Issues with my M11x R1 please help.

I recently purchased a used M11x from my cousin. 1.3 Core Duo, 4gb Ram, 250gb HD, etc., etc.. I have a couple issues. Firstly, I made the mistake of running the included "restore" disk rather then using Dell Datasafe Local and fresh installed a basic Windows 7 Home Premium. Not a huge deal, I downloaded all the drivers and went about using my laptop. However whenever I enable the Bios overclock feature I'm getting BSoD and crashes/reboots. This was also happening before the restore. I've tried researching the issue but can only find limited info. I also contacted Alienware support (I have the extended 3 year warranty) and they tell me different things but mostly that it shouldn't be overclocked (even though it's advertised as overclockable and it's built in!?) and that inability to do so isn't covered by my warranty. Is there any fix out there for this? I don't seem to be able to find software capable of overclocking either. Secondly I ran 3dMark06 and only got a score of 4600 which seemed a little lower then other people got using the same settings who were achieving over 5200. Should I maybe reinstall everything, could something be awry? Or attempt to restore to factory recovery using the steps found here Unable to restore an Alienware M11x - Laptop General Hardware Forum - Laptop - Dell Community? Any help or info would be much appreciated. I would love to be able to overclock but even without it I feel it should be running a little better. Really is a shame Alienware/Dell won't stand by there advertised feature...

 

If you're getting crashes while overclocked, then your hardware most likely can't handle it. Every processor - hell, every motherboard and RAM module - is different, and they all handle things differently. The processor was rated from the manufacturer to do 1.3GHz. As long as it does that, it cannot be considered faulty.

Your lower 3DMark score is likely due to your processor running 400MHz slower than most people with an R1.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot that I know of that you could do. Alienware is under no obligation to replace/repair the processor/motherboard, as they do not officially support pushing the hardware beyond its stated rating. Sucks to hear, but that's pretty much the luck of the draw when you get into to pushing limits.

Even without the overclock, though, there are some things you could do to improve system performance. You could use msconfig and/or Soluto to cull the list of applications and services that start at bootup, which would free up the processor to do other tasks. Disabling a lot of the Alienware stuff (namely the AlienSense feature) will also free up a bit of power. And you can use an application like Game Booster to kill unneeded processes and services while you're gaming so you can focus more on that.

 

It should be over 5200 with 1,3 ghz , and over 6200 with 1,73 ghz .
Fresh install is a good idea imho . Then run into selective startup and try your 3dm score .

 

6200 3DMarks on an over-clocked SU7300 M11xR1 has to be the maximum obtainable. Anything from 5800 - 6000 3DMarks is quite respectable on an over-clocked M11xR1.

One assumes you have enabled the Nvidia GPU by pressing the Fn+F6 button.

Installing BIOS A05 'may' provide a way forward with CPU Over-clocking, though I've not read anything that suggests it assists in stable CPU over-clocking.

 

Thanks for the responses guys. I Will likely do a fresh install and tryout Game Booster (sounds like a good program, I'm surprised I've never heard of it). I already keep my startup pretty clean with WinPatrol. Only the stock driver stuff (minus AlienSense) and avast is running. Yes the GPU is enabled =P and I already tried the bios update. Really lame on Dell's part about the overclocking... false advertising if you ask me.

 

Also it seemed to be running stable while OC'ed in safemode could it be a problem with windows compatibility? I forgot that one of the techs I talked to said that thought the hardware supports OCing that windows does not. Maybe I should install a different version of windows 7? Perhaps Ultimate?

 

Update:
Cleaned it up some, ran Game Booster, etc and obtained 5652 wihout being OC'ed. Much happier with that result, I still wish I could OC stably (my only real beef with this system so far) but I'm glad I was able to tweak it some.