M17xR2 Bios A09 Discussion Thread

Only thing I noticed in AO9 about the fans was that all speed up and slow down at the same time when temps increase or decrease. Doesn't matter if the GPUs are cool or not. If the CPU gets hot, the GPU fans rev up too. Haven't noticed or paid attention yet for AO7.

 

Just adding on a previous post i saw....since going to A09 every now and then ill get a black screen and the loading "blue circle" the only thing i can do is reset the computer as for the fans they do kick on from time to time, only for a few seconds every few hours or so

 

It's normal, and been like that since A02.

 

OK. Then back to AO9 for me. Touch pad is a better trade off. I will figure out the black screen eventually. Yes, I know. Post an error log. Next time it does it I will check. Thanks Fractal.

 

Glad we are on the same page

 

yes i noticed the same thing with the fans on A09 Bios.

 

well, alienware changed my CG and HD, i had to reinstall windows and co.

so far i don't get this fan noise anymore, so i guess it was an software issue, at least for my case.

maybe it's time now to upgrade to A09 for me .

 

Hey Guys,
Just update my system with the 09 bio, i did not plug my flash drive to my laptop. when i restart my laptop it gives me this error meassgae "missing operating system" PLEASE HELP ME!

 

Is your hard drive configuration setup for RAID??

 

what do u mean??? Sorry i am a newbie when it comes to PC....

 

How many hard drives did you get with your M17xR2??? If you get two identical drives, they are usually configured for RAID (where both drives appear as a single drive with twice the capacity).

 

raid 0 2x 500GB

 

OH MAN! Did I just brick my m17x r2?

 

No, you're fine. You just need to go into the BIOS SETUP and change the hard drive configuration from AHCI to RAID.

Do you know how to do that?

 

Okay.. Yes....i did what u told me but i get this error massage "incompatible"

 

OK, now that you have the controller set for RAID, you have to go to each drive listed and choose RAID for each hard drive in the BIOS. Save your settings, and you should be good.

 

Actually, looking at the BIOS, seems like you choose to enable either RAID 0 or RAID 1. RAID 0 = both drives added together, or RAID 1 = drives mirrored. So, you have 2 x 500GB. If you had RAID 0, you'd have had 1TB of drive space, or if you had RAID 1, you'd have had only 500GB.

 

Lancorp u are my superhero! Thanks man.. I wanna update my driver and the Vbio but i am too scare to. I might brick my laptop.......

 

Just wait until you are comfortable. Follow the steps, and you'll be fine.

Like now, you thought you were toast, but everything was fine!

 

lol..yeah whew....alright i am going to bed

 

just got my m17x today,

i7-920xm, 1GB ati 5870, 4GB ram, 250GB HD.

did a few windoes experience index runs, the lowest score turn out to be my CPU.. which is showing a 5.6..

any idea why is this ? could it possibly be a bad CPU?

the power option is set to high performance both in windows and aliean fusion.

please help!

 

stealth mode, turn that off. Otherwise, as long as your cores are boosting to 3.2ghz(via prime95 & cpu-z), ignore WEI...

 

made sure i wasnt on "stealth mode". retested WEI, still getting 5.6.. in cpu-z it's showing 3190 MHz.. at stock.. although WEI isnt a big deal for me but i just want to find out why others with this same spec get 7.1-7.4.. i mean it's a big difference

 

it doesn't mean anything then, I'm sure it's just a windows glitch, infact my HDD has decided to drop .2 points since a fresh install 2 weeks ago for no apparent reason, and my 3d scores like to flucuate .1 points every so often.

 

hehe, i guess it's a glitch. anyways, i have a D-Link wireless N card. etream N dwa-652. it's a cardbus slot card, but it wouldnt fit in the slot on my m17x.. any idea on that?..

 

the m17x has an express card 54 slot, which is not compatible with PCMCIA devices. There's no reason you would want to pick an expansion slot wireless card over the internal one, the antennas are smaller and performance suffers considerably. The 1520 is a dual band 2x2 wireless card which is pretty much top tier sans the 3x3 6300, and only a very few routers acutally support 3x3 5ghz anyway.

 

excuse my noobness, thank you for you patience and sharing of your knowlege : )

 

OMG 28 pages on one bios update? I am glad I got my R1 now 0_o I was under the impression that when a newer version of something is produced it is better, but it sounds like the R2 has more problems than the R1... what did they change from R1 to R2 really?

 

That's not true for anything in life really, however, A08 corrected the clock turbo for XM processors,which resulted in significantly less performance, A09 'un-fixes that fix'

The R2 Does not have more problems, the polling rate for the pad was the only issue with the platform(infact the R1 had it too afaik), Dell decided to take it upon themselves to do something that was not generally necessary.

 

I see, thanx for the info

 

I haven't seen any update from DELL about the sleep mode and BIOS OC revert to default in a while. Any news?
Or ignore it if no one complains?

 

I have A08 - is the general consensus I should update to A09?

 

A09 is the same as A08, except it doesn't restrict the extreme CPUs. If you have a 920XM or 940XM then yes, update to A09. If you have any other CPU, then it's up to you.

 

I have A09, and was wondering if i could go back to A08 and where could I find it?

thanks

 

First, why would you want (just curious) and secondly, previous revisions of the system BIOS can be found on dell's support site (driver page for the 17xR2).

A08 -

Dell - Support

 

I wanted to see if that had anything to do with this new flickering problem I am having. Thats when It might have started.

Thanks

 

Thanks for the link

 

i got a question, after ive update my R2 to A09.. my graphics performance seems worst then before...usually i use high resolution in the game..but now i have to change to lower resulotion.. etc Black ops, MOH...
some mates pls teach me how to fix this out...

 

i answered you here :
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...technical-question-thread-50.html#post6928049

 

For you R2 owners, I have stickied a thread relating to the issue many have run into where the system is plugged in and is reported as 'not charging'. Dell's Chris-M posted a follow up in the thread and linked us to a test BIOS they have which supposedly resolves this issue. Be sure to check it out:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...wners-test-bios-available-11.html#post6926611

 

I personally have noticed a performance increase and a stability increase due to the new Bios. Saints Row 2 no longer crashes in game when using Crossfire mode and runs rather smoothly as a result. Otherwise, no other issues so far. Just the typical processor wine and capacitor noise (no nailpolish work done yet on the capacitor)

 

Hey!
I wanted to upgrade my M17x R2 BIOS,however I've never upgraded a BIOS before! I needed some help....

I've already download the BIOS update, however before running this do I need to back up my laptop?

Does this update also fix the "plugged in,not charging" battery issue?

 

hi,

these days bios updates are really simple. They almost never fail

A Backup is not needed, because if the update fails your laptop cannot boot anymore. you are not changing anything at your HDD drives so dont worry.

This battery-issue is still a problem and has (at least for me) not been solved by this update.

MfG

 

So you're saying that after the BIOS is upgraded Windows will boot normally on its own or do I have to boot windows from an external source like a pen drive?

 

Yes, it will boot normaly. During the update it will probably start up and shutdown once or twice for all the configurations but afterwards it will boot normaly. Really nothing to worry about when upgrading the BIOS.

 

Should clarify one thing since you are running RIAD after the BIOS update you will have to go into the BIOS and set the Raid function again as it will default to AHCI or IDE drives

 

So all I have to do is:
1. Run the BIOS
After the BIOS has been flashed windows will reboot
2. Go to the BIOS
3.Change the HDD settings back to RAID 1.

And everything is fine! Right?

Sorry about all the fuss, I just want to make sure nothing goes wrong.

 

Yes that is correct. Make sure you are running on the A/C adapter not the battery while doing the bios upgrade.

 

I should have read this before I updated my bios, haha. I only updated to fix this issue too =P

A dell tech is coming out tomorrow to fix, so if he actually fixes it, I'll post up what the problem was so hopefully you can fix yours =]

What exactly does the A9 have over the A2 bios? (My previous) Does anyone have a link?

 

Hi All,
Until recently I did have a fully working alienware m17x R2, until i updated the bios. i have 2 of these laptops. same specs and everything. just different colour. back to the main topic. I updated my first alienware's bios to A09. everything went fine without a hitch.
when i update the second alienware bios to A09 things didnt go as smoothly like the first one. when it was shutting down after the install, it had the blue screen of death.
I restart the laptop, but all i get are a blank screen, no sound, blue lights for keyboard and mouse pad! its been stuck like this for some time.

i have tried disconnection the cmos battery and i still have the same problem.
Any suggestions as to how to solve this?

All i wanted from the bios A09 updated was the improved perfomance of the touch pad!

thanks in advance
specs are i7 920xm, 8gb ram, ati 5870 crossfire, 512gb ssd, bluray writer,