M14x XP Drivers!

Hello,

So I ordered a bare-bones m14x from Dell and I have actually upgraded virtually everything - including inserting the fastest available mobile CPU in the machine (which runs quite well, but does throttle back in thermal panic when stressed 100% for extended durations of time).

Anyways, as part of the upgrade I inserted two drives (replacing the optical drive); so thanks for the forum posters who provided the detailed tear-down instructions by the way. Now, on one of the drives lives Windows 7 x64; on the other of the drives lives - Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x86

This means that I have actually obtained XP drivers for every component of the system! Please download them here at your leisure:

www.mimarsinan.com/m14x-xp.7zip (57.1 MB)

- The nVIDIA GPU won't work, don't even try. I disabled the device in the Device Manager, but I'm guessing it will have some impact on the battery life nonetheless. Perhaps installing a "null driver" may help with this, I am not sure and would need to experiment.

- Intel drivers work perfectly for XP and the integrated GPU on the CPU IS actually decent - it got 4.5k in 3dm06 which is VERY impressive; this could be though because I got the most powerful mobile CPU in there. Just download the latest stock drivers for the latest Intel mobile chipset and the latest Intel mobile graphics; they work as-is.

- I built a .REG file that lets you convert an EXISTING XP OS to use AHCI mode; you just merge the .REG and copy a file to get it going. After this you can also install the latest stock Intel Rapid Storage driver. So you can install XP in ATA mode (by selecting non AHCI from BIOS) OR do what I did - clone an existing XP image so you don't have to reinstall anything - and then flip over at your convenience. Note that I observed some controller errors when using the XP drive from the optical drive bay before entering AHCI mode - so be sure to install/clone XP on the primary drive bay until you can activate AHCI.

- USB3, Realtek Card Reader, Realtek Audio, Smart Battery are among other drivers I have saved for the system and included in the above archive.

- Everything else should pretty much work stock - feel free to let me know if anything does turn out to be missing on your particular configuration. Since I used a cloned XP image, it is possible I had some drivers available beforehand; but the good news is everything seems to work.

- There's a few yellow bangs left in the Device Manager which I believe pertain to Alienware's lights etc.; there's a Java app on these forums to help with that anyways.

- If you got the Bigfoot Killer WiFi, it doesn't have XP drivers I'm afraid. So I inserted an Intel 6300 Ultimate WiFi chip instead; works like a charm on both OS's of course. Intel is particularly good about maintaining XP drivers it seems.

- An oddity is that on both the 2003 OS and the 7 OS upon the first boot, the drive in the optical bay is running at only SATA-I speeds. When you do another warm-reboot, the drive DOES run at SATA-II speeds. I verified this with both HDTune and the Intel Rapid Storage application.

If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to post detailed benchmarks of the system on both 2003 and 7. Of course, the GPU will outperform significantly when tested on 7 since its a dedicated and not an integrated one. But other items may be interesting to compare (although keep in mind that my 2003 image is quite old, with 35 apps running in the system tray; so that might also skew the balance in favor of 7 a little bit - in the spirit of fair comparison thought I had to mention that).

So enjoy people!

And please, no comments on "why would you still use XP" - you're clearly reading the wrong thread if that is your concern. I feel I had to per-emptively mention that, lets see if people care now

 

thankyou very much bro!
m going to install xp now on my m14x
it would be awesome if we could use nvidia gt555m..
though if intel hd3000 works then no prob!


hey u should try hackintosh mac osx lion in alienware !!! ftw!!!

 

That's a great suggestion! Please PM me if you know of any good distributions that work on the m14x without driver issues.

The one drawback to losing the nVIDIA GPU is that apparently because the display port and HDMI are hard-wired to it, only the VGA output works. Sadly this prevents 2560x1600 resolution in XP.

BIOS updates anyone, to disable Optimus or hack this hard-wiring?

 

I am looking for an original A06 BIOS for the m14x (stock Dell BIOS).

If anyone could share, I'd be much obliged.

 

A gracious soul at Dell technical support has made BIOS A07 available at:

Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States]

I can confirm that this BIOS DOES DRIVE the 2560x1600 30" display when used in conjunction with a mini display port to dual link DVI adapter (such as the one provided by Apple).

Thank you Adolfo Escalante! You have restored my system to operational order. It is people like you who make all the difference at giant companies like Dell.

Once again, thank you.

 

the most latest dvd is the Niresh Lion 10.7.3 V2 (u can get in torrents) ..
it worked fine. most of the things i cant get to work like usb ports, nvidia gpu,webcam(it will automatically get detected if usb ports work),wifi ..

 

another drawback of nvidia not working is that
CANNOT PLAY GAMES.. for which this lovely GPU is born