New to the r4, driver problems..

Hi

So I finally got my alienware today it's awesome!
Got a few questions though.
I installed an Intel 520 series ssd and made a fresh install on it. Now I'm installing drivers, but not sure where to find those I need?
There was a dvd included, but theres a lot of different drivers there and I don't know the specific chipset and so on that I have..

I eventually went to dells page and entered my service tag, found like 13 drivers there I needed (I think?)
But wasnt able to install the 680m driver?

Is there any program I can download that will scan the computer and download the needed drivers?

Also when changing the light in the keyboard and so on. Any way to shut off the light in the mousepad?

Do you know if I need to update the firmware on the ssd? Its the 240gig version

Thanks all,

Regards Rasmus

 

Good afternoon Rasmusm,

Your best bet probably would have been to boot the machine up with the stock hardware and make a recovery disk image of your computer. Then you just install the SSD and boot from the image and restore it all but not a big deal. You were correct in going to Dell's website and entering your service tag as that should provide you with a complete list of all the drivers that you need for your computer. You say you were not able to install the 680m driver but you have not said why? I have the AMD version myself and if I remember correctly you don't have the option to turn off the integrated and run on just the 680m so I think we can rule that out. There are a lot of drivers that come pre-loaded and unfortunatly I don't remember them all but I will try to list off the more important ones.

-Dell OSD drivers
-Alienware command center to control your lights and LED's
-Creative Sound blaster driver
-Card Reader/Chipset/USB 3.0 Drivers
-Touchpad Driver
-Wireless driver
-Intel Rapid storage driver if you care about this one.
-Freefall sensor driver again if you care about this one
-GPU driver....but you are having problems with this one. ( have you tried the driver right from Nvidia? )

To shut off the LED around the touchpad you can use FN + F12 to kill your trackpad which will shut the LED off or once command center is installed you can go in and turn the lights off around the track pad so that they don't glow anymore. If you, like myself , prefer to use an external mouse and find that you are bumping the trackpad while typing and causing it to screw you up then you can also go into your touchpad settings once you get the driver installed and under the Device Settings tab you can tell it to disable the internal pointing device when you plug an external USB mouse in.

Hope some of this helps, let us know how you make out.

PS...This is an amazing thread compiled by another board member that may help you out as well, http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...k-drive-aftermarket-drive-alienrespawn-q.html

There are links about half way through the post to fresh install guides and driver lists that may help you

 

Here is the recommended driver order list. It tells you which drivers to install and in what order: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...er-install-order-guide-alienware-systems.html

 

Thank you both!
The reason I'm not able to install the gfx from Dell's site is because it can't locate the file on their page.
I think the main reason I find this confusing is because I don't know what I'm installing.. And what the drivers are for I hate filling my computer with useless crap, if you know what I mean.

Yea found the driver for the 680m on nvidias page .

Example: what is that free fall sensor driver? And what does it do

Also Intel rapid storage, what's it good for?

Will read the links when I get home from work, thanks

 

The free fall sensor shuts down a hard drive in the event that you drop your notebook while it is running. Hard drives are very susceptible to vibration and a good shock while its running can instantly kill it. The free fall sensor will detect fall and park the hard drive heads and stop the drive platters from spinning. This places the hard drive in a safe state. This protects the internal components from damaging each other when the system hits the ground. Same principles as dropping a portable CD player while its running. That can scratch the CD or lens inside.

Intel RST is used mainly for RAID arrays. But for our systems, the SATA drivers Intel RST uses give better performance than the stock Microsoft drivers. Its totally optional. Intel RST increases performance for some, not so much for others. There are users who can't even install it because it conflicts with their older SSDs. I have yet to see a mechanical hard drive have issues with Intel RST.

 

Cool radji! Thanks. Makes more sense now
Another thing Im wondering about is, I have a recovery drive you know when entering "My computer" it's on 8gb. And not sure what it's for other than recovery?

 

Here is an article about that specific info.

 

Its for AlienRespawn. Read the article Luis provided. It explains how AlienRespawn works. The Recovery drive in My Computer is the recovery partition AlienRespawn uses.