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

I know, right? That's why I was asking if it exists in first place you know, asking is a good thing, you can learn a lot from it. for example, I learned bout 3.0 USB express card possibility from DR650SE (+ 1 rep for that buddy)

 

Solutions exist, just in the bulkier form of that Hauppauge device (which is pretty nice....). It sounds like you are looking for an ExpressCard solution which I am pretty sure does NOT exist

 

talkin on expresscard, what can we possibly mount in there except for usb 3.0? it also drains battery right?

 

You can put a SSD in it.

 

also found out on ebay you can get a 12in1 card reader for expresscard

 

I just ignore mine.....good place for a tv tuner though

Hauppauge makes a nice expresscard one. Would keep a remote in there if my HP expresscard remote worked on the M17x

 

I've got an expresscard tv/fm radio tuner made by Avermedia that I purchased with an M1730. It works OK. I've not tried it with an XBOX 360, but I don't know why it wouldn't work. For that matter, I also don't know why I would want to try it.

 

I was not recommending regular TV tuners because the quality on them is considerably less than the hdmi that he was looking for. There are many options if Composite/S-Video input and quality are ok for you

 

This is what I have and it works fine with my M17xR2 (no additional driver installed):
HP Mobile Remote Control for Pavilion Series | HP® Official Store

 

Huh, that's neat. I'll have to try my wife's HP remote from her dead Pavilion dv6449us notebook. I have an expresscard remote from my old M1730 and it does not work with my M17x R2, so it's interesting that the HP remote does. I think hers is exactly like the one in the link you provided.

I do have two Media Center remote controls (large handhelds) that work excellent with my AW, but they are just too bulky to take on the road when I travel... which is frequent.

 

I have a remote but I am now thinking it may just be plain dead haha

 

The remotes do work, you just need another driver on your M17X

it is This one, install and all your remotes will work

NB: first uninstall current CIR driver

 

If you are referring to the expresscard remote that came with the M1730, than you can make it work with the M17xR2. The file that you will need is: ITE IT8512 CIR Receiver (file name: R196531.exe).
Drivers and Downloads
All I had to do was install that driver and reboot (no need to modify anything). But be warned though: this file will allow the expresscard remote that came with the M1730 to work but the big Media Remote Center will not work anymore. To reverse the effect, I opened device manager and uninstall the infrared device with the: Delete the driver software for this device option checked and reboot to put the infrared receiver (and driver) back to it's previous condition.

 

Thanks, guys. +1 Rep to both of you.

So, ithe European Dell XPS CIR driver is a different version than the US driver for the M17x R2. Psyloid, you mentioned all remotes would work, but ils seems to have a different experience. I'm not sure I want the Media Center remotes to stop working because they work on 5 of my computers including the AW. They're a lot nicer than the M1730 remote.

I'll give this a whirl and see what happens. If they all work, great. If not, I'll roll back to the prior version and see if the HP notebook remote works along side the Media Center remotes.

 

I was told all remotes would work with that driver, i only use my old M1730 remote, so I could not tell. I was told that the M17x CIR driver does not support remotes and that u have to use the XPS driver i listed

 

This is what I have:
DELL Remote Control for Dell XPS M1730 Laptop - Windows Vista Home Premium Ready for Dell Studio XPS 8000 / Alienware Area-51 Desktops / XPS M1730 / Alienware M15x/ M17x Laptops : Laptop Accessories: Webcams, Keyboards, Mouse & More | Dell
And this is the slim one:
DELL Travel ExpressCard Remote Control, IR, Customer Installed : TV & Home Entertainment | Dell Canada
The full size remote works fine with the default Windows installed driver (along with the HP expresscard remote). The Dell Travel ExpressCard remote only work when the driver I previously posted is installed but the Dell full size remote and HP expresscard remote will not.
I, personally, use the HP expresscard remote (kept in the expresscard slot) when travel and use the full size when home.

 

I plan to do the HP expresscard remote (and occasionally full sized ones) which should all use the same driver (often the windows default) according to my experience with various other computers.

I just need to get a new remote since my current HP one is dead (verified with desktop)

 

i am personally using the Dell™ Travel Remote M'08 remote control which fits the express card



Dell? Travel Remote Information - KB Article - 320010 | Dell

the only thing you need to make it work with M17X R2 remote driver is this reg file (install this before or after driver installation).

Multiupload.com - upload your files to multiple file hosting sites!

 

LOL, I did the same thing. I got my R2 in the mail and I was shipped the wrong A/C adapter, missing webcam, and my plastic lcd panel was not fastened. Good luck I hope they get everything fixed.

 

I still at some point need to call dell because the clip on my keyboard LED ribbon broke. I need to call but have been too lazy the last few months. I'm thinking I might do so in a week. I know whats going to happen though. They are going to say "Oh you need a new keyboard" at which I will reply with ignorance, "Oh! Ok! Sure send the tech out!" Then the tech will get here and say "Ahh you need a new motherboard, your clip is broken, how'd it break?" Me: I don't know, it was sent to the depot a while back so it may have happened then, I'm not too good with computers, but I love gaming!" Then I will be out of a computer for about 2 weeks. Should be fun

 

Oh course that is whats going to happen...wink....wink. If they do need to give you a new mobo they should be able to do that from your house. They thought that I needed a new mobo when I had the A/C adapter issue. The Tech had a new mobo and A/C adapter for me. But good luck to you and your machine.

 

ahh yess.... i love playing the dumb consumer... hehehehe

little do they know we have 'em just where we want em! Muahahahahaha ...lol

 

The sad part is, I would say 99% of the time, an average Alienware user can diagnose and discover the problem to there machine. Just the problem is Dell/Alienware holds the warranty cards and threaten us with money. So we play the game in hopes that they make the repairs right the first time. All with a smile on our face.

 

hey guys, i got here Alienware 1 Yr Limited Warranty, In-Home service after remote diagnosis, this means they are goin to send a tech to me where I live? Wonder if they'll send a tech to burlington VT (praying nothing's goin to happen with my machine though ) and yea it arrives tomorrow morning... *excited*

p.s. do any of ya know why is it called "limited" ?

 

Yup, thats how I feel. Send the Mobo and let me do the work. I'm in hopes though that if I send the system they may replace my heatsink too as it has some slight bends in it. At least one of my heatsinks. My other is in good condition

 

Yeah that basically sums it up. They use alien contact to diagnose your computer then send out a tech usually 1-2 days later. Limited is usually covers everything but owner repairs and modifications and it only covers hardware and not software.

By the way congrats on your new system.

 

Hope they do to, just make sure that you point that out to the tech when he pops the case open. Once he sees the part he should call the tech service and schedule the parts and repair.

 

@captain008
Thx mate
was just curious... I have to spend this summer in Georgia (country, not the state) and it'll be like + 40 degrees Celcius there (which is retarded hot)
do you guys think i need some custom cooling system for r2 not to heat up a lot? or should i just see when my system arrives its normal temps on gaming/benching?

 

LOL, it get retarded hot in Georgia State as well. Very sticky and nasty heat.

 

Hi, My name is ... , I have a degree in IT, I work on computers every day, I own an alienware, but actually i'm not too good at it, but I love gaming .... muhahaha. what broke? the motherwhat? whatever man, just fix it

 

Oh yeah that sounds hot, I was in the Horn of Africa and it was 45 degrees C in the shade during the summer. I brought my old Alienware M9700 and it held up pretty well and did not get above 90 degrees without external cooling.

My current R2 usually coasts round 50-60 degrees during gaming and about 40-50 degrees at idle and normal operation. This is all without external cooling.

This may seem weird to but make sure that if you do decide to get a cooling mat or fan, get one were the fan pulls air away from the system. There are some that push air towards the system and basically negate what your R2's fans are suppose to do.

 

ummm... the fans under the r2 suck in air... so you'd want a cooler that blows air.... to feed the fans more fresh air...

 

so what is the feeling with the new bios that is unlocked? Are we going to get GPU ids for 6970s you think? Now isn't it only a BIOS issue of contention?

 

I had assumed that they blew out, thats what my older system did. So I did an experiment, and tested the fans. Here is the strange thing, the GPU fans are blowing out and the center CPU fans are sucking in. Is this the same as other R2s?

 

so which one of you should i trust? does it have to SUCK IN or BLOW OUT? In all fairness, sounds nasty...

 

The fans under R2 (GPU/CPU) suck air in and blow it out the back of laptop (which goes through heatsink pipes) (GPU left & right CPU in the middle) So get a cooler that blows in the bottom of the laptop increases the airflow.

 

does any1 got link to such a cooler? im getting totally confused on this end

 

all this sucking and blowing talk... LOLLLLL

Get your minds out of the gutter people!

But yes it *takes in* air from the bottom of the laptop, and *sends out* air out the back... so you want a laptop cooler that blows air

I have the Targus Chillmat and it works great...the r2 covers the whole thing and then some so i dont even see it LOL.

 

I tried the other driver and none of my remotes would work any more. I went back to my original M17x R2 IR driver and the two large remotes work again, but neither the HP nor the XPS expresscard remotes will work. I know their batteries are good, because pressing buttons causes the USB IR receiver light to flash on another computer I have. Neither of the expresscard remotes will work on the other computers that the full sized remotes work with.

I also had difficulty getting the M17x R2 drivers to install after switching to the older driver. I finally had to extract the files and browse to them from the Properties page in Device Manager instead of running the setup.exe file. It was very strange.

I have the exact same Dell XPS full sized remote as what was posted in the link and a Microsoft full sized remote. I purchased the Dell unit with the XPS M1730 that my M17x R2 replaced. The Microsoft remote came with an ATI eHome Wonder TV tuner for WindowsXP Media Center Edition and I've owned it for about 6 years, maybe longer. Both of the full sized remotes work with the Dell drivers posted for the M17x R2. Maybe I will try removing all of the drivers and use the default Windows 7 driver and see how that goes. It would be nice to have the HP expresscard remote work along with the full sized units, but if I have to choose between the full sized and expresscard versions, I'll stick with the full sized models.

 

@ Mr.Fox : Weird, my dell Xpress remote worked just fine after that driver

@Le0- : Get a logitech Lapdesk N700 It Blows air, increasing cooling, is big enough, sturdy, comfortable and has "good" speakers (better than the m17x' anyway)

 

I forgot to mention: All experiences I posted were used with the M17xR2 built in IR receiver (I see that you posted the USB IR receiver was on another computer). I don't know why it wouldn't work in your case. I can only guess that it may have something to do with other software conflict. Sorry I don't have a solution.
On the side note (this has nothing to do with this topic): I used 'Driver Sweeper' to clean ATI drivers and it took some part of the OS but related to ATI with them. This prevented me from installing Windows 7 SP1. Thought I just throw it out there. There are some people on the net pointing to 'Driver Sweeper' as the culprit. I had to restore my computer using the image I made a few months ago (with Acronis) and reinstall my stuff.

 

I ditched SP1 as it broke my concurrent RDP patch, it places a new termsrv.dll which cannot be patched yet, so no SP1 for me so far, and a warning to others who use patched termsrv.dll files

 

Whats the termsrv.dll patch that your talking about and what use would it be? I take it I don't need it since I don't know about it, but still just curious.

 

SP1 does not work on any of my computers.....it has been abandoned by me as well.

 

Hmm, makes me glad I havn't installed it yet.

 

It causes my M11x to straight up crash. It will bsod on boot every time, safe mode or normal. Does not work until I repair windows with installation disk at which point a system restore is carried out.

Just does not install on the desktop, says that installation failed.

 

Wow, note to self, enter bios, shut down wifi, modify update settings. Havn't used the M11x in a week.

 

Same thing happened to me it just wouldn't install. If you get a error code go to help and you'll be pointed to download another 300Mb hotfix ( KB947821) that will allow SP1 to be downloaded and installed.
Now i have it installed and no problems.

 

@Psyloid
do you use that thing yourself? )

 

Here is the NZXT Cryo LX(great cooler and matches the m17x perfectly) and Notepal U3(good & cheap cooler)

cheers