Which Alienware m17x do I have? Alienware Area-51 m17x?

For the Love of God, could they have made this any more confusing...

For some time now (read: literally years now) I have been trying to figure out which laptop I have, and it has been slowly draining the life out of me...

I search all over the forums for bios updates and software mods, and every time I run one of them it tells me that it is not for my hardware.

This is a link to the exact laptop I own:

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptop/alienware-area-51-m17x.aspx

The confusion is in regards to all the m17x incarnations. Some threads send me to the m17x-r1 threads, but when I get there the hardware doesnt match mine. So I check into the m17 (no 'x') sub forum and same thing again.

I want to find a bios update that maybe gives me some functionality (currently I have almost no options in mine at all). I would like to overclock if possible. I would also like to know what hardware upgrades I could do.

I also want to download the latest drivers,and any firmware updates, so a link to those would help a lot. I am hoping to use win7-64bit if I can get it to work right... Every time I install 7-64bit the Command Center doesn't work, camera is upside down, etc.

Lastly I have a nagging problem that I can only see 2gb of my 4gb installed in Vista 32. All searches tell me I should be limited to 4, not 2, so this is confusing.

Can someone help me out?

 

You have what is referred to here as an "Area 51 m17x". That is discussed here in the "legacy systems" area. Yes, it does say m17x-R1 on the plate on the back, but just ignore the -R1 as that causes confusion with people thinking it means the DELL/Alienware m17x-R1 that was made later after Dell bought Alienware. That system is very different. The Area 51 m17x has a custom board and BIOS, so the only commercially available BIOS is from the "my hive" support section on the leagacy Alienware site. Dell/Alienware don't seem to have any interest in updating the BIOS.

Not much you can do on hardware updgrades. The best CPU is the X9000 Extreme Core 2 Duo 2.8 Ghz. No card beyond the 8800M GTX/9800M GT (which are actually the same card with different names) is offcially supported. Check the threads here for a user who is managing the get 280M GTX's to work - with challenges. That is not something you want to try without a lot of experience. There are also threads here about upgrading to win 7-64 bit and the issues you mention. Then you will be able to use the rest of your memory.

I am typing this on an Area 51 m17x.

From another user's (granyte) post the chronology is:
area-51 m17x-R1 (referred to as just the Area 51 m17x)
area-51 m17-R1 pm45, c2d c2q, mxm 2.1, 3870 - 4850
allpowerfull m17x-R1 nvidia something, c2d c2q, mxm3, 260m - 280m - 4870
allpowerrull m17x-r2 pm55, core I, 4870 - 285m - 5870

 

You are limited to 2gb because you have dual graphics cards. Think about it, the 32-bit limit is 4gb and that has to include GPU memory and all internal devices on the motherboard. The drivers for 64-bit are here:
Alienware : The Ultimate Gaming Machine?
You have the Alienware Area-51 m17x (Observe little 'm')

 

you guys are a wealth of information...

jwt2 if you come back to this, you mentioned commercial bios; is there another non-oem/custom bios that might help me out here?

simonmpoulton - thanks also for the explanation and yes I see now what you mean about the referencing limitations of 32 bit. Makes perfect sense once you pointed that out. I will make another stab at 64-bit and see how that goes this time.

Any advice on overclocking?

 

jwt2 if you come back to this, you mentioned commercial bios; is there another non-oem/custom bios that might help me out here?

Not that I know of, but there are lots of BIOS modding forums out there. I may even attempt it myself if I try to put some very non-standard graphics cards in my machine and need to get the GPU fans working again.

Any advice on overclocking?[/QUOTE]

Depends on what CPU you have. I have the Extreme X9000 "unlocked" CPU and all you need to do on that is change the multiplier. "Throttlestop" is what I've used on that. However, I don't like that the result is your computer will then boot with the CPU at the highest clock speed you enabled when you used Throttlestop. If you do not have an Extreme CPU, then it is more complicated. I don't know what is best, but there are a lot of forums on overclocking. I would advise you to first check your CPU temperatures before you start any overclocking. My temps are marginal in a high stress game or benchmark even at the stock clock speed. I need to clean out the dust and redo the thermal paste, but I haven't done it yet.