Doubts - New with an alienware. (SSD, Keyboard Light, etc...)

Hi,

Recently, I got a m17x R4, the upgrades were: HD7970M, 128SSD+750HDD, FullHD, Killer WiFi, 8GB RAM
I'm very happy, I think I made a good deal, even cause Im buying outside US, Im in France right now, I paid 1933 € (with a Bag and a Security Cable).
I don't know if this is a good price, but I think it is... What do you guys think?

Also, it comes with Windows 7 Home Premium, but I formatted it and installed a Windows 7 Pro, cause I have a license from my university..
I got some problems reinstalling this, well, it's normal, some dell drivers are hard to understand, in some sections they have 2 entries for the same driver... well...

About the drivers, I have a doubt, with the Intel HD 4000 turned on, I have the catalyst control center popping out windows every time to configure the performance (high, low, economy) according to the application, no problem...
When I turn off the Intel HD 4000 (alt+f7 I/D GFX, which I think is Integrate/Discrete Graphics), it asks to reboot, ok, I rebooted, it goes trough windows without video driver, it asked to reboot again, I did it, and now it goes trough a windows with the video driver... but there is only the Radeon HD7970M in the hardware list (I mean, device manager)... So, in theory, now everything is running on HD7970M.

First doubt: (SOLVED 5th post)
What I need to know is... What mode is better? Is the Intel HD4000 mode better cause it shows both cards (device manager) and MAYBE (I dont know) uses the HD7970M when you configure the application in High Performance? Or is the another one, even with a high battery consumption?

Also, Why I need to install the HD7970M driver from DELL, and I can't install the driver from AMD... When I tried it says that there isn't a compatible device... (???)

Second: (SOLVED)
Alright... after that... my keyboard... (beaaaaaaaaautiful, love it)... it came with some areas that doesn't light up efficiently, I mean, the bottom area of the bottom keys (ctrl, alt, space, ..., arrows), doesn't light up brightly like the center ones... is it normal?
ps: yeah yeah, a "little" thorough and perfectionist, but... well...

Conclusion: It isn't commum, but is just little parts of bad printed keys, something like that, I search some images in internet, and found the same problem at some keys... Not bad at all.

Third: (SOLVED 3rd post)
I dont think it is Alienware related, but... Can someone explain me this?

Why windows 7 is consuming 41Gb of my SSD and when I select all folders in it and see the size it is just 23Gb ??? Where the hell are the others 18Gb??
I'm trying so hard to manage this space (haha), and windows is hiding 18Gb somewhere... haha.

Fourth: (SOLVED 2nd post)
How much HD bays do I have in my system? I saw some posts about 3 with 1 mSata... What do you guys know?
This page didn't give me so much: ARK | Mobile Intel® HM77 Express Chipset (Intel® BD82HM77 PCH) (I'm not an expert btw...)
After that, in theory, I can replace my HDD with another SSD? I just need to check the right plug?

That is it...
Thanks in advance,
Sorry for my english errors, and... Later.

UPDATE:
Thanks to all answers, they were really helpful.

I have one last question
Fifth:
I'm thinking in increase my RAM before I go back to my country, I was thinking about add 2x4Gb, so then I will be with 16Gb (4x4Gb)...
But... Dell stock memories are 2x
SK Hynix HMT351S6EFR8A-PB 4 GB DDR3-1600 DDR3 SDRAM (11-11-11-28 @ 800 MHz)
(10-10-10-27 @ 761 MHz) (9-9-9-24 @ 685 MHz) (8-8-8-22 @ 609 MHz) (7-7-7-19 @ 533 MHz) (6-6-6-16 @ 457 MHz) (5-5-5-14 @ 380 MHz)

I never heard about it, but I know some tech stuffs about memories, and this is CL11...
I was thinking in buy 2x4GB CL9 PC12800 (Corsair Vengeance)...
My doubt is:
- Will I sacrifice the CL9 of a set 2x4GB to use it aside with the dell stock memories? I mean, the corsair ones will be running at CL11 to do some compatibility stuff?
- They both (2x4gb CL9 + 2x4gb CL11) will run well my system?
- What would be the optmial slot order configuration?
- - - CL9+CL9+CL11+CL11 (put the CL9 in the first slots hopping to the OS use it more often, hardly reaching to the top of the memory pile)
- - - CL9+CL11+CL9+CL11 (mix things...)

Thanks again!

 

The space is taken up because of the recovery partition. To get around this, simply reinstall Windows using the disc that came with your system.

The M17x R4 has two HDD bays and 1 mSata slot. This system is capable of having two SSD's and an mSata SSD in a RAID 0 configuration to have more SSD storage.

 

It was not a recovery partition, after some research, I end up in two configuration files that I forgot to mark to show in the folder options, pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys...
After some reading, and 2 tutos, I got back 12 gb of my "lost" storage haha...
Here they are:
What is pagefile.sys and can I move it?
What is hiberfil.sys and how to delete in Windows 7 free up hard drive space | Next of Windows

I download also a tool called WinDirSat, very good tool, good for HD Analysis... but, YET, there is a small unknown space missing... something like 5Gb... (difference from driver properties and WinDirSat tool)... Well, I really don't know where it is, but, I guess I will just leave it hehe...

About the HD bays, cool, I guess my SSD is on the mSata... I will try to buy another one to plug into the free bay space... maybe something like SSD 128+128 (Raid 0) and 750 HDD, or even without raid 0, a 256Gb SSD, need to do some search to know about price rates, what is worthing today...
Also, the bays, they are 1 mSata and 2 SATA 3? (I guess)

Thanks...

edit:

After downloading a tool called SpaceSniffer, it shows there is 6Gb in a folder called System Volume information, this folder is protected even from the Administrator (hidden account), I made some change in permissions and confirmed, the unknown space I tried to figure out is all there...
This folder holds, in most parts, restore points, I did a test and deleted all RP's that I have, and I gained a little bit less than 6Gb...

Well, I dont know how usefeul are RP's, I've never used it...

 

Just to let you know, the restore points could be deleted (except the latest one just incase) by using 'disk cleanup' you may need to use the advanced option in it to give it permission to delete but it might show any other additional files needed.

 

I will try to answer some questions related to the dual video card saga... I had both cards enabled (4000 & 7970) along with Dells stock driver. I went out to Dells site and downloaded the most recent driver, but I am thinking it may even be the same as the stock driver. It was updated in 9/2012. Games ran well, but not nearly what i would expect out of a 7970.

I tried updating the 7970 to the most recent 13.3 BETA Catalyst driver and once I did that, games ran better than I could imagine. Far Cry 3 went from 24 FPS to almost 50 FPS on the same settings. BUT... the Windows 8 BSOD struck once I installed some Windows 8 updates. Had to factory reset the entire machine and start over.

I did the same thing with the updated drivers.... BSOD struck again! Had to once again refresh the entire machine.

This time I disabled the Intel 4000 (Fn-F7) so that the only detectable video card in the system is the 7970. Updated the Catalyst to 13.3 BETA, and have been running fine for a few days. I have been able to install Windows updates, game updates, etc..

It seems that to effectively use the 7970, the 4000 should be disabled. If you stick with the stock Dell drivers, you would also be OK with both cards enabled, but the performance was way below what I would expect with the stock drivers.

Has anyone had the same experience? Anyone else running Windows 8 with the 4000 and 7970 both enabled and able to update the 7970 to the latest Catalyst driver without first disabling the 4000? Maybe I have a system issue, but thats what I needed to do in order to accomplish this.

Thanks.

 

I'm with MJBarnes on this, it is better to run with the 7970m only. To install the latest AMD driver you will probably have to modify the INF file or just install it on top of the DELL one without uninstalling the DELL one first.

 

speaking of hdd space..........


i got one of these.

Seagate 750GB Momentus XT Serial 2.5 inch 7200 RPM 32MB 6GB/S SATA Solid State Hybrid Hard Drive

After a new install of windows ultimate, i have this.

total space 698Gb total space on C drive.
which begs the question, where the F<>k did almost 50gb go...?!

 

acronis disk directior says 698.5Gb total space too, with 100Mb reserved.

so that is fine but 50Gb is quite a big difference.

any ideas?

 

oh well looks like my math is out lol

750,156,374,015 Bytes

total space ..

 

I was gonna do the math for you

The 750GB refers to 750,000,000,000 bytes roughly, i.e. 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes. (The actually storage usually is slightly larger).

However, when the computer calculate the storage size, it uses 1GB = 1024*1024*1024 = 1,073,741,824 bytes.

So for 750,000,000,000 bytes drive, reported number is, 750,000,000,000 / 1073741824 = 698.49 GB.

For the number you got from the tool, it means the actual size of your drive is approximately 698.63 * 1073741824 = 750,148,250,501 bytes.

So the drive was not swapped, you do have the 750 GB drive in the enclosure.

 

Thanks for the information... It was useful.

Very nice information guys, I will check it out soon. Thanks!
+rep.

Edited: Tested, confirmed, I'm with you both! Good improvement.

+rep;
Completly right. Industries scales the byte's size by 1000 (1000B = 1MB and so on, it's a comfort/marketing thing), and the right is 1024.
They sold 100GB for you, when you are buying only 95.4GB.
The math is simple, like L_Porras said... and I confirm: [ 750{bytes} * 1000{kb} * 1000{mb} * 1000{gb} ] / [ 1024{kb} * 1024{mb} * 1024{gb} ] = 698.49...
and remember 8 byte = 1 bit... haha, just kidding about nerd things =P