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

Pfff damn this hot weather, CPU is getting almost 90c when gaming.

 

Haha, definitely, here in the UK it's 26degC in my living room. The fans kick up more in this weather I've found. Those 7970M's are some Watt Hungry Beasts aren't they! Hang on, you were talking about your CPU! Surprised that one's getting so hot. Does your 7970M run quite cool?

I remember in another post you said you had issues running your screen at 75Hz, are you still running 75Hz (says so in your sig)? I'm also running 75Hz. I remember that you posted that you had artifacts at 75Hz, what did they look like? (I'll keep at an eye out for them).

 

Hey Guys,
Today, I found this page about overlocking. Which vbios is prefered? I mean, overvolted, modified or both?

 

Hey, the important thing to consider is the inherent risks associated with overclocking and/or overvolting. Overclocking can damage your GPU if it gets too hot, and overvolting can further increase the degredation effect on the GPU, depending on how much you overvolt. There's no single answer to what is preferred, like you asked. It all comes down to the individual GPU your talking about with regards to the acceptable temperatures & voltages. You'd be best off researching in threads, such as the one you listed as to which is the better option for you. Just get as much information on the topic as you can before you start making changes, and then make the changes gradually & sensibly, then you won't wreck your GPU.

 

Thanks!

Otherwise, anyone know where can I find the OSD driver for Win7? I dont find it on the website anymore.

 

It's under applications from your link: Driver Details | Dell US

 

OK...It was a stupid question and I have to buy a new glass :/ Thanks anyway

 

In other news

Dell just released the A12 Bios for R4 today
Driver Details | Dell US

i am currently running unlocked A11, can still update? Will it brick?

 

Thanks for the update, will be trying soon enough and will report back.

It might re-lock your bios if you did update, you would have to wait for techinferno modded unlocked BIOS to come out which would be soon enough.

 

For the AMD users here, what drivers are you using for your 7970m on the r4? I'm using the 13.5 beta 2 and so far, I can't seem to maximize the performance of the card. For one, MSI Afterburner FPS never goes beyond 60fps and sometimes, it drops to 15 during cut scenes (more rarely during actual gameplay). Second, GPU utilization averages at around 60-70% and doesn't hit the 90s mark. Temps are pretty awesome so pretty sure it isn't a temp throttle happening. I know of someone with pretty much the same rig as I have who can max out all settings on DA2 and still get an average of 70 fps so this is pretty sad.

 

yeah, looks like i'll wait this one out

does it have any significant changes?(or just any changes?)

changelog wasnt opening somehow

 

Fixes
-Not Applicable
Enhancements
-Enhanced SMBIOS TYPE01 Offset 19h to Product name.
-Enhanced update DIMM isolation protocol.
-Enhanced update ePSA to 4220A10.(4220.11).

Looks like nothing major to me, will try them soon though.

 

thank a lot

doesnt look like a major update or something

 

Thank you for all

I have another question.

My original 3Dmark11 graphic score is around 8K.

But new alienware which has similar spec(4900mq/780m) with mine, has much lower graphic score around 7~7.1K.

No throttling caused by temp, everything is normal.

That's real odd.

New alienware users did everything they could(driver change, overclock, thermal reapply and so on), but there was no difference still far too low score they have.

You know why??

 

Hey All, just thought I'd post my experiences with re-pasting my CPU.

My CPU temperatures had always been reasonable, with a max of 86degC (cpu cores spread from 75-86degC) under Prime95 (room temp 26degC), but I was curious if a repaste would lower the temperatures and also decrease the spread of CPU temperatures across the cores. I decided to re-paste using Arctic Silver 5 (using the spread method).

Switched the laptop on for the first time after re-pasting and now under Prime95 (26degC room temperature), the maximum temperature is 77degC (cpu cores spread from 73-77degC). So that's a 10degC drop of temperature, and now the spread of temperature across the cores is also a lot more even. Fans don't kick in as hard, nor as often now - bonus! Prior to repasting I had blown out the dust on heatsink, so the temperature difference I just mentioned is all down to the re-pasting. I'm happy with this, thought I'd post my experiences for you if you were thinking of re-pasting your CPU.

 

Hi there! I am running into some issues with my machine after trying to update the AMD Drivers for my 7970M. While installing the latest drivers from Dell's website I suddenly got a BSOD regarding the file atikmpag.sys. I've read on another thread of a member who ran into similar issues but my problem is worse than his; I am unable to get into safe mode and windows startup recovery fails to recognize my OS/hard drive (maybe the RAID setup has something to do with that). I could fix the issue by reformatting the drives but this is about the fifth time I would be doing that since I got my laptop last month and I really do not want to lose the data and reinstall all my games again because I'm really tired of it...it would be really helpful and appreciated if someone could tell me a way (if there is one) where I can get my computer up and running without having to go through the hassle of reformatting the entire machine.

Thanks!

Regards,
Minhaj.

Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk 2

 

Hi, I don't really know what's causing your issue with the laptop. But you mention that this is the 5th time you will have re-formatted the drives & installed the OS. If that's the case, and if you've had to re-format due to the same problem occurring, then it sounds like there's probably some kind of hardware fault/problem with your system. In which case I'd return it or get it fixed on warranty (you say you've only had the laptop a month, so it sounds new).

 

Hi, thanks for the reply!
My reasons for formatting the drives aren't the same for each of those times(however they are somehow tied to the iGPU being enabled). I bought a used machine and extended the warranty myself so it's not that new...It is an easy fix, only its really time consuming and I do not want to redownload everything so I was just wondering whether there is a way to recover my computer without having to format my hard drive.

EDIT: Just to clarify, the iGPU issues were driver related and were resolved(while I still unexplainably run into most problems with it enabled). I can safely say that the issues are not hardware related.

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You could save yourself some time by creating an image (freeware or buy norton ghost).

The way I do it is as soon as I have completed a win install, updated the drivers, and installed any utilities, I use alienrespawn to create an emergency backup USB (can also be done to DVD). At least then you can just boot from the USB and roll it back while you try to find what is going on (something corrupting windows maybe?)

HTH

 

Thanks for the suggestion! I already have an image created with only the GPU drivers needing to be updated... what I care about is having to download everything again(I have atleast 200GB worth of games installed)...I just wanted to see whether I can avoid that even though I doubted it.

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You could create the image after installing the games (have two). Only issue with that is that if for some reason one of them is triggering the problem you will not be fixing it...

 

The issue, as I've tried pinpointing it, is with the AMD drivers. When I turn off the iGPU after a fresh install of the OS I have to reinstall AMD drivers(even though I installed them initially) because my programs start to give errors and end up not responding. Everything was running smoothly until I tried updating the drivers to the latest ones and so encountered the BSOD and ended up in the situation I am in... it even puzzles me as of how does it end up affecting my hard disk..

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Ah cool, I'll think you'll be able to sort your problem. Are they steam games? If so, you can just use the backup option in Steam to backup your chosen games to an external drive of some sort (a number of USB sticks or external hard drive). Then you can do your system reinstall or recovery from an image, then you can restore your games from within steam from your backup files I've just mentioned.

 

Ah, a video driver issue then. It won't be affecting the HD as such, just messing up the windows install on it . I haven't used AMD for many years after some driver nightmares (although NV's are really cra* right now!). Sounds like you need advice from an AMD user as to the version and sequence of install.

Have you tried creating system restore points before any driver install. I have had success with that rolling back to a working installation...

 

I was thinking about making backups of games just yesterday thinking such a thing might happen but I convinced myself that I would be careful enough.... right now I'm just like "wow...I actually thought I would be careful" LOL. Well lesson learned... going to have to backup the games I play the most.

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Ah yeah, of course, I'd forgotton it won't even boot properly now!

 

Haha it isn't as simple...my hd has become unreadable at the moment so I no system restore or a preloaded factory image can help me

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Try the hardware diagnostics on F12?

Could be some corruption getting into the BIOS, have you tried resetting it?

 

I updated to the latest BIOS just before trying to update my drivers. How do I go about resetting it?

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Pop out the cmos battery (coin cell) and hold down the power button. Then replace; a setting from the older one may have got stuck?

 

Thanks for the tip! I'll try that if the method I'm thinking of doesn't work...there's an X partition created which really does not allow you to access you hd...I'll try getting rid of that and see if my laptop works then. It worked on my previous one so I hope it does on this as well. Btw, I did run diagnostics and everything was running fine.

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Cool with the diags, easy to check just in case. Don't know about that partition but it could be messing up the boot. It looks a lot like problems I've seen with the win 8 specific options in the bios. fast boot or compatibility mode? Dunno, I never touch them!

 

Double post. Arggg...

 

So I just got around to repairing my laptop. My hard drive comes up undetected in RAID mode but shows up when I have AHCI selected...I just cannot make it show up when I select RAID. I would like to have it in a RAID setup since I use the mSATA as caching...I will reformat again after installing in AHCI to see if RAID works after that...

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Dunno what is wrong but AHCI mode disables the RAID bios so you will never be able to use caching . Worse is that it will need a full re-install (in my experience) if changing it back after the install as it will result in a BSOD during boot. Have you tried to default the bios?

Also go into the RAID bios to see what is configured there. It's the screen before the bios and has a hotkey to access it.

 

I haven't tried defaulting yet. I will have open up my laptop for that right?

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No, as long as you can access it there should be a 'default' option. Have you added any drives or changed drive bays at all? The RAID bios is where I think you should see the problem.

 

The RAID bios is showing both the hard drive and the msata. I have reset the msata and now it shows up during setup but my default hd doesn't. I have 750gb+32gb msata setup. I haven't changed around anything.

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I am going to try to format the hd through the ubuntu live cd and hope it shows up then...

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Well that is very strange . The raid bios shows the 750 as a 'non-raid drive' (this is how it should show up)?

 

Yes, sorry for the confusion, the 750 does show up as non raid

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NP, just making sure some sort of caching was not still setup. It is set as the boot drive in the BIOS as well I suppose? If you can get ubuntu to see it and format then it might become accessible. I've use it to get to drives windows refuses to access - hardware errors...

 

Finally! It shows up on Windows setup now! After removing the mSata from the RAID bios I went to Ubuntu and formatted my hd and gave it a new gpt partition table and that seems to have resolved the issue...

Thanks for your time and help! Really appreciated!

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Excellent!!

Now all you do is after installing windows, install IRST (from the dell site) and you can turn on the cache from inside windows.



Edit: If you are not using the AW windows disk you may have problems with it selecting the wrong disk driver. You have to expand the IRST install to a USB and select to add a disk driver on the disk config screen. It should say something like 'Intel RAID'. If the wrong driver is loaded it will continue the install but BSOD on first boot

 

I am using the AW disk so that is not going to be an issue

Now just hopefully the pesky drivers don't give me issue now...looking at AMD here...

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Cool, well at least you won't panic if it BSOD's on startup, just have to go through it again loading the driver

Only advice for ANY video drivers is to start with whatever dell recommend and test before trying later ones. NV's drivers have gone down the pan in the last 6 months and they can't even get a good working one out for their latest cards!

Good Luck

 

Thanks! The drivers that actually put me in this mess were from dells website...now I have to use the good ol' live disk again for downloading the drivers

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Hopefully you should be good with a clean install now though. Post how it goes...

 

Will do! Just one more question...under the "Performance Options" submenu in the BIOS does GT Overclocking stand for overclocking the graphics card? If so what settings would you recommend?

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I'm not sure but it won't be the GPU so I assume it's the CPU. I have level 1 through 3 on my overclocking bios options, but I don't recall if it had 'GT' there. I set mine to level 3 and get an average of 3.9mhz across the cores when turbo boost kicks in.