M17 General Information Thread

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

my m17 in in a deep coma state

 

Bummer

Still under warranty?

 

rofl no it's going on it's second year with me so no warranty any more

but it's just a bad flash so i'll order replacement for the part i modded and ship it to the repair service that solved the issue for some one

shipping prices are gonna kill me though

 

Damn, hope you can get it sorted Granyte!

 

reset fix bios laptop repair HP Acer Dell Lenovo IBM Toshiba Sony - AQSTECH assured me they could solve it

so it's adrealy packed and ready to go and i'll ship it after work or tomorrow morning

how ever i pray that the original box size won,t make me pay an astronomical shipping fee i know the weight won,t be gently though -.-

 

shipping was not astronomical but still to high yet it made it to the repair facility

Repair ? BIOS ? GPU ? DC Jack | Toshiba ? Sony ? Dell ? Lenovo ? HP ? Acer ? Fujitsu ? Asus ? Gateway -

i also asked him if he could put one of kizwans bios that are confirmed to work on it

aka any off the 3 that works on the 4 there
http://forum.notebookreview.com/6593938-post455.html

also AVOID USING Alienware M17 Arima W840DI 840.029 LOGO MOD.rar

it bricked my laptop might just have been a bad luck but unless you wanna send him a second m17 just to be sure i say its not worth the try



EDIT for some reason non of the bios post on my system according to the AQS technician so he reverted to b14

 

''EC Data Corrected > BIOS Data corrected with version: W840.029 > ''
So finally they proved that Arima W840.029 BIOS better then B14

 

WIN he updated while i was on the move when he updated i'm waiting for a email from him with the cotes and prices with the test of this bios

and i'll pay up i can't wait for my lappy to come back

 

finally it came back and is now running the .29 mod by kizwan i gotta say wow just wow all the option this enabled

go take a look pics are from an other user who tested it also http://forum.notebookreview.com/6593938-post455.html


can some one explain why the hell c states are disabeled on this laptop? was it a conspiracy to prevent us from having any form of mobility or batterie life? anyway re enabeled them

EDIT: ZPMFG i don't know precisely what i changed in the bios but ida is now enabeled by default on and it's impressive slfm is to so now my quad goes from 1408 to 2261 dynamic fsb owns

EDIT 2 : Intel XTU is back in the game and there is even profile switching when battery is in the game i coudl likely use xmp memory profiles if the xtu was not reacting bad to my higher dpi

anyway i'm off to test the bios in game

EDIT 3 : Gaming with dual ida require setting the minimum cpu state to 100 in windows the cpu sill overclock to 2261 but they don,t go down to 1408

EDIT 4: i'm getting a firm 10 minutes of additional batterielife with this bios while watching a movie compared to b14 at iddle note that my batterypack is damaged and is only at 60% of it's nominal capacitie so a new one would bring a quite interesting capacitie
and i plan on rebuilding the pack with 2800mah cell or better (original ones are 2200mah) i hope i could suck nearly 3hours out of the DIY pack maybe more there is option to disable some pcie port on this bios but i haven't figured wich one is the slave gpu yet and i'd hate disabeling the master as it would force me to reset and seatch what were my previously added setting


EDIT 5: turbo boost can go hide it self with ida enabeled my cpu can rach 8.5 multi on several of it's core that's adrealy good and now there is an option to enable dynamic FSB in the bios wich makes the FSb jump back and forththe lowest i seen it go was 201 and the highes 321 now make your calculation 321*8.5 = 2.7GHz on a god damned Q9000 how ever it only hapens in short burst but still aint it great
(thanks to the kingston hyperX memory no bsod due to the fsb jumping around)

I also found several options i didn't dare playing with cause i don't understand what they mean any one gues could help

under acpi control
EMA Support
MEF Support
ALS Support

under Mch control
MDA Support

under Integrated device
Azalia modem

 

The Azalia modem is usually what I'd expect to see if you had an integrated 56Kb modem in, I don't remember the M17 having one, but its possible it was an optional addon board/part for the M17's motherboard.

 

that's what i suspected but there is not even a plug for it on the m17

maybe the w840 had it


thanks

 

I do not recall my Whitebook having it. Some things needed to die that is one of them haha

 

i really agree with you lol the only utility i found to the one on my previous laptop was to send sms for free from anywhere through a server

 

Holy crap this is nuts! Is this safe for us OCZ people?

EDIT: tried the Mod R2 PST bios, will not work for the OCZ w840, gives me a failed to load and beeps like crazy :-/

 

read the full post you need to use the update.bat thing else it will do so and then go into an auto recovery

 

Can I modify cpu voltages in this version? can I go lower than 1.05 on the quad with this bios?

 

no the cpu will not allow it no bios or software will cause the cpu will lock it

 

ah damn

 

Hi there everyone.

Looking to buy a M17 or OCZ barebone (arima W840 DI) so if anybody has their laptop falling down, i'd be willing to give them a 2nd life

Good luck for everyone! Good topic btw

 

I just bought an area 51 M17x R1...


does anyone know if my ati 3870 cards will work? or am I going to have to get something else?

 

never been tryed as far as i know but there is some one who succeded to get 280m in sli i can digg the thread for ya if you wish

 

I saw that thread...


Were can I buy the GPU heatsinks??

 

It is Area-51 m17x (lower case m - it matters)

 

yes, I know...


google/ebay searches are not case sensitive...

 

It may take the 3870s but I am not hopeful, pretty sure the M9750 only did because it was also flextronics

GTX 280m SLI would be very interesting though. The existing heatsink should suffice since they had 9800m GTX at one point I believe. Just have to hope that bios support exists

 

I'll worry about what it supports after I find the heatsinks/fans...



EDIT:
are the master/slave heatsinks interchangeable?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Alienware-M9750...303?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item4cf5ebf9b7

 

Building one of these myself!

It boots with an FX 3700M - 8600M GT - 9600M GS, all unsupported and i've had netroller check the bios and everything is 100% correct so it should boot with 3870's fine.

It uses pm965 + nf100 to distribute the pci-e lanes so Crossfire should work.

And yes those heatsinks are interchangeable, i bought one of those and it fits my fx 3700M perfectly. You'll have to craft some kind of backplate though!

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...area-51-m17x-dual-gtx280m-project-thread.html

here you go the whole process on how to do it

 

looking for a M17 crossfire cable if anyone has one

 

azalia modem was the sound card, the damned sound card heck they could have at least renamed the string

 

another question...


will the m17x-r1 accept a "smart bay" battery?
M15X Extra 6 CELL SmartBay Battery MOBL-MD26CSECSILPNT | eBay

 

Nope, there is no battery connector inside the bay.

 

what bracket do I need to use a DVD drive? all I can find are the smart bay things to use a HDD...


that, and does anyone know if the R2 RGB led display can be shoe-horned in?

 

There is a special bracket available, haven't found it yet. Did see 1 whole dvd drive, 120 usd :s

And no, not without any mods. The rgb displays have a single connector while the ccfl ones have a separate power + data connector. Electrically it should work so with some connector mods you might get it working!

 

Just find a TL-A2 panel for the M17x. The swap is not that complicated and the screen is beautiful (So I have heard)

They are HARD to find these days though

 

<= glares at the tl-a2 lying on his desk Meant for a m570tu though, hope the replacement barebone (which is still stuck at customs) has the same lcd.

Replacing the lcd is really easy but make sure you are very very carefull with the bezel, it's very easy to crack!

 

great alienware no longer have any replacement part for the m17

 

Well....that should not come as a surprise.....they discontinued it what? 15 or 16 months ago maybe longer? And it was not even a dell laptop, it was the last true alienware

 

they discontinued it just befor launching the 4870 for the m17x

so now i'm stuck without a batterie pack

 

fleebay...


$90ish




I would pay shipping if you sent me your old one... I have LiIon cells sitting around...

 

m17 =!= m17x, different packs

 

I have a m9750 too... they use the same batts

 

another question...

the PSU for the m17x is the same as the m9750, right?

 

ya m9750 use same batt as the m17 but it depends on the acutal state of the batterie mine is at 42% of wear

 

the m17x uses the same psu as the new M17x (dell). I tried both a dell and the original alienware psu (i had some problems with 3d clocks), both worked flawless.

The dell 130 watt psu did get really hot with the fx 3700M @1.05v during games/3dmark, not recommended!

 

they don,t use the same but they are compatible the m17 is compatible to

 

Anyone know if this ram from G.Skill will work in an M17? I'm fairly certain that the speed of my bus is 8600/pc1066, not 10666(10600)/pc1333, so yeah they don't "match up," but I'm wondering if the ram has the pc1066 clock setting and will work ok. I bought some G.Skill ram in the past, but had to return it because it was either DOA or my system couldn't do it

 

yes it should work but i had a very bad experience with gskill ram

 

care to share your experience? I ordered some ram from g.skill about a year ago and they were either doa (likely) or incompatible with my system, cost me about $15 total on shipping for returns, but wasn't too bad.

 

my experience can be resumed into randoom BSOD