*OFFICIAL* "All Powerful" M17xR2 Edition Owner's Lounge - Part 3

Since the last OL has reached over 4500 posts, its time to start Part 3.

*OFFICIAL* M17x R1/R2 Owner's Lounge Thread - Part 1

Manuals, Teardown, Drivers

System Teardown -
YouTube - M17x Teardown Video1 of 2 **READ SAFETY PRECAUTIONS PRIOR TO REPLACING PARTS** (Official Video)

Manuals -
Documentation

M17xR2 Drivers straight from Support.Dell -
Drivers & Downloads

Grim's Driver List -
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...70-september-2010-incl-vbios-flash-guide.html

AMD 5870 / VBIOS Discussion -
(Note: New owners most likely will not have to worry about this as I would hazzard a guess that this has been implemented at the factory level by now.)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...5870-gpus-5870-vbios-discussion-non-beta.html

Benching, Overclocking

M17x Benchmark Discussion (Only 17x benchmark related discussion here please) -
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/455435-official-m17x-benchmark-thread-part-3-a.html

M17xR2 Overclocking Discussion -
(Note: Overclocking your system will put additional load on components - do so at your own risk.)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/476426-m17xr2-overclocking-guide.html

Misc. Links

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

Previous OL Threads -
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...l-powerful-m17x-r2-edition-owners-lounge.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...l-m17x-r2-edition-owners-lounge-part-2-a.html

There is currently an issue with SSD drives. This is seen on other laptops and not just impacting AW/Dell. Please see this thread for additional information:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ssd-speed-issue-investigation-discussion.html



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If you have a specific thread in mind which would be of benefit to list above, PM me the information.

Thanks.

 

Nice, lots of info. Thanks for the consolidated links.

 

ha, it's time for a while for part 3

 

And this is only the R2 OL haha (Although it is pretty much the M17x R1 and R2 lounge now)

 

right! we shouldnt forget R1 like Dell did.

 

Gladdens my heart to still see the R1 in Scook's sig.
I just sold my R2...

 

It brings me joy too!

lol

 

lol, I kinda miss my R1. It was a good system and I didn't have issues with it.

 

Man I am behind on the times. What made the R1 so bad for some again? Was it the nVidia cards?

 

Mostly it was the DPC latency that caused stuttering, audio anomolies, and drops in gaming frame rates. I didn't game on my R1 much since I only had it for a month, but it did everything I asked of it.

 

Plus, R1 can take better advantage of an SSD compared to the R2

 

about to hop over to this forum dell replacing my m1730 with a m17xr2

intel® Core™ i7-940XM Processor (2.13GHz, 4Core/8Threads, turbo boost up to 3.33Ghz, 8M cache)
17.0" UltraSharp™ WUXGA (1920x1200) RGBLED Display with TrueLife™
8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM(2x4GB)
RAID 0 (Striped Disk Array)
2x 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
Slot Load Blu-ray BD-R, BD-RE / DVD+/-RW Drive
SLI(TM) Dual 1GB GDDR3 NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GTX 285M

really looking forward to receive it. How does the 285 SLI nvidia's perform?

 

nice config. the 285s are ok not quite as robust as the 5870s, but its an option for the "green team". they will be a serious upgrade from what you had.

 

Awesome thanks i just hope they don't give me problems like my old 9800GTX's. the 940xm processor looks good however Looking forward to doing some benchmarks of my new laptop.

 

The cooling on the M17x is far ahead of that of the M1730, the cards should last just about forever haha - especially if you re-paste them yourself

 

What is a gigahertz?

 

At 1:22 into this video, you see the reason why I didn't give Space Black: Fingerprints.

YouTube - M17x Teardown Part 2 of 2 **READ SAFETY PRECAUTIONS PRIOR TO REPLACING PARTS** (Official Video)

 

LoL.

I wash my hands about 50 times a day and continually wipe it down with the Alienware bag and my ShaggyMac screen protector.

My wife thinks I'm nuts and you know what ...

Now that I'm reading this as I type I realise ... maybe I am ...

 

I'll get you next time Gadget, next time!

 

i wish they would have used its soundcard on R1-R1 though. I am sure Dell put its hand on this.

 

i love how updating drivers always gives me better performance in benchmarks haha.

like now at all stock settings get these results:
3dmark06--- 20231
3dmark Vantage--- 15041

which before updating drivers i was at 19k and 14k.

 

Don't know much about the 285's, but I know you'll be more than satisfied. Also, keep your warranty up to date and current so down the line if the R3 comes out, you can get that too if they ever quit making R2s lol. But the system your getting will be a beast. You'll be more than happy. It's like a christmas present


Side note: I havn't updated drivers in a while. Never saw a need I suppose.

 

Hello all. I have been lurking in the background for a while and have finally decided to jump in and purchase a laptop. I saw earlier someone refer to a 20% off coupon for the M17xR2. Could one of you tell me how I can find that coupon? Thanks

 

Well I just got me a R2, Dell was replacing my R1 which was having serious problems after 4 months of dealing with them.

The only problem I have is that the new R2 doesnt have a Bluray burner and my R1 had one. I just got the replacement today would the Bluray burner from my R1 work in the R2 I dont see why not but was curious before I opened her up.

 

Are the 285m's having any issues with the system, besides being the under powered option it seems? Not a lot of people have the 285m that's the thing lol, hard to get a good reading on them.

 

I'm really interested in performance of the 285's as well. when i get my m17x i will upload some benchmarks

 

blah just got an email from the dell guy chris saying that they arent going to add the 460m to the m17x-r2 bios. ill prob still try em when they get here but i have a feeling the bios issue will cripple them.....bah

 

DanXbix, When are you getting your R2?

 

That sucks, guess they want to save it for the R3 launch so people have a reason to upgrade.

 

ive been working on getting the bios dumped but no luck maybe someone else can help, wheres zfactor when you need him lol. i have the roms but PBE wont open them, so IDk ive been looking and reading for about 4 hours, with no luck. someone has to be able to tell me what the developers use to edit these things at least

yeah, but it seems like a pretty weak upgrade IMo considering its already in the m15x, i would hope for something a little more powerful, but well see when the cards get here, or Ichime chimes in with some more testing.

 

i posted in the Hardware forum for some help but if someone here has some knowledge lets get this going, i have a backup motherboard, so if i brick this one it will be ok. so lets crack this bios.....

 

The M17x uses a Phoenix bios...that is like fort knox of bioses

Afraid unless you are a bios developer you are SOL as no one else has access to the necessary software to work on it. I looked into this a while ago with Johnksss and it just is not happening - at least not at the moment.

 

Don't just swap the drives. Call Dell up and tell them they need to send you a BluRay burner because your R1 has one (assuming it's from Dell). This way, if it breaks down later, you are covered under warranty (assuming you would still be under warranty). Doing it this way, the burner is from them and it's supported.

 

exactly. as i did from my R2 replacement from R1 because they forgot to put bluetooth on configuration (as my R1 did)

 

Just got my M17x today, sold the M15X and decided to just go for the max.
I am still keeping my M11x for travel and because I simply LOVE that little guy

My specs are
i7-940xm
8gb DDR3 1333
Crossfire 1gb GDDR5 5870's
1940x1200 RGB
BlueRay
1.2 TB Raid 0

 

If that does not make you happy I do not know what will haha

Congrats on the awesome laptop!

 

Thanks!
My work gave me $2000 for me to acquire a laptop for work/personal use, I figured it was my only chance to max out an M17X for half the price.
I chose not to get the SSD, but I may upgrade later.
I have one in my M11x but I was not sure if it would really matter in this lappy

How do you like the Intel Ultimate N 6300?
I was thinking of upgrading

 

will the 460 or 480m work in a mx17r2? wasn't there someone here trying them?

 

I think they could never get the drivers to load properly.

 

i hope they work it out as the 285 nvidia's are only directx 10 not 11

how much is it for 5870sli cards from dell? im in AUS

 

im going to try some more things when they get here, im going to try & flash the dell 460 bios from the m15x cards on the card, but word from dell is that there is no bios support. but i will try my butt off, to get them to work properly. ichime has his set right now but, we havent heard back from him. its a pian to switch them out over & over i assume, but im thing if we can get the Dell bios on the card then the drivers should at least load but the fans were the real issue i believe.

as for the 5870 cards from Dell US they are $334 each, but good luck getting them. i have had a 5870 slave card on order for 2 weeks now with no shipping update from dell, order still says pending, im likely going to cancel it.
id be willing to bet from AUS dell it will be impossible to get them you will have to get them from ebay for ridiculous prices....


@Scook, that sucks.....i dont understand why they do things like this, i mean if we want to kill our computers we should have the right, i downloaded Pheonix bios editor and all it says is PSi error, btu i can open a different Phoenix bios from another machine........

 

I was able to open the bios when I helped Mumak to read fan speeds for hwinfo. I can't recall the name of the tool right now but I'll dig around and find it.

 

they still dont sell them. crap! better try ebay as i did. even if Dell sends you secondary 5870 you wont know if it works as secondary, probably not.

 

@cleverpseudonym
you can read M17x BIOS with Phoenix Mod Tool

I know i dumped m11x, m15x and m17x BIOSes with version 1.42, now it seems the current version is 1.64..

More info in here :

Tool to Insert/Replace SLIC in Phoenix / Insyde / Dell / EFI BIOSes
How to Use New Phoenix Bios Mod Tool to Modify Phoenix/Dell/Insyde/EFI Bios Files

Good luck

 

Wireless question

Anyone here upgrade to the Intel 6200 or 6300 from the 1520?
If so is it worth it?

 

Thanks for that, been considering the upgrade as it is the only weak part of my system.....well not so much weak as lower end.

I have a Samsung SSD I could swap in but I am not sure the speed increase is worth the drop in storage

 

I pull CMOS when I swap gpus just to play it safe and make sure the system recognizes is.

And as for the BIOS, I think you could read it but not edit it, or only edit small parts not the stuff that I was interested in like overclocking. Because I know people have messed with the SLIC stuff for automatic OS activation

 

@Scook...i will also do this., i think the best starting point is to have a vbios from a dell issued 460m, that way all the Dell bs is on the card and may allow it to be recognized by the bios, or validated. i think the clevo bios was also an issue on the 5870s wasn it? i doub the cards are any different, but im sure that dell includes some proprietatry stuff on the cards with the m15x so im hoping that this will help. i think its dumb that they dont "plan" on updating the bios to allow the cards offically, the R3 is months off, and frankly the 460m cards arent really a huge upgrade from the 5870s to warrant buying an R3 with them in it. i would assume that most are going to be wanting 470s or the new ATi card int he R3, seems dumb to me.

so soemone get me a vbios!

@mfractal, if you could pm me some instructions on how you guys were able to edit the bios, would be awesome, i did confirm that we were able to read it from this tool but i had to leave so i couldnt do a whole lot.

 

we didn't modify anything. the task was to figure out how to read fan speeds and for that we just needed to dump it.
Pretty sure no one can tell you how to modify it, it was never done before on a m17x...

 

Well I'm going to be making a nice change to my system. Going to be putting in a HDD optical drive caddy. So my specs should be

Black Alienware M17X R2 | 940-XM | X-Fire ATI 5870 | Intel 160GB X-25M RAID 0 | 1TB Storage | N 6300 | 4GB 1333 HyperX | RGB LED | Blu-ray Burner (External) | Win 7 Ult

I also haven't decided if I'm going to swap the 8GB 1333MHz Ram with my 4GB 1333MHz Hyper X RAM.

I ordered the caddy, external optical drive enclosure, and a slot loading bezel to make my burner external. Should be a plenty fast system with lots of storage and power