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New rig
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| braddw25 |
Posted on 05-05-2015 12:14
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Fleet Admiral
Posts: 1734
Joined: 14.12.12
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I thought I would share my latest addition. I just ordered one of these babies from amazon. Its definitely not top end, but it will be more than adequate to replace my gaming laptop and I can carry it back and forth to work to use there just as I could my laptop. Best yet, unlike my laptop which does not have a video card capable of running the hangar module, I believe this little gem will run it. Possibly not with all the settings maxed out and certainly not as fast as my desktop, but as a stand in for usage while I'm not in my man cave I think she will do just fine. A full performance report will follow once it arrives.
http://www.dell.c...ware-alpha
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I will be with you always even unto the end of the age. Mathew 28:20
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| wdboyd |
Posted on 05-05-2015 12:50
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Fleet Admiral
Posts: 1918
Joined: 14.12.12
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Congratulations........ Envy.... drool.... more envy.  Hey, wait.... I don't have to go to work. I'm good. Enjoy. 
John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son Of God.
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| braddw25 |
Posted on 05-05-2015 13:05
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Fleet Admiral
Posts: 1734
Joined: 14.12.12
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wdboyd wrote:
Congratulations........ Envy.... drool.... more envy. Hey, wait.... I don't have to go to work. I'm good. Enjoy.
Very funny!!!
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I will be with you always even unto the end of the age. Mathew 28:20
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| braddw25 |
Posted on 05-05-2015 13:07
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Fleet Admiral
Posts: 1734
Joined: 14.12.12
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I should probably mention in case any administrators from Jersey Shore Area SD are here that I will use the new rig to run Microsoft office while at work not to play the Star Citizen. 
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I will be with you always even unto the end of the age. Mathew 28:20
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| wdboyd |
Posted on 05-05-2015 14:12
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Fleet Admiral
Posts: 1918
Joined: 14.12.12
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Sure... we believe you.  |
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| braddw25 |
Posted on 05-05-2015 14:20
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Fleet Admiral
Posts: 1734
Joined: 14.12.12
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 LOL
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I will be with you always even unto the end of the age. Mathew 28:20
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| braddw25 |
Posted on 08-05-2015 10:37
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Fleet Admiral
Posts: 1734
Joined: 14.12.12
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Happy to report that the little alpha can in fact run the hanger module. Not super well, but it at least runs it. With everything maxxed out I was getting consistently 25fps with an occasional 30fps depending on what was being rendered on screen. I figure I can back things off a bit and get frame rates that are more than satisfactory. Overall I would say for the price, this is a decent mid range gaming rig in a nice tidy and portable package. The only drawback that I can see at this point is that the video card is not upgradable. However, Alienware also has a video amplifier which is essentially an external video card case that you can put a video card of your choice in. The on board card that is already in my alpha is fine for now, but I figure if and when I feel the need to upgrade I could always go the external route.
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I will be with you always even unto the end of the age. Mathew 28:20
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| wdboyd |
Posted on 08-05-2015 11:47
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Fleet Admiral
Posts: 1918
Joined: 14.12.12
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Looks like you made a very usable choice of Laptop.
Edited by wdboyd on 08-05-2015 12:48
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| braddw25 |
Posted on 08-05-2015 12:54
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Fleet Admiral
Posts: 1734
Joined: 14.12.12
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I think it's going to work out fine for me. Just so everyone understands for sure though, the Alpha is not really a laptop. Rather it is a very portable console like computer. It does not have a built in monitor like a laptop does though so you would need to have either an HD tv or some sort of monitor to hook it to if you take it with you somewhere. For me it works out perfectly because we have tons of unused monitors in the IT classroom and I happen to be friends with the IT teacher. LOL
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I will be with you always even unto the end of the age. Mathew 28:20
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| braddw25 |
Posted on 03-06-2015 12:12
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Fleet Admiral
Posts: 1734
Joined: 14.12.12
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After a most disagreeable experience, I felt the need to put an addendum to my previous comments about the Alienware Alpha console. It works just fine until something goes wrong and then you are pretty much screwed glued and tattooed. For some reason that I have yet to be able to determine, my Alpha two days ago ceased being able to boot to windows. I tried everything I knew how to do even attempting to boot to safe mode to no avail. They do not ship recovery media with these machines, however they do install an app which allows one to create one's own recovery media either on a flash drive or like I chose to use an external hard drive. Fortunately, I had previously created this recovery media before my windows crash occurred. I used the media to restore the system to full operation. It all seemed to go off without a hitch. However, now windows 8.1 will not activate no matter what I try to do. I have a windows 8.1 product key which Microsoft themselves has told me is a valid key. However, since Alienware/Dell ships their PCs with what is called an OEM version of windows 8.1, only Alienware/Dell can assist in getting windows to reactivate. Therein lies the problem. If you have not dealt lately with their technical support team, my advice is don't. They are positively the most incompetent bunch of imbeciles I have ever dealt with. The only solution they can come up with is to have me purchase a software warranty so they can help me reactivate a copy of windows that I already paid for. Needless to say, I am pissed beyond belief right now not only because they won't stand by their product, but because it took over an hour of getting transferred to this department and that to find out that they won't stand by their product. As a result I must retract my previous enthusiasm for this console. As I said, it worked great until I needed assistance from the company. As a result you can bet that Alienware has just lost a loyal customer as I will NEVER purchase one of their products again. It appears as though being bought out by Dell which itself used to be a good company has ruined alieware just as Dell has allowed itself to go downhill. Very unfortunate.
Edited by braddw25 on 03-06-2015 15:01
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I will be with you always even unto the end of the age. Mathew 28:20
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| wdboyd |
Posted on 03-06-2015 13:22
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Fleet Admiral
Posts: 1918
Joined: 14.12.12
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Sorry to hear all of this Bradd. Most frustrating I'm sure and unfortunate.  |
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| braddw25 |
Posted on 03-06-2015 14:18
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Fleet Admiral
Posts: 1734
Joined: 14.12.12
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Yes, it is quite frustrating. The saving grace might be that I can still use this thing for what was its actual intended purpose. Which was to make it a steam box. I just noticed that the Steam Operating system is now available as a Beta download. I don't know a whole lot about it, but early reports are somewhat encouraging. It is far less of a resource hog than a typical windows environment and as such, many of the kids here at school are telling me they are getting serious performance boosts as high as 30% by using this new OS instead of windows. I may just have to give it a try. I am hoping that Star Citizen will work in this OS. If it does, then all will be well again even though I am still not entirely happy about having paid for a copy of Windows which I will apparently NEVER be able to utilize.
http://store.stea...om/steamos
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I will be with you always even unto the end of the age. Mathew 28:20
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| Toshiro |
Posted on 03-06-2015 18:32
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Captain
Posts: 197
Joined: 16.12.12
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That is very frustrating. Wonder if there is such a thing as tech support rage??
I am there already just hearing your story.  |
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| wdboyd |
Posted on 03-06-2015 18:57
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Fleet Admiral
Posts: 1918
Joined: 14.12.12
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 Toshiro... please calm down. Embrace your inner child. |
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| braddw25 |
Posted on 04-06-2015 07:27
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Fleet Admiral
Posts: 1734
Joined: 14.12.12
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Thank you for the sympathetic rage, Toshiro. After great effort on my part, my windows is now activated. No thanks whatsoever to the crack dell technical support gurus, but at least it's working again. The funny part is that they did give a call back trying to sell me their stupid software warranty again and I was able to tell them that I got it working all by myself. Turns out that there is a wonderful little app preinstalled on the Alpha called alien respawn which will take the unit all the way back to its factory original settings. For some reason, resetting it this way does not goof up the windows activation like doing it with the recovery media that you are forced to create on your own. The problem for me was that when my windows got fouled up, I could not get to the respawn app so I was forced to use the recovery media to get windows to work, and then had to wipe everything out again using respawn in order to get windows activated. A completely ridiculous waste of time, and the big question is why in the crap did nobody at dell have the good sense to suggest that I use that app instead of trying to sell me their stupid warranty????? Unbelievable.
But, at least its back up and running correctly now.
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I will be with you always even unto the end of the age. Mathew 28:20
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| Toshiro |
Posted on 04-06-2015 09:54
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Captain
Posts: 197
Joined: 16.12.12
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Well that's awesome. Good for you and your troubleshooting. I find it amazing to find many places, and their employees have very little knowledge of procedures or policies. Besides tech support, this happens everywhere. Sorry this is my after rage rant. Calming down now.  |
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| braddw25 |
Posted on 04-06-2015 10:31
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Fleet Admiral
Posts: 1734
Joined: 14.12.12
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Yes, I do have to give someone credit for having that app preinstalled on the system. Why they don't make it known more is beyond me. Its one of like 150 apps that come pre installed, so its not like it jumps off the screen at you. I had no idea it was even there. I was just trying to get an idea of what apps I could potentially lose if I just gave up and said to heck with windows and switched to steamos. I am still baffled as to how it worked. There is no recovery partition that I can see on my hard drive, so I am mystified as to where the hard drive image that restored my system came from. I don't know if they have it stored in the BIOS or what, but I do like Alien respawn ALOT. Very useful means of restoring to factory specs. Too bad nobody from tech support saw fit to suggest its usage. Also, some documentation included with the system would have been a nice touch.
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I will be with you always even unto the end of the age. Mathew 28:20
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