*OFFICIAL* Alienware M17x R3/R4 Owner's Lounge Thread

Thanks for the advice its now idle on about 63c , going to try a game see how it goes

 

so i just done a test one formula one 2013 with the graphic setting maxed out
and avegare temp 72c and max 78c
happy days all sorted
thanks everyone for the advice

 

HaHa, a real Doh! moment . That CPU looks totally clogged! I found just in my home I need to blow them out around every 3 months. They move a lot of air so it's always going to happen....

Let us know how it goes

 

Nice pics, did you ever cleaned them before? xD
I would search for money or gold there, everything could be in the cooling i see.

Happy gaming!

 

Guys, I have a problem.

My alienware m17x r4 was sent to technical service. The idiots there have replaced my hard drive and now I don't have my recovery partition, they also replaced my mainboard and now I also don't have my embedded windows 8 product key in my mainboard. What can I do to run my beast optimally. I tried uefi windows 8 installation but it gives an error that it cannot find the media... While my laptop is starting I see a windows logo where I should see the iconic alien head. Do you guys have any idea to restore my laptop to its original state?

Morons have also replaced my screen too. But HDMI in slot and the alienware writing does not work. Any ideas?

BTW I had made a recovery with alienrespawn, it took 3 dvds, and its file format is udf. However, I cannot seem to install it with alienrespawn. How do I do it ?

 

its all go now been playing f1 2013 full graphics and it does go above 76c
now with all this i revert back to the original amd driver that came with the pc cause i tought it was the pc problem
what is the latest driver and cat for the 6990M do you know a link?

 

Ehehe Nice OWEN u keep ur gamin rig in ktchen? lol

Mine looked the same way after I bought mine from one non-tech guy(never opened virign hyhy ) CPU in games was doing 100C whitch hit me to be suspect -->good thermal paste is must be as well as original one was long gone...

 

Naw I just happened to assemble it there since there was plenty of room. The 750d is bigger than it looks!!

 

After a clean install my new vector ssd and cleaning the fans
im very proud of my 2yr old R3 :thumbsup:

 

Glad you got it all back up and working.

 

Hello,
have a m17x r3(6970m, (system shipped with windows 7; I purchased and installed windows 8.1 pro) and the other day when I turned on my laptop, I noticed my resolution was not 1920x1200 but far less even though it shows 1920x1200 under screen resolution.

Now my PC turns on but the screen stays off. It comes on randomly after pressing the alienhead power button over and over after forcing it off and on.

I called dell tech support(under warranty) and was told that since I installed windows 8 (I also purchased office with 1 license so I do not want to reformat the PC back to windows 7).

Am I out of luck?

 

Hi, as far as support from Dell goes you are out of luck. They are very good in my experience but they do stick to some rules. You can pull the machine apart and replace things but for support it must be put back on the original hardware and OS.

I suggest you just try reseating the video card (and you get to clean it out!). Often this is enough to correct a flaky card connection. After that you would either need to invest some time in trying to get to the bottom of the issue OR just call dell and ask then to assist in a factory restore back to original. If all works then you have a starting point to try win 8 again, or they find they need to replace parts and do it.

You should be able to reuse the Office license as it's on the same hardware but that is a guess with the way MS operates it's licensing these days

Good luck.

 

Thank you for the reply. I guess it time to switch the to evil side (apple). They have pretty displays.lol.

On a serious note, it is a shame that when ever Microsoft releases a new os, if we decide to spend our own money and upgrade our system, we won't get any support from dell/HP/Asus...

I really enjoyed my m17x r3, but no way I am going to give dell $3000.

Thank you very much for the reply.

 

Good luck fixing it, might be problem with drivers, who knows. Try checking all cables etc and see what might help fix it. Reseating might be a good idea.

Check your drivers, even try booting in only dGPU mode vs iGPU see if that helps, that might suggest drivers issues. Especially if resolution does't seem quite right at times, it might be going into safe mode.

Btw max resoltuion is 1080 not 1200.

The support might be the last resort, a shame they don't want to support new OS, but I don't blame them since it can be the cause of some issues for people as well. Might be worth making a system image and going back to windows 7 see if that helps. That might point to driver/software issue.

 

I've been having some driver issues with 8.1 as well. Comes with the territory of installing an unsupported OS.

 

Yes...I should have typed 1920x1080 (I wish it was 1920x1200).

I may create a image..back it up.
Install or attempt to windows 7 ( I can power it on after pushing the alienhead many times, but whenever I reboot it....no screen).
If I create a image within windows 8.1, would I be able to keep all my software that I purchased with only 1 license? As in office, acrobat professional?
Or would I have to purchase a new license for each one?

And then after installing 7 and getting alienware to fix it, would I be able to install and activate windows 8.1 again on the same hard drive(ssd 256gb dell Samsung).

Thank you for everyone's help!

 

Can offer some help with your questions.

You should already have an image of the original installation on a hidden partition so you can use that to get win 7 reinstalled as dell would want for support. The option will be in Respawn. It does sound like a hardware problem may have arisen but driver conflicts with win 8.1 could just as easily be the cause.

You will not have to purchase any new licenses. Just getting them to authenticate may not always be easy. Depends on MS/adobe and how difficult they make it. For the MS products you should be just fine as the hardware is not changing and that is what MS use when re-registering a product. Even if it refuses to authenticate due to some mismatch you can still call MS and they will ask a few questions and issue you with a new licence number generated from the new hardware ID. I have done this BUT it was a nightmare to find a number in MS I could talk to without giving them a credit card number .

The licence is for YOU to use one copy of the software on any machine of your choice. The only exception I know to this is OEM installed Windows. This is sold to a specific machine and is non-transferable. If you purchased 8.1 retail then you can transfer it to any machine.

To try to stop pirating they now 'fingerprint' machines when you register. On the plus side to this is that often after a reinstall the software just authenticates without the need for any action on your part


Good luck

 

If you disable the intergrated graphics you should be able to boot into windows 8.1 just fine. I totally forgot that hybrid graphics are broke with windows 8.1 on the r3 and you end up with either the black screen your discribing, or a white one. Either way the fix is to get the a12 bios and disable intergrated. From there you should be just fine. Sorry I forgot!!! been to busy screwing with desktop stuff lately and my r3 is just powered off and sitting on my desk.

 

Thank you everyone.
I ended up reinstalling windows 7 and everything works.
I will just keep with 7 since my warranty is still valid.
I will never purchase another dell product again because the service is just non existent. They were suppose to call me back, never did.
I also just packed up the laser printer I purchased to send back to dell.
Again thank you to everyone who has responded.

 

Hello guys, My m17x r4 has some lighting issues. The front Alienware writing does not light up. When I turn my notebook on, it flashes a red light for a second or two and then it disappears and never turns back on. Why do you think I have this problem?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

 

Have you tried re-installing command center? That might help.

On another note, happy holidays to all!!

 

I did, it doesn't work.

ALIENWARE M17X No lights (AlienFX issues) | Dell US

I've found this link but it didn't help me either.

 

Man, that's a little f****d up! I reckon if it's a software problem that you might be able to get around it by reinstalling the relevant software in the most sensible order. I installed a fresh Windows 7 install on my machine following advice from Mr Fox I believe. If you google as much, you might come across the relevant, I tried a quick google on the topic, but didn't come up with anything, but if you're persistent you might find. Apologies if this is not relevant, I've not read the whole thread in great detail. (Often the order of installation of various seems to be important). Hope some of these snippets vaguely help!

(Order of installation is important, and also what you install)

 

I will try another fresh installation of windows 8 tomorrow, I'll let you guys know the result.

 

I have a small question regarding my IGPU.

I want to enable it for using quick sync on my stream.

No my question how can i enable it without having crashes?
I know how to enable my IGPU, but i can't even login, it just crashes (@windows8 loading screen)

What is the correct way to install my HD4000 drivers with my 680M to use optimus? (I don't wanna reinstall my windows).

Thank you

Senshin

 

Got an issue I've been brawling with for a while.

When I play League of Legends or Warframe after a certain amount of time the screen goes black and then th esound starts to buzz. the comp reboots, when it happens the fans go full blast, I assumed it may have been negligence on my side and cleaned out the vents etc with compressed air, updated drivers and freed up some HD space. issue seemed to go away. months go by and It started happening again recently, so I cleaned out the dust again and updated drivers again, still an issue I changed a setting to not auto reboot, this leads to a BSOD, same buzzing sound however.

I also noticed my screen would start auto adjusting brightness but I dealt with that. I figured something may have gone wrong with a driver install, so I system restored to before the driver update and tried a clean install of the graphics driver, and changed a power setting as follows:

PCI Express -> Link State Power management -> Off

once I did this, it ran fine then for a few days, then it happened yet again. I'm kinda stumped.

before the heat thing happened so I thought ok, drivers + Heat. but league of Legends isnt exactly an intense game on a system.

 

Try on safe mode.

 

desktop EVGA 770 4gb on the way. Can't wait for it to get here so I can really start overclocking and tweaking things.

 

why looking at your issue, it could be
1. overheating
do a cleanup(most likely)
keep the laptop elevated, cheapest laptop cooler--> use 2 soda bottle caps, it helps A LOT!
or a repaste if nothing helps

2. you have overclocked way too much, making the system unstable(happens to me often, non xm cpu)
the whole system locks up with sound frozen up, gives a short loud beep and then shuts down. when trying to restart, there is no display and fans run at full speed and then again shuts down.
dial back the settings, dont touch the voltages, much more riskier

try reseting the bios settings
remove the power cord and the battery
remove the cmos battery
hold the power button for 30s
put everything back together and start

 

OK! Its just past the warranty and I have it elevated, I suppose I should clear some clutter behind the laptop, but the stuff back there isnt directly on the vents. Perhaps it is indeed time for a repaste, something I've never done before but it shouldnt be too hard. I may also need to do a deeper clean of the fans.

I am positive I have not overclocked the computer at all. I will perform a BIOS reset and report back.

Thank you very much for the assistance.

 

If you have never cleaned out behind the fans (internally) then it's almost certain they are blocked by now. I find that at around 3 months between cleans is needed to keep optimal cooling performance. They pull through a lot of air so dust bunnies gather quickly.

Simple job, take off the base, each fan has 3 screws to remove. Lift the fans and use a can of compressed air to blow them out.

GFood luck.

 

At this point part of me wants to say it is no longer heat. Today I opened up the laptop, fans were still clean from the last time I air'd them out.

I performed the bios reset.
after I put everything back in, I plugged it in and booted. it shut off. I turned it back on and it beeped 5 times. repeatedly. I unplugged it from the power source, and then powered the laptop back on. The computer booted up as normal.

Here's where the next issue occured. The tray icons on the bottom right, the icon noting what kind of internet connection I'm on (be it wifi or Solid connection to router) was not there. I also got an error for invalid certificate, I corrected the date and time, then restarted with it plugged in as it had to do an update.

Laptop boots up without any issue, this time the Internet connection icon is listed on the bottom right like its supposed to be. I booted up warframe. Comp wasnt very hot at all, and within minutes the screen froze, screen goes black, blue screen, dumps, restarts.

I'm up now, and the internet icon is again missing.

This is what popped up this time as this is the first time it said "windows recovered from a serious error.

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1041

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 116
BCP1: FFFFFA8010B3B4E0
BCP2: FFFFF88007AA3010
BCP3: FFFFFFFFC000009A
BCP4: 0000000000000004
OS Version: 6_1_7601
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 256_1

---

My Nvidia is up to date. the second card, the intel, seems to not be, but it wouldnt let me update it via windows update.

 

Looking at it again makes me think of the following problems

1. Are the fans spinning normally? (cpu and gpu)
Does this freezing happen when do anything stressful(gaming, hd videos etc) or happens even when doing nothing, and happens within a certain time
If so, i think your fans are defunct
Usually the system does not boot if the fans are missing or something is wrong
Maybe in your case, fans not spinning up causes heating and shut down and thats why your vents are still clean

2. Update the drivers for network card(wifi and lan)
Maybe they could be the culprit
Use your service tag number on dell support to find relevent drivers

3. This might be a a long shot and the unluckiest
Maybe your gpu is shot, a faulty or broken gpu
Try a replacement gpu ad check if it works

 

Whats up with your computer sorry? Don't get it. you running dGPU mode?

Windows 8 by any chance? UEFI?

Checked your clocks when gaming?

If its stuck at 324mhz might be worth reinstalling drivers from geforce experience.

 

True, if it hasn't been cleaned in a while I would say that it's time to do it now. After you've done it once or twice you'll get used to it and keep it clean to avoid issues like that one in the future.

 

My fans from what I can tell are running just fine. This only happens when I am playing games. normal browsing doesn't cause this it only crashed once while browsing and that was before I cleaned the fans. Since then, it hasn't happened for browsing.

Whenever I try to install the wifi lan drivers it gives me an error, do I have to do something specific to install it?

I am using windows 7, I have no idea about dGPU mode, I have stuff like that at default, no overclocking.

How do I check my clocks? when I googled the error code it pointed towards drivers so perhaps the latest drivers are just giving me an issue.

 

I'm at my wits end right now.

I rolled back to a previous graphics driver. Its happening sooner now then before. I did a clean install, BIOS reset, cleaned out the fans. updated the lan and wifi drivers. I dont over clock. I have an additional cooling pad under it.

What else can be done? I'd rather not call Alienware. the last time I had this issue and talked to them I had a terrible experience. The guy on the phone (this call took place on a sunday) made it a point to first state the fact my warranty expired, and that I'd have to get called back by the guy that deals with no warranty people on Monday. Never called.

 

You need a program like MSI afterburner to check GPU clocks. dGPU mode is the toggle activated by F7 on the keyboard, you can have dGPU (nvidia card only) or iGPU (Both under optimus). Its a simple toggle which may help you diagnose the problem.

Check clocks and temperatures, even post a screenshot under load.

 

Have you tried reseating the graphics card in the slot? I had problems with my previous card until I reseated it, problems not quite similar to yours, but it doesn't take long to reseat the card, so might be worth trying. (Could just be an intermittently dodgy connection - a long shot perhaps, but easy to try). You can follow the guide in the Service Manual of how to do this process.

 

it could also be bad thermal contact between a heatsink and either the gpu or the processor which is causing a rise in temps and forces the machine to shut down. Check your clocks and temps with msi afterburner and see what it says.

 

My brother used a program called GPU-Z Sensor or SpeedFan

The gpu (which I believe is right under the power button, gets hot really fast. And the fans only go for so long. So I'm not sure if this means the fans just arent good enough anymore or if the GPU is the problem

He also used EVGA presicion to montor the clock.
---------------

From what the log shows it looks like the GPU load simply hits 100% load and drops?

I've attached a log.

 

I'd try to repaste the gpu and see if that helps. Your temps weren't that bad from what I could see though so I doubt that's the issue.

 

Hello All,
What's needed to change the GPU on a R4 to a 780M?
Does it require "Custom" dirvers or can you just use Nvidea drivers?

I have done searches and not much is coming up (Searched for "M17x R4 780M").

Thanks in advance you lovely people.
POJ

 

You will probably need to use modded drivers as the Hardware ID's will probably not match up. Site Linked below should have working drivers though.

Laptopvideo2go

 

Hi,

As bigtonyman says you will need a modified driver. If you have a 60hz model you will also need to track down a modified BIOS with the ability to turn off the iGPU (unless this is now in the R4 BIOS?) as optimus messes up the card detection. Not needed with the 120hz 3D model, although 3D will not work on any card not sold with the model .

I'm sure I've seen details here of this being done so it may need a little more 'trawling'....

 

OK! will definitely try to repaste. Which would you reccomend?

I also just thought about this but is it possible that I need to remove the GPU and check for dust there as well?

 

this guide should help you get to the GPU easily and also be useful if you decide to repaste.

M17x-R3 CPU & GPU Re-Pasting Guide w/Pics!

Edit: As to what paste to use, I some standard Arctic Silver 5, but that's just because that's what I have laying around. As long as its non-conductive you should be ok no matter what type of paste you use.

 

My R4 used to be able to automatically switch to headphones whenever I connect a 3.5mm jack in (either port), but now I have to manually switch it via the Sound Blaster control panel. Does anyone know how to fix this or what's causing it? Also, it does not switch back to the built-in speakers after I disconnect the 3.5mm jack.

Also I've started using a portable amp + DAC combo device, specifically the FiiO E07K. It has a feature where whenever I connect the amp to a windows pc, via the mini usb cable, it will automatically send the audio through the amp. This device is currently working just fine.

UPDATE: Never mind. I just reinstalled the audio drivers and everything seems to work fine for now.

 

I'm glad you got it sorted out with that. It also happened to my desktop and I fixed it the same way.

 

Just re-pasted. screen went black and rebooted FAR sooner than normal... To reiterate, this issue started happeneing, I cleared up HD space, did a scan disk, updated my drivers, and cleaned out the fans, and the issue simply went away for a few months, and now we're here. I notice when I run WarFrame the fans start running, but when I Alt Tab out to check how the temps and so on are running, the fans pretty much stop running.

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1041

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 116
BCP1: FFFFFA801489E4E0
BCP2: FFFFF88001DB3FFC
BCP3: FFFFFFFFC000009A
BCP4: 0000000000000004
OS Version: 6_1_7601
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 256_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\010614-19203-01.dmp
C:\Users\Densuo\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-125643-0.sysdata.xml
---------------

EDIT: I gave them a call and got transferred to a department that was closed, lol. guess I'm replacing the Motherboard. I appreciate you guys' assistance. Hopefully I'll get experienced enough with this stuff eventually to contribute to this community, Y'all are real cool.