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

It's working, what I did was I used ubuntu live disk as it has a nice programme to format etc. I deleted the partitions and formated etc. I then went into the setup and for some odd reason it was set to ACHI so I changed that to RAID, I now installed win 7 on my msata ssd and going to put my 2 drives onto raid 0 if I can get drive 2 to work

Edit: windows is on the msata and the other 2 drives are in raid 0. Hooray all is well!

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I had a feeling it would be to do with the disk access method, or some invalid combination of win 8 options in the BIOS. I've used that ubuntu boot USB method to get at disks that are inaccessible in windows - one that was obviously broke and making bad noises.

Great to hear it works as you want it. The primary HD will be quite a bit slower but you gain the 32GB of SSD space, retain the fast boot times, and a single data drive - win!

 

Yeah the boot time was what I was aiming for! Thanks for all the help by the way


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Hey MickyD1234,

Thx for the help.. Today it froze again twice.. I got fed up so I remove the 2nd drive and its been ok until now.. Hope that will solve it.. I also noticed that my R3 was running hotter when the drive is there.. It could be the drive or also the MB itself. I'll try running the main HDrive in the 2nd bay... If it stays cool I'll probably get an replacement or new SSD for it... I have expired the warranty(1yr only).. That 680M also is very tempting.. but I would'nt like to lose 3D for now.. Maybe next year.. Man you're lucky to get the R4..

 

You're very welcome .

Sometime just making any hardware change can sort these things

On mine it always happened at the point the GPU got to 72C. If you use something like msiafterburner you can monitor in real-time to see if it is temp related. It won't make it the GPU causing it but if temp is an issue then it should be fairly consistent; allowing for changes in ambient temp.

Dell wanted to replace my MB but as the R4 had just come out I pushed for a replacement . I wanted to pay the extra for the 680 but it was in short supply at the time so I had no choice. I keep looking at it but since this card meets all my gaming needs very well (of course 3D could be faster!) I'm waiting out how the R5 is spec'd

Hope you find it.

 

On a hunch, I disabled Enduro and suddenly all my problems are gone. Alienware Command Centre is working properly, as is AMD's CCC for the FIRST TIME EVER. No idea what was/is going on but I am not going back on Enduro if this is the case.

 

Good to hear.

So, alienautopsy works now as well? Very weird but if it works...

I was only too happy to give up on the iGPU with a 120hz display, just something else to go wrong when I don't want or need it

 

No, alienautopsy still gives that error message when I tried to install it from that file link you shared. I will see if there is an alternate file that works, maybe the one you sent is not compatible with my system (not sure). Everything else is working great though.

 

Oh well, that link was for the win 7 version so you'll need to track down the win 8 V if that is what you are using now.

Enjoy

 

Nah, I am still on Win 7. All I can think of is that I did a clean install of the OS using the provided DVDs on an SSD and then formatted the other drive to serve as a data drive when I first got the machine. It automatically created the recovery partition during the install and Win 7 has successfully recovered from BSODs using this recovery partition. So unless I am mistaken, the recovery partition is exactly the same as when Dell shipped the laptop to me so I am not sure why it is causing an issue with Alienrespawn.

P.S. I did notice there is absolutely nothing that I can see in the partition even though only about 6.5 gb is free out of 13.6 gb on the partition.

 

The only thing I can think of is that if at one stage you installed win 8 it made some change that is now causing the problem? You could try removing the recovery partition in disk manager and seeing if it recreates it but if it works for DR then maybe best left alone

 

I never installed Win 8 because of all its inherent issues. I will see if Luis has any suggestions. But otherwise, I will just use Norton Ghost or something whenever I need to backup a drive. Thanks again, Micky!

 

Just about to join the ranks here

I think I just did ok on the Dell Outlet store here in the U.K.

Snagged an M17X R4 with the following specs:

i7 3610QM
GTX660M 2GB DDR5
32GB SSD
2 x 500GB 7200 HDD
12GB RAM
1080P WLED screen

Oh and thankfully running Windows 7!

Plus the usual bits and pieces.

I know the graphics card isn't the best, and I think the processor is a little old?

But I'd been getting sick of reading about the Lenovo Y500 trackpad problems, and seeing them not even supplying the newer GT750M for it here in the U.K

The above machine cost me just over £900. That is £150 more than the Lenovo would have cost me, but I think is a much better proposition? Bearing in mind how much Alienware's usually go for here as well.

Anyway, with Dell there will be no issues if I decided I don't want it. But hopefully it will be a lovely machine. And now I'm going to sit and read through the hundreds of posts here

 

Hi, welcome aboard!

That seems an awesome price to me, I paid more that twice that for my config . The CPU is way more than enough for a gaming rig, only the GPU is a compromise. You even have an SSD caching drive so the load speeds will approach a dedicated SSD in most instances.

Good luck and I hope you like it

 

The nice thing is you can always upgrade the gpu in the future with something a little more powerful
The cpu should be fine for awhile, it's not outdated.

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I wish Alienware had put keyboards with better-defined key caps in these models. Missing so many keys is maddening. A pity: the keys usually feel comfortable.

Can anyone recommend a good external keyboard?

 

I'm a fan of the logitech G510

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Without going into details, I just wanted to let people know here that Luis provided service on my issue that went above and beyond the expected or required - it was truly an example of customer focus. Public kudos to Luis!

Jeff

 

Luis is very good, very helpful and is focused on customer service, wish more people were as focused as him

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Guys, can anyone recommend a good 3D converter for M17x?

 

Hi, I've seen two people here recommend: TriDef 3D::TriDef 3D for AMD HD3D - Welcome

Not tried it myself, but crysis3 had 3D TV built to try on one of those.

What GPU do you have and what do you want to watch it on, monitor or 3D TV?

 

I have an Alienware M17x r4 with 3D enabled screen. i play games in 3D with no problem, but i intend to do some more with 3D including movies and pictures.
That's what I was looking for, a converter which converts the video to 3D so that i can watch those on my Alienware laptop screen.

 

It should just work, if you're thinking of 3D movies, I haven't tried it but it is supposed to work. You just need to use the power DVD media player which is 3D enabled. I've never heard of anything that can convert 2D movies to 3D and I wouldn't expect it to be very good but maybe it is out there?

Have you checked out this site: https://www.3dvisionlive.com/

 

Hey Micky, how have you been? I haven't heard of any pc related software for 2D>3D either (off topic then I understand ), but I have a TV that does that exact thing and it isn't too bad. It's best when looking at scenery and provides next to no "pop-out" (text only), but real good depth, like your TV is 20-30ft deep kinda thing. Of course, no 3D is better than that recorded in 3D, but the conversion thing is active.

 

Doing good thanks Quagmire , No OT here!

Yeah, I have that feature on my 3D TV. I've only used it for TV and as you say, it works OK for most TV. I find it gives nice depth to talk-shows.

 

This whole 3D thing is confusing me to the core. I cam across this Xilisoft 3D Video Converter But then I realized, there were many 3D video types and the output of this one was definitely not suitable for my Alienware. #Struck

 

Yeah, there are two basic types (with sub-sets). Side-by-side which is detected by 3D TV's and converted into an interlaced-to-each-eye image, and direct interlaced requiring 120hz for 60hz to each eye. The side-by-side is designed to keep the bandwidth down since it takes the same amount as a 'normal' broadcast TV - both images are sent in a single frame.

HTH

 

Without going into details, the "billed for wrong mouse situation" had a much better resolution than I had expected.

 

Bought a new sound set to replace my older set:

Digital Power Speaker with 10 inch Subwoofer - S730 | Edifier

Verry happy with it, sounds much better then expected!

 

What was the outcome?

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Just checking in. Been super busy with a bunch of stuff but the alien is still running strong!!

 

I got a free trackball.

 

Hi all,

Been a long time since I've been on here and just wanted to say hi The rig is running great except for a problem I ran into with my M4 SSD. The drive did the usually fatal disappearing act that SSDs tend to do sometimes and I was bracing for the worst. It did show up again after doing a full power off including pulling the battery. I was able to update the firmware which has seemed to have corrected the issue but unfortunately Windows got corrupted and I had to restore a bit out of date image that I had made before installing Windows 8 a while back. Of course this all happened just a little while after I had done a systematic update of all of the new drivers from the Dell website. Long story short, if you have been holding out on updating the M4 firmware I would highly recommend making a backup and doing it ASAP. I guess this issue can happen after so many hours of using the drive so you may have a ticking time bomb on your hands!

 

Which firmware you running now? I updated a few months ago and it seems to have fixed that problem. Just don't want to update my drive and have it nuked. Also always a good reason to have everything back up,

 

Running the latest one 070H now. Knock on wood!

 

Hopefully it will continue just fine.

 

Couple of questions seeing as my R4 should be here Friday fingers crossed. Seeing as it is from the outlet and they apparently run the machines for a time to test them before posting, will it come with the latest drivers installed?

Is there any bloatware I need to get rid of asap? My only experience of Dell before this, is a friend whose machine had some Dell connection utility on it which seemed to want to override windows own wireless connection function. Other than that I don't think it had much else.

If it isn't needed, then I'd rather not do a fresh windows install from scratch and would rather remove just what isn't needed. Thanks.

 

I've only had a alienware desktop come from the outlet, but here it goes...

I doubt it will come with the latest drivers etc, they usually use a factory image with relatively new drivers. It shouldn't be too hard to install the newer drivers, just go to nvidia/ati direct and install ontop.

No real bloatware, mine came with mcafee but I got rid of it (free 12 month trial) and used microsoft security essentials, and now windows defender (I clean installed windows 8).

You can do a fresh install, I would recommend it if your installing onto a SSD or something like that. Make sure you create the 'alienrespawn' DVDs/USB so you have a factory image ready just in case.

 

Well my machine turned up today and what a beauty these things are in the flesh (I'd only ever seen them on youtube videos). And also much bigger and heavier than I imagined.

Bear in mind that the only laptop I have had use of up until now at home, is an Asus eee pc Which now looks positively tiny and makes me wonder how I ever managed with it!

One thing I need badly though - those right angled power adaptor sockets. Not the best place sticking it out of the back, especially as the plug doesn't seem as snug as other sockets I have felt. Worried when I use it in bed that I'll all too easily pull the plug from the back.

Shame nowhere in the U.K stocks them though - works out to be a tenner from the states. A tenner for a little adaptor

But hey....I'm 48 and grinned like a 12 year old while messing with this thing earlier

 

I'm looking to upgrade from my xps m1730 which has been faithful for years. I've been offered this:

Alienware M17X R4 (Red)
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-3610QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.3GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0
12 GB 1600MHz Dual Channel DDR3 Memory (2x2GB + 2x4GB )
Graphics : 2 GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M
500 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
Display : 17.3 Inch Wide Full High Definition (1920X1080) WLED
8X DVD+/-RW Drive
Wireless : Killer Wireless-N 1103 Card
Battery : Primary 9-cell 90W/HR LI-ION
Wireless : Killer Wireless-N 1103
English Genuine Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium (64Bit OS)
240W A/C Adapter
Camera : Integrated Skype HD Certified FullHD Camera with dual digital Microphones

price: £1,000. warranty until october.

The guy selling it also added a 256gb sandisk extreme SSD, he'll include that for an extra £100.

Opinions? I know he purchased it through the dell outlet for £1100 a few months ago, not used it much and added the SSD.

 

I have just bought mine for about hundred quid less than what you could pay, but mine came from the outlet with only the gtx660M, in which case I'd say it was well worth it for a far superior GPU. In fact I'm ever so slightly jealous

 

Thanks for the feedback, I hate spending money, especially when you think 'damn did I pay too much?'

Just been given a 128gb SSD from a mate who had one lying round (as you do!) so now I don't need to buy the other one for the extra £100. Definitely buying the laptop now!

 

Got another question while I'm in here. My machine came with two 500Gb HDD's, with one of them having a 32Gb SSD cache - or at least that is how I understood it.....sort of.

I kind of expected the SSD bit to have widows installed on it? But instead Windows is on the C drive and the 32Gb part is empty? I know it is listed as a cache...but I thought it would somehow have Windows n it for fast booting.

How am I supposed to make the most of it being there, as the machine came with no literature at all (It was from the outlet)

Oh and one more thing - how easily do the separate keys come off the keyboard? The caps lock key sits slightly crooked and I want to re-seat it, but I'm scared of breaking it. It is a silly niggly thing after all.

Oh yeah one more thing Do these have some kind of dynamic brightness? I've noticed - like my plasma TV - that the brightness can auto adjust itself depending on how much of the screen is actually white. It takes a second or two if you open a folder for example of the brightness to readjust itself.

I looked in power management settings but didn't notice anything when I glanced though it. Thanks.

 

Hi there, check this out for how the SSD cache works. Basically you will not see it (SSD) as the RAID drivers create a hidden drive that is used to cache requests to the HD. It is in firmware and is independent of the OS. Chipset Software — Intel® Smart Response Technology User Guide.

Your machine could have either one HD cached or both HD's in a RAID config (shows as a single drive) and then cached.

No help with the KB and I don't see any dynamic brightness on these, my TV does the same.

HTH

 

Hmmm, slightly worried now with regards the brightness thing. It's subtle and perhaps I'm overstating it though. But it does look like the machine is making some auto adjustment rather than something being faulty.

 

Maybe someone else knows? I do know on my other dell laptop it has a light sensor that adjusts the brightness...

 

Yet another question please How do you enable turbo boost for the cpu? It quotes two figures for boost on and off on the invoice and order sheet.

But on my machine I only see the stock figure of 2.4Ghz mentioned and not the boosted 3,3Ghz figure.

As usual, thanks for any replies

On a separate note, aside from my teeny ASUS eee pc, my desktop was built by me around 9 years ago now and used an AMD 3000+ processor. Man oh man do I feel like I'm suddenly in the future

My desktop could just about manage Half Life 2, but at something like 20fps. I stuck Steam on and loaded up (don't laugh) Railworks 2013 (which ran like a dog on my desktop) and seeing it all at full high settings and still being buttery smooth is like black magic I wonder how long the excitement will last!

 

How do I give negative reputation to you for having railworks 2013?

 

The cpu boosts when required, open a game in windowed mode if you want and use a programme to monitor your clocks, you will see the cpu boost

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Hi all, i have a few doubts about upgrating my computer , so im in need of the community.The last year(Summer) i bought an Alienware M17x-R4(i7 3610QM | 12GB RAM | 256GB SSD + 500GB HDD| 680M|120Hz 3DSCREEN).Now after seeing the 780M results im thinking about upgrating it in a few months.My questions are ¿Will it loose the 3d whith the change ?¿Is this compulsory even if they dont release a R5 model at all?.I know they are very basic questions but......

THX for your help and sorry for asking.