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

Thanks all. This truly is an amazing community here. I am so happy I bought a laptop and have this resource to help me along the way from cradle to grave. Very very cool group here. - BTW massive amounts of posts...like wow.

And who can resist staring at Slick's avatar for a few min?

 

Hey guys,
What do you guys think of putting one of these in the r3?
Newegg.ca - OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-240G 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

never seen one of these on sale before.

 

I've heard mixed reviews from people with SSD's with the sandforce controller. you might also wanna look the the crucial M4, that's what I'll probably end up going with once I get my act together.

 

I was going to ask the same exact thing, what are my best SSD options for the M17xr3?

There are so many brands out there what ones are high end and what ones are best bang for the buck?

 

I'm not the expert on SSD as I've never had the chance to own one. But here is the SSD area if you guys wanna do some research

 

Hello there,

i would like to know whether the stock SSD that was offered in the alienware site worth it? And are they using the SATA 2 or SATA 3? Im thinking purchasing an m17x and was wondering whether is it feasible or not.. I also heard rumors that the brand of the stock SSD is Samsung? Your guidance will be much appreciated!

 

Yes, they use the Samsung PM810, SATA II 3.0 Gbps. It would be much more worth it to get the stock HDD from Dell and upgrade aftermarket, since SSDs aren't affected by the hard drive price increase.

 

so first off, i'm still running 11.9, because for some reason, even tho i've tried to install 11.11 (over top of 11.9, so i can retain switchable graphics), CCC still shows me at 11.9...

whats the best way to get the latest driver, while still retaining switchable graphics?

second, every time i come unplugged, i get the stupid notification saying i should switch to integrated graphics to save battery. how the hell do i disable this? i've noticed more and more that i've been gettin unplugged accidentally too, seems the AC jack is a bit worn out after only 5-6 months :/ not that big a deal, most of the time it just takes me a second to reach around the backside and fully seat the plug.

 

Sticking a HDMI cable to the output on the R3 and loop the other end into the input?

 

I'm not sure If i want to see the results

 

Try it..for science

 

too much science for my lappy

 

haha I tried it and its weird like the picture gets small thats about it...

 

aww no explosion....... jk

 

man im tempted to try that myself =)

 

No, but I used my WiHD to broadcast to the M17x's screen via that port to see what would happen. After a black screen for a few seconds I couldn't notice a difference from normal, there wasn't even latency. xD

 

So where do I grab these little mobile gpu's from? I want to upgrade but can't find any place online to get them. Just talked to dell a few days ago and apparently they don't sell GPU's anymore. anybody else been told by dell they won't sell them a card? I mean they were highly over-priced by dell anyways but I still have no idea where to find an upgrade. Any suggestions of what to upgrade to will be much appreciated as well(Nvidia not ATI).... I should of went the ATI path when I purchased my laptop because I want the 6990m but I don't feel like changing the mobo's and all that, so nvidia it is.


EDIT: I have the 460m with the 3Dvision so I would preferable need an upgrade that is compatible with the 3D... and I have NO idea what is and what is not.


ALIENWARE M17X R3|Intel Core i7 2720QM 2.2GHz (3.3GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache|8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz (4DIMMS)|1.5GB GDDR5 Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M

 

at this point the only upgrade for the 3d models is the 580m which is the most powerful card available but also the most expensive.

 

where do I find it at though? besides ebay lol

 

you could try looking around the NBR marketplace. it's always a good place to find new components.

 

+1
I'm looking for a 580m and the updated heatsink.
Do we have to order OEM from Dell or can we use the Clevo cards and flash to Dell bios?? Any discount Dell parts suppliers??
It seems we need to use the Dell backplate from what I've read.

 

yea that's what it seems like. I really need to find a 6990m heat-sink because it looks like my 460m heat-sink was causing it not to be detected.

 

Does any one where I can get thermal pads and the little nylon washers for the heatsink? Should thermal pads be used on video cards? Thanks

 

you should be ok with the stock ones. but you can get aftermarket ones to replace them and it might lower the temps on your gfx card a bit idk.

 

My M17x r3 appears to simply run hotter than everyone elses I've seen. I've had Dell replace the GPU twice, the fans twice, the heatsink twice, and the processor twice (although the second time was a free upgrade they gave to me). I've also had them repaste both the GPU and the CPU each time they've come to service the machine. They also replaced the white pads under the GPU every time it needed to be removed.

My point is, the GPU simply runs hot. I'm aware that this is pretty much a given with this high-end hardware, but it shouldn't get hot enough for the card to freak out and clock the core down to precisely 73MHz (from being 620MHz). (If anyone is curious about that temperature, it's 78C exactly.) The effects of this drastic downclocking would be obvious.

My solution to keeping the system from reaching that temperature (which it would normally do within 5-10 minutes of anything GPU intensive) has been to use my iPad's Smart Cover in "triangle-form" to prop up the back of the machine for superior airflow. Other than that, using the machine on my lap has also seemed to work, as my legs are rather scrawny and don't prevent airflow.

However, these two solutions aren't always practical or options in the first place - so I'd like do to something to solve the issue the right way; by doing what I can internally to lessen the heat-production of the GPU as much as possible without compromise to performance.

To my knowledge, the only way to do that would be to repaste with a better thermal compound, and change the pads underneath the actual GPU. If there's anything else that can be done, I'd love to hear it!

What are the best (being most heat-preventative) thermal compounds and pads avalible?

I couldn't tell you what brand is already in the machine currently for either the pads or the compound... but I'd imagine it's whatever Dell supplies its on-site technicians with.

Thanks!

 

I can recommend Tuniq TX-4 and FujiPoly High Performance Thermal Pads .5MM.

I have achieved amazing temps with the above. TX-4 can be a little difficult to apply, but I just leave it near a light bulb for 20 minutes then spread it with the included card it's pretty thick so it will look like you are putting to much on. Also, You should find out what size thermal pads if it is .5mm or 1.0mm.

Fujipoly High Performance Thermal Pads 1.0MM

I used this video as a guide.

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do you have a picture of the heatsink, i've tried a few versions and they all perform about the same for me. i think i have a spare heatsink of the 6990 that i will sell off soon if your interested.

 

Thank ya!

I'll go about getting those two items and I'll report back with my temperature differences.

 

no I don't but I had to send my 6990m back because I thought it was dead because the laptop couldn't detect it. The seller put it in both an m17x r-3 and an m15x and the card functioned fine I really don't know what the differences are between the heatsinks, but that's the only thing that I could come up as the issue. somebody was having a similar issue and when dell replaced the heatsink it worked fine. ill post a pic of my heatsink and maybe somebody with a 6990 could compare theirs to mine.

 

i have 2 different models that i can take a pic for you to help compare. but i they both look the same to me when i take the black tape off the heatsink. i should have some pics up in 30 mins or so.

 

thanks a bunch, Ill take a quick pic of my heatsink here in a sec just gotta take it apart again.

 

here is the pics. i think the only thing that is different is thermal pad placement and the black tape on the die.

 

Spoiler

yea they certainly look the same. would the pad difference make it so my lappy wouldn't detect the card?

Spoiler

 

i don't think it would have such an effect. maybe if the card didn't have that big thick pad on the back of it then maybe i can see some contact problems but otherwise i doubt it.

 

well I might try to get the card back from him and see if I Can get it to work. Might buy some thermal pads as well just to make sure.

 

I've been told it is never good to go from front to back. Also don't cross the streams. Always good advice.

 

Hey guys, ive got a question. Im using crucial M4. And ive just install it in my M17x R3. In order to fully optimized its performance, which option should i choose in BIOS?

Is it ACHI? ATA? RAID?


Thanks! Btw, i currently chose the RAID option.

And also, what kind of software should i use to check the speed of my SSD?

 

If you need to do a FW update, it needs to be set to ATA. But for normal operation, you want AHCI or RAID (doesn't really matter).

Make sure you put the ssd in the empty drive bay as opposed to the originally occupied bay, since bay 1 (the empty one) is faster than bay 0 (the one with the stock drive). Also, you will need to set the boot order to having "secondary" as the boot drive.

You can check performance with a tool like CrystalDiskMark. With a 128GB m4 you should get something along the lines of
Seq 479.6 196.9
512k 362.7 179.3
4k 23.33 44.68
QD32 312.3 179.2
If you have a larger(256GB) drive your results should be faster than that. Don't sweat +/- a few percent, results will vary based on how full the drive is and also just randomly.

 

Thanks for the reply!

oh gosh, ive already installed my ssd at bay 0. D:

Ok i will change it to bay 1! but erm if i were to change it to bay 1, will it effect my files and folders?

Anyways im only using "this" SSD as my only hard drive in my M17x R3. So do i still need to set it as the secondary drive in the "Boot order" option?

 

no, changing the bay should not effect your files. I believe it is still to your advantage to change the boot order since if you do not, the machine will spend some time during boot looking for a bootable drive in bay 0 before giving up and moving on to looking in bay 1. If you change the boot order, it will start off looking in the right place.

If you have already installed your OS, do not change the AHCI/RAID settings or you will start getting bsods on boot, if I recall correctly. Those options effect how windows installs itself, so you cant change them after install.

 

Thanks for the info! But I still do need to change to ATA settings right in order to update the firmware as what u mentioned earlier?

 

people, I wanted to profess my feelings for this machine, R3 ROCKS!!! mobile + BEAST

 

Beast Mode!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

> @@

Beast!

 

First of all, I am new here and i am also quite new to the upgrading video card into an laptop like Alienware M17xR3. I really need a guide to do that. I have a quite research about upgrading. I have read few articles from here. Mostly, there are mentioned about thermal pad. I wonder do i need to install them in as well? My specs are:

Intel Core i7 2860QM 2.5 Ghz
RAM :8GB

The card is about to change is NVIDIA GTX560M to ATI AMD Radeon 6990M.

 

Try a system restore point before installing a device driver. This will help if you installed a wrong driver. Problems can arise when your hardware device is too old or not supported.

 

to be safe this is what I would do:

1. uninstall the old graphics card from the device manager.
2. shut down the laptop and pull the bottom plate off.
3. take the CMOS battery out so you can reset the bios later
4. unscrew the GPU heat-sink and remove the old card (here is a good guide on how to do this in an r-3 by an older forum member).
5. hold the power button for 10 seconds to reset the bios.
6. seat the new card and apply thermal paste(many different methods on how to do this).
7. carefully place heat sink straight down on the GPU die and alternatively tighten screws so the heat-sink makes good contact with the GPU die.
8. hold the power button for 30 seconds to reset the bios and then put the CMOS battery back in.
9. put the bottom cover on and attach battery.
10. start the machine and see if the new card shows up in the bios.
11. if it does, you are set and good to go, just install the drivers for the new card and you are done.

hope this helps you out and it is easy to follow.

 

Hello, i have a alienware m17x r3 120hz 3D screen in mind that has no laptop computer attached to it. So its just the screen no laptop parts and or connector for the screen. So you might of heard how its possible to get laptop screens to work without the laptop itself kinda like a monitor. Like a video controller thats compatible with laptop screens with the proper programming.

So i was wonder if any of you knew about this is there an hdmi controller like that out there in the market that is compatible with this laptop screens 3D capabilities and where would i get it? And i heard that this peticular screen has a special 3D connetor or connetion to a specially made slot thats on the screens video controller.

Also since i've heard trying to use the video controller that the laptop comes built in does not work without the whole laptop unit this probably wouldn't work, but i know that this peticular computer model comes advertised with an actual input built into the video controller that allows you to use the computer as a monitor or tv host for a ps3 or xbox to play on freely.

So if you knew anything about this technically and how its engineered i was wondering would this video card built in to the base of the laptop (which i don't have and was sold with dead laptop for parts along with screens connector cuz person buying it wanted it along with the screens lid casing and so forth so fyi i just salvaged the screen obviously.) work without the laptop working as a whole? Or could i use the built in 3D video controller? And if not is it possible to reprogram the origional video controller?

So if there isn't any such thing not even by third party means of a custom video controller with 3D capabilities is there someone willing to develop this for cheap that i could go to buy? If there is such a thing either way what kinda of shutter glasses/ 3D kit would i need? And what kinda of compatibility can i get with other media (like using this with a ps3 or 3D blurayplayer?

Very sorry bout the truck LOAD of questions but i wanted to cover all the possiblities there could be because i really want to salvage this screen.

 

Woah ty so much DeathPierce!

 

first off, I think it would be to much effort to get that thing to work. You would have to find some way to get power to the screen as well as figure out how to get an HDMI connector to connect instead of the proprietary connection. As to 3d, unless you have the emitter, you can't do 3d I could be wrong, and I don't have a 3d screen to compare to, so maybe somebody else could chime in and confirm it.

 

actually i've found a way to power it thats why i asked about someone who already know how to do this because i know how to hook up to hdmi but i dont know where to get the connector which i'll be researching, but under no circumstances do i know how i would get it to work with 3d. first i dont have the kit yet to do regular hd actually its a dvi connetion not hdmi atleast im still looking for a video controller to do hdmi.

i also need to figure out what 3D glasses and emitter i need probably the nvidia one that comes with the m17x r3 but i didnt get them with the laptop origionally, so i dont know specifically which ones they are. so basically i know exactly what to do with this screen to make it a monitor/tv other than how i would get the 3D to work which probably would require a specific controller and parts? so feel free to search for me because i'll be searching like nuts and its all ready tooken me a long time to get as far as i have and even then i have yet to buy any video controller parts that would actually run this thing.