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

Yea, I might keep it just for benching, though all my benches were done on the 8GB RAM which has done well for me. I might have to redo some benches for HWBot with Hyper X if it makes a small differance.

On another note, I just recieved my 40GB Intel X-25V warranty replacement from intel. So now I can move my benching drive to that again. The last one died from benching lol.

 

If you are near a microcenter you might want to look into their 64GB SF-1222 Drive for $99. I got a pair in Raid 0 on my desktop now haha

 

Hmmm going to do that!

 

As you may know there are 2 different sets of firmwares out for the SF drives, these drives have the "slower" one but they are still fast. Only a couple companies have access to the faster version (OCZ and OWC and maybe one or two more)

The MicroCenter drives are essentially rebadged Adata S599's

 

How do they compare to the Intel X25-M? Probably a lot faster than the X25-V I use for benching, and may yield better PCMark scores. Too bad 4K is crippled on this system

 

Has anyone successfully transfered a HDD image to SSD? I'm wondering because I don't want to have to go through the headache of reinstalling and customizing everything. I know a fresh install is best, I adocate it all the time, but just wonderin. I want this only if I can get the alignment right.

Reason I ask is because I'm removing my bluray burner to add a 1TB drive, so I can have 160GB Intel SSDs in RAID 0, and a 1TB storage drive, with an external Blu-ray burner.

 

Nah man, I think you are out of luck. I don't see how you could guarantee alignment.

 

I might just try it and check, and then if that fails, then just start with a fresh install, after a secure erase. Man so much customizing to do, maybe it won't be so difficult, but at least a few hours to do though.

 

Got plans for the Blue-ray? Because I don't have one

 

lol Actually I do, making it an external burner. Ordered everything today. Including the optical drive HDD caddy.

Slot Loading Optical Drive Bezel Panasonic/Mata - MRC-0089 - Mac Recycling

enclosure

USB External Enclosure For SATA Laptop DVD Drive Burner - eBay (item 110511352514 end time Nov-19-10 08:07:41 PST)

Figured I'd take the last step into the ultimate M17x config. Mostly stays on my desk anyway since I have the M11x. Thing will rivel most desktop systems.

 

I move images between ssd and hdd all the time, never had an issue and performance is always satisfactory.

As for the performance relative to an Intel SSD, I have just the comparison for you . As I mentioned these have the "slower" of the firmwares thus the poor 4k performance. In the M17x R2 though it should not make a difference as you noted. This post shows the numbers from the 40GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD I had a while back (for all of like 1 week lol) which had the "faster" firmware on it.

 

Meh.. That intel needs to be RAID 0! I'll re run the tests when I get my system set in RAID 0. Plus you have an R2, I have a crippled R2

Here is a quick bench I ran when I had the RAID 0 together.

 

All of those tests were actually done with my desktop. And I thought about getting a second 80GB to Raid 0 - I decided against it due to the lack of Raid TRIM. The sandforce drives have their own garbage collection though and I got those 2 for a little more than a 2nd Intel 80GB would have been

 

Hmm, I'm trying to max my space and speed. Though the lack of TRIM in RAID is depressing. I wonder if that will ever come, or if I may have an issue with it down the road, and if so, how far down the road.

 

For some reason my touch strip in the upper right hand has stopped working, I have rebooted, and still no go. The icons are lit up....ideas ?

Just a follow up, just finished with AW support, had me re-install OSD, power off, power drain, that dident fix it. AW will be on site next week to replace the touch bar.

 

I have always heard your performance will be hit on the SSD if you try to image it - clean installs are the way to go

I did this on my desk top (used ghost initially) and the performance was MUCH better on the fresh install

 

My initial install for laptop and desktop was on the ssd but I have moved the image back and forth several times and not seen any performance degradation. I use Acronis to move the image around.

 

And I should add that I do not have a "slow" firmware at all! Ran some tests on the individual drives last night and it is quite a performer!

 

Check this thread
M17x R2 SSD speed issue - Investigation and Discussion


Scook, those numbers look good for a single drive! I'm excited for my caddy to get here so I can set up the RAID 0 and have some faster times, not to mention I can install all my games and not have to worry about space

 

The next first time owner of a M17x R2 needs your advice on upgrading the video setup. I have a "scratch & dent" in the system to buy but it only has a single HD 5870 in it. I was told I can buy another video card for about $350. I want to get the second card for the upgrade but have read that some of you have had problems getting them to work. What would be my best path forward on upgrading the laptop to dual Crosfire 5870s and what all would I need to order in addition to the bare new card? I also noticed that the description of the vid card on Dell did not include "crosssfire". I thought all ATI Radeon HD 5870s were crossfire enabled?

The laptop I have coming is a I7 720, 4MB ram, 250GB hard drive, 1900X1200 screen (are all of these size screens the RGB type?), ATI 5870, BluRay player and with one year of in home care warranty.

 

Raid will not really boost 4k speeds since stripes will be too big but everything else should benefit.

 

upgrading to crossfire is tricky due to availability of parts. The process it self is very simple but the parts needed are a SLAVE 5870, crossfire cable, heatsink and fan. You install all the parts and update the VBIOS on both cards and load up the latest drivers. Not all 1200p screens are RGB and usually outlet will state if it is


17 inch UltraSharp WUXGA (1920x1200) LCD Display (NON RGB)

17 inch UltraSharp WUXGA (1920x1200) RGB LED Display (RGB)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-r2-upgrade-single-5870-crossfire-5870-a.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ne-sell-crossfire-5870-heatsink-included.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/532583-hello-crossfire-diy-questions.html#post6886851

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/528249-upgrade-4870s-5870s.html

 

Received my proper (and final) replacement today after a month in production and decided to do the gpu retention mod. Check out the gpu revision: http://img59.imageshack.us/i/imagesop.jpg

 

Oh no, no pics lol... What happened to your other one Joker? Sorry, I'm crazy late to the game this time.

 

They kept sending me systems with the wrong specs.

 

Yea, thats what I found when I had RAID 0 set up the first time. But at least other things will benefit, including load times hopefully. We'll see. Are there any other similiar drives that are faster, with the same capacity of the 160GB Intels, and maybe in the same price range? Though I doubt I would need more speed

 

160 is an odd size, 120 and 200 are more common though. OCZ comes to mind, they have the biggest selection I think. So you just want to drop the intel?

 

so ive finally got my 8gb of ram, bought a pair of kreton 1333mhz rams off some guy.

the problem im having now is that everytime i reboot my computer, the caps lock led blinks and the scrool and num lock leds stay on and the computer refuses to boot. i know thats a signal that the ram is faulty but...

1) it only happens when i get into windows and reboot(warm boot). on cold boots the computer boots normally with no issues.

2) ive used the dell diagnostics memory tests and other ram test programs and they all seem to say my ram is fine. no random bsods, crashes or any issues at all. i also used ramdisk to make a disk out of the ram and ran hard drive tests on it and no issues found

3) ive reseated the ram twice and they seem to be properly placed

on the dell site it says 1) reseat ram 2) replace ram 3) replace system board

so does this mean the system board is faulty? funny that it only occurs on warm boots. any other form of diagnostics that i can perform to confirm which is the problem?

 

How long did you run the tests for? I usually like to leave memtest for new ram overnight.

 

Not really, I just get hooked on upgrades, and I doubt I'd benefit from more speed. Intels in RAID would be plenty fast for anyone. Although 400GB RAID SSD would be nice But the crippled 4Ks is depressing me when I see benches on other systems.

 

i left the prime 95 on for a few hours, the rest i just ran through the test once(dell diagnostics and windows memory diagnostic tool extended tests)

 

Ya the lowered 4k speeds are depressing indeed. Sort of how I feel about the FSB overclocking (or lack there of past 1333) in my R1.

 

Hmm.. 240GB for $419 after rebate. COuld make some good RAID drives...
OCZ Vertex 2

 

That would be some insane speed without the terrible storage capacity due to $/GB associated with SSD. Then again, if you told someone you had ~$850 worth of SSD, well, I don't know. You got the 3rd HDD caddy installed yet?

 

Not yet, should be in this week. As wel as the stuff to move the burner to an external enclosure. Plus thats about what I spent on the Intels since I got them from Babyhemi a while back.

 

I'd wait 3 more weeks till G3 pricing is announced.

 

Thank you faiz23!!!

 

Good call!

On another note, though this girl sounds to be reading from a script and has an M17x (maybe) for email and web browsing, I love her voice or accent Nice attempt at advertizing i guess

width='640' height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JLL6lf7Kj5Y?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JLL6lf7Kj5Y?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='640' height="385"></embed></object>

 

My M17x R2 arrived yesterday. I bought this through Dell Outlet for $1478 which included the one year Complete Care warranty upgrade. The only problem I have is Dell shipped the wrong power supply with the laptop. I talked with support and they are shipping me the correct power supply with two day delivery.

Quantity Item Number Description Unit Price

1 CD91C Base,Notebook,Black,Configure To Order,Alienware,M17X10 $1477.64
1 K972H Module,Adapter,Alternating Current,240W,Delta - Ac Adapt World Wide $0.01
1 7X54D Module,Information,Audio,M15X $0.01
1 Y2FYM Module,Software,W7HP64,Digital Video Disk Drive,Multi-Language,Alienware $0.01
1 7W4TT Module,Processor,Clarksfield,I7-720QM,1.6,M17X $0.01
1 G040H Module,Dual In-line Memory Module,4GB,1333MHZ,DDR3,2X2G $0.01
1 H604T Module,Hard Drive,250G,7.2K,SGT-HOLL,Across Line Of Business $0.01
1 R0N0R Module,Dvd+/-Rw And Bd-Rom,Hitachi Lg Data Storage,BARE,Alienware $0.01
1 NRTT8 Module,Card,Graphics,5870,Parker,Mid-Life Kicker $0.01
1 MVF7Y Module,Card,Network,DW1520,Alienware,United States $0.01
1 6FY1X Module,Accessory,Alienware,M17X10,England/english,Dao/bcc $0.01
1 8P085 Module,Cord,Power,110V,3W\3P,Asia Pacific,United States $0.01
1 GFWWN Module,Shipping Material,Pack,M17X10 $0.01
1 VW0X1 Module,Keyboard,Alienware,101,ENG-US,Personal Computer $0.01
1 N329P Module,Information,Artwork NAME-PLT,Generic,M17X $0.01
1 NT799 Module,Information,Alienware,AUTO-UPDATES,ON $0.01
1 HYT0K Module,Bracket,HDD,FOAMKIT,M17X $0.01
1 JY598 Module,Information,Software, Alienware,ALIENFX,Red $0.01
1 CTX0X MODULE,INFORMATION,WIRELESS, BLUETOOTH,370 $0.01
1 P811N MODULE,INFORMATION,DIRECTSHIP,FLEXTRONICS $0.01
1 5FJ8M Module,Label,Intel,Notebook,CI7 $0.01
1 5V3DW Module,Media,Resource Dvd,Alienware,M17X10 $0.01
1 W871N Module,Software,WINDOWS-LIVE Consumer $0.01
1 P395P Module,Software,CYBERLINK Powerdvd,8.0,Alienware $0.01
1 CP1VF Module,Software,W7HP64 Consumer Desktop,English Dao/bcc $0.01
1 Y540P Module,Software,Alienware CYBERLINK,YOUCAM $0.01
1 XM544 Module,Software,PC-RESTORE Transactional Line Of Business $0.01
1 D9KVP Module,Software,Quick Fix Engineering,W7HB32,Consumer Notebook $0.01
1 6RDR6 Service Install Module,Software,Alienware,M17X10 $0.01
1 D0W4H Module,Software,Alienware,COMMANDCNTR,M17X10 $0.01
1 P398P Module,Software,NERO,9 Alienware $0.01
1 MW24N Module,Liquid Crystal Display,17WUXGA,Samsung,M17X10 $0.01
1 2J4FR Module,Software,Certificate Of Authenticity,W7HP64,Alienware $0.01
1 DNF92 Module,Information,CHASSIS,Black,M17X $0.01
1 V3C5M Module,Card,Network,370,Foxconn,Alienware,Dell Americas Organization $0.01
1 T013C Module,Software,Works,9 English $0.01
1 T780J Module,Battery,Primary,85WHR 9C,Dynapack International Technology Corp $0.01
1 421-1719 Soft Contracts Consumer Accidental Damage Agreement for Alienware $0.00
1 421-1721 Soft Contracts Service Hardware Agreement for Alienware $0.00
1 908-2207 Dell Hardware Limited Warranty, Initial Year
1 922-3410 Dell Limited Hardware Warranty Plus In-Home Service After Remote Diagnosis, Initial Year
1 950-3337 1 Year Limited Warranty
1 950-9797 No Warranty, Year 2 and 3
1 960-9187 Accidental Damage Service, 1 Year
1 994-3730 Warranty Support, Initial Year
1 3E476 Information,Equipment $0.00
1 11725 Warranty Longer of 90 Days or Remainder of System Warranty/ Svc Contract. 21 Day Return. Parts may be Reconditioned. $0.00
1 375-6061 Thank you, Dell Outlet $0.00

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I already have two 4gb sticks of memory and an OCZ Agility 2 240GB SSD in my old laptop to upgrade with. I hope to get the second ATI 5870 card soon also. Thanks to all of you that post in this forum. Do you think that after going to Crossfire 5870 GPUs, the I7-720QM CPU will bottle neck the system?

 

Just got my new R2 up and running today! Anyone advise me on what is the best virus and malware software to use for protection I mean lol?

 

Avast is popular and free

 

Microsoft security essentials is a good antivirus. For malware I use malwarebytes

 

I use MSSE and malwarebytes - they're both good.

If you don't have a firewall for the PC, agnitum ( Outpost Security from Agnitum: Firewall | Internet Security | AntiVirus | Network Security) just released a free version of their security suite. I'd be using it but it doesn't integrate with the non-free firewall and I've already got that installed.

 

out of all the computers i've repaired for people, i've never seen one yet that the virus the computer had wasn't the fault of the USER.
don't download stuff from shady places, and pay for your software and you're unlikely to ever get a virus or malware.

 

I use McAfee, but thats because when I ordered my R1, I paid for a three year subscription, then I returned my R1 and got a refund, but the McAfee subscription wasn't canceled so I use it on my R2 now

 

I have been in IT for 19 years now. There is no better product out there than Webroot Spysweeper and Antivirus. I guarantee you will never have another spyware or virus issue ever again. It is about 30 bucks a year and uses the enterprise Sophos for virus protection.

Microsoft Security Essentials is horrible. Avast is terrible. Malwarebytes is the best free software, but still not that great. Do yourself a favor and pay 30 bucks and get Webroot. Yes, it is that good.

Oh and as a follow up. Mcafee is not bad, but man does it slow down your machine. Norton seems to have gotten a little better over the years, but still Webroot.

 

True about McAfee, but then again, it was essentially free for me. Plus I'll stop it if I need the CPU for other tasks. I'll have to look into Webroot when my McAfee expires. Good words of wisdom jpowell490, +rep

 

If you want to chat up antivirus apps, head over here -
http://forum.notebookreview.com/security-anti-virus-software/
http://forum.notebookreview.com/security-anti-virus-software/190538-best-free-security-software.html

For Desktops, here:
www.desktopreview.com

Posts in the owners lounge must be directly related to the M17x. Thanks.

 

Fair enough, sorry BatBoy

 

no worries - hey, intense discussions happen from time to time on NBR

So, I have to ask - how is the Orion messenger bag holding up for those that use it with their 17x? I noticed a hole in the side of my bag - lol. Have no idea how it got there. Other than that, the bag is still holding up well.