*OFFICIAL* M17x R3 Owner's Lounge Thread - Part 3

$1319...has the 1600x900 screen though. This won't last as the Ebay sellers will scoop this up

Dell Factory Outlet

 

Yesterday I had the same experience as you're describing. I got that graphics card & the 1920 x 1080 screen for almost exactly $100 more than what you're getting. Then I told them to sweeten it with a freebee and I would buy. Got the $60 cooling pad free.

If you want the screen and no higher price, I don't know. You could try to argue price points of similar displays. When I priced them out I found only about a $50 or so difference in the cost of the two on the open market. Pointing that out could help.

Pointing out most, if not all, of their bigger competitors' base builds start at the 1920p 60hz.

Or, do you need to buy tonight, or just in the next few days? String them out if you can. Ask for an emailed quote so you can think about it overnight. Call back tomorrow and hem and haw a little more... Maybe call a different Rep from the main line and get that person involved. They might give you the screen.

You may have tried all this. None of it may work even if you didn't. My experience with them was pretty tough too. Great job getting them down as far as you did. I hope you get what you want, keep pushing.

edit: There's also upgrading the screen yourself, if you're comfortable enough to do that. As long as you get the correct part, it shouldn't be too hard.

 

One last question, If I do go with the GTX 560m card...can I always upgrade to the 580 or amd 6990 later?

 

yes. That's one of the things that makes AW so great: they're built to be easily upgradeable.
And I'm sure you could find a better deal in the outlet if you didn't mind something refurbished.

 

I'm interested in the answer to that myself. Theoretically, I believe we can. I haven't been able to confirm that though. Has anyone here done it? Am particularly interested in changing to AMD from nVidia...

Awesome, thanks! I'd thought so, but wasn't certain.

 

its rather easy. I went from a 460m to a 6990m. I should prob write up a guide sometime so people don't have the same issues I did.

 

and here i am considering getting a GTX 580M ( whats with the dissapointing Kepler rumors). Would $580 for it be too much?

btw im enjoying Mass Effect 3 right now, the game is rad

 

I personally would wait and see what kepler has. The 6990m goes toe to toe with the 580m in most games. if nothing else, perhaps kepler will drive the price down, who knows at this point. This might be slightly biased considering I'm plenty content with my 6990m atm, but perhaps not.

 

Long, you have to wait for the 680m or 79xx. THere is zero point going to a 580m from a 6990m unless you wanted slightly higher 3dmark scores

BigT, enjoy that 6990m for a few days before you get a new card, ok? lol
PS...i think a "how to change Graphics card guide in R3" is a great idea...i'll do one eventually when I upgrade the video card to a true next gen

 

yea the biggest issue people are gonna have is that you have to get the paper/plastic stuff off the heatsink if you switch from AMD to Nvidia or vise versa. That took a bit to figure out.

 

Thanks for that . I just need someone to talk some sense into me . I think I will focus instead on getting the heat down on both my current cpu and gpu. Rep'd you both

 

haha, I also need to get the temps down on my GPU, my shaders are still in the 70C's while using F@H or gaming. I guess ill try to get my act together and see if i can put together a guide on how to swap cards.

 

ha, the temptation is always there to get more hardware lol...it used to be great to see deals, but now, i hate seeing a deal on a SSD, or CPU etc...

 

A guide would be awesome, if anyone is planning on doing it anyway. It seems easy enough, but you know that thing about appearances.

 

I just sold my m17x r3. 2820 qm 8 gb ram 320 gb hd 580m gtx 1080p 3d screen. i got 2300 for it. Good price for it? I sold it because with the 3d screen i didnt have optimus, which i wanted for better battery life, and i never used the 3d so the hit on batterylife isnt worth it. So im torn now. i kinda of want to order another r3, but the 580m isnt on the config page, and i dont want to go with a 6990m. OR.. just wait painfully for the R4. Hmm..... what do you guys think?

 

There is an R3 in the marketplace which may be what you are after.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/not...cident-protection-till-august-1st-2015-a.html

 

Nice sale price dandan

 

As soon as next gen video cards become available (i.e., real next gen like 680m kepler or 28nm 79xx) a guide will be up

You did good dandan...R4 will be probably ariving by the summer, so at least 3-4 months away. If you can wait, do it, but by doing so, you are a much stronger man than me

 

M17x R3 | Core i7 2760 | AMD 6990M | 4 GIGS DDR3-1333 |320 GIG 7200RPM | 1920x1080 60HZ


I need extra ram and ssd hdd?
any recommendations ?

 

get a ssd and maybe a better wifi card if you dont have one already

 

@long2905

I have killer wireless .. proudly run on dial up speed

 

dr, the best price performance of the stable ssd's is the Crucial M4. I saw the crucial M4 128 gig going for $130 on newegg recently

As far as ram goes, i bought gskill ddr3-1333 8 gig kit for $40. You don't have to get more expensive ram. Zero performance difference if you get the more expensive ram

 

Haha. Yeah.. I'm wondering if I have the will power myself. I'm going to hate not having it. But that battery life is just too low with 3d. If i buy another r3 now ill get it a month or two before the new one comes out.. and when it does ill never be happy with my old one... Looks like I'm waiting LOL

 

I dont understand.... is a Crucial M4 128g better than a Corsair Force 3 120g both sata 3 ??

 

Yes the M4 is superior from two perspectives.

One, its a million times more reliable than a sandforce 2281 ssd with 25 nm nand (i.e., like the force 3)

Two, the m4 non-sequential read and writes are way better than the force 3. Don't be fooled by the high sequential read/write numbers on the force 3 because most of the time, you aren't working with data in a sequential manner

 

now that you brought that up ..
how about the M4 vs Samsung 830 ??

I don't understand the difference but I read that the 830 has better nand technology ,

very thankful for the advice ,

 

The samsung 830 is a worthy competitor. It is slightly faster in incompressible sequential writes compared to M4, but the non-sequential numbers are a wash.

The only downside to the 830 is that it is more expensive than the m4. You can't beat the 128gig M4 @ $130 shipped

 

Yay! Thanks so much!
I shouldn't be messing w/ my own card before then anyway, but if I do make a stab at it I will document in case I'm sucessful.

 

Within the last 2 months, I have gone from an M14x, to an M17x-R2, and now finally to the M17x-R3.

I really liked my R2 but the battery life was just unacceptable for me. I am really looking forward to the great battery life on the R3 as well as the increased performance!

I bought Valkeriefire's R3 in the BST section...

Specs:
i7-2760
GTX 580m 2GB
1080p Screen 60hz
Crucial C300 64GB+320GB 7200 HDD
4GB 1333mhz RAM
3.5 Years Complete Care w/ Accidental

Price: $1965

I am so excited, should be here very early next week!

 

looks like a very solid machine, Have fun with it

 

Welcome to the R3 club Agent CoolBlue!! Looks like a solid machine

You be the pathfinder and lead the way first lol

 

ill try to get a guide for swapping out the current cards up sometime next week. I don't expect the next gen cards to be much different. then what we have to deal with now.

 

WHICH DRIVERS WILL GET ME THE HIGHEST PERFORMANCE OF MY amd 6990.

 

Might be time I sell my R1 and upgrade. I just got the X51 so that set me back a stack. May have to wait.

 

I think I may be more excited to open it up and start poking around than I am to start it up for the first time, when it arrives. So much fun, so little money... LOL

 

So, I ordered from dell.co.jp

Looking forward to getting it, though I may have goofed on CC confirmation, language barrier and all, and may have to order one more time, but any how here is what I ordered let me know what you think: Also, any hints for fresh installs? I have looked at the guide, which I will certainly use:

- CPU:
-? Intel R Core i7-2670QM second generation processor (can be 2.20GHz, up to a maximum 3.10GHz Intel (R) 2.0 Operating Turbo Boost Technology, 6MB cache)

- Memory:
- 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz memory

- Keyboard:
- English keyboard

- Graphics:
-? AMD Radeon HD 6990M 2GB GDDR5

- Hard disk:
- 1TB (500GBx2) Hybrid SSD (rotation 7200, Raid 0)

- OS:
- Regular 64-bit version WindowsR 7 Home Premium SP1 (Japanese version)

- Optical Drive:
- Blu-ray combo drive

- Alienware M17XR3 plate:
- Thank you for purchasing the Alienware.

- Warranty Plan:
- (Including maintenance parts) 1 year Standard Service Plan

- Wallpaper:
Wallpaper - Alienware: Alien Schematic [KP776]

- Wireless LAN:
- For 3x3 MIMO Gaming & Video Killer Wireless-N 1103 a / g / n?

- Bluetooth:
- Bluetooth module built-in Dell Wireless 375?

Screen is 1920x1080 (only option)

Price 202,354 yen

 

202,354 Yen = ~$2,473 US?

Depends what you're looking for in a laptop. I wouldn't have paid Dell for a couple of those upgrades, myself. It would be cheaper here in the US to do the RAM yourself + get base HDD then upgrade to SSD Boot drive yourself. But I don't know what the base costs for these upgrades are in Japan, and your uses may be different than mine, so it's really all relative. What really matters is if you're happy with your config.

what do you mean, "...any hints for fresh installs?"? Further upgrades of hardware, or software?

 

Hey guys, my R3 should be coming in on Tuesday, so excited! However, it currently only has 4GB 1333mhz RAM. I feel like that would be a huge injustice to the R3 and currently looking at an 8GB upgrade. What do you guys suggest? I am looking to spend $<60

i7 2760qm
580m
4GB 1333mhz

 

I believe they put in 4GB as 2X2. If so and you are looking to not spend a lot of money then you would probably just want to buy two more 2GB sticks and put them in the other two slots. You can get that from NewEgg for less than thirty dollars.

Several contributors state that the performance difference between 1333 and 1600 is virtually undetectable. I haven't done a lot of research on it myself. I put 16GB of 1600Mhz PNP RAM in mine but I run virtual machines everyday for work. Sometimes I run three of them so I am allotting eight to ten gigs just for VMs. My host operating system is never using more than 3GB. Usually it's more like 1.7 or 1.8GB. I'm running the regular OS and two virtual Windows 7 x64 virtual machines right now and using exactly 10.37GB of RAM. My paging file is using 0GB. What I'm getting at is that I'm not sure a machine not running VMs will ever use more than what your computer is already coming with.

 

Take a look at this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/650686-m17x-r3-ram.html. I think you'll find your answer there

I suggest checking newegg. I'm no expert, but from what I've read, just buy the lowest price at the size you want. I'll be upgrading mine from 8GB 1600MHz to 16GB 1600MHz. 16GB is a bit overkill, but since it's such a cheap upgrade, I say why not.

 

Yeah, I had second thoughts about adding an SSD on my own, but the price on the second hybrid was actually good, and in a way, I don't want to do so much on my own. Hence why I did the upgrade for the ram as well. I have second thoughts about getting the Killer since the base is intel 6300, but it's better than having second thoughts about not getting it.

If I totally boned the ordering and have to do it again, I will probably just get the SSD instead.

As for the hints, I'm wondering if there are some common problems people have when doing fresh installs.

 

Ah, I see. Best to just skim the pages of threads here on the installs then. Am looking for more info on that myself, as the boot ssd is the first mod I'm going to do, even before RAM, and plan to install Win7 Pro, while I've bought the system with Home Prem.

So far all I've found is apparently, install drivers for the r3 from the Dell website, not from the resource disk that comes with the machine. Resource disk won't get the LED back-lighting working, from what I understand. So DL them first, before you install the new drive and format for a new install.

I always install any chipset drivers first, then any bus drivers, then HD audio + audio, then Modem & LAN, then video, then expansion & card readers, in that order. Then install any bloatware you want to from Dell's driver site. Haven't looked hard at the drivers on the site that will be needed yet, so not really sure what's needed. Maybe others who have done it already will answer with more exact info.

All this assumes you're installing from a new version of the OS, (pro vs. home premium, for instance), rather than from the recovery disks. If installing your own SSD, you need to install a fresh image, but if installing the same version of the OS you purchased with the machine you can use the recovery disk to do a fresh install. Note, that's not respawn or an image of your HDD installation - don't try to put that on your new SSD.

Also, I've learned to check your version of BIOS. if you have A09, and are installing an SSD as your boot drive, downgrade to A08 then put the SSD in drive bay 01 (middle compartment).

Aside from that, I got nothing. Totally understand, if I could afford more immediate upgrades, I'd probably do many of them as well. =) Your system boost from HDD to Hybrid won't be as great as if to SSD, and using any kind of platter drives in RAID on a laptop is not necessarily a great thing unless it's really only sitting on a desk all the times. But up to you on that part of the config, should you need to re-do your order.

 

Salticid, you can install everything from the drivers disk that comes with your laptop. I did and everything is working fine

 

Thanks SlickDude, that's good to know.
I have no practical experience doing this on the r3 yet, but I could have sworn I had read somewhere that installing the AlienFx CP for the back-lighting leds gets borked when installed from the resource disk included with the system. Of course searching for that now, can't find it anymore. Figures. If I find, I'll post a link, but have you heard about that at all? Maybe it was an older issue that's been solved or wasn't an issue on the R3 at all and I just read it wrong?

San Pedro, here is a link to an excellent guide on installing your own clean OS on an SSD.

 

Have never heard of that issue with the r3, but it was a huge issue with the m15x. I always just keep a backup of all the current drivers on my external HD so reformatting is easy.

 

Found it.
edit: Actually, first read about it here, post #12. Found the first link later.
My description of the issue was less than accurate though, that's what I get for reading these kinds of threads at 0-dark-30 AM. lol And this was on an r1, (second link is an r3 though), so perhaps an older version of control panel is not on the r3 disks, so this may not apply? I've read that often the resource disks will have older drivers on them than the ones on dell's site, is that true for r3's?

Thanks Bigtony. Interesting, I didn't know that about the m15x. I stopped researching them once Dell dropped the line.

edit 2: I also just found this in the first post of this thread - a link to AlienFX Problems/Questions Thread

So it appears it has indeed effected some with the r3. It seems the resource disk drivers are older then the current version, at least for some people. Better safe and DL that from the dell driver site.

 

Which drivers other than the one on dell's page to give me the highest performance of AMD 6990
I can'r run RAGE or Civilization 5 !! ?

 

Hi all , my M17xR3 in sign , has no good performance, despite my Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD, and its 16GB HyperX 1600MHz.

Have anyone found new driver for chipset and sata controller?

this is my bench ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

 

I'm seriously considering getting an M17x R3 to replace my gaming rig in my sig. Would the R3 be able to game on a Dell U3011 at full rez? Preferably with a GTX580M, but i'll take the 6990 if I can't get the 580.

 

not sure how well a single 580m could handle demanding games at higher than 1080p. Maybe a m18x would do better?