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

Thanks, Now I need to decide, do I sand the silver (gotta keep my black for warranty) Or do I get another set for painting? Silver I bet is pretty hawt!

 

If you like silver I would get one more set they're cheap, I paid for mine 160$ a few months ago :/

But my advice is to wait for the silver lids to arrive and see their condition, grade B doesn't mean much, it can be a visible huge scratch (and you wished you painted those) or a tiny hidden one.

 

Very true. Defaintely eager to see them when they get here. I'm always itching to change the notebook and tinker and upgrade it. I need to just spend more time enjoying that dang thing lol

 

I fully understand you, I have a bunch of games that I wanted to play but always something else that catches my attention.

 

No that is the crappy part, no BSOD or any dump files. I have been reading were people are experiencing over heating so I started running RealTemp to see what the CPU temps are during the night time. For some reason the CPU reaches 75 degrees C at around 315AM. I have not seen what is causing that.

Dude that sucks, I hope they are at least new parts (although GPU's are probably gonna be refurbed). Are you a heavy gamer? or have high loads on your system?

 

That you do, 1TB drive, ATI 6990 cards, and external Blue Ray, I think your system is definitely showing what they "can" do with a little ingenuity and patience, so keep up the great work.

 

Thanks. The blu-ray writer initially came with the system. Took it out for the 1TB and put it in an external enclosure. Works out great since I don't use it too often.

After a paint job, if I don't just keep it straight silver, I'm not sure what else I want to do. The paint should take up some decent time if I decide to go for it. Plan is to sand, then wet sand. The it'll be ready for paint and clear coat. I may even wax it like a car Though than my wife may drop it Which is a good reason I have a notebook lock securing it to my desk and accidental coverage on it.

Not sure what else I can do to upgrade my system. Guess maybe 7000 Series cards when they become available if they system can support it.

Don't think there is much else I can do to upgrade my system

In the mean time I'm enjoying some BF3 on Ultra settins/no AA. Havn't had much chance to mess with settings since everytime I try to do it ingame (multiplayer) it freezes.

 

HAHA I said blue-ray instead of blu-ray, darn spell check. ATI 7xxx, now that would be awesome, can you imagine.... .Anyway, BF3 is doing the same to me, but I to am trying to play it at Ultra when knowing I have no business there, buts its fun.

 

So I finally called Dell/Alienware about the random restarts. After two hours of the tech remotely troubleshooting and running diagnostics, his conclusion was the video driver. Apparently because I was using the ATI driver from ATI (most recent for BF3), that was the reason my system was restarting, and that I should only use dell drivers. Now he also found an error with my HDD cable (I tried not to laugh), and I was told to reseat the HDD. He dismissed the possibility of a bad mobo, when I suggested it, when I saw the error. So yeah.....whiskey..........tango..........foxtrot! Really two hours for that, oh well. Now I play the waiting game and see if the system wigs out again.

 

I hope I'm not late to the party but I found the information for the 330w PSU. The part number is XM3C3 and it runs about $200. Now here is the question, is this the one we need to fully run the 6xxx ATI cards on the R2?

 

No. Sadly there is a recognition problem. It has already been experimented with.

 

Dang I knew that was too easy oh well.

 

ARRRRRGGGG!!!!! Man these random restarts are really starting to tick me off. Instead of earlier just getting a restart with no message or error, no I am getting the BSOD. The two errors I have seen are USB_POWER_FAIL, and IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. The USB error occurred when I was loading (or at least trying to), Firefox, and the other was just random. Man, so much for being just a driver thing with Dell. I guess I'm gonna have to call dell back and see whats up. Does anyone know what is going on?

 

So my new (preowned) M17xR2 arrived today...

Was I excited? YES!

Am I pleased with it? 110%!!!

Seriously, this thing is a beast! I thought my M11x had really good build quality but this is phenomenal! Not only does it feel like it could take a hit from a truck, I think that I may go blind a bit earlier than my time because of that screen. I loaded up a colourful wallpaper and I actually had to squint. I've got a 920XM on the way and just dropped a SSD in, which I'm installing Windows on at the moment.

Sorry for going on but I just had to express my joy for this machine. Also, this is sort of a hello to my fellow M17x owners as I'll be spending alot of time around these forums now. I can tell countless hours will be spent tweaking and bringing the max potential out of this beauty of a laptop!

 

Welcome to M17x world Rypac!
Glad that you enjoy your machine, I am totally satisfied with mine too.

 

Thanks hidz7, I appreciate the warm welcome.

The only game I've had a chance to fire up so far is Crysis 2, and it looks like it will be the last until I repaste the GPUs tomorrow

I has HWiNFO64 monitoring my temps ingame, just to see what they were like and was horrified that after 1 minutes of play time, they had maxed out at 110 C and 101 C. Obviously this poor baby has never felt any thermal paste loving since it was first (poorly?) applied by Dell! So tomorrow it will receive some long overdue TLC with a syringe of MX-4.

I'm hoping the drop in temps is dramatic, as I was a little shocked to see such high values after a short amount of play time.

Any little tips and tricks you guys have for repasting? I've got a fair idea of what to do but I thought that your collective experience would help out greatly. Thanks guys

 

Rypac, I think your problem can be easily solved just by repasting, as I also had experienced the same overheating problem when using stock thermal paste.

Before applying new thermal paste, my GPU1 hit 105C even playing for a few minutes, but then I applied IC Diamond 7 to both GPUs, and now they never go over 75C, which is a very remarkable result.

 

Sweet! Thanks hidz, you've greatly restored my confidence.

I'm installing all my games at the moment. Now I can't wait to repaste and see the difference that it makes... but I better save it for the morning when I'm more alert with a coffee under my belt

 

Rypac, congrats on your R2 purchase and welcome to the forum. I too love this machine, it preforms beyond expectations and its easy to work on. A thermal repaste is all you probably need and a fan cleaning. I also purchased an outlet laptop, it came in great condition, but my temps did get a little high (by my standards) to about 85-90 degrees. I did need to clean and vacuum the heat sinks and fans and that did the trick. But if cleaning and thermal paste isn't enough there are a couple of mods that have worked for others. Check out http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ll-internal-cooling-mod-huge-improvement.html , there are mods to modify the GPU heat sink and the less drastic thermal pad mod. I hope it helps and hope to see you again.

 

You will love the R2

Gratz on the upgrade!

 

Thanks captians! I repasted today and temps have dropped by alot. The thermal pads I ordered haven't arrived yet so I couldn't replace the stock ones. I'm waiting for the new thermal pads and my 920XM to arrive to do it again and see if I can bring them down even more.

There was so much dust caught up inside the fans and all the little nooks in between but it is spick and span inside there now. The whole process was pretty easy thanks to some good instructions that I've found on these forums but the hardest part by far was taking off the strip of plastic with the alien head power button on it, just above the keyboard. I ended up using about 5 guitar picks to pry and hold it open!

 

Good deal man I'm glad that it worked out for you.

Thats great dude, its funny you mentioned that, I have been using 7 string guitar picks "thickies" to do electronic diss-assembly for years. So much safer that a metal screw driver.

 

Yeah, 3x Dunlop Tortex 1mm/1.18mm picks did the trick for me. Good to know that great guitar picks also make half decent laptop tools. If only I didn't lose them so often...

 

Just posting because I'm bored.

I recently swapped my R2 to a Silver Chasis and I think I love this laptop even more. I was thinking about painting the silver chasis, and I still might, if I find the right color. Might even anodize it.

At this point I'm all out of upgrade options. I suppose I could upgrade to a bigger or newer SSD, but I don't see much point. Actually my 160GB SSD OS/Apps drive still has plenty of room, my Gaming SSD Drive is full, maybe 2 gigs left on it. But since I never save anything other than game installs on that drive, I'm not to concerned about it being over filled.

I guess my next upgrade would be to just sell it for an M18x which I'm not going to do. 19x12 RGB is too purty. Sandy Bridge would be nice, but the 940XM is plenty for me. Just rambling on my thoughts

 

^^^this. Might have trouble letting go of my M17xR2. Will have to just find a way to buy an M18x (R2 hopefully) and have two Alienware laptops. lol.

 

I totally agree with you guys about the RGB screen. Everytime I turn it on, seeing those colours and that resolution make me really happy. The extreme reds hurt my eyes a little bit if I'm not prepared for it though...

I installed my 920XM yesterday and it is a beast!
I'm using ThrottleStop to lock the multipliers but am a bit scared to overclock it in the BIOS yet... I'm not use to so much power! :O

 

Yea, I definatly love the red. Love how bright it can be.

I was thinking about buying a 3TB external HDD for backups. Just leave it on my desk. Man what a terrible time for this idea. I should have done it before the flood. Looks like I'll see if prices at Best Buy have increased.

3TB Seagate Berracuda is over $400 on newegg! Thats for a desktop internal which I would put in an enclosure to replace a 500GB I have. The Best Buy across the street from me has a 3TB Western Digital My Book USB3.0/2.0 for $139. Looks like the price hike hasn't hit them yet. I might go this weekend and get one.

 

I am looking ways to upgrade my R2 (with keeping my warranty). I already have a 750gb 7200 WD Black and will be getting a SSD soon (im eying the Kingston HyperX SSD). I also have 8gb of 1333 RAM already. I am also thinking about swapping my 4870s for GTX 285Ms (provided that Dell/AW sells them to me) also. Any other suggestions?

 

You've pretty much covered it all I think.

Have you upgraded the wireless card yet? I've found the stock wireless card is pretty rubbish so I'm pretty keen on picking up a Bigfoot Killer 1103 Wireless-N card. It looks pretty good and I've heard some great reports about its performance.

 

I'm with you guys on the 1200p RGB screen on the R2. It's awesome. The M18x is phenomenal beast with a very good display, but every time I look at the screen on my R2, I wish there was one just like it on the M18x. Even though my R2 has the 4870 CFX, I still absolutely love it. They're both killer systems and I wouldn't want to part with either of them.

 

I havent but I have been thinking about it.

Damn, a rep told me that they cant sell me a pair of GX 285s >.>

 

Damn. I'm sure you could find a pair elsewhere.

How would the performance be with the 285s? Would it be worth just upgrading to a pair of 6970 or 6990s instead? Or even just waiting for the 7000 series next year?

 

FYI 285m SLI perform quite well. Dell are having trouble getting 285m SLI for warranty repairs so doubt they will sell them. Also someone here said they can't get them anymore so only refurb parts going around and during my repairs I got 5870m Xfire.

 

Im waiting for 20.000 gpu score (vantage) on hd 7990m
Im sure, it will work on our r2´s!!
Im in Love with my rgb-led ;-) Dont care if the colours are not 100% natural

 

Well it's black friday and I'm working. I would have been out looking for large capacity hard drives, but since the flooding in Thailand has thrown a wrench in that plan, I'm at work.

Now I'm just wondering since console ports seem to be the way PC gaming is going, especially since game makers are focusing on consoles, I'm curious as to how long an R2 with XM and 6990s will be good for gaming. My guess is a few years. I suppose it all depends on what hardware the new generation of consoles has in it.

Any guesses?

Also wondering if 7000 Series GPUs will work in the system. I want them to work, but think that since they are moving to 28nm tech, it's highly possible that the bios won't support it. I don't know how that would affect things, as I have no experience in that department.

 

That's sad, but don't worry we don't have any black friday here either
I would've loved to get a my hands on some of those deals, especially another 24" Ultrasharp, they cut 100$ on it

As for consoles, is the coding that matters not the hardware. That's why even strong CPUs have a hard time running emulated crappy Wii games.

Anyways have a great day at work
Cheers

 

Yea tha makes sense with the coding. Wish they'd spend more time on it.

As for black fridays, theres some decent deals. Especially if your willing to wait out in the cold for hours prior to a store opening. I've done it on occassion, but not this year.

 

So is anyone getting anything for Cyber Monday to spruce up there M17x systems? Newegg has a DDR3 1333MHz 204pin 8GB Patriot RAM kit for $19.99.

Anyone get any sweet deals on Black Friday?

 

lol, I just watched a youtube video where the reviewer said that they couldn't see a visual difference between the M18x LCD screen and M17XR2 RGB LED. In fact he said the M18x screen looked BETTER due to the larger screen.

At 1080p wouldn't the pixels be more stretched or does it have the same pixel density of the 1920x1200. I thought the max rez is the same as # of pixels physically in the screen.

 

^ Yea, that guy is just plain crazy. ^



Anyhow here is what I've been thinking today. Maybe somone can talk me out of it.

Thinking of selling my R2, but keeping lots of the internals that I upgraded it with. Buying an X7200 R2, with just a screen, mobo and i7 990X and dual PSUs. I already have the HDDs, optical bay caddy, Killer wifi, Clevo 6990s, GPU heatsinks. RAM.

I like the idea of having 4HDDs. One SSD for OS/Apps, One SSD for Gaming, 1TB HDD for storage, and 1TB HDD for image backups Power of a desktop 990X, dual GPUs. Things I'd be losing out on through, would be RGB and 16:10 Doubt I do it, but been thinking about it a lot lately. That CPU power would be insane

 

Heh, i was thinking the same thing a couple of months ago.
What made me change my mind?
-The R2's screen!!
-The fact that i can build a desktop for much cheaper.
-AAAnd just look at the damn ugly thing!!

 

The power would be nice, but I dunno about everything else. I have been considering the same laptop (but from OriginPC instead) but for me it boils down to the look/rgb screen and the on site warranty service instead of mailing in your laptop. Otherwise, sounds nice as far as power goes.

 

I know, it is ugly, and RGB is damn sexy. If only the M17x R2 had i7 990x capabilities. I sent babyhemi (LPC-Digital) an email asking if it was even possible to buy the bare bones system I wanted. 4HDD and 990X would be crazy sick.

I sent the email really because I was curious what the net cost would be once I sold my R2 and R2 parts I have. Not really into spending more money at the moment. Figured since I already had the neccessary hardware to make my dream system (albiet in an ugly case) a possibility, wouldn't hurt to ask some questions.

99% I'll be keeping the R2 though. but, but, but, 4HDDs, 6cores and 12 threads... aggg, Guess we'll see what 18x R2 looks like.

18X R1 to me sounds like a bust with all the issues surrounding AMD. If AW made a 4HDD capable system I'd be on it. I always wanted a Sager, until I found the M17x R1, than the R2 came out a few weeks after getting my R1 so I sent it back and reordered an R2. Served me well thus far. Especially on the benching front. Now it's time to just enjoy it. Not like it lacks power for anything I do lol (thanks Unclewebb)

Right now I want a large external for backups images, but due to the flooding in Thailand, that through a wrench in the plans as HDD prices have gone through the roof!

Thanks for talking some sense in to me + rep

 

I had to work black Friday as well, if you count night shift. I really did not see anything that was worth the head ache of door busting or line waiting that I really did not need or wanted for that matter.

Dr650se, I agree with you on the whole gaming thing with consoles. I have noticed a recent decline in graphics engineering with companies (EA in particular) that are still using DX9 libraries to build there games. And to make it worse for us they are building games for XBOX and PSX then just porting it to work on PC. The only exception to this would be Dues Ex and that game, in my option, sucked. I have also found that game companies are building games to match all platforms, console, PC, and even mobile so all can play together, for example World of Warcraft. Anyway....enough of the biatching.

Anyway, I too would love to see what the M18x R2 would be as well. I too plan on keeping my R2 for a while, getting ready to buy 2 year warranty, and I think the next purchase would be on that realm unless the m17x R4 drops from space.

 

I know, i know so tempting when you want it and don't have it

A colleague has the X7200, after spending some time with it i felt the opposite:
"heck i can live with two HDD slots, less CPU power etc.. ".

If i was richer and never had an Alienware i would've bought it, i love its cooling too.

What HDD are you looking for? Large 3.5" ones, how much are they for you guys at the moment?
I bought two WD 2Tb for a decent price the same day i saw the threads on NBR about the prices going crazy due to the floods. I had to dig though, everybody changed the numbers as soon as they heard about this misfortune.

+1 for staying with us

 

lol. I saw a 3TB Western Digital Mybook for $139. When I decided to get it I checked the pricing online at bestbuy and in that few days it went to $179. So a few days later I stopped in at Best Buy near my house and it went up again to $249.

The 1TB in my sig I bought for $122 shipped. Now its $229. + $7.28 S&H
My Order

Price Now of my 1TB

All because of this...
Pics of WD Factory in Thailand

Just looking for a good backup solution. Moar space = moar better! lol There is somone here sellign a 3TB Seagate for $215, which I could stick in an enclosure. Have to think about that one. Maybe I'll just wait 6 months and use the 2.5" externals I've been using until then.

 

Yeah, stick with the smaller 2.5" for now, i think it's better imho or browse the forums, you can still find good deals.

Lol that's the same scorpio blue i put in my M17x, i remember paying around the same amount you did, but now i can't even touch them and have a clear conscience.

 

As someone who owns both a M17-R2 and a 7280, I can tell you the power of the 7280 makes the m17-R2 look like a pocket calculator (ok maby I exagerated a bit, but you get my point). Yea the RGB is nice, but TBH I can put them side by side and there isnt THAT great a difference, to me anyway. The 990X + 24GB memory + 4 HD's more than makes up for any screen loss. I can run 4 or 5 VM's without swapping to disk, period.

Was the 7280 worth it, hell yes, especially for what I do. Oh, I think the 7280 looks better than the M17-R2, honestly, it looks more professional than all the glowy lights, but I use my 7280 for work and play also.

Now granted, there both (the M17-R2 and the 7280) great systems and I am not dissing the m17-R2. Different people are gonna prefer what they prefer for their own reasons. Right now, my wife has the m17-R2 (yea she games also) and she loves it.

 

wwoods, thanks for the input.

Here is what I was quoted,

I could remove the optical drive and add an optical drive hdd bay in the barebones, but I have one already. So the barebones+990X would probably cost me around $2,429 plus tax. Don't think I'd be able to sell my R2 to make up enough of the cost. I'd have to sell one GPU, which would bring it down to around $2,050 or so.

Arggh. The down side would be I would have to off load my R2 stuff before ordering or the wife would do some bodily harm.

Be a much easier decision if I were able to see both systems side by side to have a look with my own eyes. Pluse I do like the keyboard lights as it helps in the dark.

I have a couple of X7200 heatsinks, and those things are sweet. All huge copper. Looks like the system would have some great cooling. How many RAM Dimms does the system have? 4 I'm guessing.

 

Honestly, if youre gonna make that kinda move, wait for the next gen of the 7280's to come out. When that happens you will be able to get a origional 7280 quite a bit cheaper. Thats what I would do.