M17x R2 upgrade and issues

Hi peeps,

My first post. I have owned a alienware m17x r2 for over a year now.

My battery stop charging 3 months ago so i took it out and started running straight from pwer charger.

When i run auto cad etc after 30 mins the laptop switched off, it took ages to come back on after several power drains. I thought it was heat issue so went out and got a u3 cooler master pad.

I now think its time for some upgrades.

My service tag: [snip] to see system setup. Product Support for Alienware M17X R2 | Dell UK

I dont play games on it just auto cad, design software etc running.

Running windows 7 home edition.

Can everyone give me suggestions how i can upgrade sensibly withough breaking the bank and post links of actual products i need ie brands product codes etc.

A friend told me to get a ssd drive.. to speed things up.. What do you think of this:

M16ISD2-200UCV i can get it cheap or do you reccomend anything else?

Thank you in advance.

Adam

 

So was the battery the issue?

Post up the specs you have now and how you plan on using the laptop, an SSD is a good start if you don't have one already

 

Please do not post service tag information, as it can be used fraudulently. Never provide your service tag to anyone except for Dell / Alienware employees.

I love my M17x R2, and it is the second best laptop I have ever owned. It's second only to my M18x. But, it is getting long in the tooth and there are not very many upgrades I would consider. It would not take much to exceed the used resale value because the system is too old.

An SSD is a great idea because it is completely portable to another system.

Since you're not a gamer and do mostly AutoCAD, you might want to ditch the dual GPU setup and grab a nice NVIDIA Quadro video card. That should give you a performance increase you can appreciate, but the video card will be worth more than the laptop. To the extent that it is MXM 3.0b, that would be portable as well, but you would almost be better off selling the M17x R2 and buying a newer Dell Precision with a Quadro preinstalled.

 

Those are great suggestions Mr. Fox, I would also say that going for a Quadro card would be a good idea for those type of softwares.

 

A more powerful CPU could be advantageous (i.e. 920XM), but you'd probably see more benefit out of the graphics upgrade, and, as Mr. Fox said, you'd be pouring money into something that wouldn't be able to retain the value with either upgrade.