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

Hello all,
Long time reader here
Anyways, for a long time I was using no swap on my R1 and 8GB of RAM. Good times.
Recently I got into flipping large video files and had to enable some.

Question being: will R1 use 16GB?

 

Any of you running windows 10 had issues with the speakers? After the upgrade I noticed the headphone jacks were working but no audio from internal speakers. Since the new UI on this forum I cant for the life of me find the "search in this thread" option to look through the 100 pages of m17x lounge... been searching for over an hour now and getting frustrated... please help me out!

 

After a while i'm back on the 17" club XD,

Purchased 3 days ago at a local store, spec on sign. Installed win7 ultimate, I'm having some OC fun the gtx970m, repasted with gelid compound, flashed Prema modded Vbios, OC @ 1350 core / 5766 ram, here is some interesting result, and temps are really good



These are my Nvinspector settings:



And a firestrike run

 

Welcome back @CptXabaras!

Awesome scores man, that 970M is truly impressive. I think you're making a lot of people depressed here though cos this is the M17x R1/R2 owners thread The newer generation 17 owners lounge is just below this thread.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Dooh! Sorry guys.. Can a moderator move the post?

 

My eyes when I saw that score....

LoL..

 

Good morning gents:

Am owner of an M17 R2 since ~6 months ago. Am very happy with it (except for a few minor issues, but those I do not want to inquire about today).

I have the below system specs, and am considering upgrading my processor to sth more powerful (e.g. i7-4790 @ 3.6 GHz).

My questions:

1.) Is this technically feasible?
2.) If yes, is there a recommended place where to purchase the new processor (to ensure compatibility with my laptop model)?

Thanks for any insight!


Christian


===== technical specs below =====


Alienware M17 R2
Processor: Intel Core i7-4710 @ 2.5 GHz
RAM: 16 GB
OS: W7 Professional 64
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M

 

it may see the ram in bios but the system won't use that much ram

 

wondering if anyone can send me the link for the latest M17x R1 unlocked bios. need them for my system as I'm trying to drop an MSI geforce 570m in my system. thanks

 

wrong forum but great system I would drop a 4910xm in it personally

 

Hey all, a most impressive amount of data here at this forum. I have a R2 I7-840 with dual 5870's. I just ordered a graphics amplifier without a card and I don't have the tech. skills and knowledge like you folks to take these things apart and mess with them so I went the easy route. Has anyone else used one yet with a 17xR2 ? I won't get the amplifier until Jan 5. so waiting on purchasing a card...probably a 970 or something around the $400 range.


Will this work ? I think I need to cancel my order since it won't work on my R2 and there's a newer R2 17 inch ???

 

Hello all....I'm looking at purchasing the Alienware graphics accelerator, it says it will work with the Mx17R2. Is there a newer R2 than mine ? I7 840 / dual ati 5870's ??? If I'm wrong I need to cancel my order apparently.....

 

the graphics amplifier is for the newer model alienwares the M17x doesn't fall into that range

 

As Masterlink mentioned above, your M17x R2 doesn't have a port for the amplifier. Only R2 and R3 (technically R6 and R7) models have those (2014-2015) .

 

I wanted to flash my bios last night from A09 to A10 on my m17xR2. I downloaded the bios from dell drivers & download and extracted it. Then, I executed the executable inside it that had a similar name to the driver, since it had a self-extracting archive icon.

This was not a self-extracting archive, it was the utility to flash the bios from within windows. It started without asking me to accept or click anything, and I didn't want to close it since it had alrealy begun to write blocks. So I let it through, let it reboot my computer, and now my computer won't POST anymore.

The laptop still make the same HDD drives noises as usual, and the fan works as usual. Same for the LED's. However, there is no display. If I boot with a HDMI cable plugged in, I see it freeze at the bios screen on the secondary screen. It stays like that for a bit, then shut down (sometimes after a minute, sometimes after 5-10 minutes).

I tried to "blind flash" the bios. Since I'm on windows 8.1 on my other computer, I couldn't use WINCRIS. So, I made the drive a bootable dos drive through rufus, and put the bios on the root (tried several times, named the bios files a tons of differents filenames according to what I found on the internet), unplugged power cable, did a power drain, put the USB in the esata port, press fn+b, put power cable in, hold power for 3 sec then release power while holding Fn+B. No sign of activity. Sadly, my usb drive doesn't have any LED showing activity, but the computer did the exact same routine as usual and displayed only the alienware head with F2 and F12 on the secondary screen.

I also tried the same routine with Win+B, Fn+R, Win+R, Fn+F, Win+F, DEL and END keys.
I also tried to flash the drive with WINCRIS under windows xp sp3 compatibility modes (which I put on every other executables provided with WINCRIS.EXE in order to get it to boot) and it seemed to format my USB properly. Re-tried all of the above with no luck.

Tonight, I'll try to reset my CMOS, after getting the required tools on my way home.
Any other ideas? What's the proper procedure for blind flashing the m17xR2?

 

Update : No luck with CMOS reset either, still suffering from same symptoms...

 

has anyone installed a radeon 5730m in one of these? I got one from an old m15x it works but never heard of them working in a 17

 

hay guys im new here i have a M17x r1 and im in the process of gettin every thing to swap a r2 MB in it i unfortunately bought a MB without the cpu heatsink spreder in the back of the MB dose anyone know if the r1 will fit or where can i get the r2 spreder ....thanks

 

I would think the r1 bracket would be ok the heatsink itself is different but the bracket i believe is same hole pattern

 

thank u my MB came in the other day and it has the x plate (the place i bought it from sayed it would not come with it) so im pretty excited about that thanks for the help

 

only thing you may need to do is mod the middle plate that holds keyboard in i'm not sure if all the holes will line up with the r2 mobo for bolt down. it really isn't too hard tho

 

yah i bought a r2 mid plate i thank all i need now is the sound card and i buyin 16 gigs of ram and a 250 gig ssd ... im thinking of puting the build on youtube i cant find a video of this swap

 

and i still hasnt figered out what vid card to get what u thank would be the best and i goin to get a i7 940 i kinda want to max it out

 

I would go with a radeon 7970m.. personally I'm dropping a 920xm in my wifes m15x and i ordered an r9 290x for it but that card may not work in the m17x hence i suggest the 7970m you may have to override the fan tho

 

ok how u do that

 

oh it isn't too bad just need to make sure it has dell vbios so it will show up in system

 

Guys my R2 battery seems to be dead after about 6 years of service. It is not detected from the system and no lights show up on the battery when I press the button on the battery. Do you know if and where I can find a replacement battery? I tried many sites and it is out of stock. I am lost.

Thank you

 

For Windows 10 Pro x64
open regedit.exe
find 2 files at 0000 and 0001 KMD_ENABLEBRIGHTNESSINTERFACE2 from 1 to 0.
Find 2 files at the above folders and put EnableUlps from 1 to 0.
Now the brihtness control is working for Alienware m17x R2 !!!!!!

 

Run regedit.exe
Find 2 files at 0000 and 0001 KMD_ENABLEBRIGHTNESSINTERFACE2 modify them and change from 1 to 0.
Find 2 files at the above folders and put EnableUlps modify them and change from 1 to 0.
Now the brihtness control is working for Alienware m17x R2 !!!!

 

The R2 batteries are getting rare as are the M15X 9 cells.

There are some on Amazon, but the cheapest is not cheap:

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Alienwar...&ie=UTF8&qid=1464539141&sr=1-9&keywords=f310j

You can set an alert on parts-people with the link below so you get notified if they ever get them back in stock. Sometime they may get one or two in stock. You can also set an alert on e-bay for new listings that pop up with "M17X R2 Battery" in the title.

https://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=item&id=15548

 

Does anyone know if they ever figured out how to get at least a GTX 780M to work with the internal display?

 

Anyone figure out a fix for bluetooth on windows 10 yet?

Or the coprocessor driver?

has anyone else's left usb only stopped working?

m17x R1

can i use one stick of 8gb ram at 1333?

 

Did you guys disable the intel gpu in the bios to get both gtx 260m's working together in SLI? I believe the setting is called hybrid graphics or something.
If so does this affect your cpu speed at all? That's what i did and now Chrome is spiking my cpu up to ~60%
before in device manager i had the 9400, and two gtx 260m's but one with a yellow triangle. Now i just have two fully functioning 260m's in SLI and no 9400

Can I get a new cpu without updating the bios?
I already tried and it failed. Thought I may have bricked my mobo but luckily it just broke windows somehow, beeps at start up but after post. I reinstalled windows and it was fine but now I dont want to try again after reading the horror stories of flashing that bios.

Im about to buy one 8GB ram at 1600 because I want it today and best buy has it for $35. Anything wrong with doing this? From what I understand it should just keep it down to 1333 on its own.

 

the 1600 8gb ram didnt work. it wouldnt even post with it in.

put the 1333's back in and went into bios and changed the frequency to manual and set it to 1600 and turned off and put the 1600 back in. Now it didnt post again at all and wouldnt post when i put the 1333's back in.

tried different combinations trying to get it to work and holding fn + b and unplugging the cmos battery. nothing worked until i took out my ssd and put the old hard drive back in. Then it booted up fine. Then turned it off, made sure the bios setting for ram speed was back to auto and not manual, put the ssd back in and now its back to normal.

I tried starting it up with the one 8gb and one of the original 4's as a test but didnt work right and had screen artifacts.

returning the ram now gonna have to try again with 1333

 

got two PNY 4 gb 1.5 volt 1600 rams. This computer wont even get to bios with 8gb in there. I can use 6 but somehow windows doesnt load correctly.

Just got off the phone with alienware. The tech support guy said the only next step would be to update the bios but I shouldnt do it because it fails all the time.

 

6gb doesnt work either. I can get past bios but nothing works after that. Tried running the diagnostic from f12 and it froze.

Tech support guy wasnt very experienced but he did mention at first that i needed Non-ECC ram until i told him that the bios shows 6gb when i have one 2 and one 4 in there. Maybe that will be my next try.

 

Got bluetooth working. I havent seen this fix anywhere else on the internet for bluetooth on this computer so here it is:

Bluetooth on m17x R1 Windows 10:

Download the bluetooth driver from dell, Mine is a broadcom (R226750 is the dell file)

Changed the compatibility mode to windows 7, dont know if this is necessary. Let it try to install. You'll get an error in the bottom right corner of the screen saying windows doesnt support this broadcom bluetooth driver or something like that.

Restart your computer in advanced startup options.

Select choice 7 which is to disable the driver verification.

Next, this part i read somewhere so i cannot take credit, only it didnt work until disabling the verification.

open the drivers folder, it was C:, dell, drivers, the driver (r226750) then win64 then run the BTWMM. Then when thats done run INST. I may have set compatibility mode for these two but i dont remember.

After that, the bluetooth icon appeared in the task bar and windows settings.

 

I guess no one cares about this computer anymore.

Just got a mushkin 8gb 1066

booted up fine into bios,

windows constant blue screen before logon

idk anymore

 

In my opinion it's mostly enthusiasts that frequent sites like these and most have moved on to newer models.

Even if they loved the first M17x's they most likely are running the R2 version. I'm not certain if the R1 has the same Bluetooth chipset as the R2 but I am using the driver from HP that you can find here.

With regards to your RAM issues, have you tried a power drain after the install? ie. remove laptop battery, PSU, coin cell battery and holding down the power button for around 20 seconds. I don't have know the R1 well enough to be of much help unfortunately.

Alternatively you could try booting a live OS to determine if you need to perform a clean install of Windows. There are Windows 10 live OS iso's floating about the web which would be ideal to test with.

Another option just to verify the new RAM you purchased has no issues, is to run Memtest86+ for around 10 passes to be safe.

 

Thanks, just tried the power drain. No difference.
Took out my hard drive and booted to just a windows install usb. It blue screened right from the windows setup with and without the hard drive.

memtest 86 is something ill have to look into, but the m17x is known to have ram issues.

 

My M17x R2's fans are running very loud. I re-applied thermal paste on the CPU and both GPUs but no luck regarding the noise. Also I'm concerned about the temps on my CPU, the program I am using is 'CPUID' and 'REAL TEMP' and both are showing all 4 cores of my CPU are fluctuating between 70 C and 90 C....

I noticed the left fan on my left/main GPU isn't working, could it be possible the other fans are trying to compensate for the one that is broken?

My main concern is my CPU temps being so high even after applying new thermal paste on all the heat sinks and dust busting everything.... The programs temp fluctuate so fast between 70 C and 90 C its hard to even say what the consistent temp is.

UPDATE:
Heat issue solved (I think?), I fixed the wired connection for the left fan and it's working now. Temps are consistently under 60 C now. As for the loud fans, they are running much more quiet now. I've been told loud fans when gamming is common with the m17x r2 and that higher than average core temps are common as well.

Here's a screen shot of my temps currently can someone tell me if they are good?

 

Hey, what BIOS version are you currently running?

 

A02. I tried updating. Downloaded the bios from the dell site, the one that just starts installing on it's own. It didn't go through correctly, and luckily it only broke my windows installation.

 

Hello. About a week ago I bought a broken Alienware M17x R2 on ebay with the intention of learning how to repair it, and to take it to its maximum potential. At the moment I just have the laptop, with some missing components, such as a harddrive, some keyboard keys, the media panel, and the charger. Other parts need to be replaced, such as the USB ports. The battery I assume is drained, as when I press the button on the battery itself, one light out of the five blinks. I guess I'll find out once I can order the charger.

Either way, I plan to stick around for this journey to share my experience and learn from the experience of others. Cheers.

 

Today I received a charger that I ordered online.Once I plugged it into the laptop, the alien head on the front lid started to glow. I turned the laptop on and saw this message saying "Your battery has experienced a permanent failure and needs to be replaced". I removed the battery and pressed the button on it, only to find that all of the lights blink at once, instead of just one, as before. I wonder if the battery really is messed up, or if the charger is fibbing me. Though the laptop did arrive without any juice...

The charger itself looks like an Xbox 360 power brick, and has Dell branded on the bottom, along with some "Made in China" stickers spammed all across it. I read online some suggestions to buy a 240W charger, and something about Flextronic chargers being inferior to Delta ones. I might have to buy another battery to get a better glimpse of what could be the problem.

 

Have a look at the below attached image for future reference of what the blinking lights mean. In this case, 3 blinking lights means a system board is faulty which could mean the it's the I/O board (right USB ports) or it could be the motherboard (left USB ports).

Take a picture of the PSU label and post it up here. I think the charger may be fine as long as it's one of the models supported by the laptop.

edit: Motherboard part number: 014M8C, I/O Board part number: F71XN

 

Here I have two images. One of the charger and another of the battery.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Edit: I failed to mention before that the laptop can technically power on with just the battery, but the permanent failure message still shows. It also says that the battery is low.

 

The PSU looks like a Delta 240W unit but the labels are a bit confusing. The white label says the Dell part number is 0WK890 (65W-90W) and the black label below says it's the J211H (240W). I haven't come across this particular version before so I'm not sure. Perhaps another member can comment further. Usually the 240W is smooth and flat, your PSU resembles the 330W PSU with the ridges on the surface.

 

I think the battery really is totaled. I remembered that I had a 250 GB HDD from a few years ago lying around. I put it in the laptop and installed Windows 10. At the same time as I was running some diagnostics, I was slowly charging the battery, as I would normally do with any other laptop. Once it reached 100% I unplugged the charger, and in a minute it reached to about 80% of battery life. In the next 3 or 4 minutes the laptop reached 5% of battery life and ultimately turned off because it didn't have any more power.

I placed an order for another battery. It should be here in a few days.

 

I got another battery. So far the laptop boots without showing any errors. However, I think that what I have in my hands is actually an M17x R1 and not an R2. These last few days I've been messing with it, and I found out that it has a Core 2 Duo processor, two GTX 260m cards, and an integrated Nvidia chip that I can't fully remember the name of right now. If what I've been reading is correct, then these are the specs of the R1.

Overall, it's not so bad. I played a few demos on Steam, like Batman AA, BioShock, and Resident Evil: Revelations, all of which ran well. Now I just need to further upgrade it.