*OFFICIAL* M18x Owner's Lounge Thread

I'll take a look at this. Thank you Fox! The only problem im having atm is having my USB read when I go to Load Driver during the installation, hence why I can't install W7 on my laptop. Its killing me xD

 

You're welcome. If you are using the USB 3.0 ports on the left, that could be the problem. They sometimes don't work at all during POST. For me they don't work until Windows has started up and loads the NEC/Renesas drivers. Use the USB 2.0 ports on the right, or ideally, the eSATA/USB combo port on the right side.

Hang in there... you'll make it. I'm giving you a +1 rep for your persistence.

 

I did put my USB in on the right, and now it reads. I just need to know the driver to download and i'll download it, drag and drop it on the USB and I should be good.

 

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology F6 Driver Download - Windows 7 Installation Drivers
(select the 10.8_f6flpy-x64.zip version - extract the compressed files from the zip archive and place the extracted files on USB stick)

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology for Windows 7 x64/x86 - RST Drivers and Intel Control Center
(after installing Windows using the above F6 drivers, install this package along with the other Intel Chipset drivers that need to be installed)

Recommendation: Do not use device drivers, Alienware OSD or Alienware Command Center software provided on the Alienware Resource Disc. Download all proprietary Alienware drivers and apps using the latest file posted at support.dell.com. You will generally have good results using chipset, video and wifi reference drivers provided by the device manufacturers.

 

Good afternoon everyone. Have not been here in a while. Any new issues/bugs that have popped up that I may have missed?

 

Pal, hope you will have a lot of time to read about... @ least until Hanukkah-Christmas...

 

I can get in some reading every day. Anything I should focus on?

Got a Transformer Prime on the way, so soon I can read in style!

 

In particular, the collaboration with Dell/Alienware since you have been away has truly been amazing. You have missed a lot of stuff, but for good reason.

Apart from the http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ussion-thread-re-dell-aw-conference-call.html, here are some threads you may find interesting...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-sata-iii-speeds-dropping-sata-ii-speeds.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/607421-what-users-want-m18x-r2.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/619109-alienware-community-feedback.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...re-community-feedback-overclocking-esata.html

OT: Hope you actually get the Transformer Prime when you're supposed to. Seems they are in high demand. Any definite release date yet?

 

Hello everyone, I hope you guys can help me with an issue I have recently run into on my machine. I recently ran DriveSweeper and CCleaner after having issues with my sound card. That has since been fixed but other things were broken from the DriveDweeper. First it was the USB, an easy fix, but now I can't get some of my applications to work. I use Autodesk Maya for my school work and since trying to fix this problem it won't open anymore. It says that my "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" in the bottom right corner. I have tried to repair Maya, reinstalling it, and reinstalling my video drivers. It still won't work. When it crashed the video the screen gets really dark and I have to restart. Does this sound like a common problem with DriveSweeper? I have used CCleaner many times and never had this happen to me before. I am also using the latest video drivers.

In addition to this Photoshop causes the driver to crash and the SD reader no longer works. Any ideas on what this could be? Should I try to rollback to before I even touched anything (Sunday)? Thank you all for any help.

 

Mastergunz67 - does your M18x have AMD video cards or NVIDIA? Before running DriverSweeper, did you first uninstall your video drivers using Control Panel > Programs and Features? I would attempt using System Restore if you have a restore point dated before this issue started.

When using DriverSweeper, if you placed check marks in any of the boxes for removing any items other than the video driver, this may have caused problems. As BatBoy posted previously, DriverSweeper caused some significant problems a while back. I was not aware of them, and supposedly DriverSweeper fixed their bug. There is always an element of risk using utilities that modify the registry. Fortunately, they don't seem to happen to us frequently.

You may need to reinstall the SD reader driver. There could be a problem with a Visual C++ Redistributable or .Net framework. I am not familiar with Autodesk Maya, but I am sure we have some experts here that are. It may be something they have encountered.

When you say "Photoshop causes the driver to crash" is this when you see the "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" message? Does Maya induce the same message? Are there any other error message(s) are you seeing? Also, do the messages and crashing occur at launch or when you attempt to do something specific within Photoshop or Maya?

 

Thanks, Mr. Fox. Maya and Photoshop both give the "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" message when I try to open them, but Photoshop opens, Maya crashes. No other error message is given. As for my videocard, I have the AMD 6990M. Are the drivers for the SD card on the Dell website? I don't really know what I'm looking for.

I will try the restore and see what happens, just wanted to see if others agreed.

 

The restore back to a few days ago seems to have worked, thanks! However I am unable to check the SD reader since I don't have the card anymore, I will assume that it has been restored like the other functions. Sorry for asking so many questions about this stuff, I am always unsure about what to do and it's nice to ask knowledgeable people about it before I break things more. It's good to know you guys are here and willing to help!

 

Let us know how the restore operation works and we can take it from there.

Drivers and Download | Dell [United States] Realtek RTS5209 Card Reader - This is identified as the Card Reader driver and it is found under the chipset category.

 

Hey Mr. Fox, I just barely posted before you did, but I got it working through the system restore. I just had to fix the audio problem again, but that wasn't a problem since I did it before (thanks to some help). Everything seems to be in order at the moment, although I can't test the SD reader since I don't have a card with me at the moment. Thank you for the link to the drivers, they will surely come in handy one day. Thanks again!

 

I knew you could do it! Nice job, buddy. +1 Rep

 

Ok, so I installed Windows on my RAID 0 HDD, finally, BUT one problem.

AnandTech - AMD Releases Catalyst 12.1 Preview ? Custom Application Profiles, HD3D CrossFire, & More

I downloaded that after downloading all the drivers from the "Fresh Install" thread and I got a BSOD. . Anyone got any ideas?

 

Thanks!

 

Did you install any other AMD drivers (older ones, different ones) before installing the 12.1 preview? Also when do you usually get the BSOD?

 

I usually get the BSOD when I install AMD Catalyst 12.1. I did have BSOD problems with installing Intel RST but I was under ACHI and not RAID. Since I'm on RAID now, I can install the Intel RST.

And yes, I did download the previous AMD drivers as well before installing that one.

 

Sounds like you got things sorted with the RAID0 installation... did you?

 

Did you uninstall the previous AMD drivers properly? Look here, under clean driver install.

 

Ahhhh, I See. Gotcha. Since I did another fresh install of Windows 7, I'm using the Alienware Resource CD to install some drivers, I can just install the AMD driver on Dell.com instead of off the CD so I don't have to go thru installing, uninstalling and installing a newer version.

 

Well, all I am saying is that the 12.1 preview drivers probably need a clean install (i.e. remove all previous amd video drivers correctly then install 12.1) . I don't know how the 12.1 will behave if installed over the dell video drivers. It could be the reason for the BSOD. I have been using the 12.1 drivers for a few days now and they are running smoothly so I could at least say that they install properly (no BSOD). Let's see if we can figure out what's going wrong on your side of things.

 

Mission accomplished?

Do not install the Alienware Command Center and especially not the Alienware OSD from the resource CD. Those definitely need to come from support.dell.com unless you have a brand new CD with the same versions of what is posted by Dell.

The version of OSD on the resource CD has known issues that cause Windows 7 Aero to malfunction.

 

RAID 0 yes mission accomplished thanks to you

But, as for the BSOD during the AMD installation, I read the "how to clean install" thread, and the video drivers is almost last, so instead of installing the OSD, AMD drivers from the CD, since I have wifi already installed im going to just go on support.dell.com and get the latest versions of both OSD, Command Center & AMD Catalyst and install it like that.

 

Sounds like a good plan, RRei. Glad to hear the info was helpful. I knew you could do it... not hard, just a matter of knowing what to do the first time around.

 

Installing everything perfectly so far. New AMD driver installed, just having a brightness problem is all.

 

RRei, in case you haven't already discovered it, this thread may hold some interest for you with the clean OS installation...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ook-feel-after-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

 

Yeah, I've used that thread already. So now im good. I'm update to date drivers wise, no BSODs, and its set up to RAID 0. I guess I'm all good here for now, about time

 

so just wanted to ask, before receiving my alienware replacement. can anyone confirm that the brightness control works for the new amd driver? if it doesnt i will probably stick with amd 11.8 and use hwinfo64 for fan control.

also, just today i had another loud beep issue this time its 8 beeps, but it was fine after i let the computer stay shut down for several minutes. ohh and while i try to reinstall new window, without any amd driver, window index shows 1 with default window resolution, GPUZ shows temp goes up to as high as 98 C lol

 

The new one 12.1 off the AMD website does have brightness control, and the DELL one does not.

 

Hi guys im stuck again. On my key board I have a blood red theme. But try as I might I cant get the macro keys to retain the red colour when I reboot or turn back on. I can change them easy enough when its on, but it looks rubbish on a fresh boot keyboard red macro keys blue. Any boffin know a simple fix, much appreciated thanks all

 

im thinking there must be a reason why dells doesnt have brightness control. either they found out there are issues with it and taken it off =/ why would the same driver version have such differences.

so i assume 12.1 from amd is stable with A05 bios?

btw fox im curious about how raid 0 works in general, im wondering would it be faster to get 2 ssd and put them in raid and get super speed. a high end fast ssd gets about 450-500 read speed (actual read speed) and about 250-300 in write. however sata III port only supports 6.0 gbps thats about 600 mb/s so here im thinking in raid0 with two SSD at 450 x 2, it'll only max out at 600 instead of 900 is that correct?

 

well i am far from a boffin , but when u change the key colour i think you will find when it reboots it always defaults to set 1 for the macro keys , so i am assuming when you change it all too one colour make sure set1 is the same as the rest of your keyboard , maybe set1 is red so you need to change to blue only a guess but worth a try .
Cheers.

 

just checked , if you select the macro keys in alien fx and then hover the mouse over the colour wheel it will show you what colour each set is from 1 to 3 and if set 1 red then just make sure set 1 is enabled and change to blue or whatever. Anyway good luck.
Cheers.

 

No, that's not correct. If everything works properly you will definitely see 900MB/s read speeds. I am getting 500MB/s with a single SSD and will eventually be going to SSD RAID0.

Go to http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...d0-questions-troubleshooting-discussions.html for setup instructions in post #1. There is a lot of good information on this thread. There are screen shots of RAID0 SSD benchmarks showing 900MB/s reads. I think the first one is post #22. I posted my single SSD benchmarks on #168. I am running a Crucial M4 128GB SSD and it is outstanding... none of the bugs you might experience on an SSD with a Sandforce controller.

Adding a good SSD is one of the best performance upgrades you can do on any computer (desktop or laptop). While they are not cheap, SSD provides an enhanced user experience that you have to feel to believe.

You can thank AMD for Dell's beta version not having brightness control. AMD builds the drivers, not Dell. From Catalyst 11.9 until 12.1 (roughly) AMD has left out display brightness control. Hopefully, Dell's final version of the driver will be based on 12.1 and will include brightness control.

 

Check out my video of Alienware M18x
Alienware M18x Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 - YouTube

 

Nice video, Straffa. Welcome to NBR Forums. We're glad you joined us and look forward to seeing more of your posts in the Alienware Community. Also, congratulations on the M18x... good choice! How long have you owned it?

I customarily share helpful links when greeting newer members. Please take a few minutes to click through them. I hope that you and other readers find the links useful in jump-starting your participation in the Community. Again, welcome to NBR.

USEFUL THREADS FOR FORUM MEMBERS

All users reading this post are encouraged to become familiar with the rules for our forum. Additionally, the information on how to search the forum is especially useful, as it should help members avoid creating new threads to ask questions that have already been answered, as well as avoiding starting new threads on topics that already have a thread for discussion.

Forum Rules - *PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING* | Alienware General Information & HOW TO: Search the forum - *PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING*

Reputation Points/Power and User Titles | Forum Guide and "How-To" | How To Properly Insert an Image Into Your Post | NBR Marketplace

 

In case anyone else was still wondering I did tear down my machine the other night, including the monitor. There is zero mounting points for a light in there nor do any of the boards have a place to plug one up. So that solves that.

I took some pics (that are still on my camera) that I will upload to an album at some point when I have time to process them.

EDIT: Id like to add that this machine is simple to take apart. Because its a little more spacious things are laid out less cramped, and taking it apart is actually really simple. I'm glad I decided to stick with it.

 

That's good to know, Riftwire. Thanks for sharing what you found out about the lid emblem lighting. Looking forward to seeing the photos.

I agree, it is simple to work on.

 

1st: hey hi, new at the forum so be patient


Hidevolution and fortnax are 2 websites that sells the m18x online anyone knows more dealers that also offer custom m18x's maybe one with better prices or better custom options?

 

Hi awer and welcome to the NBR Forums. I hope you enjoy your stay here.

I personally got my M18x at HIDevolution. I had quite some trouble getting it directly from Dell and thus decided to get it from HIDevolution. Very professional and easy to deal with.

 

Vergil - I'm glad to see you posting this evening. I heard there was some serious flooding going on in the Philippines. I'm glad to see you're doing OK.

awer - I second the welcome to NBR Forums. We're glad you joined the Alienware Community. It's a great community, with lots of helpful folks like Vergil.

 

Yeah Dell can be a real PITA. Right now I'm having a massive problem with their return/exchange department. They sent me a third threatening letter that I was infuriated by.

They have some problems with communications. Since I've done everything I am supposed to do I don't expect to be treated so poorly.

I've given them tracking number, signature, issuer of the prepaid tracking and it still isn't resolved.

-----

AMD graphics cards seemed okay at first and now I'm having all sorts of wacky issues. I get these odd texture fills and it seems like the screen will load bottom up in a jerky/flash motion that kinda makes me nauseous.

-----
I'd have to say that Crucial M4 is the way to go. I opted for the 256 due to being driven crazy by the size limitation of the 128's.

Although I'm gonna have to say that my patriot torqx which is now in another machine gets much lower scores and I can barely tell the difference.

 

@Mr. Fox
Thanks for your concern. The massive floods were in the southern regions, where as I'm located in the north. Although this is a little OT, the center I belong to at my university is deploying our projects to help those affected to have access to clean drinking water.

@Bloodroses
I also had problems with directly buying from Dell. It seemed rather ironic that getting it directly from them would cause such inconvenience. Getting my unit from HIDevolution was definitely an excellent decision since I was able save myself from the headache. I could care less if my nameplate is rather generic being that it has "M18x" on it. Having more options for the hardware was also better for me since most of the stuff I got can't be bought here in my country. Would have to order them online and I might end up getting taxed a lot.

 

hey guys, you notice this 'toaster.exe' file, this is quite annoying whenever i change a sli configuration, is there a good way to disable it in the task bar without interrupting normal apps? because wheneve i change any setting in the nvidia control panel, toaster is always active (and in the panel it indicates it needs to closed) so i have to find it everytime whenever i change nvidia panel config. thanks!

 

Toaster.exe has always been a problem. It is Dell DataSafe local (AlienRespawn) and the service is SoftThinks agent. You'll want to disable that pile of garbage from your Windows Services.

See this post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/588142-m18x-windows-aero-41.html#post7742972. (Don't worry about disabling WinSAT now that the OSD bug is fixed.)

Other related info on this piece of bloatware...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...full-screen-dell-xps-l502x-2.html#post7742487 - http://forum.notebookreview.com/windows-os-software/597355-top-windows-cut-off-help.html#post7742189

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/603378-small-black-bar-desktop-2.html#post7815060 - http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/579358-general-m18x-issues-5.html#post7779064

 

thanks mr. fox, i will check this

 

I have a question.... in the past, how long have SLI/Crossfire dual GPU Alienware laptops been able to keep up with gaming? I have a M18X with the dual 580M GPUs and am just wondering how long it will be until i have to run games on med/low? It seems that this rig will run pretty much all games maxxed at 1920x1080, and since that isn't a super high resolution, how long will this be the case?

 

I have one with 460's SLI and do not have problems with any games, perhaps not all full out but all with great frame rates, you should not have any problems for a long time