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

It is just a beast of a system and deserves all the attention

 

Haha, quite true. Too bad the mobo can be put into the R2. Now that would be the perfect system.

 

The cooling is better on the M18x....all the M17x has going for it is RGB...that is it!

 

Yea, but that is a big thing To me anyhow, I also like the design of the lid on the R2 a bit more. The M18x took the same design concept from the M11x, and I don't like it quite as much. But component wise, the 18x all the way.

 

The lid of the M18x is just like the M17x.....just bigger

 

Doesn't it have the creases along the sides of the Alien? I like the clean look. I still have over a year left on my warranty, Still got plenty of time

 

Nope. The M18x is smooth. The creases are on the M11x, M17x R3, and I think M14x

 

Ahh, nice. I need to check the thing out in person. But I have too much invested in the R2 Such is the life of a nerd

 

Some day....we will get together and exchange notes haha

Then you can see a real laptop

 

Haha, sounds good.

 

Guys guys, I think we can both agree that the M18x is pretty cool. I myself wanted one but timing, funds, and availability were in sync for a r2. I am in the same boat with DR650SE, and put way to much time, moolah, and brain power towards my r2. Who knows maybe we all will cross over when the m18x r2, or r3, or hell willing the m20x . In any case those of you with a m18x hand over those video cards and 330 watt psu and nobody gets hurt. Lol.

 

Hahaha +1 .

 

Hahaha +1 .

 

Deja Vu.......

 

Yea, stupid phone went backwards, so when i looked at it didn't think it submitted.

 

Haha gotta love smart phones doing stupid things, but watch out I hear android has a hit squad for those talking smack. Did you hear that IPhone!!!!! LOL, just kidding....but seriously.

Anyway just a quickie question for the crew. I have looked it up and tried using the crappy notification app, but how do you tell if your system is in stealth mode? I want to use stealth mode to lower the watts(to the 65 watts) so I can use it with a power inverter in my car. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

***UPDATE***
So this is what I get for not reading the manual. I have figured out when it is on and so forth, but how do I find out how much power its using?

 

This is very similar to what I have:

Newegg.com - P3 Kill A Watt Electricity Load Meter and Monitor

 

What I'm looking for is how much watts does it dropped down to. I have found a crap load of info on the r1 stealth mode, but it refers to using descrete graphics. To the best of my knowledge the R2 does not have any onboard graphics, only MXM cards. Per Alienware reference material the R1 can drop down to 65 watts. I am having some trouble locating the same literature for the R2 to see what throttles down and to what. If anyone who can help thanks.

ALso since I talking about watts, what is the wattage on the ATI 6990 cards?

 

Pretty happy w ith my m17x but really need to overclock... which is actually why I joined this place lol, nice to see there's a pretty decent alienware community out there.

 

You most certainty came to the right place. This group has a wealth of knowledge about the system or can point you in the right direction for what your looking for. When I first came on to the forum, I knew intimate details, how to disassemble, and overclock all before my system was shipped. As far as overclocking look at the first post and there is a guide from batboy on how to do it. So welcome to the group and ask away.

 

The meter I posted the link to shows the power the computer is drawing. You can do comparison afterward.
Anyway, if I remember right, mine drops down to around 90W in stealth mode.
My spec.: CPU: 940 XM, dual 5870s, and 1920x1200 screen.

 

M17x-r2 The fan runs way to often and for to long even when just sitting. The browser runs really slow when fan is on. Any ideas.

 

What kind of CPU and GPU temps are you seeing? Sounds like you could be experiencing some down-clocking due to heat. Dust bunnies may be the source of the problem. You may need to partially dismantle the system for a thorough cleaning and/or repaste your CPU and GPU heat sinks.

 

Loks like tommorrow or sometime this week I'm going to do a full clean install. All games on my game drive, Win7 and Linux mint on my OS drive. Apparently doing a dual boot image didn't work out like I wanted it too. Now that I'm pretty much done benching this system, I'll be back to actually enjoying it

 

Thanks...+1

 

I dived into the same with win7 and knoppix and had to do the same on an older system, it sucks. I gather you will be doing this on your m17x, are you reinstalling from disks or using a recovery (windows recovery or alien respawn)? I wish to do the same with mine but I dont want to screw up the recovery partition.

 

M17x R2 from disks/dowloads, updates I have. Have almost everything, just gotta do it. I had an Acronis image backup of the whole disk, but linux apparently doesn't play well since I had it in a differant format. Now I need to custom do everything again.

 

That was the exact issue that I came across messing with Knoppix. Linux is great for development but as you said it does not play well with NTFS with all the ext3 and ext4 partitions and all.

I have to do the same with my system as well. I am starting to get a lot of errors coming from windows processes and I have noticed it starting to slow down a little. I have been meaning to just do a complete wipe and get rid of what ever dell installed and just install from scratch.

 

Yea, it does suck. It especially sucks since I like to have a nice backup every month or so of my OS SSD. Now with this in the picture I may just backup everything but the Mint partition with it's funky format. Which just means I need to save everything to my data drive. I'll have to reinstall Mint every time I do a re-image. Hopefully by doing that I won't be getting any errors. Just adds a lot more steps and time to the process.

Good to know I'm not the only one going through the trouble.

 

I may be wrong but look into the original Alien Respawn that came with alienware systems before dell took over. It was a polished up version of norton ghost and it allowed the backing up of multiple partitions on one drive. Of course I am presuming that your linux mint is on a partition and those partitions are set as logical drives. Hope this helps.

 

DR650SE, maybe just put the linux in a virtual machine?

 

I May. Never used a vm before.

 

If your going the VM route, I have had a lot of trouble with the Windows Virtual PC trying to run Linux based OS. Most of the time it crashes or I get the stop responding unexpectedly error.

 

Hmm, that's what I don't want to deal with, but i would like to play with a vm at some point.

 

Use VMware player, free and easy to use...very easy. All the instructions you ever need are also on vmware's site. I use VM's all day at work, nd I reccomend vmware player for what ya want. Also runs linux easy

Also, for your system image needs: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx , free, easy to use and doesnt care whats on the partitions,.

 

Buddy use VirtualBox. It's free, easy to use, and pretty solid. Check a youtube tutorial on it for 5 mins and you'll be set. It comes with some nice features. For example, you set it to full screen and it just feels like it's the only OS installed. You can assign the number of processor cores you want to it, you can share folders with the guest OS (in your case Linux Mint) and the host OS (Windows 7), and lots more. I don't work for Oracle by the way

Give it a shot. It's what I use for all my OS needs, including Windows 8!

 

My problem with Virtual Box is this >>> and pretty solid <<< I dont want pretty solid, I want rock solid for what I use VM's for.

I use 2-4 VM's each day on my system for work and would not use anything but vmare workstation, yea I know thats the pay version, if you want FREE use vmware player, rock solid, same VM engine as vmware workstation, runs almost anything. And yea, runs windows8 also...

Does everything VirtualBox does, and more and better.

 

The only reason people like VirtualBox over VMware player from what I understand is it has some of the features you only get from VMWare via paid versions. Other than that VMware player is the better product

 

VirtualBox is my pic out of the two. I was able to get it to run android on my pc to test apps when I was trying to make a dosbox port. I even saw some people trying to use it to port an x86 environment into the android as an app. Best part is its free and has source code available.

 

Well, to each his own, I wouldent use VirtualBox for my work, just not stable enough. As to VirtualBox being free, so is VMware Player, and yea player will run android, just choose the generic linux selection and away ya go.....I know it works, I have done it.

And just becaue something has source avaliable does NOT make it better. BUt like I said to each his own.

 

Guys, got a question to ask regarding M17x R2.
Do you guys always let your M17x plugged in to the electrical source, and if yes, do you guys leave the battery inside the laptop or do you take it out?

 

I leave mine plugged in but do use Fn+F2 to disable battery charging.

 

Thanks for the answer. Great suggestion, why I didn't think of that at first.
But from what I heard, the battery could be damaged by the heat from the laptop, or this theory is not applicable to M17x R2?

 

Mine is fine after 18 months.

 

Great!
Good to hear that. Thanks WaR.
+1 rep

 

No problem dude.

 

I do the same as WaR, and my battery still acts like its new.

 

Battery: As long as you don't empty the battery, the capacity should be good. For me, each time the battery go to 0% and recharged, I loose a couple of mWh and this is a permanent effect (you will not get back the original designed capacity).

 

Yup after a few battery drains and usage like ils has described above I too lose some capacity % and the wear and tear % increases.
So I try not to drain it right till the brink of death each time now.

Cheers.

 

Hi,

Sorry if i'm in the wrong forum but I own an M17x R2 and about 6 months ago there was an AlienFX theme on the internet called rainbow.ath

I have since searched and the rainbow.ath in the google search is for the M17x R3 not the R2.

Does anybody have the rainbow.ath theme for the R2?

I would be most grateful if someone can provide me with a copy.

Regards

Andy