Alienware M14x: the Sound and the Fury
by Dustin Sklavos on July 19, 2011 12:35 AM ESTHeat, Noise, and Battery Life
For running time at least, the Alienware M14x is able to leverage NVIDIA's Optimus to produce a stellar experience off the mains, backing that up with a healthy 63Wh battery. As we'll see later, though, there's a price to be paid for the M14x's copious performance.
Unfortunately, running time for media playback is inexplicably poor while the rest of the results are fairly middle-of-the-road by modern notebook standards. At least we're finally at the point where we can expect at least four hours of useful battery life out of even reasonably powerful notebooks.
But like I said, the performance of the M14x takes its pound of flesh elsewhere.
The temperatures of the i7 are fairly reasonable, but the warm hard drive should give you a clue that only really gets spelled out when you listen to the M14x under load: that single fan is obnoxiously loud, peaking at an unholy 50dB. While the M14x never reaches the heights (or depths) of something like the Clevo X7200, it's still not a pleasant experience to listen to and I have to wonder if going with a high performance dual-core processor may not have been the right call. Shaving ten watts off the peak consumption of the processor could've gone a long way towards reducing fan noise. Then again, the GPU is likely the bigger power sink.
That single fan manages to do a decent job of keeping the M14x cool, but the intake is still in a bad place, and if the area beneath the personalized plate gets that warm at idle, imagine how hot the plate gets when the system is running at full bore. This is essentially the dual Achilles' Heel of the M14x: it's not really designed to be used as a laptop despite its form factor, and the high speed the fan has to run at to keep these powerful components cool is going to be too high a price for some users.
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etamin - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
just curious, where can I find out more about this 4 GPUs with the same name business?Hrel - Saturday, July 23, 2011 - link
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=GT555Mlunarx3dfx - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
The m14x isn't available with the other GT555M. I have a feeling that it would be significantly slower though.AlexKitch - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
My friend has one of these and struggles to even play Minecraft without the machine becoming so unbelievably hot that it has to de-clock itself, turning his games into more of a slideshow than a game. This happens in my (fairly cool) apartment, on a solid desk with no obstructions to any of the fan intakes/exhausts.Personally, I don't like the styling of Alienware machines either. It's all a little over the top and immature.
kevith - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - link
is NOT a lot! It´s terrible to keep on reading, that notebooks that weighs like this one, are heavy!I´m 50 years, and I´m working in the woods, and the chainsaw I use weighs around 22 lbs. And not only shall I carry it around for 8 hours every day, I have to toss it arond all the time to obtain access to sawing area.
I´ve read reviews, where the reviewer has used words like "chiropractor", "immoblie", "desktop only" etc.
Come on man, I don´t know what kind of workout You do - if any - but I will recommend You to spend more time doing it or find a more effective system.
Hrel - Saturday, July 23, 2011 - link
Yeah, that always annoys me too. Basically as long as the things under 10lbs I'm fine with it. And that's only because of all the other stuff I keep in my notebook bag. But then again, if you're talking about burly men that's totally different than if you're talking about 5'4" women.solracd - Monday, August 8, 2011 - link
Can someone explain why the 1.5 upgrade to 3Gb video memory is not useful? Is is not helpful 'today' but possible useful in a year or two? The same applies to the CPU option. I would think getting the most is the best (although clearly not the most cost effective).I buy laptops and keep for a while so I'm puzzled how more is not better.
Thanks in advance!
Habshockeygrl - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link
I love my M14x, I don't mind the louder rapid cooling although my husband when sitting near me sometimes complains about the loudness of it. My problem as been the sound system. I paid extra for the premium sound package and have had multitudes of problems with it. They tried to have tech support remotely reset drivers, which made the surround sound stop working. They sent a tech to my house, upon taking it apart he somehow destroyed the motherboard and the mouse track pad. So he had to come back with the new parts. Second trip, he brought brand new speakers because he could see a visible problem, replaced the motherboard and the tracker section. Now only either front or back speakers will work separately but not together. Nobody has been able to figure out this problem and I continue to feel I was ripped off in the sound department. Good luck to anyone purchasing the upgrade!