M17x R3 GTX 460m SSD Install Success Stories

Alright, as the title says let's hear some success stories on SSD upgrades for those with the R3 running the 460m. I'm eager to take the plunge to SSD but I've been reading that R3 owners with the 460m have been suffering from BSOD upon a clean Windows 7 install. Let's hear em!

 

I literally just went through this today, just had to setup a return for my vertex 3 with newegg, if ur looking to take the SSD plunge I would just got with the Intel 510 tbh

 

So you had no issues with your Intel upgrade, but did with the Vertex 3? Interesting if that was the indeed the case. Currently deciding between the 510, Crucial M4, and Mushkin Callisto.

 

I haven't received my Intel SSD yet, I should have it tomorrow, but the Vertex 3's are showing a lot of issues with initial setup and no one has it running in ACHI on a m17x R3 as far as I know. everything Ive seen/heard from Intel suggests they are practically Plug and Play

 

I've been seeing posts from people with GTX 460m and Vertex SSD getting BSOD when they install the nvidia drivers. Hope this thread ends my speculation on the issue.

Yup, there are reports on the OCZ forums with Vertex 3 not installing properly with AHCI enabled. Its a minority problem but a problem nevertheless. Most people with this issue are able to install in ATA and do the registry tweek to switch over to AHCI. Unfortunately this does not work with M17xR3.

 

which sucks because ACHI is what gives the drive a performance boost by allowing it to run full speed on its own(atleast from what i understand), I am curious though to see what the actual performance drop is, from my understanding it should be quite significant but I don't really know for sure.

 

RAID and ACHI both have the performance increase, as long as it is not IDE/Compatibility.

 

Spent a couple hours fighting with a Crucial C300. I can get all the drivers to install fine, NET framework, and directx, but after a while browsing the internet I got a BSOD and now it wont go past the starting windows screen.

 

What Nvidia drivers are you running?

 

heres mine! http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-i-my-fixed-ssd-bsod-nvidia-driver-issue.html

 

No issues here, installed 100% and no BSOD's...

This is so flippin fast , HOLY!

 

get on steam so I can pick ur brain, I got it mostly working

 

Was busy finishing copying my files back, told you it would take all day

I'm on now just watched Thor but I see you are long gone.

 

I've had one heck of a time with this myself. I bought the M17x R3 with the 3d package and the small 320 GB mechanical drive. I also bought the Intel 510 series 120 GB SSD from NewEgg and a 750 GB WD Scorpio Black for storage duties. What a pain in the behind to get this thing up and running!

First, I ghosted the 320 drive to the SSD so I'd get the Dell utility partition (the one with the hardware diagnostics on it). There's probably an easier way to to that, but at least it worked. Then I put the computer in AHCI mode and installed Windows 7 fresh, making sure to delete the other partitions on the SSD. No problem up to that point. It boots just fine and I can boot to the utility partition and run the hardware tests.

Next, I used a guide I found in this forum for installing an SSD in this laptop and most of it is good stuff, thank you for collecting it in one place that I could print out. The one bad piece of advice in there was to disable system restore. If you don't know what order to install drivers, and you're not sure what drivers actually go on your system, restore can be a life saver. Why don't I know which drivers are actually applicable? Because the drivers on the resource DVD do not match the ones that are on the 320 GB drive that shipped in the computer, and my system is so new that the service tag isn't registered with Dell yet. I've never had that happen before. So I have to pick drivers by model. Which wireless card do I have?

Anyway, I found out after several reformats and start-overs that the video drivers that shipped on the 320 GB drive result in a blue screen before I run Windows Update and get all the updates as well as Service Pack 1. I didn't try installing them between getting the critical updates and SP1, I simply updated overnight and then tried again in the morning after they had all installed. I went to bed when SP1 was downloading. As I said, system restore saved me a couple of times once I stopped disabling it.

I am now up and running. I know I'm missing some applications because they don't send them on the resource DVD, but I'm sure I'll either get them eventually, or get alternatives.

Yes, this booger is fast. Completely powered down to up and running in about 30 seconds. Guild Wars looks amazing in 3D (had to really mess with the settings, the defaults made it look horrible!) and it's been rock stable all day today. No crashes, freezes, blue screens, or odd behavior.

I installed TeamSpeak and folks could hear me, but I couldn't hear them. Eventually I disabled the "Communications Headphones" in device manager and that cleared it up.

The Western Digital 750 GB drive is plenty fast in this system to run most applications, so that's where I install most of them. The games that I want to run full steam I install on C, but space is a bit more precious there, so I'm selective.

There are other things that can be moved off of C and over to D, such as my "My Documents" folder and similar folders. Simply find them in c:\users\username and right-click them to change where they are located, just like you did in Windows XP. If I run into any more tweaks like this that move stuff off of the SSD and onto the mechanical drive, I'll try to post them here, and I would encourage everyone else to as well.

I hope I am not changing the flavor of this thread too much by detailing my particular success story (after much failure and frustration) and requesting that people also post some helpful tips.

Here's the order I went in. I took good notes.

Chipset drivers (289402)
Realtek PCI Card Reader (289405)
Intel management engine (290940)
Audio (289922)
Touchpad (289406)
Atheros network (289538)
Wireless (289411)
Video (300038) **caused blue screen on reboot, used system restore to get back to before I installed this driver, then downloaded driver sweeper and removed all traces of it, rebooted and ran driver sweeper again before continuing on**
OSD (289920)
User Manual (299948) **Not usable until after you get Adobe Reader installed**

This is the point where I ran Windows Update and applied countless updates and patches, rebooted, ran it again, rebooted, etc. until it came to Service Pack 1. Of course I downloaded and installed it, too. After that, I manually downloaded and installed .net 4 for the Command Center to work.

Video (300038) **Hey, no blue screens this time**
3D driver (291236)
Silverlight
Adobe Flash Player

I still haven't installed the USB 3 drivers or the free fall sensor. I have 2 items listed in device manager as "other devices" and they're probably the USB 3 controller and the free fall sensor. We'll find out soon, or maybe I'll wait until my service tag works in the downloads site.

Does anyone know how to get the command center button on the little button bar just north of the keyboard to actually launch the command center?