M17 General Information Thread

Easily at least %50 faster. Keep in mind.....OVER twice the shaders lol (from 320 per card to 800 per card)

 

i some time i'll be able to compare both throughly as i'll the two type of cards on hand

 

I remember comparing at the time when I had them, with a few owners with the 3870s and consensus seemed to be 20-50% depending on the game. Might have changed over time though. Remember just because it has tons more shaders doesnt mean they're always used or used effectively, after all a 5850 with similar clocks to a 5870 is almost as fast and that also has a pretty massive shader deficit.

 

yup driver does not makes real efficien use of the shaders of a card at begining i also remember they where not as fast when i first got them and they also where not runing as hot ethier even stock

 

The drivers for the mobility 4k series are MUCH more mature than they were when released. And for the 5850/5870 comparison, it depends on the title. Not all games fully leverage the resources available in the system.

 

Hey guys,

Forgive me if im posting old news but did you know that you can get some rather cool software for your fingerprint sensor not available in myhive.
Its from Authentec naturally and is called "TrueSuite" the only downside is that it costs around £13($20ish) but a free trial is available.
I have just installed the trial myself and it works flawlessly.

What is TrueSuite

Authentec link;

AuthenTec | TrueSuite
it may have been posted before but i do not remember seeing it on here.

Hope you are all still having fun with your M17s......I know I am and I agree with you guys....the drivers for the 4000 series GPUs are just getting better and better...or "more mature" as scook says. My 4850s are still running sweet and play games very well.
take it easy everyone.

edit; Windows 7 only...sorry

 

ehhh i have it for free ..... it may come with window 7 ultimate or something

because i didn't apid anything and got it back every time i reinstalled window 7

 

Anyone else have a ridiculously dim m17 screen? Mine has been a problem since the beginning. The lights are on in the LCD, but at maximum brightness it still is a problem to read in a well lit room.

 

nop mine is quite well lit and got a nice color range how ever it's a blody power hog

 

doe the drive ever stop spining when they are set in raid? if so would intel turbo memory help lenghten my batterie life?

since it seem like we can't put a minipcie ssd in the second plug as it would not work is there any other interesting mini pcie part i could slam in there simply because i can?

 

tv tuner and wireless are why there are 2 slots....get a tuner lol

turbo memory is not worth the money/space/energy

 

the tuner is useless it could not do hd here -.- i though about it

we turbo mem 4gb for 20 $ if it has any use but it seem like the tech was bashed befor it was even out or people even read wat it was used for LOL

si if it allow for my raid array to stop spinning when i'm on the move i thiink it could be worth it 2 drives spinning might brign me 15-20 min more and it could reduce the seek time on the hdd to so aplication would feel snapier and i'd still have the brute speed of my raid for data transfer

 

i finally did it i broke my lcd it has a nice crack ... in it for now it's working fine but i'll prolly replace it when i'm done upgradin to 8gb ram and QX

 

Hey Rifle_Shot,

I may have a suggestion for your lcd screen not turning back on. Do you have a second monitor plugged in? Your problem happened all the time to me when I had a second monitor plugged in and I'd close the lid (to standby), rather than choosing standby mode from the start menu. Also this would happen if I was connected to a projector and didn't properly reset the video to go to the LCD monitor rather than the external monitor.

So, the solutions I found were to: 1) either click standby from the start menu, or 2) disconnect the second monitor before going into standby/sleep mode and reconnecting it after I brought the computer back from standby/sleep.

Let me know if that helps...

 

I got the Black Ops PC game & its not working on my m17

& Activevison say they dont support the game on Laptops only desktops

thats so wired,

 

what does it say it crashes or what?

 

I would respond to activision saying that that is complete BS as more laptops sell than desktops now. The hardware is the same, gpu and cpu. it is a driver problem and they are just avoiding you it sounds like

 

any one know the power system limitation/capacitie for the m17

i'm thinking about building a custom batterie pack as the curent one is being using over it's limit with the 4850 thus explaining why i see rapid degradation on my batterie pack and would need to replace them every 2 month

 

It installed
but when I play it freezes

ya there company sucks
wonder if i can get refund from bestbuy

 

bing your computer with you start the game crash here you go it can,t play on an aliwnare it won,t work on nothing generally best buy guys will accept to help they exchanged me a fallout dlc pack because during the install it crashed my computer (the cd was damaged i seen it only after)

on an other note i opened the dead m17 batterie pack i had it's buit out of low 2200mah cell wich don,t even have the power to withstand the laptop power drain without beeing damaged

 

Those 2200mAH cells are put in series and parallel though to make the load through the individual cells within their spec. The 4850s should not be drawing that much power......

 

i've seen the arengement sadly they are some cheap 2200mah cels like really cheap

ICR18650-22E Samsung 18650 2200mAh 3.7V Battery Cell

 

This is there ans:-
I attached my DxDiag File

Discussion Thread
Response (Flaviano Arroyo) 11/16/2010 07:33 AM
Hello,

I see that are using dual GPU's. Also, I see that your drivers are slightly out of date.

Please download and install the latest drivers which are located here: ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver

Also, since this game has just recently been released there are no ATI crossfire profiles for this game so this can be causing the crash or even lag in the future. For now, disable your Crossfire in ATI CCC, and wait until there are Crossfire profiles for this game.

 

try runing with cfx disabeled?

 

That is exactly the response I would expect. The game is brand new, why does every one expect it to work perfectly right away? Not like there is a historical precedent of that happening lol

 

How to disable CFX ?
& will that make it permenet disable & have to enableit when playing other games ?

 

yes in CCC there is an option that makes enable disable CFX by check mark

 

actually for my 3870s I think I had to disable catalyst AI to turn off crossfire

 

catalyst AI "disable" cfx in a maner that the secind card is not force used but CFX is still working how ever some software sill use the second card

 

Thanks guys will try it & let you know

 

is there a way to flash back to b14 by a usb key or do we need to use a cd?

i started to suspect that the protection zfactor removed from the bios are also putting a heavier strain on the batterie when on te move and since i use the laptop quite often on the move i'm considering going back to b14


EDIT now on b14 i flashed with a cd

i get a longer batterie life a new batterie could stand up to 2 hours and everything seem to run cooler

 

Where can I download latest Bios ?
& are there different bios we need for Win7 & vista or both same ?

Thanks

 

the lastes from alienware is b14 it gives better batterie life allow you to shut the head light at the same time then the keyboard produce less heat

but throttle tho hell if your mobo and cpu are not perfect and consume more then X amount of power it's availible on your my hive


the lastes from zfactor was a member of this forum who build a custom bios for the m17 who allow overclocking by changing the cpu multi in bios and fsb perma overclocking by using the xtu it how ever has little to no consideration on batterie life or not damaging the said batterie it's ment for overclocking and is availible here on the forum

they are both working for vista and 7 how ever switching from one to the other you will need to reactivate window

 

Thank you very much
God Bless

 

Can anyone confirm whether it's possible to install 1tb 12mm or 12.5mm hard disk drives in the m17? Wasn't sure if the hdd bay are the smaller 9mm bay. Only info I could find was about the m17x with a slight mod being able to accept the 1tb 12.5mm hdd.

Cheers

 

NOPE

You get 9.5mm only, and they still scrape when being installed.

 

no 12.7 is for the optical drive only unless you wanna replace the optical with a desktop but that would require a mod

the normal hdd bay require 9mm

 

Thanks, you just saved me wasting some money. I might look into seeing if there is a hdd bay adaptor to help fit 12.5mm drives in the 9.5mm slot. I think I've seen something like that for lenovo notebooks on ebay. Otherwise I guess I'll just have to get another usb powered external drive.

 

it wont work as an internal drive and it's not the connector that's the issue it's that the drive simply won't fit into the laptop how ever the m17 got 2 slot so you could get 2 500 or 2 750 and fit them in the slots

 

Thanks, I had no idea what those adaptors were, but thought they were something which slotted into the bay and stuck out on the side to fit the 12.5mm drive in or something.

Anyway, I'll just got for the 750gb Scorpio Blue which is 9.5mm. I am going from the 7200rpm 500gb scorpio blue so had hoped to double the capacity if I'm going to be losing out on performance.

I already have a 256gb SSD as my first drive (system) so I guess performance should still be ok. Better probably since both drives at present always have well under 10% of the capacity free.

 

wow your a storage hungry person i noticed that for mys elf i always end up using half the storage i have availible unless i have riduculusly low amount like 250gb

 

Well I've been ripping my entire cd collection (again!) in lossless format. This equates to 400mb per album. Considering one classical boxset I own comprises over 40cds, you can see how quickly it gets used up. I also have an audible account with which I've collected a lot of audiobooks over the years. Getting it in their new 'enhanced' format can again be space hungry. I've also backed up my own collection of audiobooks from cassette and cd. Some I did a long time ago in too high a bitrate probably, however I can't be bothered to look for all of them in the attic again.

What I don't get is if the Seagate Goflex 1tb external drive is basically a 2.5" 9.5mm 5400rpm hdd using 500gb per platter, then why do all the internal 2.5" notebook 1tb drives measure 12.5mm and use 3 platters?

I'm reluctant to invest in a 750gb hdd only to find that a 1tb 9.5mm hdd is released shortly after. However this lack of space is crippling the performance.

You sound more disciplined that me. No matter what system I have, I've usually ended up using over 90% of the space.

Update- just read this posted elsewhere in October in answer to someone wanting to upgrade their ps3:
"If you are prepared to wait, the next round of platter density increases are usually around February, this should allow 9.5mm 1TB drives. "

Anyone know if this is true? Having said that, I wonder if I'm correct in assuming that a 1tb 9.5mm notebook hdd will probably be quite overpriced for few months after release.

 

I'm 90% sure I read in this thread that the optical bay in the notebook accepts 12.5mm height optical drives?

That being the case, I've seen an adapter for sale which allows you to mod a 12.7mm sata optical drive bay into an enclosure to mount 2.5" 12.5mm hdds.

Then I'd have 3 hdds!

I would probably then pick up a £25 usb powered optical drive to replace the internal one.

Any thoughts on whether this would work?

This is the model:
http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=278


The nearest relevant discussion found so far is at:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/480211-asus-laptop-g50vt-x5-raid-0-3-hard-drives-possible.html

Except he was trying to put 3 HDDs in raid0 whereas I want to keep mine the same as now, with the SSD as master and 2 slave drives for storage. I think he said there is an issue with the bios not liking there being 3hdds and no optical drive so it wouldn't POST properly.

Update:
I rang alienware support and the rep tried to help but he said he's never heard of anyone trying to install 3 hdds in the m17. We both agreed power consumption-wise there shouldn't be an issue since I only have 1 graphics card and an extra graphic card would prob consume more power than a 3rd 5400rpm hdd. He wasn't 100% sure about the bios, although I am using a modded bios which is the OCZ one rather than the alienware one anyway.

Also the Asus owner in that thread above found that his main problem was that the laptop wouldn't POST without an optical drive installed. The Alienware rep said that he didn't see this being an issue with the M17.

Further update:
I can confirm that the M17 optical drive is the Optiarc AD-7590S which is both 12.7mm in height and uses SATA interface so if anyone is considering a similar upgrade, the dimensions and interface won't be a problem

 

Anyone have working drivers for the webcam on the m17? I downloaded the one listed on the first page, click 'setup', it appears to unzip, but then nothing happens. I've tried this multiple times on different reboots, but nothing.

MyHive doesn't even show drivers for the webcam anymore. I'd like to get my webcam back from I think some random uninstallation during video card driver updates =/ thanks!

 

Windows Update does not have anything for it?

 

there is no driver for that damned cam i wish there where honestly the cam respond very badly under window 7 but it's natively suported in vista and 7

 

Hmmm... any ideas how to get it working then on my system? In my device manager it's not even listed, and if I search for new hardware, it doesn't find anything. I'd kinda like to get it back working or at least recognized in my system =o

 

Something similar happened to me! I'm pretty sure there used to be different drivers available. Have you tried using the function buttons to ensure it's activated? I think it's FN+F4. I haven't tested the cam since I reinstalled windows.

If no-one has any further advice about whether the M17 would be able to read a third HDD in the optical bay via a smart bay replacement I guess I'll just have to risk it.

 

to the system optical and local drives are the same it will work as long as you can fit it in there

it will just look fugly

 

I 2d the fugly comment as the OD is on the front of this laptop (one of my only gripes about its design)

Was going to put a slot load in mine when I had it but the bezels didn't line up and it looked hideous