M11x Optimization Thread

Why though? It's almost the same thing. You big sillies!

 

For those that have successfully completed "clean" re-installs of Win7 64 do you use Dell.com's drivers or get new ones from the individual component manufacturers?

For example: Realtek HD drivers, Intel Chipset, Synaptics & Nvidia (when the finally release 300m series ones... this is getting downright embarrassing for them at this point!)

My experience with Dell over the past 15 years is that their driver support is notoriously slow and far from up to date. Not sure if Alienware does it any better...

 

Are you referring to Microsoft Security Essentials? Thank you

 

Yes we were

 

Hey red you finally got yours! Anyway the fan isn't very noticeable in my classes, and I'm usually in small lecture halls since I'm a upper-division student. It's not going to sound like aircraft,even when you are playing a game, if that's what you are thinking.

Now if you were playing Modern Warfare in lecture, that will probably get you noticed...

 

He he... My classes are not that boring.. wish i had this laptop when i was doin my undergrad
PSP was my friend then...
I am still trying to figure out external display connectivity options..
In my previous vostro 1400.. i had Fn+F8 to switch between different settings when i hook up my kaptop to monitor..
->when i press tht combo once.. it ll close the current laptop screen and display my ext monitor screen in full res (monitor res)
->when i press twice i get multiple desktop..(adjacent screens.. love this to watch movie on my external monitor while doing my college work on my laptop screen)
->Third time ll display both screens with same thing.. ie parallel view.. (no ll use this option anyways)

I didnt notice this on m11x :|
any1 has any input on this one??
Theres fn+F1 here.. but nothin happens on that combo.
Also I disabled Alienware startup junk..so this might be the prob?? but still other Fn combos work..
Do i have to go into nvidea control pannel everytime??

 

found the solution fot the abv
start + p is doin the trick

I have a dvi option for my ext monitor.. I have a dvi-hdmi converter which i use for my xbox 360.
I tried to connect it to m11x and didn't work
Its not detecting my monitor in hdmi.. weird.
vga is working fine though.

 

@red = hdmi only works when you're on the GT, not the igp for some reason.

 

Has anyone in the UK managed to get the sim card/3g working. I download the drivers from the dell website and have tried with 2 different sim cards but it doesnt pick them up.

 

@fire = First things first, ask in the troubleshooting thread here. 2ndly, how did you get the gobi card in UK? Cause so far only USA gets the mobile broadband option.

 

I think that is his problem. He wont have any card in there, just the sim slot.
The UK has no 3G card option at the moment.

I am installing my 5530 and antennas when it arrives this week

 

This question has probably already been asked, but does the battery continue to be charged after it hits 100% charge?

 

@tears = A flat no. Unless its a bomb

 

by the way, couldnt get HDMI to work with my girlfriend's TV, plugged in her old HP with ATI HDMI and it worked perfectly... Still havent gotten HDMI out working on my M11x!

Simply didnt detect the connection, no matter what

 

Best way to get it working is having graphics set to integrated, plug in HDMI cable, switch over to discrete graphics, then FN+F1 to tab through the options (LCD, LCD+HDMI, HDMI).

Works for me every time via that route, outputs 1080p video from YouTube and via MKV in VLC flawlessly.

 

Not sure if this was answered yet but you can create a system recovery disk from within windows 7 and burn it on to a cd if you have an external.

Then you can use the system image backup tool run to get to it just type backup in the win>start>search bar

Click on create system image this is a complete image i backed mine up onto my external hardrive the size was 24 gb

What I had to do was reinstall windows using thier installation disk

Then i booted my computer with the recovery disk I made at the beginning

This allows you to select the image you created and puts in on your new hd
(note this includes all partitions)

If you got a bigger Harddrive you will have to go into the disk management tool and extend the partition so you get the full size of the hd.

Mine came with a 160gb and I replaced it using this method.

 

If you are in the UK, unless you purchased and installed a Gobi card, you will not have any working sim slot. The M11x needs an internal WWAN installed (like all laptops) to have it working.

As of this time, the UK does not have the option to have it installed so it does not come working out of the box. For the US, to have the Gobi card installed is a $130 US upgrade.

 

If it works anychance you wouldnt mind starting up a thread for all your other UK brothers

 

@ninja = Actually start a thread for anyone not in the USA I want wwan too...

 

Yep no problem. It arrives tomorrow so will split it open and take photo's.
I am hoping it is going to be easy to open up the lid so I can get the Antennas in there if not I will see where else I can route the cables

 

It would be awesome not to have to use an extra appendage every time I want to get on 3g. Plus it might be cheaper than the Gobi option from dell.

 

Looking forward to any luck you end up having, good luck on the install.

 

Is this still an issue? My m11x arrives tomorrow. If so, how will I tell if the GPU is still running?

Same with the disable battery charging issue I read about?

 

Both have icons in the tray showing status.

 

Alright, I disabled the AlienFX @ startup, but one thing that I noticed is that alienware.ath (Alienware FX Controller) doesn't chew up much resources, like 5-8% or so, which is an improvement over leaving the Alienware FX running in the background. Also it has little impact on battery life.

I'm doing this on a overclocked processor BTW.

 

Very helpful thread, thank you

I disabled the AlienSense and AlienFX but the Aliensense login window still appears when start up. It's very annoying. Is there anyway to get rid of it ?

Edit: Nevermind, figured out how to disable the whole thing!

 

SSD users: what HD tune numbers are you getting? Thanks

 

Are there any benefits to changing the size of the page file? I have it written down on the ssd to do list, but don't know why.

Also, my hd tune with ocz agility shows:
Min: 125.5mb/sec
Max: 193.0mb/sec
Ave: 161.8mb/sec
Access Time: 0.1ms
Burst Rate: 128.0mb/sec

I ran hd tune again after letting my computer idle at the log-in screen and it came out to be:
Min: 146.5mb/sec
Max: 173.9mb/sec
Ave: 160.4mb/sec
Burst Rate: 146.2mb/sec

 

Anyone know how to keep the "Toaster.exe" process from loading? I can't find it anywhere in the registry or msconfig. It's the "Dell datasafe backup" utility that I don't need running all the time in the background. If I had the full version I can see having it running, but I already made my system restore DVD's and have my own backup methods.

 

I uninstalled it in add remove programs.

 

Wow this is great it brought my CPU usage down from 10-15% to 0% idle.

 

Anyone know how to change commands in Scrybe? I want to set the email command to something other then yahoo. Also how would I go about adding an "open new tab" command?

On another note. If I create an image of my factory system, is it advisable to install to an SSD that way? Do I just boot off the image disk and then install? I'm thinking it'd be nice to have some of the programs like the Dell DataSafe Local Backup.

And to add something productive to the thread If you want to change your windows login screen to a custom picture here is a good small program that will do it for you

 

For an SSD im not entirely positive I did it for my upgrade to a 500 gb hd. Everything worked perfect. I think the only thing that cause a problem is the drivers for it but Ive never owned an ssd so not to sure there

 

I used wintoflash to install an image of the win 7 cd onto a usb drive. make sure it's 8gb usb drive. after that, it's an easy ride.

 

I think he was referring to cloning the harddrive so it includes all the drivers, programs, bassically the factory settings. When you do this though you would need an external harddrive because the image will be around 24 gbs. It is pretty easy to do though.

 

CCleaner works great for this, you can see it under the startup items and disable it.

Page file disabled is the only way, why waste bandwidth rewriting crap to one section of your SSD when you have no seek time anyway? Page file overall is nothing but a performance vampire.

 

Have anyone tried the ObjectDock? If yes, is it a resource hog?

 

i use rocket dock.. its not a major resource hog.. just uses some ram and maybe 1% cpu once in a while.. but it saves lot of time for me..so no major deal.

 

Hey!
anyone upgraded ur nvidia drivers with the newer one in the site.. the driver preinstalled in this machine is pretty old one..and newer ray tracing programs like optix doesnt support this driver.. will it screw up my change-mode from intel to nvidia??

 

Still on stock. I wouldn't install the ones on nvidia's site cause from what I've seen so far, this driver package is custom made for this system with the unique hybrid graphics system and all. Probably get it from dell when they finally decide to update em but sticking to the old one for now

 

I'm hoping the next ones are better for both gaming and benching. But I would remain with the stock ones at the moment. They get the job done well enough. With the new ones you would lose the ability to switch GPUs. Hopefully Dell won't drag their dainty little feet.

 

damn! now i cant run my optix programs on this machine.. i should stick to my old vostro until they release the newer version.
and this driver is prety old one.. i wonder why they made this hybrid driver with such old nvidia driver.

 

You can install Dox drivers if you absolutely need the newer drivers. You can still switch by clicking an icon, and it will get you almost the newest Nvidia release.

Website is here: http://laptopvideo2go.com/

Somewhere on the site is a section on getting them working with duel GPU systems. Warning though, they decrease battery life significantly, and overall didn't seem to enhance performance for me.

 

Any way to make all profiles visible in tray?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5020311/profiles.png

 

Maybe this helps:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/create-a-shortcut-or-hotkey-to-switch-power-plans/

I think it's also possible to attach these shortcuts inside the language bar or something, I can't find it now but if you google for a while for that, it's possible to find it.

 

With those dox drivers, my 335 would never actually be "off" and would always be consuming power. Install dox, and you wont get past 4 hours of battery from my experience.

 

Zlog, any idea if they increase benchmarking scores? Thats what I'm waiting for. Better drivers to raise my scores.

 

Is anyone familiar with the WmiPrvSE.exe process? It's eating 5-10% of my processor at all times. I'm wondering if it's useful/important or should be disabled.

I've googled, and info is mixed. Some sites say it provides info in an enterprise environment (doesn't apply to me) but others say it might be used by Windows Firewall (which I use). I know there is a trojan that launches a process by that same name, but I'm 99% sure I've got the legitimate MS process. I just don't know if I should live with it.

 

Read 2nd post in this thread.

 

this thread has been a great help thanks to all