*OFFICIAL* M18x R1/R2 Owner's Lounge Thread

Yup. I've tried that. Uninstalled, in safe mode used driver sweeper and ccleaner. Still not working.

 

Have you ran WhoCrashed to see what's causing the BSOD? - maybe a different HDMI lead??

 

Bsod comes up as video drivers. It only happens when I have SLI enabled. Just spent 3 hrs on the phone will Dell. They did a complete reinstall and installed my driver with Remote Desktop. Still same problem. They said they were going to get engineering to look into it. .

 

I've never experianced that and I have two monitors hooked up to it.

 

Does anyone know the maximum speed / amount of RAM the R2 can handle?

1600Mhz = 32Gb
1866Mhz = ?Gb
2133= ? Gb

 

I have 32GB of 1866 in mine, should imagine it would be the same for 2133 (that's if you can get 8GB 2133 sticks?)

 

Have you tried OC'ing it to 2133 or higher? Is it Vengeance or HyperX?

 

Nah not tried to overclock it, i think the little gain isn't worth it, it's Corsair Vengeance.

 

Wasn't sure if the memory controller could handle it or not

 

I have good news for prospective buyers/owners...

My M18X R2 has now been running A08 BIOS with no problems, since Alien Autopsy suggested I needed it and I as some of you are aware "THE Goddess" is running at 4.3Ghz at the moment which now gives me a W7 Score of 7.8...

I intent to try and run her at 4.7Ghz after some very useful from various members but, at the moment I have a 4.3Ghz M18X R2 with no problems.

OB

 

you sure you not getting 1600mhz 4x8gb sticks and OC them to 1866? I cant find any 8gb corsair vengeance sticks at 1866mhz.

no point trying to get to 7.9 wei.. that thing is so inaccurate and you most likely won't get there unless you OC to 4.9/5.0. 3960x 12 threads at 4.9 GHz got to 7.9 wei, so good luck.

 

Not overclocked, certainly 1866, got them from here.

 

yeah, I've been thinking about those, not sure if I wanna wait for 2133mhz at this point. 32GB@1866 is pretty good.

 

can probably overclock those to 2133. although 16gb ram of kingston 2133mhz seems pretty sick
decisions.. damn it all why cant kingston just make 2133 at 8 gb =)

 

Does the 2133mhz actually at that speed?

 

i would say yes. but its only 4x4 max so only 16 gb =(

 

I am ordering a dual 680M and the trimmings and adding my Raid0 SSD later....

Question, Which is better performer: two SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD512BW, or a two 830's. I have seen the 830 get high marks but would like your input.

Thanks

(And glad to be here).

 

The 840's are better than the 830's, but the 830's hit that "sweet spot" when considering what you get for your money.

 

i would say get two 830 instead of two 840 pro. you can get 830 256gb as cheap as 180 each which 840 pro at lowest is 270. you're probably looking at only 5-10% max difference in write performance anyway. although i say 5-10%, theres still hasnt any review out containing fill tests. I don't consider Aanadtech tests are fill, they are just a couple of GBs of files no where near how much you'll actually use. review on SSDreview only showing results on empty drive, so it's pointless.

 

Agreed. I would personally recommend purchasing two or even three Samsung 830 Series SSD's. They are available during sales for about $159.99, perhaps even less, and free shipping. I bought two myself, I may even buy another.

 

Temps seem fine.. However I don't have your proc. I idle at around 45-50 c myself. I see you mentioned you disabled sleep mode in CC however did you check windows power settings to be sure its registering ? Also, is the machine going to sleep while your using it or after its been idle ?

Sent from my Android using Tapatalk 2

 

after completing this procedure the problem ceased for two days until about 30 mins ago....i did the process again...is it okay for me to keep doing this or should i contact service?

...once again yes i have done all of that

its going to sleep while im using it...it stopped for two days after i cleared the cmos but 30 mins ago it did it 4 times in 6 minutes

 

Well, something is definetly not quite right. You shouldn't have to be clearing the CMOS every few days to have a machine work properly. Did you try a factory restore or clean installation of Windows? - maybe that would help rule out some causes. Clearing the CMOS won't do any harm but it's not a practical way to have to do things. As you mentioned earlier, this only started happening after updating your Bios so I am wondering if anyone else has this issue. What version were you on and what are you on now?

 

not sure what i was on before but im on a08 now ...the one that came out recently

 

if its cmos battery/mobo/power related issue, chances are your problem just started to happen. i'd say call dell for replacement or some sort. imho i rather not deal with power/graphics/screen issue it'll be last thing i do when i have no choice, those tends to deviate into several different problems and extremely hard to track down what real issue is.

screen not showing up/black screen/ comp start beeps leads to graphic card issue, main card, secondary card, graphic cable loose or defects / burned out, screen it self not working, power not going to card? tons of problem.

 

heres a very interesting article about NAND flash and die sizes. reflects a lot more on SSD performances. if you have the time go through them and go through each picture, pretty valuable info there explaining how SSD and flash behaves:

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/26803...h_obstacles_and_the_future_of_ssds/index.html

so after reading this, Samsung 840 Pro will probably be the last MLC drive I purchase since its already 19~21nm. A 3k P/E write cycle drive should last a good power user a good 3-5 years without drive failing and 1-2 years average user with all their unnecessary writes. Basically Samsung 840 TLC drive are rated at 500~1k P/E cycle even with durawrite/Trim it won't last. TLC less accuracy upping latency/access time, with more errors it writes more to correct itself thus lowering life span decrease performance.

Basically, going from samsung 830 to 840 is a downgrade LOL imo it doesnt make sense. on the other hand looking at 32nm and 25nm flash, 32nm rated around 10k, then 25nm 5k~3k where samsung 830 is at 27nm die size which is fairly strong for it's endurance. Kingston hyperX (without 3k) and intel 520 are both rated at 5k, which explain why they are more expansive (brand name and type of flash). Vertex 3 MaxIops 240gb rated at 32nm around 10-5k, was found on sale at newegg for $140.. missed it

 

in regards to my previous post.. looks like there are firmware issues with 840 pro and 840, or just nand failing at 19/21nm in general. for those of you plan to buy them should read this first, Two Samsung 840 Pro's have failed - 4 at [H]ardOCP and another 840 non pro at AT - AnandTech Forums.

for those who already bought it, cross finger and pray.. no doubt numbers on empty drive looks amazing and it'd be awesome to have 3 of the Pro version in R0 in alienware but maybe samsung rushed it this time.

 

Hi guys, any of you upgrade your Wifi to Killer by yourself? I am trying to do that thru Dell but it is difficult in Asia. My M18x currently has the poor Intel 2x2 2230 card. Would my system support Killer 1103's 3x3? Any thing I should be aware of ?

thanks so much!

 

First thing id check is if your wifi connection its self is close to or maxing out your current cards specs.

 

It'll only benefit if your router supports speeds up to 450MBps or you'll be wasting your time and money. My router system supports speeds up to 600MBps, so I did the jump.

 

I just upgraded my router to cisco EA4500 supporting 450mbps. Because my iphone only support 2.4GZ and B/G, my current set is B/G only in 2.4Gz and N on 5 Ghz. You can imagine how disappointed I am when I find out my new M18r2 with 680 SLi can't even support 5Gz with the default 2230.... I called Dell, they are giving me a hard time saying no one in Asia order standalone Killer 1103 upgrade and if they do, it will be the card price plus 80 USD installation fee......

Should I just go with the Cisco USB adapter? EA2500. 50 USD. 3x3 MIMO 450 Mps. problem solved....

 

You can buy the killer 1103 off amazon and install it yourself - it is very easy.

 

Maybe give xotic or powernotebooks a call and ask about buying just the card. Otherwise im sure ebay or amazon has them.

 

Thanks guys, found it on ebay. Would I be able to fully utilize the 3x3 capability of the Killer given my curent machine is a 2x2 2230 card? (i.e., Does my laptop has 3 antenna?)

 

My R2 has 3 antenna even though my WiFi card only has 2, the extra one will be just sitting there waiting

 

vsync disabled gpu usage dips from 80s-90 to low 60s-50s n fps is HORRIBLE going from 160s to 40-30s when looking at action packed part of the map i tried overclocking, underclocking, overvolting gpu but no fps difference. only max fps increases but it will ALWAYS dip into 30s with gpu usage roughly 50% per card and i really dont think 680m sli @ 888/2400 each should be getting anywhere near evn 40 fps. msi afterburner shows extremely erratic gpu usage. it seems that the low gpu usage only happens when looking at huge explosions or action packed parts of the map, and usage goes back up to 80s when looking away at like the emtpy sky or ground directly below me. im almost certain its a cpu bottleneck.

 

Hi,
need your help.
I mentioned that from the beginning I had the issue that I needed to start my M18X twice to get sound. Using Bios A03 and Nvidia driver 306,97.
This issue is still present but without changing anything on my system I now have the additional problem, that after a normal and complete shut down, if I start the laptop e.g. the next day it tries to start and I get a blue screen mentioning an error with a nv......sys (don't know the exact filename) file and restarts after the blue screen crash. To get the system running again, I have to start the laptop into "safe mode" - then make a restart and then it starts normally.
This is kind of annoying especially for a 5000 Euro laptop.

Any advice what the issue might be - is it a bios version or driver issue or a hardware problem.
When the laptop starts normally it works perfectly fine and I am very happy with it but especially the bluescreens can't be to good for the system.

Many thanks
Regards
Nathan

 

Have you tried a clean os install with updating windows and drivers afterwards?

 

Before doing a full clean OS install, it might be worth downloading fresh Nvidia drivers - there are newer beta's available now on Nvidia's website. Uninstall the old set, clean up after using CCleaner and DriverSweeper and re-install the freshly downloaded drivers. That might help clear things up. I reckon the issue is gpu driver related as the nv......sys part is pretty indicative of such. If that fails, a clean install might be a good thing to consider.

You could also download "Who Crashed" and run it after the next BSOD. It will then give you a much easier to analyse report of what actually went wrong and who the culprit is.

 

I'm seeing peaks of 150 fps on such demanding games as bf3 and black ops2 with all settings maxed. My rig is probably what many of you concider "base" with dual 7970s and standard CPU. This is the kind of performance I expcted when I purchase d my first aw a few years ago, the original area 51 m17x with dual 9800s. I expected to set all setting to max and game, that wasn't the case with games like crysis and far cry 2. I didn't research and felt a little disappointed. I researched this one and found out that it would be a gamble but a bargain. The gamble has paid off! The new 12.11 series driver is delivering killer performance. The build quality is phenomenal, and it runs quietly performing every tasks and just surfing the net. Good job AW!

 

Welcome to tne M18x club and glad that your loving it.

 

Great news usmc1488,
I'm in the same camp as you, so I'm happy to hear your gamble also paid off.

 

Great news brother usmc1488. Welcome to the M18x club and glad that your loving the beast!

 

Yeah the M18x is awesome! Mine is a little different, but we can all agree on the awesome features and quality of this high end laptop!

 

Absolutely, indubitably the best! And welcome aboard, Usmc!

 

I wonder, are there ANY laptop network cards that support the full 600mbps vs. the Killer's 450mbps as my router also supports 600mbps. Would be interesting to know....

 

OK, if we are going to put everything related to the m18x into the lounge than what's the point of a thread dedicated to the m18x? After all by the logic just demonstrated any thread could fit into the lounge.

 

Not that I know of, but in the future it's a possibility. What system are you running that allows you to have 600mbps?

I'm running a Dlink DAP-1562 at 5GHz which is where I'm getting mine from.

 

Well, it's not all set up at this very moment but it's my broadband services N router (which I intend to piggyback off) and I will be using a Netgear WNDR 3700 N600 Dual Band Gigabit router. I've been told that this setup should work to increase my current 144mbps ....

 

hello all, I have 2 questions regarding my Alienware m18x r2 and After Effects. I do a lot of compositing work on my laptop and I notice that there is a serious case of color banding on the screen whenever I use some color-based effects. I mean instead of a smooth transition of different colors, you can see them separately. I've tried different settings on after effects to no avail. I was wondering if this is just an issue with color profile settings on the laptop itself or maybe something more serious. Also , while playing Far Cry 2, it suddenly resized the window into a smaller resolution. Since then , I haven't been able to play it in full screen but the game runs properly though. I'm running xfire 7970 on a 3820QM processor.

Sorry for the long post! I appreciate the help! Thanks!