*OFFICIAL* M18x Owner's Lounge Thread

I am using one like this one BRÄDA Laptop support - black - IKEA.

 

Hey guys. I just "upgraded" from a M17x R3 to a M18x. The graphics horsepower difference between the two is insane!

I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I'm looking to get one of those L-Shaped adapters for the AC plug. I was able to obtain one for the M17x, but it doesn't seem to work correctly.
Does anyone know where I can order one from? Thanks in advance!

 

Power Cables & Cords

 

What kind of "L-shaped" adapter are you looking for? Are you referring to a right-angle power cord or an adapter that fits on the tip that goes into the laptop port? Can you post a photo?

 

Mine finally shipped today. I'll either receive by next week Monday or it'll take up to six weeks...

 

Sorry if I wasn't more clear. Yes, that is exactly what I am looking for. I'm looking for one of these.

 

Thanks, Keith. Assuming it works correctly, I would love to have one of those for the M18x and the M17x R2. I have never understood the logic of having the connect sticking straight out of the back like they do. I certainly takes up unnecessary space that way. I have not seen one that works with the M18x or the M17x R2 and don't know where to buy an adapter that does.

Do you know what brand your adapter is?

Edit: I just Googled LC90B and found lots of hits... maybe one of the links will turn up something that will work. Not sure this will work for the M18x or M17x R2... probably exactly the same part you already have, Keith. LC90B from Bixpower - LC90B | dell power charger

 

Thank you Mr. Fox. I have the stock Dell 330w adapter that comes with the M18x. I tried the one in the photo on the M18x AC Adapter, and while it fit perfectly, I got a message at startup about the adapter not being the proper wattage. That leads me to believe that it can't deliver the proper amount of power for some reason? It worked perfectly fine on my M17X R3 with the stock 240w adapter.

I don't know how many of those L-shaped adapters out there are actually capable of supporting the power requirements of a machine like this.

Us M18x owners are a special breed.

 

On the subject of the power adapter, is there a shorter version of the section of power cable that plugs into an outlet? I am mobile with my M18x and this section of cable is quite long and a bit bulky and heavy, it would be nice if there was a 3 ft. version.

 

You can get them as short as 1ft;

Power Cables & Cords

 

I put my fat M18x power cord in a drawer the day I unboxed it and haven't used it since. I am using a power cord for a desktop PSU and it is much more user friendly. If you don't have a box of spare parts, you can buy an ordinary ATX PSU power cord for less than $2.00.

 

There must be a reason they made it so thick though.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk

 

Probably just for continuity....same diameter cores/flex both sides of the brick would be my guess. I would have been a bit suprised had the psu shipped with a very thick beefy cable one side and a weedy, thin little excuse for a cable on the other side LOL

 

What you guys think of the decals?

Spoiler

 

I agree, its probably for "show" Wow.. your laptop is so awesome it takes a server grade power cable!

Really though, at 330w, it is less power than virtually every desktop PC on the market for the last 30 years. Even 18awg cabled power cords are more than enough for the power brick. Heck.. the cable that ships with the M18X is thicker than the cable that came with a 1,300w power supply i put in the other day.

 

Well, whatever the reason might be, using an ordinary ATX PSU cord certainly has not affected my benchmarks scores or ability to draw adequate power to the AC adapter.

There is nothing particularly wrong with the stock power cord, other than it is not very travel-friendly because of the bulk.

AgentVFX - the Lambo decals are nice. Where did you buy them?

The eye-catching Acer Ferrari never lived up to the name in performance; but the Lamborghini motif seems to be appropriate for the M18x. It certainly is top of the line in looks, build and performance.

 

To me, the stiffness of the stock cord makes it come un-plugged a bit easier from the brick. And it is a lot less travel friendly, you can shave a 1lb off the total carry weight by switching. Someone needs to get Alienware to switch to a normal cable.. heck.. it should save them a couple bucks between the cost of the cable and the freight.

 

Yeah got them ebay actually, just search "Lamborghini stickers".

I always thought the M18 looked like the Reventon.

 

TheBluePill thank you for the information! I didn't know that the wall socket side of the PSU cable was of universal design, reading the other comments I believe it is safe to get an 18 gauge 3ft. cord.

 

The M18x does look like a Reventon...
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Guys I need some help, badly! Ok well I start to put my Intel 520 ssd inside my M18x and when I was doing this the orange tab came out. Now I'm unable to detect my Intel 520 ssd inside bios; nor can I detect it when I want to re-install windows on it. Have I broken it, will I need to call dell technical support to get a technician out to fix the issue for me?

 

Have a picture of what "came out"?

 

Do you mean the ribbon cable that attatches to the motherboard on one end and the sata interface that you plug the drive/s into on the other end ? (as that is kinda orange looking) - I didnt think the 520 had any orange parts to it for them to come off - going on the pictures of the drives I have seen.

If it is the ribbon cable, that would explain why the drive is not getting detected as technically, its not even plugged in. You could try removing the ssd from the interface (bottom pic,2) and making sure that the ribbon is correctly located in the port on the mobo (top pic, 3) and is secured properly with its clip. It's easier to do it without the drive attached as you can manoeuvre it alot easier without having to worry about damaging the interface or ribbon cable itself.

If its the port that is on the mobo (top pic, 3) that has come off, I would imagine you would need a new mobo.

 

Wow it look like the reventon, And I thought that my 2011 Honda pilot was the best car in the world. Lol

 

Yeah my favourite car. and on top of that the M18 has almost the same colour as the Reventon, the gun metal chasis.

 

Make sure in step 3 (first picture, 2823 post) that you pull the tab up so it's in an unlocked position, slide the ribbon back in and then push the lock mechanism back down, I used a small flat head screw driver to push the lock down, does not need much force. It's easy to panic when you first see it.

 

Yep. Just pry it up gently, little bit one side of the locking clip, then a little bit the other side and so on until the mechanism opens....should avoid any chance of the clip breaking too which would prove to be a royal PITA if that happened.

 

Hey, that is exactly what happened! That orange tab that you showed came off the black tab that sits on the the motherboard. Is that an easy fix for the technician that dell will send out or is something more sinister? Is my computer completely ed? The computer still posts and what not I just think the technician needs to install another on of those raid board into my M18x and everything should be ok, is that right?

 

The actual black interface that sits on the motherboard is still there. It's just the orange flap that came off. Will my computer still work or is there a way to make it work or should I just call dell to fix it for me and just tell them my hard drive just stopped working and as a result the orange tag fell out for some strange reason :/ Will this void my warranty because I paid for their top-end warranty for 3 years (premier warranty).

 

Sounds like the ribbon cable came out of the port on the mobo, all you need do is to loosen the black securing clip on the mobo port with a small flat head screwdriver, re-insert the ribbon cable and gently push the securing clip back down to secure the ribbon cable to the mobo.

If you look at the top pic #3, you should be able to make out a small black clip on the port - this lifts up and down (up to free the cable and down to secure it in the port) ad if all that's happened is that the ribbon cable came out of that port/socket, all you need do is re-insert it and re-secure it.

It wont void your warranty - chances are if you damaged the ribbon cable/interposer in any way, you might need a new one which Dell would send you. Not really a job for a tech as its so simple to just retro-fit it yourself.

If there is no damage to the cable/interposer/mobo port you should just be able to reinsert it and you should be golden.

 

Hey Steve,

I would sincerely like to thank you for replying to my message. I thankfully got it working no harm was done and I'm seriously on top of the moon!!!! For a moment there I thought I damaged it and that it wasn't going to work but for now I'm awesome haha

Also really like to thank tanderson as well you 2 are legends and I wish I could buy you both beers to say thanks!!!! I really do mean this. SO so so so thankful right now

 

Can someone explain to me why when I installed my Intel 520 240gb ssd and installed windows again that came with the laptop. It said I only had 160gb left from 223gb. How can windows take 63gb??? Is this possible?

 

it doesnt. run disc cleanuo and remove SP1 backup files. also empty the recycle bin. make the page file smaller and make the recycle bin reserve smaller

 

The disc cleanup, does it come with the computer?

Did you get that problem as well with it saying that it installed 63gb?

 

Just glad to help out Bro, glad you got it sorted and are up and running.

Also, if you cloned your original HDD to your SSD, did you have much stuff on it? - that may account for the lack of storage space. Did you do a clean install to the SSD? - if so, windows shouldnt take up that much space even with SP1 backup files ....and I also assume that you have a Windows 7 SP1 disc that shipped with your system - hence no reason you should have to clean up SP1 backup files in the first place as suggested above, as you would never have had an OS without SP1.

 

I didn't clone my HDD to my SSD. All I did was install ssd put in the windows 7 Pro disc that came with the computer and let it install windows 7 onto the ssd; that's all! When I went into my computer it told me that I was using 63gb of storage just for the OS after the install was complete! Is there a way to get my storage back? Any suggestions steve?

 

That probably includes your windows backup files, disable backup if you want will free up disk space (nice to have if you have any issues with windows updates).

Virtual memory can take a huge chunk, be careful with that, depending on how much memory you have, you can drop that.

Couple other things you can do to trim it down from 60 to almost 20 if you really want it running that streamline. There might be some people out there that can help you with these settings or google them, you'll find them fairly quickly

 

Is it worth keeping all the back-ups and everything? Or is it just a waste of space?

 

63gb seems really excessive. As a comparison to yours, I clean installed Ultimate SP1 via the shipped OS disc to my 512gb raid. As you can see from the pic below, even with drive provisioning, my OS install is far less....and I didnt have to do any cleaning of backup files to create more space etc etc etc.....and I had 476gb free after installing the OS....If it were me, I would be tempted to do a full clean install, delete all partitions to create one large unallocated space and then install the OS to that....there should be no reason for your OS install to take up that much room....

Spoiler

 

Yeah I'm actually tempted to buy another Intel 520 ssd 240gb and put it in raid 0. Just need to get the extra money first and then install the OS again and see what happens. Have no idea why it would be so stupid to think to install so much. Do you think my ssd could be ed that it can't read the amount of data be transferred?

 

I installed Win7 Pro on a intel 520 (240gb) drive and it did the same, took 63gb. I installed Win7Premium on my 256gb M4 and it took only 30gb

 

Hopefully, you installed the OS with the BIOS in RAID mode rather than AHCI. If you did, when you buy another Intel 520 240GB SSD to match the one you have, you will not need to reinstall the OS. You simply use RST to create the RAID0 setup from within Windows.

 

Yeah man what the hell? Is there a problem with the Intel Drives? There must be a problem with the drives! I'm thinking that there might be a fix but I think like others have said you might have to buy another drive and install it using raid 0. Not sure if this is the only way because I don't want to have to re-install the windows OS again and install all the programs again; took me 1-2 hours to install everything again. Do you think our Intel 520 ssd are faulty.

Oh seriously.... I installed my single Intel 520 drive under AHCI because of TRIM! WOW this is so stupid. MR Fox if I get another Intel 520 ssd and install it using raid 0 will this fix the problem? Also because I'm using a Intel 520 ssd does that mean that I can still get Trim support or is that patch coming later?

 

u know too much.. i'll do just that when i set up my raid0 lol

 

Wow, who would have thought that Win 7 Pro would have such a huge footprint compared to Ultimate....or HP for that matter

What Mr. Fox is saying is that for your current single ssd, it would be best to have the OS installed under RAID in bios - if you do add a second ssd later on down the line, you simply create a raid array and you dont have to re-install your OS (which you WOULD have to do if you have installed under AHCI mode)

Regarding TRIM, right now, your single ssd will benefit from the TRIM command - currently, TRIM is not available for raided SSD's but Intel will have a new version of Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) Driver out in the not too distant future that WILL support TRIM for raided SSD's. Until that time, those with raided ssd's rely upon garbage collection (GC) that maintains the drives when idle.

As you have only just installed the OS, it would be advisable (before you get too much stuff on the drive) to simply just "prepare" yourself for the possibility that you may get another 520 at some point. That means re-installing the OS but doing so under the RAID setting in bios - then when you get another drive, you wont have to reinstall all the stuff that you are about to put on your new single ssd, simply use RST to create a raid array and it will do the rest for you WITHOUT you having to re-install everything AGAIN from your single ssd setup.

Make sense?

 

But don't you have to set up your raid pre boot up, in the raid set up (ctrl I?), which would wipe date. I have a sneaky suspicion you will have to wipe your data if you set up a second drive in raid zero.

And with Mushkin, I'm sure they're all the same, you will need to do a secure erase of the ssd previously used to clean it up or you might have left over data from the previous install, before you set up a new install, such as the raid 0. With sdd's, you can't just copy over the previous install.

 

Having the BIOS set to AHCI is not necessary for a non-RAID SSD to use TRIM. TRIM works perfectly on my system with the BIOS set to RAID.

Switching the BIOS from AHCI to RAID (or vice versa) will prevent your system from booting. It does not destroy data. If you switch it back, it will boot fine. I have done so more than once without a problem. The last time I did so was to update the firmware on my SSD, as it cannot be installed with the BIOS set to RAID.

Creating or breaking a RAID array will destroy the data, so to upgrade to RAID0 when a second SSD is added, a OS reinstall will be necessary if Windows was installed with the BIOS set to AHCI. The best solution that I have found to work properly is to leave the BIOS set to RAID regardless of your drive arrangement. Then, you can create the RAID0 array in Windows using Rapid Store Technology.

It is recommended by Intel that the BIOS be set to RAID even without a RAID array, and Dell and other OEMs do so. I've not found a good reason to use the AHCI setting in BIOS.

 

that was my point, you won't be able to set up a second ssd in raid without wiping data because you have to set up the raid before the os boot. (in the raid config)

Garbage works with most ssd's in raid and trim will work with 11.5 rst in raid was the last rumor I remember hearing...

 

Johnnyboy0022 - here is a thread that covers a lot (if not all) of what you are asking about: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...on-questions-troubleshooting-discussions.html

 

Thanks very much for linking that to me, that was awesome. My other question to you is, do you remember my last post that I mentioned that my Intel 520 ssd 240gb used 63gb to install windows; do you think that my ssd is faulty because it can't encode data properly? Should I call Intel or dell and ask them why it's installing the double the capacity than it should?