyboard or cooling the components.

 

You have NO IDEA what you are talking about if you really think this.

 

If you are not going to use it very often, you should store it very carefully. Having a machine simply off and not being used can cause it to rust up and die off. I am speaking from experience here.

[Guest Kloaked]

OP, what's the point of your post? Just sharing your experience?

 

I only had to completely open and clean mine out maybe twice through the two years I've had it.

 

 

 

Sorry, but I actually owned an M14X before and I loved the thing. It had no heat issues whatsoever. Only issue I ever had with it was one of the keys catching my finger and breaking off, which Dell support sent me an entire new keyboard to replace it.

 

So you saying something asinine like "You have NO IDEA what you are talking about if you really think this."

 

Also, did you even read the OP? I don't think you did.

[D2ultima]

Sorry, but I actually owned an M14X before and I loved the thing. It had no heat issues whatsoever. Only issue I ever had with it was one of the keys catching my finger and breaking off, which Dell support sent me an entire new keyboard to replace it.

 

So you saying something asinine like "You have NO IDEA what you are talking about if you really think this."

 

Also, did you even read the OP? I don't think you did.

Compared to Alienware's other models at the time, the M14x is an embarrassment to their quality. It might have been better than other notebooks in its class, but it doesn't change the fact that it was easily one of Alienware's worst notebooks of the time.

 

That line was specifically targeted to "might as well just lug a desktop around", and nothing else. I cut out of my quote anything I didn't see a need to reply to.

 

Yes, I did, more than once actually.

 

As long as its used once a month or so, is should be ok.

That might be true, but you'd need to use it for a while. I'd quicker suggest he use it as a media server for the house or something when not in use.

[MastuhWaffles]

OP, what's the point of your post? Just sharing your experience?

 

I only had to completely open and clean mine out maybe twice through the two years I've had it.

 

 

Sorry, but I actually owned an M14X before and I loved the thing. It had no heat issues whatsoever. Only issue I ever had with it was one of the keys catching my finger and breaking off, which Dell support sent me an entire new keyboard to replace it.

 

So you saying something asinine like "You have NO IDEA what you are talking about if you really think this."

 

Also, did you even read the OP? I don't think you did.

 

Just sharing some of my experiences. The heating issues are really from me, I've been screwing around with it too much. That's kind of why its dying.

Also, I probably should have been more clarified about taking it around. I use it when I travel from home and school and I have quite a bit of stuff to pack up with it, and it seems to be a bit of a hassle even for a small laptop.

[Guest Kloaked]

Just sharing some of my experiences. The heating issues are really from me, I've been screwing around with it too much. That's kind of why its dying.

Also, I probably should have been more clarified about taking it around. I use it when I travel from home and school and I have quite a bit of stuff to pack up with it, and it seems to be a bit of a hassle even for a small laptop.

 

So to be clear, you're possibly why the laptop had heating issues? What did you do to it?

[MastuhWaffles]

So to be clear, you're possibly why the laptop had heating issues? What did you do to it?

It's always run hot for me, but apparently I overclocked it awhile ago, and I recently installed MSi afterburner and realised it was being pushed to far. And its hasnt done well for it.