should i buy this m17x r2

hey guys my g73 took a dump and i am in need of a laptop, iv been looking all over craigslist for a deal and i found a m17x r2 its a oldie but it looks like its in great condition

the guy doesnt know much about computers so i couldnt get any concrete specs about the laptop but i did get the service tag "BDQW2P1"

looks like it has a 5870 like my g73 which sucks but u get what you pay for i guess

now i cant tell if it has a single 5870 or 2 but it looks like it has a 240w psu which only comes with the dual gpu configs correct??

if so that would make it more worth it to me....

now my question is how much is this baby worth? he wanted 1k and i got him down to 750....seems like a good deal to me, what do you guys think?

 

$750 seems reasonable, maybe a little high if it doesn't have dual 5870's. Tell him to go into the device manager and take a screen shot of the display adapters. It should show two 5870's, if it indeed has dual GPU's.

If you can meet in person to check it out first, I would do that, and then negotiate on the spot depending on how rough of shape its in. When people see cash in-hand, they tend to negotiate more as well.

 

Hopefully it's dual gpu I'm just waiting for him to come back from out of town so I can see it in person....

Any common problems I should look for with this laptop?

And thanks for the response

 

i personnaly would not take it.

Not an RGB screen is already a NO-GO, basic screen is ugly.
It has SINGLE 5870m, so no CF and you cannot take enoug $ from re-selling it to upgrade to 7970M.

720QM, ,,,,OK
4GB ram - Another No Go, you wil have to upgrade to 8GB soon....so more $.


Look for an R2 with RGB LED screen, it is THE ONLY POINT of going for Very Old Laptop bro

 

Where did you see that it didn't have the rgb screen I couldn't find it

 

see line

U519K
1
Liquid Crystal Display, 17WXGA+2CCFL, Anti Glare, Samsung

so 1440x900 resolution = AVOID

 

True, it's very old and was a base model at the time, so, that makes it even worse.

 

ugh i was looking to spend sub 1k on a new companion

i found this screen LG LP171WU5(TL)(A2) LCD 17.1" WUXGA LP171WU5(TL)(A2)

thats the rgb one right?

and do you think the 5870 from my g73 will fit the m17x?

right now i just have the alien fever... i have found decent asus gaming laptops for my price range but idc i want the alien lol

 

Be patient, grass hopper


this screen that you linked, you CAN'T change it, M17x R2 has a very difficult way of accessing the screen itself, you have to get the WHOLE assembly to change the screen and that means $200 minimum
like this one

New Dell Alienware M17x 17" WUXGA LED LCD Panel J2CY8 | eBay

Another thing is YOU CAN'T use your g73 5870m because it uses a completely different MXM SLOT - NO GO

So as i said, be patient, getting a nice R2 that has not been messed up this days is very hard, if you just want t new laptop, go for outlet R4 with decent GFX and you are good to go.

I reently got R4 from outlet for 1200$ with nVidia 660M GTX onboard, 12 GB ram, 1TB HDD + Msata 32GB Full HD LCD, 3610QM

ao only GPU needs changing in the future, otherwise, everything is OK.

bE PATIENT,

 

cant change screen? challenge accepted!

why cant we change the screen? some kind of glue or something? sounds like replacing the digitizer on my note 2 all over again lol

the reason im really desperate for one atm is because i picked up a new project at work and im going to be doing a lot of traveling...and i start tonight! so im trying to minimize my down time

if i picked up a $1200+tax laptop right now my wify will kill me lmfao but if i get this one and bring it up slowly she wont notice

so anyways whats the deal with the screen is it just difficult to replace or its not compatible? im a electrical engineer feild tech im sure i can manage to replace the screen lol

 

Dell Alienware M17x R2 Screen Replacement by TimsComputerFix.net - YouTube

good luck

but mark my words very well, you will say ''%@%^ flingin told me not to do it'' after you crack something.

If you want, come over skype bro, i'll explain.

 

There are many great options on eBay as well. Don't pass up deals like this: Dell Alienware M17x R4 i7 3630QM 3 4GHz 8GB 1 0TB HD 32GB mSATA DVD RW | eBay and go for some ancient tech that is probably in pretty bad shape.

I found that in like 1 minute, just as an example... I bet you can find something even better if you put a good 15-30 minutes into a search.

 

got this for $1200 a week ago for my friend

Product
Unit Price
Quantity
Price


Alienware M17xR4 Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 1 736.98 £
Alienware M17xR4
Info Mod
Name Plate Engraving: Generic
Graphics : 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium
Misc
Speakers : Not Included
Service Software
Info Mod
Information SKU - Remanufacturing Order
English Genuine Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium (64Bit OS)
Dell Support Center Software 3.0
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-3610QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.3GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0
Battery : Primary 9-cell 90W/HR LI-ION
AntiVirus: McAfee SecurityCenter 30 Day trial version
Wireless : Intel Centrino Advanced-N 2230 (2x2, a/g/n) + Bluetooth
Software : Datasafe Local 2.3 Basic
Additional Hard Drive : 500 GB 2.5inch SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
Shipping Material
Info Mod
Display : 17.3 Inch Wide Full High Definition (1920X1080) WLED
12 GB 1600MHz Dual Channel DDR3 Memory (2x2GB + 2x4GB )
Info Mod
AlienFX Colour : Plasma Purple
8X DVD+/-RW Drive
Scratch and Dent: Refurbished and factory tested. Great at performance with possible considerable cosmetic blemishes
MOD,SW,LTG,DELL-DOWNLOAD-FLAG
LCD Back Cover : Soft Touch – Stealth Black
32 GB mSATA SSD
Back Up Media Not Included
Documentation
240W A/C Adapter
misc
Power Supply: 250V AC Adapter
Internal Qwerty Keyboard
Camera : Integrated Skype HD Certified FullHD Camera with dual digital Microphones
Misc
Info Mod
Service Software
MOD,SW,CRTV,CMRA,CSMR,2.X,FI
500 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)

 

Exactly. There are great deals out there... Just gotta look.

 

remember you can always take a divorce

oh, and, WELCOME TO ALIENWARE WORLD !

 

LMFAO

i wish i had the 1200 to spend on a new toy.... nothing would make me happier than buying a brand new laptop lol ill keep looking till this guy comes back from out of town hopefully ill find something else by then

thanks a lot for all of your input guys

 

anytime love

 

So even though most said no.... I couldn't resist the alien.... I got the m17xr2 but! I didn't get the one I was talking about

I got another one that had the rgb led screen! Only one 5870 but the plan is to get a 7970 or nvidia equivalent down the road....

 

Congrats on the purchase xtkxhom3r!

There's still a lot of potential in the R2 and you're going to enjoy owning it. What is the colour and specs of the one you picked up?

 

I don't think there has been an MXM card in recent memory the R2 can't accept without too many hassles. R2 is one of the last good Flextronics Alienwares before they changed ODM to Compal. I refuse to buy plastic chassis laptop, either I'm looking at an M18x or Alienware 18 next.

 

In the same boat as you are as my clevo w870cu is too ancient even to talk about. Glad you took the risk and bought it, now its my turn.

 

Thanks for making me feel better guys! it's silver and it has the default 500gb hdd with a i7 not sure what model I haven't had time to play with it 8gb of ram and one 5870 with the rgb screen led back-lit

I really liked the r2 because it's like a little Lego set man you can add anything to it! And it's aluminum time to buy a better video card

 

I may be biased as I have an Lunar Silver as well but I honestly think silver is the best colour. Black kills the awesome lines and red, which is my second favourite and looks amazing in person, only really looks good with the AlienFX lighting set to red or maybe white (which isn't really proper white). I think that may also be the reason the new line up doesn't have colour options and comes in grey only.

You might want to check out this thread for some useful information. Also you may need to update to the latest video driver from Dell for your 5870M and then flash the latest 5870M vBIOS from Dell in order to start using the latest drivers directly from AMD. Use the Service Tag on the bottom of your machine on Dells website to see the exact specs and pick up the drivers.

 

you guys are gonna sh** your selves when you see what i just did to my first aw lmfao

so i took the gpu from the g73 out to see if i could make it fit on my m17xr2 and i figured out a way! (this is not for the faint of heart)

the g73 card is extra wide so it doesnt fit in either of the slots but there is about 1/8th of a inch that is just a grounding strip around the whole card that can be shaved off to make some room so i did that
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/118916/20131016_205656_Cascade Ridge Dr.jpg

but it still didnt fit because of the lcd stud so i decided to shave it about 1/8th inch with my dremel....
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/118916/20131016_205552_Cascade Ridge Dr.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/118916/20131016_205610_Cascade Ridge Dr.jpg

after that it fits!!!!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/118916/20131016_205634_Cascade Ridge Dr.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/118916/20131016_205628_Cascade Ridge Dr.jpg

but i was too excited and in a hurry to swap heatsinks so i just turned it on with out one just to see if it would boot up with out a heatsink and it did so i shut it off right away

so there u have it.... it is possible to install a asus card on a m17x r2....now i need a slave heatsink PRONTO

update

it is not possible to make this card work....what i failed to realize is that the heatsink will not fit because of that extra width BLAH all that for nothing... oh well now i know for sure it will not work lmfao thanks for watching

 

but the bios recognizes the card eh? Thats kinda interesting and good to know.

 

yea it recognized it and booted! i guess it could fit if i cut a slit in the heatsink but i didnt want to ruin the thermal efficiency....these things run hot as it is...


on a side not i updated the bios on the laptop and tried updating the bios/drivers on the gpu but it keeps telling me i dont have a compatible video card... why would it give me that error? when i pull up gpuz it says i have a 5800 series card but doesnt specifically say 5870

 

Check this post for some help.

 

thanks a lot broflakes i updated the bios and the drivers....cant oc the card though...are the 5870's locked?

 

No it isn't locked. What are you using to overclock? Try MSI Afterburner/ASUS GPU Tweak/Sapphire TRIXX. I used to use Radeon BIOS Editor for clock/voltage changes on my 5870M's. Be careful though, you don't want to damage your card. I would also advise against overvolting as it reduces the life span of your cards. MXM cards cannot be treated like desktop cards.

 

Didn't try msi afterburner I just assumed overdrive would be enabled on ccc....

 

Here, the Rev1 is standard vBIOS for 5870M, and the Rev12 is unlocked and tested vBios with 950/1300 limits.
You can OC your gpu in CCC
I've created this one because no matter what i did, MSI Afterburner always crashed my laptop :S
View attachment DELL 5870m vBios.zip

Because of the Upload limit for ZIP i had to remove atiflash from the package :/

 

Dang looks like hacking bios is the norm in the alienware world haha thanks for the tip broflakes can't wait to get home and flash my gpu

 

Yeah, if it can be improved, then why not

No problem, just don't OC it too high
Every 5870M i've had was capable of at least 800/1075, so i'd start with that
Max i got to was 935/1290 xD, but the temps really come into low 90's , so make sure your GPU is making good contact with heatsink

 

Not a problem... Hardware is my specialty

 

just got to flashing the bios and it worked flawlessly thanks dude your the freakin man!

btw msiafterburner never worked for me either f it game on!

if anyone wants to add me on steam my sn is xTKxhom3r

 

you got a really good binned gpu broski i went straight to 850 and started getting artifacts on the menu screen lmao....815 on core stable so far....

 

Sure, good to hear that , too bad you couldnt OC higher
I don't know what's the deal with MSI, for some it works wihout any tweaks, for some it doesnt work at all :/
Yeah i know its REV A00, if it helps

 

What's Rev a00?

 

Hey, I have an M17X R1 with a 5870 as well, but it still runs on the dell drivers from 2010. I was just wondering if flashing the bios would work on my R1 so that I can try to update my drivers. I would try it now myself, but sadly I`m away from the laptop at the moment.

 

i dont see why it wouldnt work we have the same video card i say do it

 

REV A00 is the first series of the 5870M that was launched with M17x R2, i've had A00, A01 and A03, never seen A02 tho (from my experience, the lower revision, the higher the overclock)

I dont know exactly because i never owned an R1, but it should work.
In case you get inverted colors, just reflash the vbios to A00. (M15x and G73JH have issue with A01 Vbios, so they must be flashed back to A00)

 

I've downloaded your custom vBios, but I don't really know how to use it, it's just 2 ROM files whereas the original vBios extracted from Dell's setup exe is a whole bunch of files. How do I put your vBios on the boot usb? Sorry if this is noob, this is only the 1st time I have flashed a gpu's bios through usb boot. I have flashed the 5870 with dell's vBios but that only got me up to CCC 11.1, and CCC 13.9 just failed install. So I tried CCC 13.1 with a successfull install, but that has given me instant BSOD upon windows startup so now I'm reformatting my M17X and reinstalling windows >.<

 

ok first your going to need rufus or something to make a bootable usb Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

then your going to need to load atiflash to the usb drive...atiflash is the utility you need to flash the bios Download ATIFlash 4.07 | techPowerUp

so once you make the drive bootable put the atiflash files in there and the custom bios you downloaded

reboot the laptop press F12 during boot and boot into the usb drive... your gonna get a black screen type this

atiflash -p 0 biosname.rom

atiflash is the program

-p <NUM> <FILE> Write BIOS to image <FILE> to all approriate adapters

0 is the card number...if you had 2 cards to flash you would do 0 first for the main then 1 for the slave

and just to make sure you dont f*uck something up type this EXACTLY

atiflash -p 0 REV12.rom

good luck grasshoppa

 

Thanks! Hopefully this does the trick =)

 

keep us updated buddy

 

Here is the tool i use to make bootable USB :
Start it up, select "Create DOS startup disk", point it to win98 directory and click Start.
That simple
Then download my 5870M vBios package, and just extract it on the USB.

Restart PC, and select it to boot from USB, everything else will complete automatically, and when it's done, just "Ctrl + Alt + Del" to reboot your PC.
Voila, all done

Note: REV0 and REV1 are the original vBios from Dell, REV02 and REV12 are modded versions with Unlocked Overdrive to 950/1300.

 

Ok, sorry for posting late, I have been pretty busy with other stuff. I have flashed the vBios successfully, but upon install of 13.9 I got an error message saying that it didn't install properly. However, I will not do in dept about this because I think I have found the problem, when I was downloading CCC 13.4 I checked the system requirements:
View attachment 103800
I need Win7 SP1! After every windows install I do I turn off updates because I just don't want to deal with waiting for windows to update, so I never really installed SP1. I believe this is what caused the BSOD for CCC 13.1 and failer for CCC 13.9. I am downloading/installing SP1 right now, I will update once I am done.

*********EDIT*********
I really don't want to double post in 2 threads, so I will continue the discussion here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-17-m17x/735303-m17x-r1-5870m-can-i-use-new-amd-drivers.html

But anyways, here are the results:

Ok, so I think I have finally installed working drivers. Windows 7 SP1 unfortunately did not solve the BSOD issue for 13.1 and 13.4, as seen here:
View attachment 103809
I was so happy once I seen 13.4 install without issue, until I restarted and....
View attachment 103810
BSOD

13.9.... well, same old:
View attachment 103811 View attachment 103812

However, I downloaded CCC 13.11 Beta V1 from here: AMD Catalyst 13.11 BETA1 (13.200.16.0 September 26) Download
And, successful install without BSOD! W000T finally! But, there is 1 issue that I am worried about, both in CCC and DXDIAG my card shows up as a "ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5800 Series" and not a 5870 like it did with the Dell drivers. In CCC it does show the correct specs and all, just not the name:
View attachment 103813

I am just wondering, is this normal at all in the M17X R2, or is it because this card is in a R1?

 

Glad you got it working

Windows reporting that it is a "5800 series" card is normal.

 

lmao its been a long road for you broski but at least it works now

it shows the same thing for me your ok

 

Ok glad to hear. Ya, this was such a long process but so worth it in the end, I am finally able to overclock my card and I am seeing higher framerates overall . Thanks for all the help!