As some of you will already know Alienware supply a leatherbound ring binder with information on your system, the tests ran, how it performed, IRQ setup etc, even the engineer's name along with proprietary software installed which will let you send any error reports via email. Most pre-built machines are sloppy when it comes to cabling, internal layout and overall attention to detail. This is an area Alienware claim to take pride in - when you order a machine they have a 14 point order status routine covering hundreds of tests by multiple engineers and quality control managers. I say "claim" because this is where this review takes a most unfortunate turn.

Can you immediately see anything wrong with the test results above? It doesnt take a genius to see several of the tests reporting "0" and a quake III bench with no result just a series of "dots". This doesnt fill me with great expectations of the engineer's abilities, however we all make mistakes. The concerning factor is that it is not just a single test with a zero, but memory and sisoft sandra multimedia tests. Also having owned dozens of Intel CPUs I notice the drystone figures seem under par, but these are overshadowed by abysmal whetstone figures of just over 3000 MFLOPS. In my prior testing with a similarly clocked prescott in a desktop machine I scored over 4000 in this test. Nevermind, time for testing.

Or so I thought, upon firing up Doom 3, the machine instantly turned itself off. Ok might be a driver issue here, after all the machine has came with an old 66.x set. One fresh install of NVs golden 71.84 drivers, same deal......

I will condense what happened over the next few hours into a few paragraphs. Alienware are using a bog standard thermal pad on the heatsink. This caused thermal throttling as the CPU couldnt expel excess temperatures leading to failed and poor sisoft sandra test results. I fixed this issue with some Artic Silver 5 on the core. As you will see from the Sisoft Sandra test results later, I noticed some quite considerable gains over the "engineers" test results.

Thinking my problems would be now solved I was still noticing issues with the machine turning itself off. time for some more investigations.

The picture above is something you will never want to see when you remove the heatsink from your GFX card, yes you are right, that is in fact a shipping cover over the heatsink which is stopping the core from making contact. This explains the machine turning itself off. By this stage I was more than a little disgruntled with the quality and care of this build and contacted Alienware to express my concerns prior to the review. I expressed my concerns not only regarding the fact several of the test results showed zero scores, but also the thermal throttling issue with the cpu, and of course the issue with the GFX cover on the 6800 go still being in place.

I also explained that in 2005 it was not a good idea testing a machine of this caliber with such a dated title as Quake III, it would be wise to use a modern title capable of heating the core of a modern card (like the 6800 go) such as Farcry, Doom3 or Half life 2. Issues like this could have been seen by the engineer in a matter of seconds before leaving the factory.

Alienware assured me they are changing their testing suite to include at least one modern day title such as Farcry, so at least they are taking steps to rectify this rather unsatisfactory situation, but I have to say, I was more than a little disappointed with the fact so much bypassed the engineer(s) building and apparently testing the machine, for a rig at this price, its inexcusable for such shoddy workmanship to escape the factory and end up in the consumers lap.

 

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