Got my Alienware Area-51 m5550 but i has a problem!

Greg Boyington · Post by **Greg Boyington** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 5:32 pm

Here are the specs.

Video/Graphics Card: 256MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7600
Display: 15.4" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD - Saucer Silver
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7200 2.0GHz 4MB Cache 667MHz FSB
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz - 2 x 1024MB
Motherboard: Alienware® Intel® 945PM + ICH7 Chipset
Operating System (Office software not included): Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Basic
Notebook Tuners and Remotes: Media Center upgrade options are not available with Windows Vista Home Basic.
System Drive: 80GB SATA 1.5Gb/s 7,200RPM 8MB Cache
Optical Drives : 8x Dual Layer CD-RW/DVD±RW Burner
Sound Card : Intel® 7.1 High-Definition Audio
Wireless Network Card: Internal Intel® PRO Wireless 3945 a/b/g Mini-Card
Communications: Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet & 56K V.92 Modem

When i play WoW and CoD4 the graphics are pretty dang good, but here is my problem. When i try and play WoW or CoD4 (only 2 games ive installed, came in the mail on friday) I can play it fine for a few minutes and then it becomes really choppy, any suggestions? When i paycheck comes in on Friday im gonna go buy one of those laptop cooler thingys. But any other suggestions?

Post by **D.A.R.K.[CotC]** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 9:16 pm

I would say it's because you have Vista Home Basic.

Post by **KrAzYdAvE** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 10:18 pm

I doubt it's vista, I run plenty of crap on my machine with Vista...
For it to work fine for a couple of minutes though before it gets choppy I would start to think that it could be a a heat issue also.
Though, I'm sure Alienware has put the laptop through the tests to make sure that it will actually keep itself cool enough to run at it's top speed when in use.
That might actually be worth calling them about to see if they've experienced any other cases of the same thing with that model.
They may have a fix for you, or, god forbid, you may have a faulty GPU or a poorly seated heatsink on it which would require a repair or replacement.

Post by BD » Mon Nov 12, 2007 2:16 pm

My XPS does that too sometimes... look at what's running in the background also, eating your resources

Greg Boyington · Post by **Greg Boyington** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 7:38 pm

the odd thing is, now its basically instant. I sent an email to alienware to see if they can tell me anything. thanks for the info guys!

Post by **D.A.R.K.[CotC]** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 11:25 pm

When my laptop used to get hot (and I mean hot enough to boil an egg on it) there was never a change in speed or performance, just over time the intense heat started frying memory on the video card and then the screen would start gets relics and looking very weird and screwed up, but never was there a change in performance.

Post by **Dataspel** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 12:11 am

KrAzYdAvE wrote:I doubt it's vista, I run plenty of crap on my machine with Vista...
For it to work fine for a couple of minutes though before it gets choppy I would start to think that it could be a a heat issue also.
Though, I'm sure Alienware has put the laptop through the tests to make sure that it will actually keep itself cool enough to run at it's top speed when in use.
That might actually be worth calling them about to see if they've experienced any other cases of the same thing with that model.
They may have a fix for you, or, god forbid, you may have a faulty GPU or a poorly seated heatsink on it which would require a repair or replacement.

I would not let vista off the hook just yet. It works fine on your PC,
but could cause problems on another. See if you can borrow someone's
XP full install. DO NOT REGISTER OR ACTIVATE. But you can still
run for up to 30 days, long enough to see if it works any better.
Worth a try, IMHO. If you want to try this but can't find an XP full
install let me know.

data

Post by **KrAzYdAvE** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 12:24 am

oh trust me, it's not off the hook! lol
It still runs games alot slower than XP does even with all the aero effects turned off. The video card drivers are still sub-par (at least for nvidia cards) and they make half of the stuff that used to be easy to get to, twice as hard.

but for the most part, it isn't terrible and I've started to get used to it at this point. I still use XP at work though, and plan on doing so for a while.

As for his problem though, I still don't think that Vista would cause a problem that only comes after playing for a while.
Granted it may be happening right away now, if it started out with a delay and got worse, I still suspect hardware more than software.

Of course, first things first. Get the latest video card drivers that you can for your card and see if that changes anything. That's the easiest thing to do and it will only cost you about 10 minutes of your time.

Greg Boyington · Post by **Greg Boyington** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 1:44 am

So i got a reply and they said that since it was shipped from Florida to my little town in Washington State, that the graphics card could have jiggled loose and i need to reseat it, now i got to go get some heat gel stuffs >.<

Post by **D.A.R.K.[CotC]** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 1:56 pm

heat gel? how does that relate to reseating the graphics card?

Greg Boyington · Post by **Greg Boyington** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:36 pm

http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/alie ... faqid=5180

thats what they linked me.

Greg Boyington · Post by **Greg Boyington** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 9:22 pm

did it, still choppy =(, sent them another e-mail, i think im going to get XP regardless if thats the prob or not, i hate vista >.<