FRONTPAGE Alienware M11x-R3 Review

Great read

I have the m11x r3 with a vertex 3 ssd in it. if anyone has questions feel free to ask me.

My only real complaint is some minor build quality issues. The plastic that meets the screen on the top border has developed a gap. And oil from my fingertips that transfers to the keys leaves keyprints on the screen. Other than that tho I love this thing. GbE FTW!

Good article David. At 11.6" I can't imagine having a resolution set to 1600x900 and actually be able to read anything from a normal use distance. Their resolution was definitely acceptible for the screen's size.

I see your point - I'm just a bit of a hi-res screen freak I have 1920x1080 on my 15.4" laptop and I'd love it to be even higher (you can always increase the text size).

David said:

(you can always increase the text size).

Click to expand...

That is true, but not everything scales well when you do that. Many webpages are designed to run at standard magnification and text size, and when you set it to anything but 100%/default it causes tables and margins to freak out, etc. Plus a lot of stuff is going flash and other static html design, which I'm finding won't change enough unless you exagerrate the magnification and have to constantly tinker with the setting page to page. I've toyed with this for home theater PC use in the past, to get windows use on a couch 10 feet away on a 42" LCD. Just doesn't work.

Hopefully we'll all just go to goggles with the computer built in sometime soon, rendering screens moot for personal use. [thinking Strange Days, but without the addiction or hard-wired synapse ]

All well said... however.

I've only had my m11x r3 for 4-5 months and I'm having overheating problems. One benchmark I find that most tend to leave out is the test of time.
I have treated my laptop well, even using a cooling pad for the entire duration of ownership. Just yesterday my CPU temps recorded heat ratings of up to 94* Celsius, (which I then turned my laptop off). and it is idling around 60-70* Celsius. Ouch! Now I have to call dell and most likely have my GPU's re-pasted..

Pretty hard to review/report on 'the test of time' unless you have a follow up review.

That said, those temperatures are relatively normal, though a bit high sure, in a laptop. Seeing how this review is close to a year old did you buy the unit used? Is there dust in the heatsinks? Can you clean that out if so? Are the fans spinning properly? There shouldn't be any reason you need the CPU or GPU's 're-pasted' after a mere 4 months of use, that is for sure.

The dell OEM paste is slathered on there like a Paul Deene slathers butter on her buttered bread...

Lots of people have seen noticeable decreases in CPU and GPU temps since repasting the heatsinks with either Artic Silver 5 or other high-end paste.

I've had mine since the device's release and have been using it as a primary gaming machine. No overheating issues here.

Fan noise/heat issues

I have a new one and they must have made some changes, my fan is whisper quiet and I feel almost no heat even when under high cpu load.

Or maybe I just got lucky.