*OFFICIAL* "All Powerful" M17x-R2 Edition Owner's Lounge - Part 2

wow lots of reading to catch up on. i was away for to long lol..

 

DUDE!

RGB LED is back in stock!!! (17in Wide UXGA (1920x1200) - Beyond HD (1200p) RGBLED [add £190.00 or £5/month1]) Check UK website!

 

So.....I am really nervous now. The Alienware tech comes out today to swap out my secondary 4870 card. It's funny, I setup a towel on the (uncovered) diningroom table so he doesn't scratch the M17x R2 while swapping out the cards. I won't be here while he works on it so we will see what happens. I have someone here at the house to watch over him as he works on it. *sigh*

 

man, good luck. i'd call him and personally ask to be careful and tell him the horror stories that you've heard.

 

they wont let me ammend the order

 

I got a call from the tech. It sounded like a she. Still worried. Will find out between 1:30pm - 3:30pm.

 

Ouch, a she


Positive - smaller and gentler hands


Negative - Dude, A GIRL IS OPENING YOUR LAPTOP!!!

 

everyone just assumes girls cant handle computers at all.....lol

 

If you can then I really would cancel your current order and place a new one with the RGBLED. I could not stand the CCFL auto dimming all the time on my old R1 and the RGBLED is absolutely amazing!

 

If it comes to it i will order the RGB LED at a later date! i had to push hard to get the specs i did already!!! i tried calling dell today and they say if i cancel the order i will not recieve the same specs i have now!!

trying to get the CF system out of them was hard enough coz all they said was 1gb vid card in SLI for single 1gb Vid card with the ATI...

 

The RGB screen is over $1k USD by itself.....you want it included with the system originally

 

^ Yes.

In any case, you could always get a nice external monitor. The RGB LED is nice, but it is not $1,000-nice. If you were in the US you could bully them into giving you the RGB but seeing as you are in the UK, I would just enjoy the nice upgrade.

It's an awesome machine either way.

 

A few pages back (around 105'ish) there was some discussions how a few people couldn't install the 10.3 drivers. As it turns out I ran into the same problem last night and I debugged the problem, so I thought I would share this with everyone.

Long and short the problem was me and not the drivers, let me explain.

I just received my M17x-r2 the other day (bought it from the forum marketplace) so I wiped the drives and installed the OS fresh - - so only OEM Win7 drivers were present.

I went to AMD downloaded their 10.3 Catalyst suite and tried to install. I would select custom so I could uncheck anything I didn't want installed. No matter how I tried removing the OEM Win7 drivers, (disable/uninstall), safe mode, ccleaner, etc, etc... the ATI installer never saw the video hardware and only was going install the installer mgr, the hdmi/dp audio, ms runtime, Lords of the rings and other sundry items.

Well at this point, I was frustrated. I was about to open the back and check hardware, cross connect cables, etc...when I did a gut check on myself and said "...remember when debugging K.I.S.S - - Keep It Simple Stupid".

Sooo, I went back to the AMD site and went to the driver page and sure enough there it was right in front of me!!! I downloaded the regular 10.3 Catalyst suite and NOT the Mobility Radeon 10.3 Catalyst suite.

So with still the OEM Win7 drivers loaded, I downloaded the Mobility 10.3 suite and ran the installer. This time when I clicked custom, it recognized the hardware and it had selections for the video driver, audio driver, ms runtime and the install mgr. The drivers installed fine, I rebooted and now I am running 10.3 without a problem!!

So, if you try to install the 10.3 Catalyst suite and select Custom install and you see a checkbox for Lord of the Rings...STOP!! You grabbed the wrong Catalyst suite.

Hope this helps

 

Just keep the windows drivers and then it recognizes the cards and installs fine. If you go and remove the driver doesn't matter what it'll not see the cards.

 

Update: Just got a call from the tech. She's running late, it will be 3:45-4:00pm at the latest. Makes sense though, we are experiencing really bad storms down here.

 

Received my M17x this morning, and of course it has the flickering problem in crossfire. Came pre-installed with A02 and I have installed the 10.3 driver, but the problem still presists. Gonna try reseating the crossfire cable later, but I guess its the gpu..

 

Sorry to hear that Proman.

 

Again?! They just don't wanna do things right by default. If re-seating the CF cable and GPUs doesn't help, get ready for a secondary GPU replacement. Just to verify, - does the flickering occur when the CF is disabled in CCC?

 

I haven't been following, the flickering issue is still not resolved??

 

apparently it still happens but generally is a bad GPU/CF cable that is causing it.. Not from the BIOS/power probs


Seems like bad Qcing IMO

 

Yep, most likely it's the secondary GPU issue. It's quite common. I am about to find out if replacing the secondary GPU fixes the problem in about 30mins. Tech is running late. I will update here.

 

This is a different sort of flickering, they have tons of bad new secondary GPUs or/and CF cables connected to them. Mine was replaced due to the same problem.

 

It doesn't occur if I disable it in CCC. So I guess its the cable or the second card.

 

Yes, it's the secondary GPU/ CF cable 100%. Try re-seating them (if you feel comfortable opening the system) or just call the support and get them replace the card/cable.


I think it's time tell the guys from Dell about this problem. Too many people have it with new systems out of the box.

 

Yeah, you'd think since these systems take a month or longer to get to you that they could put a little more effort into QC.

lol

 

I blame ATi since they are the ones making the cards. Dell wouldn't realistically be able to check each system so thoroughly. That said I'm 2/2 with both systems having working vid cards.

 

Dell QC=Run Dell Diagnostics

 

That depends, joker.

I see what you are getting at.

However, once these beasts are assembled, I thought they were tested. Well, they should be if they aren't.

So the blame still rests, even if just partially, with Dell/AW.

 

update: The tech did everything pretty quickly. For some reason she thought she was supposed to receive two cards, but I told her over the phone that it was only the secondary card. She said it passed all tests, but she only did dell diagnostics.

I had the person that was watching the tech to make sure nothing was broken, etc, run Command and Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars with Xfire turned on and it came up with the logos, no stuttering, clear image, and I could hear the menu music running without stutter. So it seems all is clear so far. When I get home from work I will run a more complete test to see if it's completely fixed.

Finally I will get a chance to enjoy it.

 

how do you guys enable the crossfire logo ?

 

right click the ATI tray icon and click on "crossfireX" or whatever, and then put a check next to "enable ATI icon" or whatever. As soon as you start up a game with crossfire enabled, you will see a pretty big ATI icon in the upper right corner of the screen. I will turn this off, but it helps show that crossfire is running in game. I think? lol

Going home now. I will post back with my findings.

 

Thanks a lot

 

So for all you R-2 owners, do you use a desktop as well as your M17x, or just the laptop?

 

Got a buncha laptops, no desktop currently.

 

My thinking is if I got the m17x I wouldn't even need a desktop for awhile because its such a capable machine.
The crossfire 4870s are totally worth it right?

 

They sure do

 

Precisely the reason why I'm getting an M17x-R2 vs building a desktop, because I'm moving around at least once a year and having a desktop makes it a pain.

 

Yes, the R2 is a very powerful and very capable mobile system.

Heck, it is more powerful than most desktops. lol

And the 4870's are most definitely worth it

 

I have a desktop but it's weaker than my R2. I'll be selling it soon and sticking to my AW all the time. In fact it's pretty much what I use 99% of the time.

 

At first I was thinking about the M11x and then upgrading my desktop. Made sense so I went along with it.
I should have done more number crunching. Sticking with one powerful m17x is a lot less expensive in the long run.

I'm a very...singular? person(like one character, one pen, one classnotebook)so I feel like I'd stick with my m11x until I upgraded my desktop, then only use my desktop since it would clearly surpass the m11x in capabilities, portability aside.

 

I won't bore you with a comprehensive build, but would you recommend buying hard drives from dell or buying stock 250gb and upgrading with my own? and is the stock i5 processor okay, versus calling up Doublees
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=456885&page=58#576
tech, and haggling for a core i7?

Er, more reasonable would probably be selecting the better proccessor and trying to get the extra ati card right?

 

Ok, so bad news. It fixed a majority of the issues I was experiencing. No more crashing. Now I have the other issue with the screen moving every once in a while. Like the whole image will scroll up really quickly, or to the right, and it will jitter a little bit, then it will be fine.

I believe per Joker, this was the Bios. I am going to check right now and see if maybe the tech flashed my bios to an older version?

Joker,
This is the issue that the Bios is supposed to fix, right? I am not getting the green colors and my computer doesn't crash anymore when I run a game in crossfire mode. Just that slight....jitter, then it goes back to normal.

Might end up calling dell again tonight.

 

Thats quite an upgrade, I don't really know if you'll be able to pull that. Usually what I do is just cart whatever config I want and haggle down to a set price and see if they bite or not.

 

Well I figure if I get Doublees rep it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

 

Honestly, I don't doubt that a lot of these reps give out amazing deals, but I've never heard of a repeat story about the same rep giving out a deal. They must be under some sort of limitation as to how much of a discount they can give out, but if you're lucky, maybe you'll get a good rep. Personally, the most I've ever gotten off was around 15%.

 

Try reflashing your system with the A02 bios and make sure the tech seated the cables correctly.

 

Does it look like this?
If yes, you might need to replace the card again. In my case, BIOS flashing didn't help.

 

I use both - my desktop is a i7 920 based system with an ATI 5870 so I do most of my gaming on that...

the AW i use at work, and when i travel it will be for gaming...

I was showing off Metro 2033 today and it looked a little skippy... i had everything cranked up...

I think Joker had mentioned he didn't have any issues... i might have to do some testing..

 

Yeah, just not as often as that video. It holds, then it acts up. In fact it does better in some games than others. So ANOTHER replacement GPU, huh? Damn.

 

Don't worry, as long as you're keeping at it and staying persistent, - it's gonna be fine. You can even use their incompetence to your advantage in the process and score some free stuff like MAMBA/Backpack/etc.