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

i did not have blu ray, no extreme cpu (t8300) and dual 8700 so i'm happy what with i get now.
and the screen no problem, prefer the dual 4870 more then 1920x1200 resolution screen.
so i don't think i have a bad deal cause the sli 8700 are slower then 1 4870 ati chip.

 

Fun day today with my R2. I had some issues with a program I need for work after trying to get Catalyst 10.3 installed so I just backed up and wiped the system. May be related, may not be, but faster to reload than try to figure out what got messed up. From a clean install of a Full Retail Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit the 10.3 Mobility (I verified this twice that I had the correct version) and the only options it gave me to install, just as before the reload was just the Install Manager and the VC 2008 Distro. So I've given up on those and am just using the Dell ones.

Then to top it all off I had the bad version of CC A05 installed before that was pulled and had issues when I installed A04. And of course it kept giving me errors that there was a problem with the FX chip... Didn't have to reload it, popping the service on and off a few times forced it to update the firmware again and after popping the service a few more times, AlienFX is now working fine.

 

oh man. I have spent half the day trying to help Ikuto with that CCC problem. It just won't install. I've installed the driver for him using the have disk method from the directory where it extracts the installation but manually installing the CCC didn't work. I still don't get how some (me) had no problem installing it and others get stuck. Btw his installation was a fresh windows copy too.

 

Your post fills me with joy because my m1730 is x9000 extreme proc dual 8800 gtx sli with a bluray and 1920x1200 screen and im waiting to learn my specs of the m17x they will be replacing it with, but from you experience it seems i could get my self dual 4870's and an i7. Nice.

 

they will never downgrade you

2gpus gets you 2 gpus

extreme cpu gets you an extreme cpu

blu ray for blu ray

wuxga for wuxga

ssd for ssd and so on

 

I don't know what it is with ATI, sometimes even on desktops their installer does not detect the card correctly. They need a "Shut Up and Just Install!" button

 

Low level format might help as well

 

i didnt think it works on a simple characteristic match like that, i thought they just gave you something that performed on par or better. Im glad to be wrong though, getting an extreme i7 would make me cry tears of joy.

 

Yes, replacements are always same or better.

You won't get downgraded but some might see an SLI system being replaced with a single card system as a downgrade.

As long as that single gpu can be = to or better than the dual card setup I am all good with it

 

If I could talk to the dude on the phone I could walk him through it. I had the same problem. It was nightmare. Its not a driver clener sweeper fix. I found a way t do itbut I need to be live with him to help him.

 

could you explain you fix anyway?

It might help others and it doesn't hurt to have the info here too.

 

So your on 10.3? I just fixed my Ethernet Connection so yea Im still stuck trying to set up 10.3

I have the 10.3 Display driver working. But CCC won't install (I tried to Install it without the CIM Installer and i just got errors)

 

Look at this post, could it be that you downloaded the wrong driver set?

 

Nope its the right Installer. It just refuses to Install the CCC. I have the CCC Installed it just won't work..



I had to install it and go through the extracted drivers and go through it all and install every part of CCC Manually. I still dont have Advance CCC though. and i can't run it cause i get that error above.

 

IKUTO this is what I did. Goto page one of this thread where joker postes the new cat 10.3 link. Click it. Follow all the steps it will say start download. It will show you a file it is saving it to. and click ok or whatever. Then when its done you hit finish and in my case nothing happens. Nothing launchs NOTHING. Go back to the first page of this thread and click the same link again. follow the promps til you get to the part where it is showing you where the file will be saved. You will see that the file is already there it says 10.3 or whatever. Right click it and click open and it should start downloading everything as it should from ATIs website. This is what worked for me in the end, and I tried everything trust me.I was so pissed untill I did this.

 

Im not computer savy so thats the only way I can explain it. Onto another subject I am going to build a hotub time machine. What all will I need for parts?

 

Did you have any drivers on the card when you did this?

Lol nope. Still refuses to Install CCC.

 

Yeah, please do tell! And anyway i will tell him to pm you.

 

Have you guys tried installing the dell ccc suite and then just update the driver manually via device manager?

 

Yes if i do that nothing updates. It just stays on Dell Drivers.

Okay now i just installed the CCC from Dell. Im gonna try and Install the ATI driver and see how it goes.

Okay i got it to work but I dont think its 10.3

 

I am just going to have to play with it once I get mine

 

Ikuto. Talk to trd1 here. He claims he can help.

 

No need Im on 10.3 now.

 

How did you mange to get to 10.3?

 

Installed Dells CCC, then Installed ATI's Updated Driver though Device Manager.

 

That is what I have been asking people to try. lol

Glad to see it is working.

 

LOL I know Sleeyo I couldnt believe it when he said how he got it to work lol.

 

Yeah it took me long enough to get it working. Lol.

 

In case you guys are interested I just downloaded the new Intel Raid Drivers. Not sure if they were posted so I figured I'd go ahead and post. I have installed and they work just fine. No biggie tho.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18859&lang=eng

What do you guys recommend for Raid on SSD for best results? I have disabled indexing and enabled write caching. I'm not feeling too good about disabling System restore tho.

Thoughts?

 

anyone playing bad company 2? I bought it off a steam and have been loving it! Only problem I see is my second card doesnt seem to do jack. I had gpu-z running in the background and it never got above 45 degrees.... is there a known issue with bad company 2 and mobility cards or am i doing something wrong?

Edit: I turned off catalyst AI because i was getting some flickering and crossfire didnt like that. Turned it back on and things are normal

 

Thanks for the tip. Did u see any improvement?

 

Playing it at max, no problems at all. (using 10.3 beta drivers)

Just got a medal for 100 headshots

 

The flickering was only in single player which apparently is common. Mulitiplayer doesn't have that issue. But it no longer does it for me in single player!yay!

 

What kind of frame rates are you getting in bad company 2 maxed out? This game had alot of optimization issues with my m1730 and i finally got it running at medium 60+ fps, and thats when my m1730 died lol. If it runs well on the m17x it will make me happy since this is the computer im getting to replace my m1730. Would be nice to be able to run it on high.

Also been seeing alot of posts on here about problems installing the latest ATI drivers, is this a common problem? and are there any solutions i should read up on now before i get the machine.

 

I have a question... If I got an R2 with the ATI boards, can I swap it out for the 260/280's? I have the 260s in my R1 and I have never cared for the ATI brand, shoddy workmanship... Can they be swapped?

 

Not sure if there is any BIOS support, so I wouldnt count on it.
I'd also not pass off the ATI brand so easily, at least currently, the quality of the ATI product is just as good as Nvidia's if not better.
ATI have come on leaps and bounds over the last 5-10 years, to the point the 5 series now is actually in many ways a better design than the Nvidia 4 series.

 

Just keep the 4870s since I don't think the R2 bios supports Nvidia cards. They are still very powerful cards, and built very well, provided that you get a good batch with your laptop and that the person assembling your laptop isn't high on LSD whilst connecting the corssfire cable.

 

OK, this is too odd, hoping someone here has a idea. This morning when I work up I had a message on my screen from Perfectdisk 11 (I use that for defgrag) saying "You seem to have lost a disk...".

I then proceded to look at "My Computer" and I had no "D" drive. My "C" and DVD were still there, but D was gone ?? I then rebooted and "D" came back....

Dident see anything in the system messages to indicate a issue, the system had not crashed during the night according tp uptime...

Anyone had this happen ever ? any ideas where to start to troubleshoot ?

I have never seen something like this before.

 

i'd check SMART status of your drive for errors
you can use smart monitor to do that

 

Just tried that program, got a memory exception running it as administrator. Sigh....will look for something else to do it.

FYI here is a screenie of the error.

 

Looks like I have a disk goin south........found a SMART reader [rogram, take a look at these screnies....ug.

 

Yep. Contact Dell.

 

Yea...just got off the phone. Thanks for the heads up on SMART.

 

No problem mate, hope you get a replacement fast and that you have where to backup that drive. Lucky u didn't setup raid 0

 

I make nightly inc backups of all my systems, wife would kill me if hers died and I dident...she is a PHD student...so loosing thesis stuff = very bad

Funny thing is, I ordered the system RAID0, but it dident come that way...lucky me

I emailed em the same screenies and he agreed, was bad. WOW I must say alienware has GREAT support compared to some other cmpanies.

They said would overnight the replacement.

 

Did you contact Dell or aw support?

 

I called AW support, the number on this page http://support.alienware.com/Support_Pages/Support_Area.aspx

 

Nice to know AW are supporting the R2.
Glad to hear your problem was resolved so fast.

 

As opposed to not supporting the R2

 

didn't get the joke