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

I waited 6 months for 5870 x 2 psh 9 weeks. Try not having a laptop since mid December until late May

 

5 months waiting for my case.

 

From what I have been reading seems like alot of people are now saying they now don't want the 5870's.

 

Meh, those people are misinformed or had astronomical expectations. 5870's are on top and will be until 480M GTX SLI comes out. And by then ATI will have had a 2 month lead in terms of drivers and optimization.

 

Agreed... mine's pretty good. A stout upgrade even from a dell precision M6400 Quad QX9300.

 

Well the dual GPUs will make the majority of that upgrade for gaming, much more than the cpu boost

 

Well there's a difference between waiting for something to exist and actually placing the order and waiting for it

I've been waiting over 30 years for someone to hand me 1 million dollars... and i don't think this status will change anytime soon

 

I see your point. BUT we all knew the 5870's were coming in cross fire at least at some point or another. For Alienware's flagship laptop it wouldn't make any sense at all to not at least offer the option to beat out your competition. That's what kept me from jumping on the g73 bandwagon.

 

There is always something more powerful coming out 6 months from now.

Now, if you'd actually waited 6 months for an order to be processed ... THAT would be a wait.

 

Okay so I disabled BT, Wired Lan and turned on Virtualization and it posted fine. I then went back in and disabled everything I could and then exited the bios and thats when I got the black screen. However, I just pressed the power button off and then on again and it posted just fine. So yeah the bug does manifest itself but it doesn't really seem like a big deal at all. If you haven't already, I'll mention it to Brian in a PM so he can pass it along. I've always gotten Seagate in all my M17x's but then again I always ordered the 500 GB version. The ram has been either Elipida or Samsung, what did you get this time?

 

Top or not, it does not really matter as long as it can run the games or any other software smoothly with acceptable frame rates. I am pretty satisfied with my HD 5870 card. If the flickering in crossfire mode when playing wow could be fixed I would even invest in one more to get crossfire

 

can anyone tell me if my vantage score of 9000 and 3dmarks of 14000 is acceptable for my system? also i knotice fans rev and down strangly doing nothing but browse web set! =/ only had my replacement a couple of hours and feel stressed already

 

It sounds to me you are not running it in Crossfire. Did you check whether CF is on in ATI Control Center Catalyst? In CF my Vantage score is 13k.

 

Those scores are typical of a 920XM/single 5870m configuration. Chances are crossfire was not firing during those benchmark runs.

 

mmm it shows up as crossfire on the bar, do i have to downloada new version of CCC? i put it on tray and right click , says enable and show when use icon is up only weird thing is that its showing 3 gfx cards ..
Image - TinyPic - Free Image Hosting, Photo Sharing & Video Hosting

other 2 cards dont let u edit crossfire.

also get weird quiet up n down fan revs sometimes (when not gaming)

anyone know how i can fix it pls=/

 

I meant here:

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/797/77616222.png

 

also on the vantage test it said 2.1 ghz, even tho i was on 3.3 turbo? that matter?

 

yes thats ticked mate, really appreciate the help at this time =)
but duno still =/ playing split second velocity on ultra high is pretty bad, where as farcry 2 ultra high works smooth as.

also during 3d mark, i found most bits quite laggy for some reason, pure stressed, thought the issues wouldnt b ok with the replacement from R1 to this!

 

Try running a program called HWInfo32. It should detect both cards if they are OK, and you can even check the temperatures and fan speeds.

You can see how it looks like here, this is my single 5870 vantage run:

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/1078/vantagesingle.png

Even GPU-Z program will detect crossfire - see that pic it says: Disabled (Crossfire available). Ofc it says enabled if I turn it on.


P.S. Going to hit the bed now, just so u know.

 

It sounds like your second card isn't being utilized. Like the others have said, make sure Crossfire is enabled (GPU-Z will say if it is for sure or not) and if it shows that it is and your scores are this low, then call up Dell. Which drivers are you using? I had a similar problem on the factory installed drivers. Once I was able to get 10.4 installed (which took some work) my scores jumped up to where they needed to be. Something was wonky and a fresh install of everything took care of it.

 

ive only updated the gfx cards driver from dells site 8.692.2.0 (copied frm device manager) not updated CCC yet. Should i? and i read u cant use certain ones due to dell unclocking the cards or somthing =/ this true?

 

Try a fresh install of the OS and such. Follow the install order of drivers provided on the Dell support site (also listed on NBR) for the M17x. Download the current stuff from the website, save it to a flash drive so when you go to do it, you will have all the drivers readily available. I have my 2 HDD's set as independant drives, no RAID, and I put all the drivers on the second HDD so they will be easily accessible when I reinstalled the OS. Something is probably messed up somewhere...

 

oki posting on my R1 just got a blue screen something about a core missing something, and now i whilst rebooting, i launch hwinfo32 and its totally locked up now =/

 

can i ask if you need to upgrade catalyst control center? will 10.5 mobie work or ment to be used on alienware?

 

omg this is anightmare =/ i used hwinfo32 again clicked gpu 0 and scrolled down to 1 to see other and it locks up and says

''a problem has been detected and windows has to shut youre comp down.

a clock interrupt was not recieved on a secondary processor (cant see next word) tim interval''

is that =/

 

isn't your R1 being replaced anyway ? sounds like a hardware issue...

 

@joker, did you have a chance to verify what i told you regarding the bios changes?
we're moving the conversation from the benchmarking thread, for all who're joining us now :
i said that if you disable bluetooth and internal lan in the bios with A05 the lappy will not post and asked joker to verify.

 

this is my R2 lol.. i just got it today =/

feedbacks appreciated =(

 

just a hunch, could you try the beta hwinfo that was released today and see if that helps ?

 

Yup I checked: http://forum.notebookreview.com/6313744-post2518.html

 

Joker, i was able to post file the way you did too, but the next cold boot the problem manifested again. it's a hit and miss when those components are disabled.

 

Hi Adrian,

that is what happens when you load the catalyst 10.5 drivers. You have no choice but to remove the 10.5 and reload the original dell drivers.

 

i never installed 10.5 m8...

 

Adrian I have the same issue with hwmonitor. I get blue screen crashes

 

The memory reads NANYA.

Edit: I just tried starting my system for the first time today and no post. The only change was I pulled a memory chip to read the brand and I put it back in. Second boot attempt no issue. This type of issue happened on ALL my R2 systems.

 

just not sure atm, im worried incase something is wrong, as i had soooo many issues with my R1! i tried splinter cell on high with x4 AA and x4 filter, its kinda laggy =/ anyone care to fill in some light pls?
anyone know why on the ati task bar its showinf 3 graphics cards?
ive only installed the 5870 drivers on dells site, but ive not updated CCC should i?

 

No idea, mine is also showing 3. That's not a problem. Did you try GPU-Z ? It seems like both cards are detected (and present) but the crossfire isn't working. No idea why though...

I did not get any blue screens with HWInfo32, and I have been running it quite a bit (mostly to monitor GPU temperatures).

 

im getting the sli symbol in games now, and farcry 2 ultra high works smooth as hell. splinter cell woth no aa is nice too, but im getting flickering on some games, whats casuing that?

 

probably micro stutter from the crossfire.try disabling crossfire and see if that helps.

 

why is that though =/ i read previous bios would fix this issue? o.0

 

The stuttering that the bios fixed was power related(if I am not mistaken).The micro stutter I was talking about is a result of the crossfire.Here is a good article. Micro Stutter: The dark secret of SLI and Crossfire | Overclockers

 

great read, thanks for the link.

 

I was under the impression that micro stutter was mostly eliminated with modern drivers....that it was a problem in the infancy of crossfire and SLI

 

Mmm...is this going to get a GTX 480 anytime soon? :-D Oh well, I can keep drooling. Probably not bad that I'm still sticking with my old system until/unless the USB ports totally die.

 

Possible but unlikely. The newest BIOS adds support but the thermals probably cant handle it.

I would expect a new version of the M17x (maybe an M18x?) to introduce those cards in an alienware

 

Hey guys, so my M17x replacement has been officially approved. However they are only giving me the Wireless Half Mini Card and won't upgrade me to the Intel N 6300. So my question is how exactly does this stack up compared to the intel card. Is it worth it to shell out 75$ to upgrade?

 

How can I tell if I have a 240 ac adapter?

 

I wouldn't waste the extra $75 on it, as speed also has to do with your router.

The BIOS has this information. Check there.

The consensus around here is that they will offer only 1 card right now. Who knows, but June 15 is around the corner. We will find out then.

 

Thanks . Man 3-4 weeks and I'll have this thing. Can't wait!

 

So more than double the wireless transfer rate (when coupled with an N-router) is a waste for $75?