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

Heya chiefs,

For the ram you want. Any brand is fine. Usually the best deal you can find. Prices have really dropped so just look around for the best deal and grab that one.

You will just need to be looking for these specific specs.
4GB DDR3 Sodimm 1333Mhz ram or sometimes the description can show this as well;
PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM SO-DIMM notebook ram.
You will just be needing a 8gb kit or buy 2X the 4gb sticks.

Cheers.

 

Honestly i don't know of any other hybrid drive, other than the Seagate Momentus XT. Not that you should look for any other one, as it goes for under 150$, is reliable, has the capacity you need, and performs really well. It has a 4gb NAND chip in addition to the existing 500gb 7200rpm hdd... which basically stores your most used apps in, making it quicker as you use it as it "learns" what you use most, and stores it on the NAND memory (essentially a 4gb SSD). So you will notice a considerable improvement with the apps you use most, and boot-times also (although it takes about 3-4 reboots to reach optimal boot-times...again because it learns your patterns lol). I've onlt heard great things about this drive, and the price is right... so i'd say its a great deal.

Here's the link:

Seagate's Momentus XT Reviewed, Finally a Good Hybrid HDD - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

Moving on.... so after spending more time with the M17x... I've come to realize what people have told me is true. The Fans get REALLY loud! geeze and i only have a single 5870m... i can just imagine what it would sound liek with dual 5870s and the cpu going full pin as well! Now i know why alienware made this laptop so heavy, so it wouldn't fly away when gaming LOL! anyone come up with a MOD to silence those loud fans? Are they simply the fans that they use that are sooo loud? or just the speed at which they turn? My M15x is like 1/3 as loud when everything is spinning full pin.

Also, you'd think with the fans turning soo quick, and for how much noise they make... that it would keep things REALLY cool... but to my disappointment, after playing a brief session of medal of honor LE...for like 10 mins... temps quickly climbed to like 71*C.... I know this still very acceptable... but coming from a M15x.... temps never past 68-69*C (bascially i never saw it go in the 70s) and usually stuck around mid 60s while playing the same game at the same settings with the same dell 5870m that is in the M17x...I would only reach 71-72*C while playing with the gpu OC'd to 850/1100...

Unless i forgot how much of a difference OCZ freeze makes... vs the stock crap they use... but man i'm not impressed so far with the cooling on this thing... considering how much more noise it makes, and having much more openings than the M15x... i'll try repasting tonight when i get home from work and see if things look more promising...

EDIT: Anyone know how, or know if it's even possible... to disable that ANNOYING beep everytime you boot without the AC adapter plugged in? Geeze like i didn't already know i have to plug it in to get max performance ..lol

I wish i didn't work so much so i can actually play around with it alot more... I got it on thursday and have spent maybe barely an hour on it so far :s

 

So I'm the only one struggling with subpar performance in MW2?

 

The setting is in the BIOS. It's the adapter warning. You can turn it off.

 

Perfect Thanks!

 

hi all, just wanted to get some clarification on the new releases as i've just owned my r2 for and have yet to touch any of dell's releases until now. my setup as follows: 920xm, and 4870s in CF, all stock drivers.

emm, could anyone link me to the appropriate drivers that i need to update with the probable steps i need to do in order for me to get the update done, appreciate if added the donts:

1.bios

2.vbios

3.video driver

also, my another main concern is since i have a 920xm, i have reading about some temp issues surrounding it...im not so keen to overclock this machine...but i need it to work on its optimum level without causing temp increase during my work...what shall i do? Also, i am new to laptops and not sure wether i would want to strip the lappy apart to get over this prob...any suggestion wit solution/step to step guide?

thanks for hearing and appreciate the help given! =)

 

you have a list of all the drivers you need along with the latest bios on the first page of this thread .
no need to update the vbios for the 4870s cards.
10.10 ati mobility drivers came out a while ago, and they are the latest you can use.

 

10.10 loaded fine for me and I have the same 4870s you do, should be fine

 

thanks mfractal and scook9...appreciate it...i am quite new here, so its great having fellow owners to help...

sorry to ask this question, i saw in the dell drivers website for the video section;
Release Date: 9/20/2010
Version: 8.763-100810a-104118C-Dell, A01

whats the difference between dell provided video driver and 10.10 provided by ati?

thanks for hearing...sorry for being so green...

 

ATI drivers are newer and will include optimizations and bug fixes for more modern games and hardware

 

thank you scook9, just to be clear...if i were to download the ati driver, i dont need to download the dell video driver ryt?

also..after uninstalling the dell stock video driver, do i need to use any software to futher clean traces of old ati driver in my lappy, before installing the new ati drivers?

also, i lappy comes with 1tb(500gb/500gb)....how do i get it to raid 0 config? appreciate if u could help...thank u so much...

also, in term of gaming...does the 5870 makes that much of difference compared to the 4870 after updating the ati drivers?

 

Hey there chiefs,

You can run driver sweeper and CC cleaner in safe mode. Then restart back into normal OS mode and install the new GPU drivers.

Cheers.

 

Hello !

To RAID your drives, you will need to set it up in the BIOS first, then upon booting, just after the BIOS splash screen, by pressing CTRL + I...

BACKUP YOUR DATA AND SETTINGS BEFORE BECAUSE THIS WILL ERASE ALL THE CONTENT OF YOUR DRIVES !​

Boot and press F2 to enter the BIOS;
Goto the Advance tab;
Goto the SATA OPERATION line, press enter, choose RAID
Goto the RAID CONFIGURATION line, choose enabled for RAID0, and disabled for RAID1
Save your new BIOS settings and exit.


After the AlienHead logo, press CTRL + I
Choose create an array...
Follow the instructions, pretty easy...
Go with the default suggested settings, no brainer...


The next thing will be to re-install everything, which will be done in RAID from now on.

Hope this helps !

eYe

 

And you do not need to uninstall the old drivers, I just install over. With my system I have to install the dell drivers first so that CF will work, then install over them with ATI drivers. Only the Dell drivers give me CF working usually

 

hi all, thanks reborn2003,eYe-I-aïe... and scook9...guys hv been great help! thanks again...

1. eYe-I-aïe, i havent practically installed anything yet for my lappy...will i lose the factory recovery if i were to do raid 0? when i do save some movies or songs into HDD with raid 0...what will difference? will raid 0 shrink the size of the HDD? Will the HDD read the size as 1tb instead of 2x500gb or neither both? sorry for being a noob,,

2. with the 920XM i have, am i gonna have temp prob with stock settings? coz im not planning to change the stock clock...do i need to do any changes to the lappy or clock settings to make sure it stays at proper/safe temp? does the 920Xm improve frame rates in games?

3. i am gonna buy another lappy for my gal...this time i hv 2 specs...i hv the 920XM,8gb and dual 4870GPU vs 840QM,6gb and dual5870GPU...price bout the same...which one should i choose? my gal here is for sure is not planning to do any overclocking but gonna use alot of photoshop,autocad and engineering stuff and games..im in dilemma to choose for CPU vs GPU...also, another thing is she is not planning to change this system for at least another 2 years time..what would u guys recommend?thanks again...

 

If you do not want to have to change anything over the life of the laptop, I would just max it out up front as that horsepower will be needed later on

 

ok - for anyone who cares...

I was complaining earlier about horrible performance playing MW2

I found a couple of threads about performance and did the following:

Un-installed my ATI CC completely
Downloaded and installed the latest 10.10 drivers from ATI Underground
Changed my audio settings in MW2 from Windows Default to Stereo

Presto - 91FPS in MW2

Was getting 20-55...

Much better!

 

Hey mrfractal

did you ever upgrade your CPU?

Still thinking about doing mine...

 

scook9, how should i max out my settings without causing any longevity problem? also, if u dun mind me asking...is upgrading the 4870 to 5870 a necessary thing? why didnt u upgrade it? any particular reason..the reason i explained in my previous post..please get back to me when u can..thanks

 

Well I have not done the upgrade for a few reasons

It is not compatible with my model
I got my laptop before the 5870m's existed
I would only get them if they were free for me

If buying a new computer though they should be bought. If money is no concern for you, get the i7 940xm and cf 5870m's and RGBLED screen. If money IS a concern, same but the i7 740qm

upgrade ram and hdd yourself, it is cheaper

 

thanks for the quick reply...does upgrading i7 740qm to i7 840qm does make any difference? my gal is not gonna use the overclocking feature of the i7 940XM...so was wondering whether i7 840qm do make any significant diff compared to having the basic 740QM?

 

it will make a small difference but often not worth the price

if overclocking get the 940xm for its abilities, if not, the 740qm will do just fine

 

im getting the 720Qm for a lower price compared to the 740QM..should i stick with the 720QM or take the 740qm? any difference btw that 2? in the midst of dealing with supplier now...

 

I think if I got an M17x I'd go with the 840qm, just because of the extra 133Mhz + the extra 2MB cache. Worth $300ish? Eh, probably not, but what the heck. (I love that the base got a bump to 1.73GHz!)

If I go the XPS 17 or M15x routes though, I think I'm going with the cheaper chip since I'm concerned about throttling on those (particularly the M15x + GTX 260). Apparently the M17x doesn't have those issues, so...

Crucifix, how much different? For some reason for me there's something psychologically better about that 1.73GHz clock speed. Is the extra really that big a deal? Eh, for the price differences I've seen it's worth it to me.

 

i dunno..im on a tight budget u see...so just want the best of out my pocket...what difference that 2mb cache does?

also does dual channel 8gb ram have much of a difference with a 6gb ram,both 1333hz?

 

M17x-R2 has two memory slots,

So 8 gb is dual channel (2 X 4gb), 6 gb for sure is not ( there is no 3 gb ram module) so 4 gb + 2 gb, modules have not the same size, no dual channel.

Dual channel is a nice performance option, not a life changer, but really cool.

Cache memory on a CPU is a very very fast built-in read/write memory, it increase the CPU operations possibilities per second. Because the cores will put the most used instructions in this very very fast transfer zone, so they won't have to search for it in the ram (compare to cache memory, Ram is an old wicked snail).
More cache memory allow the CPU to work faster, with the same clock.

Experts will explain it to you in a better way than I can :/

 

Setting your drives in RAID will make the O/S unable to read anything that was previously on your drives; so yes, you will loose that partition. Please note however that if you bought your system from Dell with 2 HDDs inside, chances are that they are already RAIDed; check that (with CTRL + I upon booting) before anything else...

Setting your drives in RAID0 will NOT shrink the size, and your O/S will see ONE big drive of 1TB, minus the formatting as usual... The goal of setting two (or more) drives in RAID0 is for performance increase: writing data will be ALMOST 2X faster; not a big deal for just saving movies or songs, but it's going to make your system OVERALL much more responsive...

Why you ask ? Well, this leads me to the answer to your second question...


It will make your system overall much more responsive because in a computer, you have 3 levels of memory (storage):

DISK: Your main memory, the largest one, but the slowest one as well. As a matter of fact, accessing data on your disk is measured in milliseconds, which seems pretty fast looking at it alone, but let's move on...

RAM: Your main volatile memory, used to store the data between your disk and your processor, access to this memory is measured in microseconds, which is much faster than your disk...

CPU's cache: this is as RAM, but built-in the processor, which makes it the fastest memory in your computer, as its access is measured in nanoseconds which, needless to say, is flying fast...


All this to get down to that:

1. You want to have your RAM in Dual Channel to get the most out of it;

2. You want to have the more cache built-in your processor;

3. You want to have your drives the more responsive they can, and apart from moving to SSDs, your best bet right now is to RAID them, as access to them is the bottleneck of ANY computer as milliseconds are much slower than microseconds, which are much slower than nanoseconds...

Hope this helped clear up some things !

eYe

 

Little more detail could be there but overall this was a great explanation

 

eYe agree, +rep given !

 

thanks brothers! u guys have been pretty great! wow, thanks a lot for the explanation! u guys nailed it tats for sure..

so guys..another thing is..what do u guys suggest..
1.should i get the upgrade the 720QM to 940QM with dell or do i the upgrade later at the aftermarket?

2.also the basic specs comes with 6gb ram, should i upgrade now with dell or later with the aftermarket? do u guys thinks its cheaper getting from the after market?

im all into saving money here as im practically sponsoring my own studies now...Im from india,and if u guys think buying to processor and ram from the aftermarket is cheap, whr do u think i can shop the most reliable and cheapest aftermarket prices? thank u so much guys...u've been great help all in all ! =)))

 

In india I do not know what the best channels are for parts, in the US newegg is the winner. I would do the CPU upgrade with dell so that it is warranted (aftermarket would not be) although this will cost a bit more. It should be fine to upgrade to 8GB with dell as well since the price difference is less than a new kit would be and it saves you the trouble of having to sell the old ram (also good to have the dell parts for warranty)

 

thanks scook9...well, i went for a look out for cpu on e-bay yesterday. i found a couple of sellers selling the i7 940XM cpu for a very affortable price. But on the deeper look on description, i found that this cpus are so called ES/QS(engineer sample/qualification sample).

Is this sort of CPU safe for M17x usage(any throttling and temperature instability)? Is it compatible with M17x on the whole? Anyone out there who has try them out care to give your take on it?

 

I upgraded mine from 6 to 8GB recently

The 4GB 1333 chip was about $100 US

on eBay

 

I think many people are using the ES version and I have not heard of any problems with them. I bought mine through Shirley111?? on ebay. I also read that Laptopmonkey? Is a trusted seller of them. I do not have my m17x yet thanks to Dell cancelling my outlet order so I cannot say if it works yet and how well. What I will say is this, they shipped that thing from China to my house in 3 business days! (ordered Thurs night, received Tues). Sometimes newegg has trouble doing that from Memphis TN! Also the money didn’t even come out of my account until Monday, which means it was 2/3’s the way to me before I technically paid for it.

 

I'm in the market for a 920/940 off ebay as well (not sure which to get yet) And i can say that i know at least 25people on these forums that all bought off up laptopmonkey or shirley and have not had any problems with it, and in some instances, preformed even better when Overclocked. So i wouldn't worry, the ES i7's prove to be amazing...nothing like what you may have heard about ES versions of past cpus...

 

I can vouch for Shirley, bought off him (yes it is a male) twice and was great both times.

 

Shirley-CPU and LaptopMonkey are very well known on this forum (and others) for the quality of their items and their fast well protected shipments. They even offer a warranty on their items.

They also test their CPU, so you can be sure that your (ES) will work pretty smoothly at stock.

The only thing that needs to be said is that their O/C capabilities differ from one CPU to another. If you are lucky, you will have a monster who can deal with a very big O/C, if you are less lucky, your unit may be unstable with only a few MHz more.

To put it in a nutshell, If you don't aim for breaking benchmarks records, an ES CPU is as good as an OEM.

 

I bought a 920 of Laptopmonkey with 3 year warranty which is damn good for the price.I dont see on Shirley's ebay this being offered.

laptopmonkey extended component warranty



this warranty covers hardware product against defects in

materials and workmanship under normal use for a period of THREE YEAR from the date of

purchase by the original end-user purchaser .If a hardware defect arises and a valid

claim is received within the Warranty Period, laptopmonkey will either



REPAIR the Product by means of hardware and/or software;

REPLACE the Product with another product; OR, if laptopmonkey is unable to repair or replace the Product,

REFUND the then-current value of the Product at the time a claim for warranty service is made to laptopmonkey under this Limited

Warranty.



EXCLUSIONS AND LIMITATIONS

(1) to damage caused by accident, abuse, misuse, flood, fire, earthquake or other external causes

(2)to damage caused by operating the product outside the permitted or intended uses

(3) to a product or part that has been modified to alter functionality or capability

Not bad for $28.80 not that much can go wrong with a cpu.

 

wow guys! Thanks for the great feedback. I am learning a lot here. This makes me so much proud to be a M17X Owner and grateful to be in such a wonderful community! =)

Another question which was also circulating my mind is, does having a 920XM/940XM in the rig cause temperature problem and hardware problems? Is the m17x cooling system good enough to take it 55 watts?

Also, my reseller gave me an caution note that if the ES version of EXTREME CPU if goes wrong, can cause the cpu or motherboard to burn. Is there any possibility of such occurrence?

 

The M17x cooling is more than capable... We're talking about the best cooling system found in laptop here... however, if you wish to bring temps down even further,,, check out the Retention mod on the cpu to lessen temps even more!

And don't worry, nothing will burn LOL. Worst comes to worst your laptop will shutdown before that happens... but then again that will only happen if you install it without any fan and heatsink attached to it LoL... so i wouldn't woryr about that brother... not sure why they told you that...

a 240watt power adapter is required though... because if the system is stressed with the 940, and throw in a pair of 5870ms.... what you are likely to burn is the 150w power brick

 

The motherboard will be fine. The i7 cpus run hotter than the Core 2 quad stuff before them does but it is still within operational spec. You will only have temperature issues if you try to overclock/benchmark

And the PSU wont burn, it will just quit and leave you running on battery lol

 

haha...Great explanation! One myth down! What I'm guessing is this reseller is trying to get me to buy the cpu from him rather from e-bay! Anyway, i'm having a dual 5870 GPU, so if im not mistaken DELL should have supplied me with a 240 watt adapter...I think getting a 940XM or 920XM wouldnt be a problem considering that =)

 

Just heard back from Dell about the replacement specs. I had to file an unresolved issue over the ticket because something seemed to have went wrong somewhere, but to Dell's credit they got back to me much quicker than I was expecting.

After my first replacement, I'm also pleasantly surprised that they've immediately turned around and offered me good specs from the word go. The only issue I have are minor personal preferences (for example, asking to get rid of the RAID0 in exchange for a single hard drive instead).

Getting the 940XM up front with no fuss is very nice as well.

 

Got my replacement sorted out - finally (specs in my sig). Bit of a shame I couldn't convince them to stick 1333MHz RAM in there instead of 1067MHz, but hey, can't win them all.

Still, for the most part Dell have been very good with the support on this case, despite the issue being very hard to troubleshoot (an intermittent and not obvious fault). There may have been some minor bumps along the way, but Dell have stood by their product when something went wrong.

 

There shouldn't be a performance difference between the RAM speeds. Looks like a nice upgrade!

 

Here is a question. Does anyone (particularly with 4870's) experience the following when connecting to an external monitor:

1. Connect via HDMI, VGA, or any other method to an external monitor.
2. Clocks on 1 card go up and stay up.
3. It makes no difference what you are doing, even if idle, clocks of 1 card stay up unless you unplug the external monitor. And even if you disconnect the laptop's display, as long as you have the external monitor plugged in the clocks stay up.

Anyone?

 

Yes I have seen that with both 4870s and 5870s

 

I take it you haven't found a solution then? Does it happen to you?

 

Yes I always have an external monitor connected via VGA and the primary card is always on max clock frequencies. I haven't tried to mesh with the vbios simply because for everyday usage the temperatures are low enough and the fans do not kick in.

 

Hi, Random Question.

I saw a M15x yesterday and I noticed that the cassing was plastic and not aluminium like the M17x r2.

Is the M17x r1 also aluminium, I've never seen one, since alienware machines have only really become available in my country in the last few months?

And since I have the M17x r2, the plastic caseing on the m15x doen't look as good to me. (Just my opinion)