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

Do a complete power drain. Also what are your temps while gaming?

 

78 & 77. did a power drain. it hasn't done it since i stared running benches to try and re-create the issue but nothing. i guess if it happens again ill call dell

 

so the above post with those scores earlyer were when i first turned my computer on now several hours later and with no changes whatsoever these are the scores i got 2k diffrence what does that mean lol?

 

I use my R2 for Games/audio production. I have no problems whatsoever with DPC spikes. its solid as a rock. this is using asio4all on the onboard IDT sound, and using native ASIO on an m-Audio mbox2, and an RME fireface. all work perfectly. Very impressed so far. An awesome laptop...oh and games run flawlessly!! its a shame that we don't have as many options in australia as everywhere else

 

Not sure if sure if this has been covered before in these threads but here's the question.

Raid 0 configuration in a laptop. How reliable is it considering how portable the M17x can be. Isn't there a much higher chance for failure? How have your experiences been running the raid config.

 

I have been running Raid 0 on desktops for a long time & have never had a failure yet.As long as you backup regularly its no risk is it.For me though i am on my second M17x as i owned R1 prior to the current R2 & have never bothered with Raid 0.I have always had two 500gigs installed one for OS & one for storage which is very safe bet.If you want speed just get a SSD, but for what i do on the R2 mechanical drives do me fine without Raid Array.

 

I just ordered my m17x, any of you know whether it tends to be delivered before it's initial EDD, or does it usually stick to that day? Thanks in advance!

 

Its been so varied for many, hard to say.Have a read in thread i have linked should help give u a better idea.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/487300-m17x-order-status-discussion-part-3-a.html

 

As long as you don't drop/throw away the laptop... you should be fine !

Be on a laptop or a desktop, RAID0 is as reliable as every single drive part of the grap is.

Back with my XPS M1730, I was running two 7200rpm drives in RAID0, 2 X SSD RAID0 in my M17X-R1, and the same in my current M17X-R2. Never had any problem.

But, again, any RAID0 cluster is as reliable as every drive composing the RAID grap is.

Please note however that, with the M17X-R2 (not sure for the R1) you can set both RAID0 + RAID1 in the BIOS, which, if I understand it correctly, will give you both RAID 0 +1 but hey, what's the point if one drive fails, you'll loose everything anyways 'cause your back-up (RAID1) was spread over the 2 drives (by the RAID0)... So, apart from loosing disk space, there's no point setting both RAID options in the BIOS.

Bottom line, to answer your question, and as Sauce said, if you back-up your data on a regular basis, there should be no worries using RAIDed 0 drives in your lappy.

Enjoy

 

Thank you very much

 

I have read recently on forum that if you had Bios A05 installed that ATI driver installation could be problematic.I have tried all the beta's/official drivers previously & am currently on A05,But could not remember whether i had installed drivers only when i was on A02.Earlier today decided to give 10.5 official a try with Bios A05,Did express install over 10.4 & installation was problem free.

 

4870's dont seem to have any update issues. i had em on a lappy and they updated fine. the 5870's on the other hand....

 

I was raid 0 at one time and actually had a drive die, fortunately I had good backups (nightly incrimentals), I am now thinking about raid 0 again, but honestly am not sure what speed boost if any I can expect....here is a snap pic of my drives.

Ignore Drive I, its a external USB drive.

 

I have two questions:

1. With A05 bios and FSB overclocked to 5%, the FSB seems to revert back to 133 MHz after waking up from sleep. Reboot puts the FSB back to 140 MHz until the next sleep and the cycle repeat. Anyone else noticed this?

2. Again, with bios A05 and ATI 10.5 video suite, I get ramdom blue screen. The computer works fine with official Dell released driver.

 

i dont have any blue screens. my guess would be they are from soemthing else. search the error code shown on blue screen.

 

Every times i tried to OC my 4870 when i set the clock to 580 - 970 i 've a bsod (i oc with amd gpu clock tool) and when i see your frequencies i don't understand.

 

I can OC my GPU's to 650/1000 stable using AMD GPU Clock Tool, and run them like that for hours while playing Crysis Wars, while maintaining decent temps. Not sure why yours aren't stable. Maybe you just got unlucky and ended up with average or under-performing chips. One thing I noticed though, is that if I OC the core, it's stable at 650, but not at 625, meaning I think my core (maybe yours too) likes running at with a +50mhz. I also keep my ram at 1000.50 actually, to keep it in line with the memory's .50mhz discrepancy on the vram. Like this it runs as stable as stock (for me).

 

yeah i though i m unlucky but the difference is awesome 80 - 30 mhz more for you it's a lot or i'm really really really unlucky (i have to find a fix).

 

This is not true I had problems updating to the 10.5 with my 4870 cf.

 

i see you have the 520 cpu. this says many things about less power demands. by the way ood guide for rge led calibrating. i used it since i got my machine before two days.

do you want to try my modded pack? its the only way i managed to do it . i need more testers except me if you wish to test. for me it works flawlessly. 10.5 drivers with all of it ccc etc.

 

I got it to install finally.Used the guide in the driver thread.

 

can you give the link and post number of the guide?

 

This is my first post with my new laptop that arrived today!! This is so cool!

LOL! After 30 seconds the CCC Setup Assistant stopped responding, and I didn't even fiddle with it or click it

 

I just got my new Special Edition Red, M17x-R2. It's pretty suped up. I have Win7 64 bit, with a 250GB SSD and 8GB Ram. Anyway I was thinking about getting a second 250 SSD and I was wondering if anyone had done that yet and if they had to do anything special under Win7 64 bit? I know I have an empty drive bay (at least according to the manual), but I didn't actually look yet.

Is it just a matter of putting it in and powering it up, or do I have to go into the BIOS or Win7 to do aything special. I wouldn't think Win7 would make a difference but since it's a SSD I wasn't sure. Also is there a size (GB) issue I need to worry about. I was thinking of waiting until the 500GB came out. Is that alright or do I need to be aware of a GB limitation with an SSD drive?

Thanks,

Teague

 

just plug it in and let it go. its pretty easy to install

 

Yeah, I had problems getting it to recognize my xf4870s too. This method fixed it:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/488562-m17x-driver-discussion-help-suggestions-thread-2.html#post6318958

Edit: you really don't have to uninstall anything, though you can. You do have to make the edit to the .cfg file. That's where the magic happens!

 

oh it worked! i should have found this earlier

 

When you were on RAID0 one time, there must have been a reason why you were set-up this way, right ? Since you say RAID 0, I assume reason was speed, right ? Therefore, I am not sure how you can yourself be unsure of the benefits it brings, since you've already been using it...

Nevertheless, simple logic tells that if you use 2 drives to do the job 1 can do, most likely, it'll speed-up the whole process and, just to add, DISK access are measured in miliseconds, while RAM access is measured in microseconds, and CPU's cache in nanoseconds...

Therefore, it's clear that Disk access are the bottleneck; thus, if you want to speed up the whole computer, chances are that if you can speed-up the DISK speed, whatever the way you pick (faster rotationnal drive - SSD instead HDD - RAID0 instead of single), you'll help yourself and shall be in for a treat !

 

I've been searching, but I couldn't find much. What's the difference in performance between the 4870X2 and the 5870X2?

 

5-10% on average in most games.

 

That's with stock drivers though... maybe it will get better with newer ones.

 

anyone has problems booting the machine when something inside the express card like tv tuner? i dont know if its the tv tuner card or power issues. i have to insert the tv tuner after the machine has fully loaded and remove it so as to turn off. After the machine has loaded i can use the tv tuner normally.


also do you have problems detecting e-sata hard drives? i used an 2.5 inch case enclosure which is powered by the usb cable via dc adapter and then an e-sata to e-sata cable. i managed to make it work once. but since then not even detected!!!! and i have two of them which work flawlessly on a desktop. i have seen this to be an issue wth xps machines as well. this must be reported to Dell!

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19262626/19593704.aspx#19593704

 

I have mine in a few days which makes me happy

 

Anyone have an issue when the machine sleeps, then wakes, and graphics runs extremely slow? My furmark benchmark mode, dual GPU hits about 87 FPS, but after a nap or two, the machine runs at about 15 fps. It is not in stealth mode (Watto's indicator).

 

Shouldn't be happening, did u check memory consumption? Is the CPU busy doing something?

 

thanks, no memory and CPU are both good - it's just not up to it's full potential. A boot gets it back. Next time I reset I'll be more methodical, maybe it's something with power mode, though I don’t think it is

 

same happens to me. even downloading speed is crap. reboot is the solution.

anyone with e-sata issues guys?

 

I have a question, does anyone have any issues running Resident Evil 5 on Dx10 Crossfire, I'm experiencing low FPS in CF in Dx10, although Dx9 runs great it just seems odd that it doesnt run well, but bench is running great? I am currently running 10.5 catalyst.

 

Dx10 should be running np.Did you apply the latest 10.5 crossfire profiles?.And another thing check your RE5 cfg (open with notepad) make sure your cpu job thread set to 4 & set SLI to on

 

Config can be found @ C:\Users\yourname here\Documents\CAPCOM

 

sorry im a noob to ATI how and were can you retrieve the profiles and how do you apply them. I went to the config file saw SLI, changed it to "on" but did notice the job thread was on 7, so I thought it was fine ill try putting it on 4 threads.

 

Drivers & Support | GAME.AMD.COM

Just run the app profile job done

 

Oh if after that its still not running great try changing cpu job thread to 2.Thats all i can think of .

 

wow, thanks man I was used to doing this with nvidia and I thought ATIs had them in the catalyst already lol, guess not thank you.

 

You should see big improvements in your games now after applying the Xfire profiles .

 

I just applied the profile update, thanks for the info sauce, but yeah its still not working right oh well, ill play it in dx9, I'm not too hung up on it just wondering if there was something I was doing wrong, thank you guys for the help.

 

sweet, never knew that either, can i also apply this to non 10.5? im using dells 5870 drivers atm

 

To be honest not sure,but cannot see how applying the Xfire profile will do any harm so if i was you i would go 4 it.If you notice any issues just go 2 control panel & uninstall profile simple

 

Here's mine from a wake running furmark at 1/3 frame rate. I toggled stealth mode. I wonder if power management is getting confused? Note red ringed GPU util.

 

or you have option in right top in CCC where you can make your profile with crossfire and all others options.