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

Well my internet is finally back up. It was down for almost two weeks.

On another note, I got my 450M and 330M CPU's in the mail. Sadly no BIOS support

 

I could have told you that

 

Wish you had, now I need to sell them off I was looking to set a few more records.

 

Haha, I was just reading up on it to see which cards I could get, and I found out those two.. or rather any Nividia cards aren't going to exactly gel well with current R2 models (and I mean the higher range cards). As for 100% working.. not quite sure.. I got bored of the read.

 

Joining the M17x R2 club - just snagged one off the outlet with the 20% coupon - $1887 for a 920xm, Crossfire 5870, RGBLED, 4GB RAM, 500GB 7200 HDD. System lists for $3499 new. Can't wait

Anybody have any suggestions for lapdesks for the M17x? Its a beast and won't fit on any that I have...

N

 

So, I am looking at this in the outloet store:

•Alienware M17x R2 Laptop
•Processor: Intel Core i7-920 Processor (8MB L3 Cache, 1MB L2 Cache, 2.66GHz)
•Genuine Windows 7 Professional
•250 GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
•4 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz (2 DIMMs)
•8X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
•1 GB ATI Radeon HD 5870

Certified Refurbished
•
Lunar Silver •
17 inch UltraSharp WUXGA (1920x1200) LCD Display
•
9 Cell Primary Battery •
Dell Wireless 1520 802.11n Half Mini-Card
•
Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module •
5.1 Channel Audio
•
240W AC Adapter •
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit Operating System DVD
•
Microsoft Works 9.0

Asking 2099, + a cupon I can use.

My concern is the proc, thats not the normal i7-920 that comes with a new build is it b?

 

Yes, it is. Go for it - I just did

N

 

Thats a desktop Proc right ? how well will this beast handle the heat ? also is that OC'able in the BIOS ?

 

No, its obviously missing the XM on the end. Its the 920XM. Desktop chips have a different socket and would not even begin to fit into any laptop, even the M17x.

N

 

Sorry, had to ask, I am not a PC person, ask me a IBM P-Series question though

 

LOL - Out of curiosity, why upgrade from the M17xR2 in your sig?

N

 

Also, mine on the outlet page said the same thing, but the order details does in fact say "Clarksfield,I7-920XM"

N

 

Not a upgrade, a 2nd one, for wife. Son already has a Mx15 Just wish I could find one in outlet with the RGB screen

 

Cool - a whole family of Alienwares. My wife hates the look of them. She'll keep her M1330 until it gives up the ghost.

Well, if you go for it, enjoy. I can't wait until mine gets here next week.

You don't happen to know of any good lapdesks that fit this thing do you?

N

 

No lapdesks, I actually use my alienware for work/play in my office, I have it hooked up to 2 27 inch monitors for work, wife does same with her current system, and son uses his at home for homework/games, while hooked up to a 21 inch monitor and keyboard, whole house is wired with 2 ethernet jacks in almost every room (did that last year)

This years project is to get the sound system/home theater all comp controlled.

 

An advice that maybe usefull to some who want to use windows 7 under ATA mode :

if you want to use windows 7 under ATA mode on R2

1) you have to install windows 7 again from a bootable usb (you can find guide on how on the net). DVD doesnt work due to unknown reason under ATA mode !!

2) then you can boot in windows 7 in ATA mode

note: still takes time to load the drives but no blue screen after all.

i tested this because i had to do something under ATA mode and from inside windows 7 (upgrade SSD firmware and had to use ATA mode and a HDD with OS on it)

 

Just Thought I would chuck up a few quick videos of gameplay + video on the machine:
See it here

Probably watch it in 1080p for best quality.

 

On order from outlet:

M17x-R2 Space Black
Intel I7-920XM
Dual In-line Memory Module,8GB,1333MHZ,DDR3,2X4G
Solid State Drive,256
Hard Drive,500,7200 RPM
Dual 4870s
8GB DDR3 1333 MHz
17" 1200P RGB LED <<< WOOOHOOO found one

Little over 2400 USD with the cupon

Think will take this for me and wife can have one in sig

 

Very nice I saw that one at 2099 did not say RGBLED (just said LCD), glad you caught one with the RGB. Thats great for $2400, with the 8GB and SSD!

N

 

Hey mfractal, what was the name of that laptop cooler you reccomend, gonna be needing one.

 

Only took hitting refresh for about a hr to find one....dammm, thats a harsh game, go to add to cart...its taken already...

 

I hear ya - I spent the better part of the morning agonizing over it LOL.

N

 

Yea there were two, verry similar, one with the RGB (like this) and one without

 

What was worse, I found one, got it in cart and ordered and THEN realised I dident apply cupon. I then called the outlet store to have them apply the cupon, they said NP, we will remove and re-order, bythe time I told him NOOOO, if you remove its history because its a outlet item, it was to late....

He was verry apologetic.

 

Yeah, you really gotta watch the outlet for that - between people like us looking for just the right one and mostly all the eBayers who buy them and put them right on eBay, it can be tough. I actually ordered one yesterday and had to cancel it this morning when I saw the 920xm, because I really wanted the unlocked capabilities of it. All's well that ends well

N

 

A06, what it came with.

I just hope it's not a bad sign. I only went with the 1 year warranty.

 

I never know why people go with only a 1 year warranty. It'd be worth the price when your computer goes down sometime down the line. But I do agree.. it is quite expensive :S

 

i just got my secondary 5870 (official taken from a working R2). i am waiting for the primary those days to be able to test.

 

Hey everyone,

This is my first post, and i have a little question.

I have ordered a new Alienware m17x R2 crossfire 5870 and have been looking everywhere for the dimensions on the power brick. I have seen the 150w power brick and its very small, perfect in fact. Does anyone have a picture they could post or dimensions of the 240w power brick?

Regards

 

Length: 2.4 Visa cards
Width: 1.1 Visa
Thickness: 0.25 Visa
Sorry, I don't have any measuring devices nearby...

 

haha! Nice one

 

It is ok, pretty sure Visa is an SI unit

 

Or, in more common measurements:
Length: 8 in / 20 cm
Width: 4 in / 10 cm
Thickness: 1 in / 2.5 cm

This is for the Flextronics adapter, not sure if the Delta one is different.

 

Both the Delta and Flextronics dimensions are the same.

Had them both at one time when my R1 was exchanged for an R2. I ended up keeping my Delta from the R1 just because I knew it was reliable and there had been that discussion about faulty adapters and it maybe being one of the brands over the other. No clue if this is still going on though.

 

well they are the same with the difference that Flextronics i got with my replacement was making a strange sound when plugged in while the Delta one i got afterwards did not make that sound


anyone has issues getting a black screen when leaving the machine unused for long time? i cant get the desktop back then. i have to power off the machine. any solutions?

 

Sounds like a wake from sleep issue maybe with the video driver

 

i use the dell beta driver. its supposed to fix sleep issues.

Drivers and Downloads

Enhancements:
1.Driver updates
2.Support for new game titles
3.Fixes reported power management issues (Sleep and Hibernate)

anyone who uses this driver and 5870s and has the same issues? its only me?

 

I do not have an R2, but isn't the beta driver only for use with the new vbios for the 5870s? If you do not have that vbios that may be the cause of the problem

 

no i dont. i asked for download links for the new vbios in the benchmark thread. do you have any?

 

I just got 3 R2s with Crossfire 5870s for my company. I'm using one now. All of them have the black screen on sleep/hibernate issue. We've tried all of the suggested solutions on the forum, except for the beta VBIOS, and none of them work.

 

well this is what i call crap. even with the 4870s the explorer had to be restarted after sleep. at least i didnt have to force shut down the machine.

 

I just never sleep or hibernate my machine lol

 

neither do i. i get this black screen when i dont use the machine for long time (i actually have sleep disabled, i just dont use the machine for long and then come back and see this black screen). i dont know if it gets into sleep for any reason. i have it disabled in power options. i also think i have hybernate off (i used this command to do so: powercfg -h off)

maybe its a result of the screen turning off? i ll try disable this too and see what will happen.

here are my setting now. sleep was set to never even before i disable turn off display

 

This is very interesting. I was having the same problem with my R1. Could be a power saving conflict between the BIOS and OS but I'm not sure. Maybe just a driver issue.
Also, if I recall correctly, the CPU would heat up significantly during those blank screens, right?

 

well i cant check the temps as i cant enter the desktop screen. but i hear fans speed up when i move the mouse but nothing happens after that.

i just upgraded to A08 bios. lets see what will happen now. i still have a hope if i use the no beta dell driver.

how did you solve this issue?

 

I was playing with advanced power settings and disabled everything I could. Not sure if that was the solution or maybe one of the BIOS/video driver updates...

 

The black screen issue is fixed with the VBIOS. You can find a link to them in Joker's sig or I can email them to you if you provide me with an address. Make sure you are running 5870s and have the newest driver installed for them before flashing the VBIOS.

You may also want to check some other topics as the A08 BIOS are junk if you have an extreme proc (920xm or 940xm) as there is like a 30% performance decrease. A08 is only needed if the trackpad is a huge deal to you. If it is that big a deal to you, you'll need to run ThrottleStop to regain that performance as a band-aid "fix".

 

ok
1) flashed back to A07
2) updated vbios of both 5870s
3) i had beta dell driver installed anyway


let see if this black screen will occur again

 

Oh okay cool.

Yeh you should be all good now. Providing you had a clean install of the dell 10.8 beta 8.763 drivers. All should be good now. You might want to install the AMD 10.8 and 10.8a CAP crossfire profiles too for game support and improvements.

Cheers.

 

I can almost guarantee that the new VBIOS will fix your issue. I had the same issue with nothing coming back after sleep, and after the new VBIOS was installed the problems were gone.

I've only had one issue with the new VBIOS and drivers. I have the Crossfire logo turned on for games, and it suddenly stopped showing. I right-clicked the ATI tray icon to turn it back on... and found that the list had 6 entries for 5870s, instead of the usual 3. When I went into CCC it had disabled Crossfire too. After re-enabling it, everything is working as expected.