Cooling and audio

Dealing with heat

With two GeForce Go 7950 GTX GPUs inside, dual 7200 RPM hard drives, and a fast 2.33GHz dual-core CPU inside, the cooling subsystem of the Area-51 m9750 has a pretty daunting challenge ahead of it, especially when you consider that the notebook is only 1.5” thick. Fortunately the cooling system Alienware has implemented is pretty up to the task ahead of it.

Alienware uses a mixture of copper and aluminum heatsinks to keep everything cool. We have a strong suspicion that heat pipes are also used. Vents are then strategically located on the bottom and sides of the notebook’s chassis to supply cool air to the system. Alienware uses a large number of these vents, which are dotted all across the bottom of the system towards the back where the GPUs and CPU are located.

These vents act as an air intake, circulating cool air into the system in order to cool hotter running system components like the GPUs, CPU, and hard drives. This cool air passes over these components to keep them cool.

From there an exhaust fan blows hot air out the back of the case. A separate group of large vents is located on the back of the system for this purpose.

In actual operation, the cooling system Alienware has devised works quite well. Even under load the system works pretty effectively considering the amount of horsepower contained within the system. With that being said though, you won’t want to game on this system sitting in your lap while running in AC power mode for an extended period of time, as the underside of the chassis can get a little hot (although definitely not scorching hot) when the system is running at full speed. Of course, not even the most hardcore gamer is going to do this, when running in AC mode you’re probably going to have the system sitting on a desk most of the time.

When operating on the battery the system doesn’t generate much heat at all, especially considering the components within the system.

What you’re really going to notice more than the heat of the chassis itself though is the amount of hot air this system can pump out. Its exhaust system is pretty robust! It’s definitely better that this heat is pumped out the back of the system than on your lap though.

Audio/speakers and networking

The audio subsystem of the Area-51 m9750 consists of two stereo speakers resting on the front edge of the chassis below the palm rest, and an integrated subwoofer on the underside of the chassis. Integrated Intel high definition audio is responsible for handling audio duties.

The speakers Alienware has employed are decent for a notebook, but honestly we were hoping for a little more in this department considering this is a high-end gaming laptop with the option of adding a Blu-ray optical drive for watching high-def movies.

In our opinion, the highs on these speakers are a touch on the tinny side, while the midrange lacks detail. In addition, the integrated subwoofer just doesn’t have the oomph to push really deep lows, and as a result lows sound a little flat. In all honesty, this was the one part of the system we were the most disappointed in. As we mentioned before, this system can be configured with a Blu-ray drive, giving it high-end media pretensions, but as it stands now the built-in speakers aren’t up to this task and you’d be better off using a nice pair of headphones with this system.

We have a feeling that Alienware knows this as well, as they offer really good audio output options on the Area-51 m9750, including an optical out on the side of the system chassis. This is a nice touch that we really applaud.

Networking duties are handled by an internal Intel wireless 4965 a/b/g/draft-n mini card. If you don’t care for draft-n support and want to save $60, Alienware also offers the Intel Pro wireless 3945 a/b/g mini card as the standard configuration. The notebook also supports Bluetooth 2.0 standard.