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

High Five!

My M17x R4 finally arrived into my Shanghai Office today after 34 days! Since i had it ordered from the States through a 3rd party, it must have been manufactured in Shanghai, flown to the US, and then sent back to Shanghai! Quite a roundabout way to do it, but the cost savings were significant (up to USD785 cheaper than buying directly in China!).

Annoyingly I'm back in the UK on holidays and i wasnt expecting it to arrive so early. Now im just itching to get back to the office!

My Samsung 830 SSD just arrived too and I will eventually do a clean install.
Do you guys recommend keeping the bios setting on RAID rather than AHCI mode? The existing storage setup is 32gb msata + 500gb hdd.

Glad to be part of the M17x club!

 

Can anyone confirm that overclocking is locked on the 680m in the M17x R4? Hearing rumblings that memory can be overclocked but core speed can't be changed.

 

AHCI is faster, but if you want to use Intel SRT, you have to use RAID. Personally, I'd prefer AHCI, OS on the Samsung 830, data on the HDD, but then not sure what to do with the msata.

Alternatively, you could leave it RAID, install the OS and some apps on the SSD, put data on the HDD, and accelerate it with the msata.

 

That's what I have heard as well. Same issues as the 660m.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 running Resurrection Remix

 

You seem to be right on the money for me. Just ran it and got P5872...no overclock (obviously). I don't even know how to do that. LOL

 

I added an SSD into slot 0 and put the HD in slot 1 and everytime I boot up now, It shows the configuration utility for a second (with the drives) is this normal?

 

Sounds like the RAID screen. If you had installed the OS in AHCI I don't think you would have that issue.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 running Resurrection Remix

 

well I just cloned the HDD over to the SSD..seems I am using Raid.

Would you recommend to switch over to ACHI at this point?
Would i get the BSOD if I did? or should i just leave it in Raid?

 

well I would make sure everything is running as it should be, and then wipe the HDD so you can use it for storage.

 

great, thanks..and should I just leave it in Raid? or should I switch to AHCI?

 

well your not gonna really be able to easily change it unless you reinstall windows, so I would just leave it in RAID for now.

 

ok thanks.. i guess if i ever do reinstall I could just move all my stuff over to the HDD before doing so

 

Wait if you get the 32gb msata ssd it is in RAID?

Sent From My Rooted EVO 3D

 

what? no i have the samsung 830 256gb ssd

 

I just have the stock HDD in mine and it's raid. Should I switch it? What's the difference? Thanks!!

 

I would leave it as is. Makes a negligible difference and it would require a reinstall of windows or a registry tweak if I remember correctly.

 

i did this:
1) move hdd to slot 1
2) install ssd to slot 0
3) Run windows and make it recognise SSD.
3) once system is stable and you get the famous 1 second screen on boot, then Change bios to AHCI

Windows restarted without any problem, then i formatted the HDD and i installed everithing from scratch on the SSD.

Finally i did a backup of the SSD using the iwndows image tool.

 

I would switch to AHCI. Yes, you will get BSOD, but here is how to fix it:

Error message when you start a Windows 7 or Windows Vista-based computer after you change the SATA mode of the boot drive: "STOP 0x0000007B INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE"

 

Well had a little accident involving liquid and my r3 is now fried. Contacted dell so we shall see what happens.

 

Advanced warranty I hope?

 

Yup all good there.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 running Resurrection Remix

 

Good to hear! Please keep us in the loop, I have a 6 month old son and got 3 years advanced on mine and am interested to see how it goes for you. Cheers

 

Playing the waiting game right now and waiting for dell to do something. Its driving me crazy.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 running Resurrection Remix

 

Anyone managed to download the R4 a05 bios? I've been getting 'file not found' since release yesterday.
Thanks.
Edit: Got it - someone had posted it on another thread.

 

My temps idle are running 68c. I've tried to blow air through the fans but the left fans seem to stop at times. Anyone have any ideas?

 

Are you blowing air from outside the case to the inside? If so unplug the laptop, remove the battery and the bottom cover and clean it out that way.

 

Hi Tsuekasa, use the steps in this article to know how are your temps currently. It also has good tips to do periodically to avoid overheating. Hope that helps

 

Yup, that seems pretty high for idle temps of the CPU... Most people have reported idling temps between 52-58, mine usually stay around 54...

The left fan in the r3 is for the cpu and the right one for the gpu (someone pls correct me if its the other way around).... usually, the gpu fan is much more active than the cpu fan; It is normal for the cpu fan to appear quite at times...

 

Thanks guys for the quick reply

Facing the screen, my left side from the back of the computer seems very hot the hand. If i place the laptop on my lap, it's uncomfortably hot for me to use. Personally I dealt with my previous laptops overheating and how I can tell is if the keyboard gets a little to warm. But this isn't the case. But the laptop is still pretty warm.

I also opened it up and blew some air in it. Both fans work fine it seems but the left fan as I mentioned seems to stop and go with no dust blocking it.

I'm not experiencing and lost in fps so gaming is fine.

 

I kept getting the DOS one (-ZPE) when clicking the Download File button, until I clicked on the More Download Formats link and selected the one that ended in WIN.

 

Thanks, I tried both but got 'file not found'.

Found a thread with others having the same problem and somebody had posted both. Strangely the ZPE one contains a single executable that flashes the bios immediately in windows. The WIN one had all the files for a bootable flash drive install. Just checked again Oh well, installed

 

Well this is great... somehow my two year warranty was changed and it has expired. blah whats gonna go wrong next?

 

Metro 2033 and Crysis come to mind.

Have fun with your system.

Edit: Where did the post I was quoting go? I think TapaTalk is bugging out on me again.. I hope the forum software is upgraded soon..

How did that happen? I hope things work out for you.

 

search function isn't working here and I don't have the time to read all night...

I got my m17xr4 today and put in my ssd (turned on ahci or whatever it is called) and now my 500GB seagate in the secondary spot won't show up in windows (shows up in the bios tho).... what could this issue be...

also, my main issue, for the heck of me I can't get the 680m driver installed... i've tried the fn f7 thing and still says no device detected in the setup.

in my device manager --- exlamation marks next to PCI Device and unknown device....

i've never had issues like this before setting up a laptop... frustrating... thanks for any help

 

Try clicking the "Start" orb, right clicking "Computer", clicking "Manage", followed by "Disk Management". If the drive is listed in the Disk Management pane, right click it and click "Change Driver Letters and Paths for Windows". Once the window opens, press "Add" and then select "Assign the following drive letter: " with the letter you would like to use for the drive.

 

Search should soon be working again.

For the 680m, did you install drivers for intel and reboot then try the 680m driver?

For the pci driver, see if this thread can help you out.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=671125

 

Hey thanks. I tried this method but it's completely grayed out and it doesn't let me do anything to the drive. What's the deal here? Will I be able to format the drive if I use a bootable version of a partition program?

Still can't the 680m driver installed. It's giving me the same problem. I only have the intel 4000hd one working it seems. I'm becoming lost at this issue.

 

I'm about replace my current setup of two 750 GB HD RAID with a 256 GB SSD boot and one of the 750 as storage.

This is a computer I bought used a week ago, and while I'm at it, I'm going to go ahead and do a clean install of Windows. My setup includes a

I note on the first page of the this thread there is guidance re the order for installing drivers which includes the following

I haven't had this machine long enough to know, what is Integrated mode?

Thanks

 

Is everything grayed out? How about initialize disk?

 

the M17x r3/r4 features both an integrated Intel GPU and discrete graphics. The intel GPU is designed for non gaming and is great for extending battery life, while the discrete graphics are for gaming. To install AMD drivers, First install the driver off the dell page, and then install the AMD driver of your choosing over top. To switch to the intel gpu, you need to fit FN+F7 and hit switch. You can also do this by right clicking on the desktop and you will be able to see exactly what GPU your system is using. Hope this helps

 

[SUB][/SUB]

Initialize disk is also grayed out yes. What to do.

 

I understand that

I don't understand the above. I have an AMD Radeon HD 6970M, are you saying it takes requires two sequential driver files?

Thanks for the help

 

I'm so excited my computer shipped

Sent From My Rooted E3D

 

well for gaming I recommend installing the dell driver (so the graphics switching works properly), and then you install the latest stable AMD driver over that so your games run well. Hope that made more sense.

 

Thank, that helps...now, when you say the latest stable AMD driver, might that be different than the AMD driver on this dell website ?

Thanks again

 

install that driver, and then you can go install the 12.6 or the 12.7 beta drivers so you are set for the latest games. You don't have to install a newer driver over top, I just do it because it helps with newer games that weren't supported under the older dell driver.

AMD 12.7 beta drivers

 

Thanks...now I need to become familiar with the process of converting a two HDD Raid setup to an SSD and 1 HDD non-raid setup.

 

so did you break the RAID yet? That's the first step. Then you install the SSD into port 0, install windows, and then configure the HDD and you should be good to go.

 

This must be the step I didn't do. I went into the bios and put it into achi or whatever it is. Then installed my ssd into primary spot. Is it possible to get into this drive or what? Or will I have to put the original back in. Put the raid config back?

 

I thought you could just put the SSD in with one of the RAID drives and just reformat the RAID drive? No Clue why it isn't working for you at all.