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

Yeah he had power issues, in fact power issues were the common problem with everyone trying to run an extreme processor and 7970m gpu. Here is the site I found talking about the psu and how they are trying to get it to work with a 240/330/and dual 240 psu's http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/700280-situation-330w-psus.html. The only psu setup that fully worked was the dual 240 pus's but many complained about the steps it takes to mod it. Sorry I couldn't find the site that specifically talked about the msi cards (gotta love cache cleaning). SPOILER ALERT!!!! It gets real depressing about page 6-8, when it talks about power limitations with the m17x and the 920/40XM causing bottleneck issues.

By the way whats to going rate for a msi hd7970m mxm card? The only cards I found were at mxm-upgrade.com and it was something like $1200 for 2 cards and a xfire cable. Thanks

 

I'm from EU, and here is where i got it
AMD MSI 7970M 2GB for Alienware m17x m18x MSI 16F1 1761 16F2 upgrade monkey | eBay

It kinda looks like there is no CF connector, i dont know if there is or not, but i wont be using CF anyway
(power problems :/ )

 

I can confirm there's no CF connector on those MSI cards.

 

Great, thanks

Ok, and what issues do MSI cards have, does anyone know?
No Audio over HDMI, no fan control, both or none?

 

Hey maxslo;
Check out this link, http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/706704-7970m-performance-issues-msi-16f2-notebook.html They are discussing it with the R2 and 16F2. Hope it helps dude.

 

Hi I just recently purchased an m17x r2 on eBay something happened when I went to reflash the BIOS it froze and after 45 minutes I shut it off now I get a blackscreen all keyboard lights work alien heads light up and the occasion flash of the eyes. I have tried making a crisis disk but I made it in Vista in xp compatibility but it didn't work any help plz? Thank you

 

Does it give off a series of beeps or do the CAP/SCROLL/NUM lights flash when you turn it on? That may indicate an error in the hardware that's preventing it from POSTing. If there are none of those indicators, try plugging in a external monitor to the DP or VGA slot and turn the system on. See if anything comes up on the external display.

 

Sent from my HTC Sensation using Tapatalk 2

Same exact thing happened to me. I also purchased a used r2 off of ebay, and when i flashed the a10 bios it did the same thing you are describing. Dell replaced my mobo and a few other components (and created a plethora of other problems during the process), but it did fix the problem. Also, when i plugged hdmi into my tv all i would get is the alienware logo. A few weeks after this fiasco, my computer programmer buddy who also owned an r2 said that a blind flash would have more than likely fixed it. Im not an expert by any means, but maybe one of the more respected and knowledgeable r2 owners can chime in on whether this may help or not. I hope this helps you in some form, and i wish you the best of luck.

Ps my r2 was out of warranty for over a year, and just last night i purchased a year of coverage for only $329. Just another option if all else fails.

 

New M17x R2 (used) owner here (920xm, 5870CF)....can I use my spare M18x 330w AC adapter to power my M17x R2? I am not trying to overclock anything (or use it to draw more than the standard amounts of power), just forgot my M17x R2 adapter at work over the weekend...Will it power my sytem ok or is that not allowed?

 

It will work, but your battery will not charge and it will work in a low power mode. But you should be able to use it for general tasks.

 

Hello friends, I just bought a second hand M17x R2 from a friend. The specs are as follow

Processor: -Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-720QM Processor (1.60GHz, 6M 1B Cache)
Screen: 17.0" WUXGA 1920 x 1200 - Beyond HD (1200p) - RGB 1 LED
Memory: 8GB Dual-channel 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM (2 x 4GB)
Hard Disk: 640GB 7.2K SATA HDD RAID 0(2 X 320GB)
Display: Dual - 1GB ATI Radeon Mobility HD 4870

Is there any upgrades available for my alien?
And another thing, my warranty is expiring in 50days, should I buy the extended warranty.

My personal experience with the notebook is the colors are brilliant, where red is true red, green is true green and blue is true blue. All the pictures are with superb clarity that is almost like seeing outside a window, truly loving the RGB LED and furthermore, running StarCraft II: Heart of The Swarm in ultra mode is the best thing that ever happen to me. Loving this notebook and looking forward for upgrades to make it better...

thanks/regards
neobita

 

ok i dont mean to go off topic but i have an Alienware M17x R1 with an integrated NVIDIA GeForce 9400 and 2x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M and im trying to install the 310.90 but since nvida doesnt support my version of laptop anymore ive had to find modded INF files for my driver updates. so my question is, does anyone know where i could find the modded inf file that will make the 310.90 driver work for me? any help is GREATLY appreciated, please i need to get this working.

 

See my post here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...301-42-whql-released-22may-2.html#post9128821

 

Modded drivers

 

Man so I had a strange thing happen, my secondary GPU fan would not spin and would no report in HWINFO64. All is well now but I had to pull all pieces or power and do a reset, and re seat the fan. Has this happened to anyone before? I know if it continues I bug dell support.

 

There are many upgrades for your graphics! The R2 can be pushed really far. I believe it can run a 680m or 7970, but I'm not sure about SLI. You can definiately up the processor as well by a huge amount. Even the ram can be expanded to 16gb. You can also replace the optical drive with another hard drive if you so choose, perhaps run a solid state for the OS?

 

Hi neobita welcome to the forum and congrats on your Alienware purchase. First off I will say YES, if you can extended your warranty please do. Prices vary depending on who you talk to, but I payed $279 for two years, and had all my fans, LCD assembly, AC adapter, and mobo replaced while under warranty. Plus I was able to get new copies of my Windows recovery and driver disks because the tech said they looked warn out. Anyway enough of that.

As far as the upgrades for your system, gthirst is dead on. The R2 is a very versatile system and has way more potential then dell gave it credit. My recommendation is to upgrade things that can be transferred to another computer, RAM and HDD for example. You can even grab an express card which can give you USB 3.0 support! If you are looking to do hardcore upgrades look around the forum and at techinferno.com for some ideas. You can upgrade to an ATI HD 6990m in Xfire or a single ATI HD 7990m without modding the power supply. Finally, you can also get the modded A10 bios which will give you 5% OC and some added power/voltage options which will prevent BSOD and restarts when having power hungry hardware.

I hoped this helped and here are some links to get you started.

16GB RAM Option:
CORSAIR Model CMSO8GX3M1A1333C9 Laptop Memory - Newegg.com

USB 3.0 Express Card
ExpressCard 54 to USB 3 0 Adapter Fully Inside Laptop | eBay

Modded A10 Bios
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...r2-bios-mod-need-suggestions-future-mods.html

 

Hi i recently bought a pre dell laptop m17x-r1 im assuming it may be the area 51?

How would i check this?

I tried installing Command center and it workd for everything except the lights and touchpad bs.

I installed a older version of CC and it works for everything except the keyboard lights and there is no facial recognition on this version of CC.

Im trying to get my lights to work on the keyboard and idk why they wont can anyone maybe message me?

I read something about a keyboard osd or resource cd? Im not computer savvy guys..

 

Hry HellToHeaven;
Try going here : Alienware Product Support for Systems before 2009
This site has driver downloads and tutorials for how to dismantle your system to software install.

 

Took off the keyboard realized it wasnt a LED compatible keyboard although the motherboard can run it so i orderd one off ebay ill let you guys know if i have any more trouble!

 

I am thinking about having the 680m on SLi or 7970m on CF. About the processor, will the 940xm be a more powerful upgrade then the 920xm or whether its just the same? I am also looking to take out my optical drive to put in a 1tb hard drive. Can you suggest any good caddy...

about the warranty, I was quoted at $290 for 2 years, I'm still thinking about it though....as the amount is a bit high for my blood, the lease I could do for my notebook is get the 1 year warranty right?

I saw in amazon, the memory is at 61% discounted price,
Amazon.com: Corsair 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 SODIMM Memory Kit (CMSO16GX3M2A1333C9): Computers & Accessories is this the same memory module? Do we need the head spreader for memory?

If I caddy in a 1TB hard drive in the optical slot, and decided to go external for my Optical Drive, can I utilize this USB 3.0 technology on it? is there any peripherals I would need to put my Optical Drive in? Sorry, this is a new technology for me.

Will this Bios helps the PSU to generate enough power for 2 680m on SLi or 2 HD 7970m on CF?

thank you fellow forrumers for having the time to read my posts,

cheers...

 

Hello Peepz...I'm being offered a M17x-R1 with QX9300 4870x2 4gb 160gb alongwith a 9400m chipset. The owner said the 4870 bsods and could be a heat up problem. He says it will be fixed with a thermal paste upgrade. Is this model prone to problems? What are common problems regarding R1? I'm based in Pakistan, so parts is always a problem. Kindly advice. Regards

P.S : I already own the M11x R1 ,which with the Integrated chipset keeps it running eventhough the 335m is long gone. Is the M17's 9400m the same or does it heatup too?

 

Don't do it. Why would you want to inherit someone else's problem? Especially when you don't have parts and service readily available in your country.

 

If you are going to buy it make sure the owner does the thermal paste fix and wait for a month at least to take it off his hands . But as mentioned above I would look into buying a different laptop . Another problem with 4870's is the fact catalsyt 13.1 is the last offical driver for them so if a game doesn't perform too well then you might have to upgrade to a 5870m and at that rate you would be better off buying a different laptop . I would look into buying an R2 second hand because they are more upgrade friendly in terms of GPU .

 

guys,

i recently got a 17x r4, and waiting on a new 1080p lid assembly.

how do you do over clocking in the bios? i am not sure what cpu i got i think its the base model when it was configured. i7 3860qm or something.

i see voltages and frequencies in the bios (for ram and cpu) but not sure how this works or what the repercussions are..

cheers.

 

Neobita:
As for an ODD HDD caddy, I have used this in 2 M17x
This for the Blu Ray/DVD Drive

I'm sure the USB 3.0 Express Card linked above works, but I bought a StarTech one at NewEgg. USB 3.0 didn't seem to be the big jump it was made out to be, but the extra USB ports were nice.

For the Ram, the one linked above would work. It's 204 pin DDR3, good to go.

The warranty I would say is very much worth it. If it seems expensive, just extend for a year for now and evaluate later. If something goes wrong with the unit, you are likely to get replaced with something newer since the R2 is out of production.

For the 680m SLI and 7970m CFX set ups, I believe there is a lot of complications. You are probably better off running them as single card set ups, unless you are ready to do a lot of time and research on the subject.

For the processor, I can't state the 920vs940 differences. I just don't have personal experience with the two. I'm sure some R2 owners can chime in, and I would be interested to hear since I plan on doing an R1 to R2 conversion in a little bit of time.

 

I have M17x R2.
I am playing Bioshock Infinite but cannot get the game to play in Crossfire mode. Only one video card is loaded and the other one is not. I have tried mobility driver, desktop driver, with profiles, without profiles, and no success. I have tried all drivers released this year from AMD (including beta ones).
I have googled the web and it seems this game support Crossfire but my machine will not do it. Can someone advice?

Edit: Got it fixed. Went in Catalyst Control Center, 3D Application Settings, and reset everything to default.

 

Hi guys,

Its been a while since I last visited these forums, mainly I now have 2 daughters and I get no gaming time :SLEEP:

Without reading up through each of the threads, I have the original M17x R2 (quad core cpu) 8gb ram, 5870 cross fire, etc

Should I sell this laptop.... I see that some people are placing 16gb ram into thier R2's, changing graphics, etc

My question is how? Is this supported by an official bios from Dell, and how much can I push the R2 if I wanted to upgrade thanks?

 

I have a single 280m GTX in my R1. Can anyone confirm a latest, stable version driver that doesn't hurt FPS performance in orange box engine games? CSS, DOD:S, and TF2? Red Orchestra 2 and Mechwarrior: Online are my main games.

LaptopVideo2Go: NVIDIA & Laptop News

 

You can upgrade to maximum specs:
I7 940XM (Officially supported)
16GB ram (Officially supported max 8GB) !!!Will show up as 0MB in BIOS, but it works fine.
7970M or 680M depending on your budget and preference (Not officially supported and so will have to control fan speed with HWInfo) You already have maxed officially supported Graphic card setup.

Also you didn't say your HD setup, but if you haven't you can throw an SSD in it for a speed boost

Hope this clears the question

 

Thanks for the response!

Already have an SSD in the laptop, just wondering on the graphics, is this a single card setup or a dual card configuration?

Anything special that needs to be done other than open laptop and install?

 

It's single card, the 240W adapter is not enough to run crossfire 7970.

Not that i'd know of, haven't done the upgrade yet. but there is a thread here about upgrading it.

 

Here are two upgrade threads:

M17x R2 with 680m

M17x R2 with 7970m

 

To the people that got the first wave of 7970M cards off ebay, did you ever get your HDMI or Displayport working for the M17X R2?

 

What drivers are you running? Or are you just planning to upgrade?

 

Driver Packaging Version 9.012-121219a-151587C-ATI
Catalyst Version 13.1
Provider Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
2D Driver Version 8.01.01.1278
2D Driver File Path /REGISTRY/MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Control/CLASS/{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}/0002
Direct3D Version 9.14.10.0945
OpenGL Version 6.14.10.12002
Catalyst Control Center Version 2012.1219.1521.27485

I bought my card last summer off that ebay seller everyone was buying from. Never got HDMI or Display Port to work though. Is there a specific VBIOS I need to flash?

 

Here, take a look at this thread.

 

View attachment 051313-17986-01.txt Guys im having random 0x124 code bsods attached the dmp file from minidumps folder just renamed it to .txt so it will upload can anyone check whats causing this

 

go with q9100 or qx9300 for my r1?

 

Hello, quick question here;

Max GPU upgrade for R1 is only CF 5870, right?

 

Can I get the part number for the fan under the second 280m GTX in the R1? That would be right-hand side of the palm rest.

 

As of today, yes, that's the best confirmed card.
Others work too but only with an external screen.

Sure here you go, read this post:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-m17x-r2-gpu-fan-replacement.html#post9027122

 

Thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!

*Edit: that says for R2. Is it the same for R1? I have an R1.

 

No problem
I know i answered your question already but i'm putting the answer here for everybody:
Yes, the fans are the same for the M17x and M17x R2.

 

Ok. So I'm new to the owning of an alienware m17x r1. As I'm a semi cheap/poor highschool kid, and the guy on craigslist was selling it for $400 I jumped on it. Just last week I updated my nvidia driver for my 260m to 314.07 and since then My gpu over heats and after only 10 minutes of gaming. It seems very popular to redo the thermal paste and clean out the fans. I feel I may have more problems than just that though. Right now with no games running just being online, my gpu's temp is at 66 degrees celcius. Is this reasonable for just a fan and thermal paste issue, or can I expect to deal with more than just those problems?

 

I suspect either your fan isn't running (download Gpu-Z) or that driver is wacked. Did you download a hacked inf file or just straight from the nvidia website? Because the current stock drivers do NOT support the 260m. My computer hits 66 C MAYBE if I'm gaming. Idle should be between 38-44 C.

 

I definitely hear the fan running, but it does not sound impressive. I also have had this problem for the last 6 months regardless of what driver I was using. I downloaded it from nvidia and took care of that myself. I'm sure that it needs a good cleaning inside, I'm just worried about doing it. I can follow instructions, and am good at not breaking things, but I usually work with more mechanical items rather than technology.

 

Once it hits 50C the fan should be screaming. If it's not, and you would know if it was, then something's wrong with the fan or it is being impeded by dust bunnies.You don't have to take apart much to access the GPU fan. Just take the keyboard and the top of the palm wrest off and take a toothbrush and brush the fan if you can reach them or just use a air can to spray the stuff clean. Make sure the vents are clear, the heat sinks don't have gunk on them, and yeah, it wouldn't hurt to apply some aftermarket thermal paste after wiping the chip clean with some rubbing alcohol.

 

Ok, well my GPU fan starts trying to talk to me in a hushed voice once it hits 70C. I'm picking up some thermal compound tonight, and will get to dismantling the computer then

 

Don't forget to get some rubbing/isopropyl alcohol for cleaning the old thermal paste off as hankaaron57 has mentioned. You can use lint free ear-buds with the alcohol to clean it. Your local pharmacy should stock both items.

Good luck! :thumbsup: