Alienware M5500i-R3 Area 51 Gaming Laptop

[leemac13]

I recently bought a Alienware M5500i-R3 Area 51 Gaming Laptop from Ebay which came installed with windows XP I formatted the hard drive and installed my copy of Windows 7 Ultimate. Everything is working fine apart from the graphics being set to 1920 x1200 which the computer says is the recomended settings but when you view web pages the pages are automatically zoomed to 150% and certain programs the text is really small on the menus and can just about read it. Have looked at changing the settings to a lower resolution but the screen becomes too large and unable to view the whole screen on one page. Can anybody help as using certain programs has become nearly impossible as unable to read the text as its so small.

 

Below is the spec of the laptop incase it helps. Have also attached two screenshots to show just how small the text is.

 

Intel Dual Core processor at 2GHz

 

4 GB RAM installed (note, Windows will only see/report 3.25Gb as is a 32bit OS!!!)

 

Upgraded ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 graphics card with 1Gb RAM

 

Upgraded High Defination screen with 1920 x 1200 resolution

 

250GB Western Digital HDD (230Gb usable after formatting)

 

Wireless

 

10/100/1000Gb Ethernet Card

 

3 x USB slots

 

1 x firewire

 

SD Card Slot

 

DVI Out

 

PCMCIA Slot

[SneakyBeaky]

Control Panel>Appearance and Personalization>Display

change size of text

[leemac13]

Control Panel>Appearance and Personalization>Display

change size of text

 

Hi I just looked an it is already set to maxium 150%.

[SneakyBeaky]

DPI Display Size Settings - Change - Windows 7 Forums

[leemac13]

DPI Display Size Settings - Change - Windows 7 Forums

 

Have just set it to 175% and is still the same. Could it be that its a widescreen laptop?

[jamesb]

http://www.specsavers.co.uk/

 

Widescreen shouldn't make a difference. I don't think there's much you can do - some programs just aren't designed with higher resolution systems in mind. You may be able to edit the text size in individual programs with preferences though, for ones which don't take their interface settings from Windows.

 

Can also try holding down Ctrl and scrolling in and out, standard zoom combination.

[SneakyBeaky]

Just tried it here on my Dell widescreen and it seems to work.

As jamesb says, some programs are not affected.

[leemac13]

On a side note not sure if this is connected or not. But when I try and run a game on the laptop after a couple of minutes the laptop turns itself off for no reason. Doesnt shutdown just turns off. Any ideas??

[synaesthesia]

On those machines, overheating - run something like Speedfan to check temps when you fire up a game.

 

On a completely unrelated note, I would like to congratulate you on buying a 1920x1200 laptop. A proper HD resolution, none of this 1080 rubbish that is plaguing us computer users just to suit the telly-addicts! My old Dell latitude D820 was that res on a 15.4" screen. Was very good but didn't have any issues with webpages - is it the same on all browsers? If not, is there a setting in the browser itself that's worth playing with? And you do ctrl + mousehweel up/down does the adjustment you make with that not stick?

[Dos_Box]

Overheating perhaps? This could be on either the CPU, motherboard or GPU. Try using HWMonitor: CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting to keep an eye on the temp of your components whilst running a game for a short time. This should give you a good idea of where the problem lies. As to a fix, it all depends on where the problem lies I'm afraid.

[matt40k]

OP - Sorry, no useful advice

 

Alienware M5500i-R3 Area 51 Gaming Laptop

 

Laptop? Mmm... I think someone's lieing

[jamesb]

The turning off does sound like overheating. What surface are you resting the laptop on? My own tends to get a little upset if it doesn't have proper air circulation.

[SneakyBeaky]

On a side note not sure if this is connected or not. But when I try and run a game on the laptop after a couple of minutes the laptop turns itself off for no reason. Doesnt shutdown just turns off. Any ideas??

 

Could be connected. Are the drivers loaded for the graphics card?

Start> Right Click on Computer>Manage>Device Manager>Display Adapters.

My Dell XPSM1730 Gaming laptop had a similar problem when the graphics card died.

[leemac13]

I think it is overheating. I have been having it flat on my bed which isnt ideal for air flow to say the least. I have now got it resting on top of a cushioned tea tray so that there is bit more circulation. It only ever turns off when running a game. It has also cut out when running the windows 7 system rating which I would assume is testing the graphics card. I have checked and it says that the most up to date driver is installed for the graphics.

[featured_spectre]

Look at investing in a cooling tray for it. My best friend had an Alienware laptop that kept overheating. It's a known fault in them. you can see on the support forums for them.

 

in honesty you would have been better off buying the same spec dell lappy, but what's done is done.

[leemac13]

Overheating perhaps? This could be on either the CPU, motherboard or GPU. Try using HWMonitor: CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting to keep an eye on the temp of your components whilst running a game for a short time. This should give you a good idea of where the problem lies. As to a fix, it all depends on where the problem lies I'm afraid.

 

 

Have just turned on the laptop ran CPUID and ran CSI Fatal Consipiricy for about five mins. I have attached a screenshot of what CPUID logged.

[jamesb]

I think it is overheating. I have been having it flat on my bed which isnt ideal for air flow to say the least. I have now got it resting on top of a cushioned tea tray so that there is bit more circulation. It only ever turns off when running a game. It has also cut out when running the windows 7 system rating which I would assume is testing the graphics card. I have checked and it says that the most up to date driver is installed for the graphics.

 

Yeah - don't put it on any soft cloth. That's exactly the same thing that causes mine to cut out. Any solid surface under it when running a game (including those padded trays) and it's quite happy.

 

Either that or tone down the graphics settings for the game, if you want it sitting on a duvet for some reason.

[SneakyBeaky]

Can you hear the fan cutting in?

Try cleaning the fan and vents. Check the heatsink.

[SYNACK]

Wow, you have one of these that still works, we had two that died in less than a year, both blown GPUs, both replaced under warrenty after extencive hassle and both blown again within 6 months and never replaced. Cracked cases and shocking battery life I hope you manage to get it going and keep it going for longer than our two managed. I agree with the others about checking the thermal solution which is not exactly well designed.