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

Memory voltage should be the same 1.35V. It's an industry standard.

 

RAM voltage for the M17xR2 should be 1.5v.

Most 1333MHz RAM modules are 1.5v, some 1600MHz are 1.5v (Older)

The new modules are 1.35v - They will not work in a M17xR2, just as the 1.5v will not work in a Alienware 17 or the just released Alienware 17R2

Considering the minimal overall speed gain in overclocking RAM in a M17xR2 I really wouldn't bother using anything other than the original spec RAM which is 2 x 4GB 1333MHz 1.5Volts.

Spend your extra money on a SSD or GPU upgrade!!!

 

Can anyone help me, I'm looking for the follow part for a Alienware M17x or M17xR2.

0NKVX3 - Palmrest ribbon cable (connects palmrest assembly to the motherboard)

I can't find any on ebay and only a limited search result when I use google, so far ever seller I've contacted through google search has been out of stock, Dell stopped selling them around 6 months ago....

 

I doubt that's true, here are my memories: http://imagizer.imageshack.com/img661/5088/DILKgR.png

 

I've got about 15 alienware laptops right now, ranging from a 2009 M17x to the latest AW17R2.

If I pull any of the RAM from alienware M17x to M17xR4 and go a google search using the number on the memory module they all come back as 1.5Volts.

If I pull a RAM module from a AW17 or a AW17R2 and do a google search, they come back as 1.35v

I must point out that all of these memory module are factory issue and not aftermarket

BTW Blacky

ALIENWARE M17x R2
[email protected] | GeForce GTX 860M | 16GB DDR3 1333MHz CL8 | 17" RGB LED 1920x1200 | 180GB Intel SSD | 1 TB HDD @ 7200 rpm | Killer-N 1103 WiFi | Sound Blaster X-Fi PCIe | Windows 8.1 Pro | 15370 Vantage

How did you mange to get 16GB is a M17xR2.

Is the picture you supplied a link to for your alienware or your clevo.

 

Yes. It's from my Alienware M17x R2 .

I think I can link you from the 3dmark results to make things clearer: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/4261838

The old memories from my M17x R2 are now in my old Clevo.

 

So any old school R1 owners left.. im thinking of doing the new Win10 upgrade from Win7.. i tried Win* but driver issues were bad so i went back to Win7.. Any Suggetions? should i??

 

I'm replacing my mobo then going to windows 10. I found that i had to force modded drivers before but i have a gooked on board gpu so i have to wait for new mobo.

 

Hey Everyone,

I own an m17x r1 and have decided to repair it for my little brother. I've recently pruchased 2 5870s and a crossfire cable to replace my dead 280m SLI. I flashed them with the latest vbios and have tried running them on 8.7 - 11.10 - 14.12 drivers but I cannot get them to work in crossfire. CCC tells me that my crossfire cable is not connected or incorrectly connected. I'm almost sure that this isn't the case as I purchased it with the cards that are working 100%. They both work in either left or right slots and both show up together when installed in both slots. The only issue I am having is enabling crossfire. I also noticed that in CCC, the secondary card is always "disabled" in the hardware information screen. I'm assuming this is because crossfire isn't enabled? I've been trying every possible way or getting these guys to work, been at this for 12+ hours. I'm almost ready to just give up and sell one of the 5870s and have it running a single. Would it be worth trying to by another crossfire cable? Do you guys think that it's the cause of all this trouble? Thank you for your time,

Alim.

 

By the looks of it, the only culprit can be the crossfire cable.

 

Thanks for the reply. I've been looking for another crossfire cable with no luck. I just gave it to my little brother with the single card installed for now. Thanks again!

 

install the amd drivers from the M17x R2 off dell's site they should allow x fire to be enabled

 

As stated in my original post, I've tried that one, and all the others going right up to 14.5... No luck. I'm just going to wait for another cable to show up for sale. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

sorry I tried. I read about it on a forum recently. I myself just finished getting a barebones M17x R1 going but I only have the onboard video at the moment trying to find a cheap replacement gpu is a pain everyone on ebay wants more than they are worth

 

I've actually got a bunch of gpus on hand. A 5870 since I couldn't put it in mine, and I just pulled a pair of 280ms and SLI cable from another m17x I picked up. I'm willing to sell whatever you're interested in.

 

The 5870 would run newer games better than the 280m s and probably be alot cheaper. can you pm me and let me know how much you want for the 5870 and for the 280s?

 

Hi folks. I've been lurking on the various M17x R2 threads around here for a few months, and just wanted to say thanks so much for all the advice and help you have all put up on here.

I've been doing an update cycle on my beloved machine for several months now, and am nearly done - just two parts left to go, and maybe a mod. I absolutely couldn't have done it without everyone's help, and am loving my machine so much right now!

As of yesterday, I'm now running the M17x R2 with a 940xm CPU, and had previously put in one 7970m GPU to replace 2x5870s. I also now have 16GB RAM, and a 500GB SSD. It runs so beutifully, I have nothing but love for this machine!

Next two purchases over the coming months are a second 7970m, and a second 500GB SSD. Then I'm going to take a look at the 330W PSU mod - but I'm not over clocking (yet) so may not need it (yet), if the Ultimate Tweaking Guide is right...

Anyway, just having a massive geekout today, and wanted to give you all my most sincere thanks as a community.

 

Always a pleasure!

 

So... my power jack finally died on me. Looks like a re-soldiering job but really not looking forward to taking the laptop apart to do it. Hopefully the motherboard itself is fine.

 

Hey guys, I just installed Windows 10 on my M17x R1, and everything seems to be going well except crossfire isnt working. I have done benchmarks to confirm that only one card works (using GPUz to track GPU Utilization).

Now normally I would just go into Catalyst Control Center and enable Crossfire, but that's the problem, Catalyst Control Center cannot be run for me in Windows 10. I've tried the 13.1 Legacy CCC drivers, 13.9 for windows 8.1, and 15.7.1 for Windows 10 compatibility.

None of the installed versions work, and to make sure they are really installing, I clear the previous installation by removing the program and doing any necessary cleaning.

Here's a pic of the error message I get.



Hopefully some of you know how to sort this out, it would be a shame to watch this machine go to waste after all the work that's gone in to it.

 

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it seems the 4000 series Radeon's arent supported on Windows 10. If you look at the bright side this might be the perfect excuse to upgrade to 5870M's

Read more about it here.

Since I'm assuming this not specific to the M17X R1 you can look on other forums as well if any member managed to find a workaround for the 4000 series cards on Windows 10.

 

The first think I did when I got my M17x R2 was to get rid of the 4870M ...

 

@rolex1 try this workaround for 4000 series GPU's. Best of luck!

 

trying to get my M17x R1 to detect my Transcend Msata MSA740 ssd it won't read in the msata port or in an adapter connected to a sata port.

 

Did anyone make the OSD work on M17X R2 and windows 10? Thus does the brightness adjustment work with you? I have an ATI 8970M installed and ATI 15.7.1. Finally, even though alienware FX works I get a warning everytime (administrator blocked access or something) I open it. I did an install over windows 8.1 and maybe this is the reason some things are not working. May I need a clean install?

A list with drivers working for windows 10 and M17X R2 would be great. Especially for OSD and alienware command center because the rest seem to work fine.

 

What is OSD?

 

On screen display

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

 

Never used it. Sorry.

 

I'm having the same problem on Windows 10, kinda sad because Windows 10 seems to be a very good upgrade from Windows 7. Really appreciate if anybody found any workaround for this problem.

 

Which one of the issues do you have? Did you do an upgrade or clean install?

 

My upgrade from Windows 7 was completely broken. I had to to do the upgrade to obtain the the free activation and I tried sincerely to use the upgraded OS but too many things didn't work.

I made sure Windows 10 was activated and then did a clean install which is running well. I still occasionally have issues with Dell's original touchpad driver and certain Crossfire game profiles give me an RSOD but everything else runs really well.

If you still experience the problem with your brightness controls not working change all values for KMD_ENABLEBRIGHTNESSINTERFACE2 from 1 to zero in the registry and reboot.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Basically everything that you mentioned, plus incompatible bluetooth driver. I tried by upgrading from Windows 7, then I tried resetting the Windows 10, to get as close as possible to clean install condition, however some of the drivers remained problematic.

Nospheratu,

Did your Command Center and OSD work fine?

 

Yes, after the clean install the OSD works perfectly. Even better than it did in Windows 8.1.

The command center also works perfectly apart from showing the laptop as Nebula Red instead of Lunar Silver but thats normal on any clean installed OS and is easily fixed with a registry edit. I'll post the exact key name and value once Im back on the PC.

If however you are prompted for administrator rights every time the app starts just set the app to run as administrator under the executables compatibility tab.

I did not install all drivers from Dell as many of the drivers Microsoft provide are much newer and work without issue.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Thanks for the heads up. I thought it was windows 10 incompatibility but it seems its the upgrade then. I will try clean install later but I wanted to make sure its the upgrade causing this. I always made clean install of new OS but this time I selected upgrade because I am very busy to do this now.

By the way I still have a few questions:

1) The registry fix for bightness worked! which amd driver do you use?
2) All the exe inside alienware command center have been set to run as administrator but this message still shows up and its annoying.
3) do the touch buttons all work for you? It may be that my OSD does not work but the three on the right do not work.

 

1) That's great news . I've added this brightness registry edit to my post graphics driver install method together with enableULPS. I am currently using the 15.8 beta's.
2) I think the clean install would resolve the Command Centre issues. Clean installing an OS is a massive undertaking especially when you have a lot of history with the version you're using. In this case it's much easier than troubleshooting. I also turn UAC off so I'm not sure if thats affecting my experience.
3) Yes, Wifi, Command Center and Stealth Mode buttons work perfectly.

Overall I think this amazing old laptop made the transition to Windows 10 beautifully. There are still a few issues to be resolved but Windows 10 is still new and I'm sure those issues will be resolved in time.

The regedit instructions for changing the chassis colour in Command Center.

 

I will possibly format R2 so I will not reply for a while.

One last question. which command center & OSD version do you use?
also plz post this reg fix for alienfx reporting nebula red.

 

I use the ones on Dell's support page for the M17x R2.

The instructions are in my previous post.

 

Ok clean install completed. OSD works now. So do all the touch buttons.
However I still get this annoying message (the app has been blocked for your protection- administrator has blocked you from running this app) for command center. But I dont have this nebula red issue at all as you said. And I cannot open alienfx from taskbar. Any ideas how to fix this? Its strange that you don't get this. Maybe I could try disable UAC. how did you do this on windows 10?

What is strange is that if I try to install command center from the setup file I get this message and I cant install it. I have to install by running the R272621.exe file from Dell. But again when I try to run I get this message.

 

Finally, I do get the nebula red on command center after clean install of windows 10.But its fixed with the registry above.

Windows 10 and UAC off:

I do not get the administrator blocked you from running this app message for any of the alienware applications. So its UAC related


Windows 10 and UAC on:

I found a way to run the alienware apps without the annoying message on windows 10 (even with UAC on) by using the guide on the link below:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11949-elevated-program-shortcut-without-uac-prompt-create.html

I get the annoying UAC message (UAC at any level above the lowest) when I try to open Command center using the touch button even though it works fine after pressing ok on two messages (and one more when I exit the commandcenter). Alienfx icon on taskbar works and can use normally the options by right click on it. However, I cannot open alienFX from there. Strange!


Except the UAC annoying message, R2 is flying with windows 10. I cannot try crossfire as I have a single 8970 (4GB).

 

Alien-sense dont work on windows 10, anyone over here got it working , also if someone can share the install file

 

Yes aliensense does not even appear on command center on windows 10. Seems like we have to say goodbye to it but I would be bother more if it was another app of command center

 

Been kinda busy lately, hence still haven't get a chance to upgrade to Win10 again. However, good to know that you guys have found the workarounds to upgrade for M17x R2. Will surely try when I got the time.

But, just stumbled upon a cheap Batman: Arkham origin on steam, bought it but somehow could get it to even launch. Anybody playing this?especially on CF5870s?

 

I've been running Win10 for a while now. But I don't use any of Alienware's outdated software. Overall very happy with the machine.

 

You can get Aliensense to show up in Windows 10 if you run the setup.exe file in Windows 7 compatibility mode. Once its extracted to C:\Dell\drivers\R272621\, right click setup.exe, go to properties and then on the compatibility tab set it to run for Windows 7.

Then open an elevated command prompt and navigate to the path above and type "setup" and hit Enter. Running the setup.exe from an Administrator command prompt bypasses the certificate issue.

The command center install will begin and after you reboot you will have Aliensense available.

I haven't tested the functionality though.

 

I have my m17x r2 on Windows 7 ultimate 64bit , should I upgrade to Windows 10 pro or not? Any advice?
Performance improvements? I have no I dea how it even looks: lol.
I have my r4 on Windows 8.1 pro and I really hate that OS.

 

I think upgrade your R4 first since you already hate 8.1. Windows 10 is much better OS than 8.1. The only issue I'm having is with the 7970M Crossfire but since you're running a 970M you shouldnt have a problem apart from worrying about the screen

Is the 970M running well in the M17X R2? Any issues?

 

Have been trying to do a clean install of Windows 10 on my M17x R2 for a while now, still no success. It keeps telling me make sure the disks controller is on in the BIOS. I'm running a RAID0 setup so I don't want to change it to a AHCI, and I can't seem to "load drivers" when it gives me the option while clean installing windows 10. I tried deleting the primary and recovery partition, then creating a new one, no change. Physically taking the SSD's then putting them back in, which worked when I was clean installing Windows 7 last time, no change. I have been looking all over for some kind of way to let it install it to my partitions, but there is been very little on this subject for M17x R2's.

So I'm thinking that I will have to clean install windows 7, then upgrade to 10 through the switch over process. Have to use a USB since my optical drive is broken.

EDIT: Now getting the same error when trying to install win7.
RE-EDIT: Was able to get past the install errors by taking out one of my SSD and changing the setup to AHCI in the BIOS. Installing windows now, hope there are no problems from doing this. *fingers crossed*
RE-RE-EDIT: Windows 10 is installed on the single ssd, but I can't switch it to RAID in the BIOS. When I switch it over it does not start and gives me a disk read error upon boot.

 

But I'm afraid if it would get that display issue ? Should I just try ?
Windows 8.1 is driving me nuts, I have to power cycle twice to go to desktop each time and it's freaking me out.
I downloaded Windows 10 pro for my pc few hours ago and got it installed: so far so good.
May be il upgrade my little darling R2 now or all my aliens .
Yea that crossfire issue seems to be everywhere. I do have a HD 7990 on my desktop so it's practically two hd 7970's , did some intense benchmarks and passed with good scores like a baby. So I assume that Windows 10 has better support towards the desktop driver so again if we manage to install the desktop driver it may solve the issue.

I was running my R2 with my monitor but it was too pain to do that each day so I switched it back to gtx 580m and installed the gtx 970m in my R4.
I didn't try anyother bios than the stock one so I'm unsure if a bios flash with correct one would fix it.

I had the same issue with my desktop, I got it fixed after 20 tries lol.
It was a simple one. Il edit this message and explain to you.
First you need a pc which has "NON UEFI Windows" for me Windows 7 on my m17x r2 worked.
Then I connected my flash drive to that pc.
Opened CMD and started diskpart.
Commands that I used:
"List disk"
"Select drive 'drive no' " (enter the drive number representing your flash drive)
"Clean"
"Convert mbr"
"Create partition primary"
"Active"
"Assign"

Now your flash drive it ready, now open a fresh Windows 10 ISO using winrar or winzip and copy all files to root of your flash drive.
Now restart the lappy and boot to flash drive.
Now take on the normal installation procedure on your m17x r2.
In this way I was able to install Windows 10 without loading raid drivers. It just showed up the drives.
Please confirm after testing.
Thanks



Ops: just now I re-read my post and found many syntax errors, I'm sorry about it since it was from my dirty ipad (you cant stop the autocorrect) .

 

Thanks for the suggestion nbr2019!
I was able to successfully install windows with a different solution different from the one you provided.

First, I had still had win 10 installed on the single SSD with AHCI in the BIOS.
So I went into the BIOS and enabled the RAID option, then deleted the RAID array, and set up a new one. Then I switched the boot from the hdd to my flash drive that had the windows 10 installers.
When entering the installer I brought up the command prompt by hitting repair computer then navigating the options to find command prompt.
From there I did some work in diskpart using the clean option on the primary disk, the only one that I had. I believe this allowed windows to recognize the RAID and finally allow me to install it, maybe?
There was, however, a problem when reaching the partition selection when selecting the drives after re-entering the installer. I was unable to create a separate one for the windows OS, and the "delete" and "format" options were grayed out.
Back to diskpart to make a separate partition, only to find that it didn't show up when I created it. :/ Deleted that partition shortly after.
Re-entered the win installer and it somehow allowed me to delete and format the disk.
Deleted the disk, made a new partition for the OS, and now it is installing.

I am so happy to finally have solved this issue, after 2 days of work. Phew

Let's see if Windows 10 runs smoothly

 

Yes I was able to install the way you did but it was unsuccessful , and I won't call it a clan install.
Follow my instructions for a clean and best stable install.