Couple Basic Alienware Questions

Hey everyone,

I'd like to hear your opinions on what I am going to do when I receive my computer:

1) Make my Alien Respawn discs and inspect the entire physical condition of the laptop.
2) Run benchmarks for 30 minutes with stock cooling, Prime95 and Furmark just to make sure things work immediately and see how high the temps go.
3) Repaste and repad the GPU and CPU.
4) Take out my 320GB drive and 4GB RAM, store it away, and put in my 750GB and SSD and 8GB kit.

Now here is where I am not sure what to do:

5) Install Windows 7 and drivers on both drives? Or just install Windows 7 and drivers on the SSD? Then I will add the Alien look through the help of the threads here.
6) Keep computer on for a few hours, then burn in with Prime95 and Furmark for 4-5 hours.

Sounds good?

Thanks

 

Just wana throw this out there... Will the stock 4gb alienware RAM run with my 8gb (2x4gb) g.skill RAM ? To make 12 GB ? or should I remove the alienware RAM and just use my own?

 

If the RAM speeds are the same they will work without any issue.

 

sweet thanks. Do you think they put the default RAM behind the keyboard or in the back?

 

In the back.

No responses from anyone today?

 

Why would you install on both drives? Do you want to dual boot to the same OS or do you want to have a drive dedicated to storage?

 

Installing windows 7 on both isn't a good Idea , installing windows on SSD should really help the speed up OS boot time so keep that on SSD itself.

Inspecting the laptop should be the main priority make sure you check the screen for any dead pixels, physical damage , multimedia keys flex (most complaints from that).

Re-pasting and re-padding right away shouldn't be necessary.Maybe after you burn it with Prime95 and futurmark Still keep a check on your temps if you find them higher than usual you can get it out of the way for a while.

 

I wouldn't recommend mixing 2Gb with 4Gb Ram as it will not work in dual if are not the same. Probably you will not notice too much difference but it makes sense specially when you compress or decode something, ofcourse along with the CPU (and for sure many other reasons).

 

I see, thanks everyone. I will just use the 750GB as a backup for the 256GB and as storage for anything else. I won't install Windows on it.

 

Don't forget to get into BIOS and tweak the RAM setting to optimize it for your HyperX. Others are reporting that the RAM will perform better if the XMP profile is set for 1600.

I'd love to know how the M4 installation goes. The Vertex 3's are proving pretty tricky to install just right. I'm wondering if the M4 installation will go smoother. Don't forget to put the SSD in Port 1 because there are reports of problems getting Sata 6gb/s speeds through Port 0.