M17xR4 & Windows 8 RTM

I just installed Win8 Pro RTM release (I'm a MSDN subscriber as a developer) and it just rocks.

The great thing is that my 680M with 3D works absolutely fine. I installed the Win7 64-bit drivers from the Dell support site (and actually all the relevant Win7 drivers for my system) on a clean install and everything is looking good. AlienFX works great.

 

awesome. thanks for the update! can't wait till october for official release..

for anyone who just purchased a desktop/laptop recently.. upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $14.99

WINDOWS UPGRADE OFFER
You must purchase a qualified Windows 7 PC between June 2, 2012 and January 31, 2013 to be eligible for this offer. The last day to register and order your Windows 8 upgrade is February 28, 2013.

 

can we sticky this and make a total post of which drivers all function on the R4?
i'm also interested who upgrades his current working windows 7 to 8?
And if that process goes right?

Im testing it now with external hdd on usb 3.0.
used windows to go. now my alien runs windows 7 on internal ssd and when a boot from usb a fully working windows 8 without messing with the internal windows 7 installation risk free.

manual: i use a 500GB drive in usb 3.0 case and that works faster and better then usb stick, tested a supposed to be 32 gb usb fast 3.0 stick but that was too slow, boot takes 5 minutes. the usb 3.0 hdd boots within a minute.
http://tweaks.com/windows/52279/how-to-create-a-windows-to-go-usb-drive/

 

freefall sensor software will not install. only thing i found.
and the dell ati drivers will not install. 12-8_mobility_vista_win7_win8_64_dd_ccc does

 

Drivers i installed after installing windows 8 enterprise:

12-8_mobility_vista_win7_win8_64_dd_ccc
Win 7 versions of:
Audio_Creative_W74_5NJ7K_A01-Setup_ZPE
Chipset_Intel_W74_MG1JJ_A00-Setup_ZPE
MEI_Intel_VFP83_A00-Setup_ZPE
OSD_Alienware_W74_YV0P9_A00-Setup_ZPE
and the alien fx software.

 

I installed Win8 RTM on my R2 and found that the free-fall sensor driver did not install either.

I messed around with compatibility and got the driver to install, but Windows blocks it and the device in Device Manager.

Also, my R2 has a Broadcom Bluetooth card, that does not get recognized, and no driver for it installs, Windows states that there is a serious compatibility issue with it.

Bluetooth worked fine on Consumer and Release previews but not on RTM.

Any ideas?

 

You mean retail release...Official release has come and gone. You can actually download a 90 day trial of Windows 8 straight from Microsoft right now

Download Windows 8 Enterprise Evaluation

 

I have R4, Nvidia 675 with all the bang in it. Ram 16GB, Harddrive 2 x 750Gb 7200RPM. Blue ray Burner and Killer card 1103 and Bluetooth 375 module.


Downloaded a clean Windows 8 Pro version...and installed it as an upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate. I had upgraded from Windows Professional originally.

When install Windows 8 asked some applications to be removed.

The only softwares I had to uninstall is PerfectDisk, Intel Extensible USB 3.0 driver and Dell Bluetooth 375 driver. It kept telling perfect disk was still installed until I deleted the folder containing remnant files.

Then reboot. Install using key that you can google....several reboots..voila.

It kept asking me to activate it intermittently. Then I got a set of keys and activated via phone conversation with Microsoft. No time limit etc, No crack etc.

It runs really fast and well.

Every other DRIVER AND SOFTWARE works well, INCLUDING THE FREE FALL PROTECTION SOFTWARE.

It installed Dell Bluetooth 375 driver on its own. I then updated via windows online driver search. It installs without any hiccup.

You dont have to install USB 3.0 driver because its inbuilt according to online forums. And if you check the USB devices, the driver is already installed.

If you have a bitlocker that was created using Windows 7, its wise that you remove it and encrypt it once more using windows 8. You get a hiccup when right clicking and choosing unlock bitlocker. But you can still unlock the bitlocker partition by going to " manage bitlocker".

Once you redo all the encrypting process its fine and no more hiccups.

If you are using bitlocker on the system...suspend bitlocker prior to upgrading.

I have not faced any other issue thus far. I have ran warcraft frozen throne, Photoshop cs6 extended, trucrypt. Norton antivirus. Powerdirector 10 etc..

No issues.

I am not a guy who loves the metro interface..or app interface etc but, I am giving it the benefit of doubt because perhaps after 17 years we are just so hardwired with the previous format.

I also notice MS is gearing more towards apple way of utilising the keyboard. So the learning curve is steeper hence many may feel different, annoyed etc and label it anti productive.

 

I figured out how to get it installed. Do no use the installer because it will not work. You will need to do a manual install from the device manager to get this to install. When you install the driver manually just select the area the driver unpacked to. My driver unpacked to C:\Dell\Drivers\5J67W and when I selected that it installed just fine.

 

Has anyone tried a USB 3.0 drive after installing windows 8?

 

xxiv24, Can you point me to the version of the Bluetooth drivers you are using?

Thanks

 

Since I am not sure if you are referring to Win 7 or Win 8 , so I will address both.

Dell Bluetooth 375 on Windows 7 - You can get Dell's 32/64 bit Driver by looking into Precision M6600 list of drivers.

I did find the latest driver released by Broadcomm too. I downloaded it from elsewhere. Not Broadcomm. Broadcomm's update utility simply doesnt upgrade. It keeps saying device not found.

I was able to install new driver. But I had periodic connectivity dropouts with the Bluetooth mouse, hence reverted back to Dell Precision M6600's driver. It gave no issues.


On WINDOWS 8 PRO RTM.

I upgraded from windows 7 ultimate. I was told to remove the bluetooth driver before installation.

After Installation I observed that Windows 8 had installed its own Dell 375 Bluetooth driver and the mouse was working automatically without any pairing etc.Unlike before the mouse device is listed device manager along with bluetooth device.

I checked the device manager and observed that the driver for Dell 375 bluetooth module is from Broadcomm dated 2/2/2012

Driver version 12.0.0.10.

I am happy with its performance thus far.Stable and no knockouts.

Hope my information helped

 

I'm talking about Windows 8 Pro/Enterprise RTM.

I did not do an upgrade, I did a clean install, and Windows does not detect the bluetooth device, there is no mention of it on Device Manager, and tried installing a bunch of different versions and I just get a compatibility error from Windows, even setting compatibility mode for Windows 7 and running as administrator.

I cannot get BT to work, and cannot pair any devices.

 

Ok i really took the trouble to research this for you,,,am sleepy since late night.

I am sorry if there are typos k. This is what I recommend you to do.

To install Dell Bluetooth 375 driver on windows 8 I recommend the steps below.

1. Do you have Dell Bluetooth 375 module? Or something else? make sure you are the administrator. Whatever the module and corresponding driver it may be, the method is same.

2. For 375 module go to Dell Drivers and download the 32 or 64 bit driver you need from Precision M6600 listings. That's the latest Dell has provided for that device. You can find newer Broadcomm drivers but I have found some instability in using Logitech Mouse as mentioned in earlier post.

3. Remove the non working drivers. If you have none installed well and good.

4. You must restart you Windows 8 in safe mode. For this the usual method of pressing F8 doesnt work. There are other methods. But this is what I did - type msconfig, and tick mark safe mode under boot section. Nothing else.

5. Before you reboot download this old small utility called SafeMSI.

SafeMSI.exe - Start Windows Installer Service in Safe Mode

Download and unrar it. Its tiny single file application. Leave it on your desktop. This application is to enable Windows installer once you are in Safe mode. By default windows installer gets disabled in safe mode. Without the installer you cant install your drivers. So SafeMSI will start the windows installer for this purpose.

6. Now restart in Safe mode. Click in SafeMSI. It will say windows installer has been started.

7. Install your Bluetooth driver now. It will install. It may take some time especially towards the end. Be patient. After completion it might say driver update failed etc. Disregard that. If you check your devices it will show you Dell Wireless Bluetooth 375 module . Initially it may have shown as Generic bluetooth module.

8. Now you have to restart. But once again go to run, type msconfig and untick safe mode under Boot options.

9. Restart.

10. Check your devices.

*** The reason I discovered this was because although windows 8 had installed the drivers on its own like I mentioned in previous post, there is one drawback to that. It doesnt actually provide the full range of other bluetooth services like PIM, Obex etc. I needed those aspects. The driver it installed is latest no doubt, but it doesnt install a software or suit like widcomm etc. Only driver is installed.

So by the method mentioned above I got to install a driver with its software provided by Dell.

However after rebooting and checking the bluetooth connectivity etc, I went ahead and tried updating the driver online via the Device manager itself.

And it does! It updated to the driver I mentioned in my previous post and required me to restart. On restart I found it retained the widcomm software from the previous Dell Driver but the driver itself has been updated to the latest windows 8 driver. 12.0.0.10.

I have tested it and all works well. It should be no different for you.


Thats all for now...I got to crash.

 

Thanks for your reply, downloading driver and utility and will try in a few.

Will post results

 

Sorry for the delay, got swamped with work stuff.

Good News!!! I managed to get it working.

Had to go into Change PC Settings/General/Advanced Startup and get into Safe Mode that way.

On the first try the driver reported a failure, but the services for Broadcom Bluetooth were installed.

Tried changing the compatiblity settings of the driver install .exe file, only to find them all greyed-out, then I found an option right-clicking the exe that says "Troubleshoot", started the wizard, accepted recommended settings (compatibility with Windows XP SP3), and reinstalled, this time at the end asked for a reboot, and all is working fine.

Hope this helps some else with the same problem
Cheers

 

Sorry for not clarifying earlier, this was done on my Dell Studio XPS 1640, will try the same procedure tonight on the R2 once I get home.

Now the Bluetooth device shows on Device Manager

 

Hey guys,

I've just installed Windows 8 RTM. I'm getting absolute rubbish gaming performance. Everything is perfect besides my horrible FPS.

BF3 I'm playing on ultra I get 15FPS, on lowest settings I'm getting 30. On Windows 7 I would normally get 60 on ultra, 80 on high, etc.

I've also tried Batman: Arkham City and Counter Strike: Global Offensive. In Arkham city it just lags on medium settings and in CS:GO it gets about 70 which is smooth but I normally get 150 average in Windows 7.

For refrence sake I'm dual booting between Windows 7 and Windows 8. I've got the latest 12.8 drivers from ATI which is the same for both Windows 7 and 8. I installed the specific Windows 8 driver with the auto detect tool which also tells me my drivers are up to date. I've installed all other necessary drivers for the system from the Dell website. Windows is fully up-to-date.

Laptop config: i7 361QM 8GB Ram, 256GB Samsung 830 SSD, 7970M GFX card.

Any tips or ideas as to what I could try to fix this?

 

Ok looks like I was unfairly blaming Windows 8.

Turns out ATI by default sets power management to "maximize battery life". God I hate this whole "eco" bull sweeping the industry, I didn't buy an Alienware to maximize battery life! If I have my laptop plugged in I want every bit of power it has to offer...

Rant aside, I set it back to maximize performance and it's perfect, I'd probably even say I'm getting better FPS but that could be because I just updated my drivers to 12.8 whereas before I was using the 12.7 beta drivers.

 

I just upgraded my R2 to Win 8 Pro RTM. I installed the new catalyst for my crossfire 5870s and it is working well. Game performance is very good.
The only problem I had was with the Dell OSD software. It made my cpu usage go way up and my fan went crazy. I uninstalled the OSD program and
it's fine now.

 

Thank you soooo much!! I have a M18x R1 & M18x R2. I tried almost everything to get Bluetooth fully(A2DP BT Profile for iPad 3) working on my R1 to no avail. Your method works perfectly!! Thanks again!!