So, on top of everything else that's happened (my house was damaged in Hurricane Beryl and – as of today – I have not lived at home for 3 months), my laptop died on Sat., Aug. 24, 2024). I had an Alienware R17 that I had purchased in 2016 and had upgraded both the RAM, the storage and the video card (the last was possible because the Alienware Graphics Adapter was a separate enclosure with a dedicated power supply that allowed the laptop to use an external graphics card). Well, the poor thing had been acting a little buggy for about a year and I was planning to buy a new on at the end of this year... but alas, 'twas not to be.
So, I bought a new laptop on Amazon:
Dell Alienware M16 R2 Gaming AI PC Laptop 16" QHD 240Hz (100% sRGB, 3ms) Intel 16-Core Ultra 7 155H 64GB RAM 4TB SSD GeForce RTX 4070 8GB Graphic: $2,100 (Link)
It arrived DOA with an error message that there was something wrong with the memory; I sent it back for a refund because there were no replacements available.
I replaced it with this, which is a slightly newer version of the previous laptop:
M16 R2 (2024) AI Gaming Laptop (16" 240Hz QHD+ 2K Display, Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, 64GB RAM, 4TB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 8GB) RGB Backlit Keyboard, FHD IR Camera, WiFi 7, Win 11 Home: $2,150 (Link)
This worked great. For about a month. I had a blue screen of death about three weeks in; I thought it might be a corrupted driver and I restored to a previous install point and did some mumbo-jumbo and fixed the problem. "Eh, these things happen," I thought. It died a week later. I sent it back for a refund and decided I wasn't going to use Alienware laptops any more.
So, I switched to the ASUS brand and I replaced it with this:
ASUS TUF Gaming Laptop with Microsoft Office Lifetime License, 15.6" 144Hz FHD IPS Display, Intel 13th i7-13620H, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, 64GB DDR5, 4TB SSD, Backlit Keyboard, Win11 Pro: $1,800 (Link)
This was dodgy the moment I opened the box. The security tape was open, there was no gaming mouse (which was mentioned one place on the page) and the flimsy monitor stand was loose in the outer mailing box. I opened it and examined it. All looked okay... until I took a look at the hard drive. It showed there was only a 210GB drive installed! I checked the disk properties and, although there was a 4TB SSD in it, it was configured with a 3.6TB recovery partition. I think this was a used machine and they were trying to pass it off as new; I sent it back.
I was through with Amazon. In four weeks I had been through 3 laptops. I decided it was time to go to a local store and buy it there, so off to Micro Center I went. They don't have the specs to my particular model online at Micro Center, so here's what I got:
Legion Pro 7 16IRX9H, 14th Gen Intel® Core™ i9-14900HX, AI-Powered Gaming PC, NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4090, 32GB DDR5-5600, 2x SO-DIMM, 2x 1TB M.2 PCIe® NVMe® SSD. Cost more than $2,500 (Link)
I was happy with the 2 SSD slots, so I upgraded the meager 2TB to 8TB. I should have paid them to put it in, but I have done it in the past and it was an easy job. Not this time: Taking the bottom panel off was a pain (not hard, but since the entire thing had to come off (instead of a simple panel like my old Alienware R17). But I got it installed and FINALLY things seem to be working.
Now I just need to reinstall a ton of software.
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Note: I always buy a gaming laptop because they have better graphics cards and are configured to work well for 3D content creation and rendering. Also, please note that this is the Legion Pro 7. It is NOT the Pro 7i, which is a different configuration.
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