First Alienware 17!

Hello everyone! This is my first post on the forum and am glad to have found it! I just got this Alienware 17 from a friend of mine for 400 usd. Everything works besides the battery is completely tosted and won't charge. This version has the i7 4700 mq. Gtx 770m ,16gb of ram and the 1080p no 3D screen. Question for everyone one is what would you guys upgrade on this machine first? I saw some post saying you could put like a 1070 in one of these? That's crazy! Any help would be appreciated!

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This machine will blow any laptop newer that doesnt have a desktop grade cpu with the right components. I have a 4930mx, and a chinese gtx1060 in my and it blows newer alienware with ddr4 out of the water. I would upgrade the gpu first. The most expensive part, with the biggest improvement in performance

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350 for a 1060 mxm card? Does that sounds right?

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That is the really crappy chinese version I have. It really does perform well though. You might have an issue if you dont upgrade to the 3d screen at the same time though. If I were you I'd reach out to @azmodeth about a 1060n or even a 1070n

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$400 USD for that? Yikes man.

 

I bought my MSI 1070 for about 400 a few months ago now.

Also that screen is matte, I would double check to see if its actually an eDP panel.

 

Did not think 400 was to bad of price..

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Hes just jealous. Dont mind him lol. I got mine I think for like 600 a year ago with a 4800mq 3d screen and 24gb of ram from azmo

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I have check In display settings and nvidia controlle panel. Only shows 60hz. Unless I am missing something ?

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If mostly everything is working fine then $400 seems pretty decent. I usually work out what a machine is worth in parts and if I can score it for less then it's a win in my books. I got mine for about $220USD but the GPU was dead and it had no RAM or storage.

 

You can upgrade to pascal just fine via SG mode with the unlocked bios. But many prefer peg mode (dgpu) as it yields more performance and less potential issue dealing with the Intel HD as the middle man.

The price for the laptop is not bad at all. It's "old" but far far from capable. I use mine as my DTR and handles everything I throw at it just fine. Been playing monster hunter: world with high resolution texture pack maxed at 1080p averaging 60 fps. Sometimes dips to 45 fps with crazy amount of fanfare. I'm still running my cpu at 3.4ghz until I take a vacation and finish my project to cool it.

Still running 115w tdp as well. With 130w I think I can maintain around 1700ghz core or so. Normally runs 1886ghz on less intensive titles like overwatch at 120fps frame limit only using 50 percent of the gpu.

It's a labor of love type of machine but I love it and have no reason to part with it. Might even be able to use the rtx 5000 down the line who knows.

 

"Might even be able to use the rtx 5000 down the line who knows."

This is the dream!

 

Is there modding you have to do inside the machine to get a 1060 or 1070 to fit? What does an unlocked bios do? I saw one post on here talking about it but did not see much about installing it or what benefits you get from it.

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The only thing unlocked bios ever does for any machine is more control. Which is needed once your diving into aftermarket upgrades.

Just makes the whole process much smoother.

Any 1060 will fit save for clevo, and most 1070 will fit without mods except for the msi 1070.

 

I have to upgrade to the 120hz screen tho right?

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For PEG? yes, Pascal doesnt support the LVDS based 60hz panel in PEG mode, you can get it to work in SG mode but its not my preferred method.

 

How close is a 1060 to being drop in and go if I upgradr my screen? And do you know if these are the right 2 new heatsinks I would need?

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The first one is right but the card is only 80w standard. So you could mod the heatsink you have, I had to use a copper shim on my 1060 as the core sits lower than the 1070 does (and other GPU's like 780m) I dont know if that is the case for all 1060's or just the one I had. I sold it and moved to the 1070 as its a much better card for my uses.

The second heatsink is wrong, thats for the 18.4"

Other than modding the INF file, it should be good to go.

 

Jealous? Anything of the sort, $400 for a Haswell i7 and a kepler based GPU isn't great, and considering the insane prices of MXM card's, he should have just got a straight 1070 laptop off eBay or so.

 

None of those yield the same potential however.

 

Potential of what? They would have offered higher performance, newer and faster storage, more modern HW, ran cooler, had better battery life, etc. Irrelevant now that he has purchased it, but its what could have been.

 

Dude. His laptop if he puts about 600 into it will smash any newer laptops out of the water, and I know firsthand. It's an awesome laptop stop hating

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Faster storage is moot for gaming as multi player your waiting a set amount for all players regardless and single player campaigns load quite fast as it is. I play on ssd with the OS and ssd on my games.

The storage capacity is also much greater as you have potential for 17TB.

With the 1070 at the helm you can easily play all titles and with more cards on the horizon the potential is still there for greater heights. Not to mention not needing to replace the entire machine if the board dies.

I'm sorry you gave up on your ranger due to issues you had with it but that doesn't all of a sudden make it a worthless machine.

 

My brother bought an alienware 17 r1 for 180 USD from facebook marketplace with following specs i7 4700 1080p 120Hz screen 16gb ram GTX 780M 256 msata and 1tb HDD .. cant wait for a friend to bring it to me ( IN PAKISTAN ) so i can later look for 1060 or 1070 upgrade on it straight !!

 

This right here is why enthusiasts still hunt for this machine. I'm just still waiting for rtx mxm. Lol

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RTX 5000 at 130-150w may be worthwhile. They are like 1800 at the moment but as I mention before I can play anything I desire as is. That all being said RTX 5K is likely to be the last GPU upgrade as you'll be pushing the limits of the CPU and past that creating an imbalance in the system.

Also LOL@ running cooler. The only thing I seen in the last 4-5 years is complaints of high temperatures on 90% of the laptops out there.

I run my 1070 at full bore and the highest temperature is about 53C Thats over 30c cooler than the 1060 in my 13R3.

 

How hard is it to do a screen swap to the 120hz? And will my 770m be able to run it if I decide to do the panel first? I should say that I have done complete tear downs of every thing on laptops before besides screens. Always worried me .

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Its tedious but not difficult, you have to tear down most of the laptop to remove the top lid then remove the panel itself.

The 770m supports eDP just fine, in fact you will want to keep it so you can get back into your sBIOS, as with Pascal you lose access to it for some reason after installation.

 

Are you able to tell me if this is the right screen I would need?

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That is for the M17x r4. Ours is known as the alienware 17 r1 in most places but also known as M17x r5 and sometimes as p18e or something like that.

 

Is this one better? this is giving me issues trying to find one.

 

There is a thread for you.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/120hz-3d-screen-upgrade-for-alienware-17-r1.758711/

 

Thats where i am getting the part number to search ebay from but not much is showing for the 17R.

 

This guy is selling for parts. Maybe you can ask him for the screen. It's a 3D 120hz.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Alienwa...m3d91ea6947:g:Fp0AAOSwipddYSQQ&frcectupt=true

Also, where are you? I know a seller who has 3 3D screens in stock in my country.

 

I am from the USA

 

I'm from Australia. Not sure if he can ship to US. Here is his store on ebay. He doesn't list the screen on his ebay store. I just bought 1 from him to upgrade mine.

https://www.ebay.com.au/usr/tektrend-australia?_trksid=p2053788.m1543.l2754

 

That model looks correct? I'd have to check later when I get home but it looks to be right.

 

You got to remember to thank HP for doing this, they literally stuck to mxm format unlike clevo who started adding more voltages and extra power cables. As much as I hate HP they will be known for being the only true rtx mxm providers, that's if it works in other laptops of course

I was shocked to see HP still doing mxm out of all companies they haven't gone BGA, its crazy!

 

Yeah who knows if it will work to begin with but even if not a tdp modded 1070 should suffice for a while yet.

 

I have a feeling those RTX cards will work in older clevo models with no issues p750dm/p770dm/p870dm, not sure about alienware though....

Those Clevo models are known to run HP cards (plug and play) without vbios mods, I've personally tried 4 different quadros taken from HP's all booted right up....

 

@Pcwizkid1994 , I might have one to sell. You are looking for the 3D panel?

 

Yes


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RTX MXM from HP? Last I checked their P5200, P4200 and P3200 were missing the BIOS EPPROM meaning they need one soldered then flashed from a dumped bios using a programer. It's doable but much more harder to do.

I can only hope their newer RTX cards have the EPPROM chip back in. RTX MXM sounds interesting....maybe I'll have to snag one for my M18x in the future.