Alienware m17x R2 - Memory at wrong Frequency

Hello Everyone,

So I have a Alienware m17x R2 and some time ago I decided to update the processor and get some memory. So I got the i7 940xm processor and got 16GB of ram.

The problem is that the ram seems to only be working at 665MHz when the bio states the they are 1333MHz. Is there anything I need to do to make them run at the correct speed?

I have another question about my graphics. I have 2 ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 in crossfire but the Catalist seems to think I have a ATI FirePro M7820. Is there any problem with this? should i go back to the version that showed the correct graphics?

In attachment, I put what CPU-Z shows.

Thank you all ^^

 

everything is working as intended in your system. the Ram would show as 665mhz in cpu-z as it is running on 665mhz x 2. As for the GPU version, this issue is common when using 5870m's with newer drivers. So as long as it doesn't hinder your performance everything should be fine

 

Yup, memory clocks are completely fine. The real clock speed is what CPU-z shows, however since it is double data rate (DDR), manufacturers like to advertise it at the equivalent clock speed if it was "single data rate".

 

Oh i see...thank you the replies guys.

Since I really like my R2, really wanted to extend his life as much as possible for gamming, but is it still woth it? or is it just better to get a new laptop?

As for the upgrades, it would be a SSD and Graphics card (crossfire if possible).

For the SSD I was thinking the OCZ SSD VERTEX 4 256GB SATA III. Is it any good?

As for the graphics card, what do you guys recommend?

 

Worth it.

Forget Crossfire or Sli, slam a single GTX 680m or 7970m in there and you don't know what hit you
And your system will be pretty much as fast a top spec R4 (not saying an R4 is a waste of money, but as you already have an R2 anyway). Loads of us R2 owners went that road instead of buying an R4, mainly due to the RGB LED screen in the R2
Don't expect all these upgrades to come cheap though, in the end (as you already bought the processor) you will spend a lot of money to be on par again with recent systems. It's not a 'cheap' option so to say
I don't know your other specs, but if you have an RGB LED in your system i'd go the upgrade route. If you don't then i'd consider switching to an R4.

The SSD drive you mention is a great drive. Though please note that anything above SATA II will still run as SATA II due to the R2 being SATA II. So don't expect a SATA III drive to perform as it would on a SATA III system. That being said, SATA II is still plenty fast and an SSD is a great upgrade to do

 

Thats good to hear about the upgrade. I would like to continue with my laptop ^^

As for the SATA, I'm aware of the SATA II limitation but it will be a big upgrade and really worth it imo. I really feel that this will be the best upgrade atm I can do for my system.

So, for the graphics, some reviews I read say that the GTX 680m is an overaul better product but since I'm no guru in these matters so would like to know your opinions. I also have a couple of questions about the instalation

1. Is installing the new graphics (GTX 680m or the 7970m) a swap and go thing ? What I mean by this is more about the hardware than the driver and such. Like reusing the current heat sinks and stuff like that.
2. Does my current AC adapter work fine?
3. Will the heat become an issue? I do have a cooler that currently works very good.

thank you all for the help ^^


Edit: Is THIS SSD good enough? If it is, it 50€ cheaper than the one I mention. I would go with it if its good enough.

 

1. I don't know wich upgrade is easier, I'm sure it depends what manufacturer card you use. (dell,clevo,eurocom)
But 7970M is cheaper, for the same performance.
Prety much plug and play, except you have to use 69XX or 79XX X-Bracket, because the one from 48XX or 58XX won't fit.

2. 240W is more than enough for a single GPU.

3. No, heat is not an issue, as long as it's properly repasted.

EDIT: Yes, that SSD is ok.

 

Best bang for buck definitely is the 7970m. One upgrade isn't easier or harder then the other.

The hardware-technical part of installing one of those cards isn't very hard, it's just opening up the system and plug in the card (assuming you already attached the heat sink).
There's some quirks with the 7970m depending where you get your card and with what firmware, if it will work immediately or not. Also some reports on the fans having to be set manually and Audio not working on some cards through HDMI. I believe the GTX680 also has some comparable stuff going on, but don't know exactly as I went for the 7970m in my R2.

Some people prefer Nvidia, some prefer ATI. They are both monsters of cards. In one game/benchmark one will be faster, in the other the other will be.
I can't say I notice much of a difference between a single 680m or a 7970m, they both run pretty much the same (which is fast).

For OC-ing I personally slightly prefer the Nvidia card due to currently having better drivers/faster updates and it simply OC-ing really, really well.
And as said , heat is no issue, and 240 watt is plenty, even with a 7970m with heavy OC, and an XM processor with heavy OC. Stay away from Crossfire or SLI-ing the mentioned cards though atm, lots of stuff going on on that front but mainly only people trying to find out how to power the cards

 

Well thank you for the help ^^ you guys just rock

If the 7970m is the best bag for buck i'll for with that. Already have bought online the SSD so all i'm missing is the graphics

Just to recapitulate, to install the graphics, I would need:
1. Buy a new X-Bracket
2. Get latest drivers.
3. Flash the VBIOS if there is any problem?
4. ???

 

4. Enjoy it

 

lol sorry for my noobness but what doest that mean? I can skip all steps and just do 4 or I do all steps until 4?

 

1. Buy a new X-Bracket, or buy your new card with X-Bracket included (I can personally recommend buying from Eurocom as I had good experiences with them, but lately have seen some other messages on the forum that the support currently isn't to great. Other options would be MXM-upgrade.com and RJ-Tech. If you say for which system you want a card, they will likely want to prepare it for you with a plug and play bios. There's oftenly also cards sold here in the Marketplace). Also make sure the new X-Bracket includes the 4 screws that fit it, my screws from my old x-bracket didn't fit, and its a pita once you have your system open you find this out, having to fix some screws from somewhere.
2. Discharge yourself from any static electricity, or preferably use a wrist band
3. Remove Battery from system, unplug BIOS battery from mainboard
4. Open system and get to your GPU's (lots of tutorials on youtube for this)
5. Remove old card(s)
6. Detach heat sink from old card (left one, in case you have 2)
7. Attach heat sink to new card. With Thermal Paste decently applied, and Thermal Pads applied to locations where they should.
8. Insert card in system (left MXM slot, in case you previously had 2 cards)
9. Remount everything you dismounted and close the system
10. Boot up, completely rid your system of the old drivers.
12. Reboot into safe mode and use Driver sweeper to make sure you removed everything related to your old drivers
13. Reboot to normal Windows and download the latest drivers (either NVidia or ATI), install them, and reboot again
14. Double check the fans work correctly, or use HWiNFO to control them. Install GPU Temp to monitor your temperatures, just to make sure everything is correct and you decently applied the Thermal Paste and Thermal pads.
15. If any problem arises, just ask here. Normally you won't need to flash or do anything to fancy
16. Enjoy

That's basically it, in a nutshell
At least enough for you to quickly scan what you will have to do, and ask questions now in case some parts are not clear or simply are not known to you.

Luckily I can't count. 9, 10, 12. ><

 

I will be a happy witness to the fact that a nicely upgraded r2 is golden for most standards.
Currently runing an r2 with 8gig ram factory isntalled, rgb lcd, and then upgraded processor to 920xm and gpu to single 7970m. This setting si a beast, and runs extremely stable. After several weeks I have only encountered 2 lock ups, thats stable on my book (since i overclocked the processor.). i will also confirm that it runs very cool, but bare in mind that the r2 combined with the 7970 have this wierd fseature that it will thermal shut down if temps reach somewhat above 80 degrees. It has not happeneend to me yet, but so has been reported... but thats good news... meaning my card is not goi ng to burn out

 

for the last week i have been using my R2 in combination with a GTX 680m.
When i overclocked the GPU to 1000/2250, it is pulling OVER 250w out of the wall....but then again, i am running Crysis3 stable on second highest setting with no AA between 40~55 FPS.

ow....did i mention i just have a I7 620M dual core cpu .
Unfortunatly my 920XM (OEM) has been sitting @Customs since 02-26-2013
they said it would be released this week but i doubt it...

I don't have an SSD so that does not real effect on the benchmarks.(i need allot of space, so i might get a 256gb SSD and swap one of the current RAID drives)

 

Don't forget that 240W is the rated output, so you should still be within specs for your PSU since 250W is your input and PSUs are never 100% efficient.

 

Ow its consumes more...the limit is capping the OC it sometimes peaks @270w and as a result the card clocks down.
The card itself does not raise 88 degrees at those clocks

 

This is just me being curious, but do you have any idea if the capping is due to the card itself or some power safety on the motherboard?

 

Definetly not the card.
First it the PSU limit and as it turns out, even if you can mod your PSU to fool the motherboards, there are still triggers on the motherboard that prevent usage higher then 240W

 

This is not an official upgrade therefore it might have issues.

 

I am not really sure what you mean by:"This is not an official upgrade"..
It's the original Dell card (green pcb)
The socket fits (MXM 3.0b) the fans can keep it cool and i think Dell just removed the HWID just so people would upgrade from the R2

Thank god we al know better , if it works in a R4, it works in the R2

 

It only means that DELL will not service a machine under this configuration because it would be considered Out of Support Scope. Besides that, I know it works fine but some mods are required to make it work such as running the fans manually and sometimes flashing the vBios.

Official upgrades are the video cards that have been tested to work fine on a platform by our engineers.

 

Guilty:
Volt modded for OverClock.
HWInfo64 for fan support.

 

Thank you for all the responses. Sorry for only comming back now but work is taking up all my free time

So finally my SSD arrived and I'm ready to install it ^^. Should I install the SSD in a RAID 0 setup with one of the other disks or just forget about raid ?

 

Well that depends, will you use it for gaming or allot of file swapping.

If you use it to store and swap allot files, i say raid-0
If you want use it for stritcly gaming i advise against raid-0

You could use raid but then a more redundent form.
If you use, lets say Outlook, and your laptop is the only device you have/use, it would be smarter to have a windows drive with utilities and a second one for gaming.
Should one of them fail in raid (or the controller bites the dust) then you still have one or the drive so either way, 50% of you data is safe.

The other reason is that it has been benchmarked 100.000.000 times and it has been shown that one ssd on sata2 will basiy max out the loading time between games so even if you go sata 3 ssd for gaming, your gain in speed non noticable let alone raid-0


Sent from my iPhone.

 

My current setup is 2 500gb setup in RAID-0. When I got the SSD it was with the ideia to use it for the SO + gamming and have one of the old 500GB disk for adicional storage. But since I have RAID-0 currently I was wondering if it would ve worth it or not

 

SSD for OS and programs/utilities.
Conventional/capacity drive for storage/data/games.

 

Ok...So basicaly forget RAID-0 and just install the SO + Utilities on the SSD and the rest on the old drive...got it ^~
thx for the help

 

Yup, i think your situation will benefit the most from that setup.
Good luck!

 

So I'm reviving this old thread to let you guys know that my 7970M has fianlly arrived unfortunately i'm going on a road trip this weekend so that means no card swapping this weekend. This Thuesday is goingto be the day and I hope everything will go smooth. I'll post some picks / ask for help (hope not) wednesday

Fingers crossed

 

Congrats on your new card !

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/677680-another-7970m-m17x-r2-installation-photos.html

That guide might be of help in case you get stuck at some point while upgrading.

 

Hey everyone ^^

So finally I got to install my new card everything went smooth and my fans and HDMI work fine ^^ but.....there seems to be 2 problems.

1º When I start my computer, it beeps loudly and says my adapter is not from DELL (never did this before). The adapter I'm using is a 240w that came with my m17x R2 so I dont know whats going on. It doesnt always do this. It asks me if I want to continue (presss F1) or go to setup (F2). Pressing F1 starts the SO normally and doesnt seem to be any problem. Is there anything I can do about this?

2º After installing the new drivers and rebooting, I went to run the Window Experience Index just for curiosity but saw that my CPU was rated at 4.4 (normally it should be between 6-9 and 7.2 - dont recall exactly). So I ran it again and my Graphics index went to 7.9 but my CPU stayed at 4.4 :S It seems that everything is "laggy" like browsing throught the web and scrolling and doesnt run smoothly. When putting the new card on, I disconnected the motherboard's battery and maybe some option got reseted? Do I need to enable/disable something? what could the problem?

Ty again all ^^

 

The video card needs correct vbios. The beeping loudly I am not sure about others may input some advice/help. Also, what do you mean by adapter?

 

The message I get that comes along with the beeps is "Your AC power adapter is Non-Dell's Adapter"

 

Does this help?
M17x-R2 AC Adapter is not charging the battery - Alienware Forum - Alienware Club - Dell Community
and
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/659481-non-dell-ac-adapter-press-f1-continue.html

Looks like a motherboard DC input socket issue.
Best of luck.

 

This problem only appeared yesterday after I swapped the 2x ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 (crossfire) for 1x ATI Mobility Radeon HD 7970 so I'm thinking it's somewhat related? Did anyone have this problem after the upgrade?

 

No no issue here. You have the 7970m in the primary slot correct and did not damage anything in the process? What motherboard bios are you running?

 

Everything went smooth to my knowledge. I installed the 7970m on the left side and the system detected the card with no problem. After the driver instalation, I ran a game (in this case League of Legends) just to see if everything was alright and it seemed fine. I'm currently running A10 (the modified one that allows overclocking). May be later i'll flash it and put the official bios to see if it works.

Do you think the CPU problem is related with the power problem?

 

Yeah looks like it..
You will probably have to open her up and see what the cause of it is(socket in particular) and then set aside time for what to do next, replacement, parts, etc
Good luck with it.