M11x Problem/Technical Question thread for New Owners

This was found just on the 3rd page. Many questions can be answered by doing a search.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/502764-question-about-upgrade-ram.html

The m11x will run RAM only @ 800mhz. But it should be able to run any RAM rated at 800mhz, 1066mhz and 1333mhz.

 

hey can someone direct me to the stock nvidia drivers that came with the m11x r2, I did a reformat and the driver I'm useing now keeps kicking me out of bf2bc and its pissing me off ..lol

 

search on google for dell drivers. first link works

 

Bookmark it (Main 11xR2 driver list): Drivers & Downloads

Current 11xR2 display driver (WHQL 257.30):
http://support.dell.com/support/dow...dateid=-1&formatid=-1&source=-1&fileid=406575

189.69 (stock 11xR2) driver:
ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/video/R267140.exe

 

Just bought an m11x r2 with an i7 and was wondering how i go about overclocking it. All i see in the bios is what seems to be an option to boost the bus to 166, and while in windows the highest speed i've seen the cpu recognized at is 1.5ghz. How would i go about getting that number closer to the 2.66ghz the processor is supposedly capable of reaching?
thanks

 

CPU-Z or HWiNFO32 will show you your correct multiplier and core speed(s).

 

tried those, still haven't gotten a showing above 1.5ghz. Any other suggestions?
thanks

 

1.5GHz would indicate that you're doing tests that are utilizing all 4 cores. When all 4 cores are being used then turbo boost, which I'm assuming you have turned on, is dropping the multiplier to it's base based on whatever your FSB is set to. This is normal behavior for TB. If you're seeing something else then you're going to need to provide more detail as to how you're testing and what your settings are for FSB and TB.

 

i'm not sure what you mean by tests, all i've done is change settings in the bios. So far i've tried maxing out at 166 with all combinations of turbo boost and intel speedstep being on and off, and i have never reached a speed above 1.5ghz. Really just wanted to know if there was some specific way of reaching max performance that i'm not seeing, or whether there may be something wrong with the chip. I know next to nothing about this but surely my i7 has more to show for itself.
sorry if i'm just spreading my frustration
thanks again

 

In the BIOS turn turbo boost and speedstep on. There's not really any benefit to turning either of them off despite opinions to the contrary.

Set overclock frequency to 166 or whatever turns out to be stable for your system.

Set your Windows 7 power plan to High performance.

Start CPU-Z. You should see your core speed at ~2840MHz.

 

okay i think it was the power plan i was discounting, it looks like i maxed it. Only weird thing is that when i disabled overclocking and went back it was still up in the 2ghz range but that went down again after i changed the power plan to power saving.
Thank you very much for you help

 

Be sure to stress test your system to ensure that the FSB you're set to is stable. I believe for most people that's 160 - 164.

 

Sorry for the noob question here, but do people OC it to the 160-164 range and leave it like that? Sort of a "set it and forget it" approach? Or do people only do this when they are playing games?

 

@erasure25
that really would depend on the person. i personally leave it on at 166 when i feel like gaming and turning it off when i dont

 

well fwiw, my i5's out of the box (no oc) 3dmark06 score was 6900+

i just ran wprime 32m (w/ fps @ 150) and got 34 seconds

got any background processes running like antivirus? did you turn off windows indexing?

 

No, my anti-virus was left on... And I did shut off the CPU-Z in the background. by the way, are we talking I5 UM's or standard I5's?

 

the um that comes with the m11x r2

 

Hello, considering purchasing the m11x and wanted to get a SSD independently to swap in there. Does the system come with a recovery disk and will it run if I switch out the harddrive?

I've had issues with recovery disks not running if the hardware is changed in the past.

Thanks!

 

Hey what kind of battery life can I expect from the Mx11 R2 with the i7?

Typically I would not get an i7 in a laptop since they eat up battery life like crazy (and get hot) but this low voltage one shouldn't be too much of a battery hog right? Thanks.

 

nevermind, found my answer

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/500421-upgrading-hard-drive-m11x.html

 

+1 for finding the search feature!!

 

After having random lockups of my <1week old M11xR2, a nice service man came today and put a new motherboard in. he was very precise and did not really take that long (40min?).

I asked him if he gets many of these (M11x) to fix, and he said "No, this is the first he has been called to do." So that's good news on the general fault levels I think. As it was clear he knew what he was doing I relaxed a bit also

So the initial M11x was solid apart from it would not Oc very much and had random hags in games (not OCed).

It now is stable (bit more testing to make sure) at OC 164, and GPU 550 Core, 1322 Shader, 948 Memory... this gives me a 3DMark06 of 8007!

I have not had any crashes (apart from when i set CPU to 166).

[EDIT] Update, the OCing was not stable in gameplay on a 24" monitor, so I will have to play with it some more.

 

My battery only seems to last about 3 hours on balanced power mode, with brightness all the way down with moderate web browsing.

Does the battery need to go through a few cycles before it reaches its almost 5 hour peak?

Also, does turning Turbo mode off greatly increase battery life?

What else can I do to extend the time im off the plug?

 

I don't believe cycling through the battery increases its performance, though it make the estimate better supposedly.

I don't have turbo boost off and get maybe 6.5-7 hours browsing the Internet.

Have you checked the long thread about extending battery life? It has some pretty good tips, like disabling background processes you don't need and changing the advanced power options of the power plans and more.

 

Do you mean the optimization thread?

I've followed many of these tips.

If not, can you point me to the right thread?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ry-life-what-you-getting-how-make-better.html

 

Here is something I found around wifi interference and may be the cause of dropping connections.

In the DW WLAN Card Utility, under the Diagnostics tab is an option to check congestion (I have to click it twice).

This shows congestion on Wifi channels, but also shows non-wifi congestion. I presume this is from such things as wireless house phones and microwaves that operate in the 2.4 GHz range.

I have had problems with my wifi and there was a load of red from channel 6 all the way to 12. In my case I am fairly certain this is due to wireless home phones.

 

Just got my M11x. Very happy so far, but I seem to have the issue where I am unable to turn it back on closing the lid and letting the laptop go to sleep. I've looked about the forum and it seems to be related to graphics card drivers, so I've installed 257.30 from Dell's website. I still have the problem. Any solutions? Thanks in advance.

 

Not sure what you mean... are you saying that if you close the lid and it goes into sleep mode, you can't turn it back on by opening it?

 

How do I update my BIOS? Says I have A01 from 05/2010, isnt there a newer bios?

 

did you check support.dell.com?

 

as posted in the random lockup thread, i too am prone to the random lockups of the system during file transfers especially and during gameplay (starcraft 2 so far). alienware support has been no help at all so far, all integrated diagnostic tests have returned no error, yet the problem persists.
it doesn't matter whether the systtem is in factory state or i updated all the the drivers from the dell page...
btw, what are good temps for the system (gpu and cpu) while playing sc2 for example? and which tools did you use to measure it?

 

That's exactly right. Do you know a solution?

 

Yes, nuclear do not use sleep mode! It's really bad for your system. There is a lot of proof out there that "SLEEPING" your system will cause faults with the hd, RAM, and many other components later on. It's like jarring your components every time it comes back online.
I know this doesn't help much for your issue but I just wanted to put that out there for everyone

 

guys how is gaming without oc'ing

 

most games will run good with no oc i oced mine once to see if it could then went back

i ran into a problem after i fresh installed windows the command center and fx function buttons do not work any way i can get them working

 

Hey I recently I installed the verde drivers (258.96) on my M11x r2 and after installing it I noticed gaming performance was worse so i uninstalled them and went back to the drivers on the Dell UK website which i was using before the verde one. and now my gaming performance is terrible, before of TF2 i was getting avg: 30FPS on TF2 with high settings now i get near 15 fps on med-low. And now Badcompany2 is unplayable on all lowest settings and so on with every other game. I have added these games to whitelist and they are using the Nvidia card and the problem still persists... Any suggestions? I am currently waiting for my external Optical drive to arrive in which i will do a fresh install of windows 7 but if anyone has any ideas on how to fix i would be very grateful

 

I have also seen very poor performance in TF2...any map I play ends up dropping below 15FPS which makes it almost unplayable, even on medium settings...any ideas?

 

lost the only thing i can say is are you 100% sure you installed them correctly and got the old ones completely gone before you installed the new ones

 

Yep i followed every step perfectly , i know i installed them correctly and when i uninstalled them i got rid of all traces of the verde drivers.

 

I haven't heard of this, any more info on it? Worst I've heard about sleep or hibernate mode is windows dropping the ball and loosing information that wasn't saved.

 

If you google it you can see all the concern over this subject. but from what i was always taught, its not very good for your pc to put it in sleep mode.

But, I have never seen any hard facts or research to back that up.

 

I've never heard of sleep mode being mad for a computer, so I googled "sleep mode bad for computer" (without quotes), and every post on the subject denies the claim.

I can't see what would cause problems using sleep/hibernate/standby. All it does is copy ram to the hard drive and power down, then reload it when powered on.

On what MLM0351 said about it being jarring to components, consider that what s/he describes is exactly what happens when you turn a computer on or off. Thus, I suspect that it is a modern derivation of the old wives' tale coming from the early 1990s when people thought turning on a computer was the most stressful thing you could do to it, which is not true.

tl;dr: Don't worry about sleep mode harming your computer.

 

Agree, starting from hibernation/sleep isn't anymore stressful than a cold start for any of the components involved.

 

I was building a new m11x and there is a new FT option for the finish.

soft touch stealth black
soft touch stealth black FT

Does anyone know what the difference is between the two?

 

Good to go. lol. Thanks for clearing that up man.

 

Hey everyone,

First time poster, long time reader. I just got my m11x R2 the other day and man I am loving it. I haven't installed any games yet as I have been busy, lately I have just been tweaking a few things here and there. This is my first proper laptop...or is it a netbook? I don't know, I had an acer aspire one 8.9" before giving that to my brother. I am a university student, I just wanted a small laptop with juice....3 months of researching and I am here right now with my sexy R2. Can't wait to see what this does...

I would like to Thank everyone with the time and patience on the forum to contribute to people like me who solely depended on you guys to help me decide what I needed.

 

^ Post up top. It is true a lot of very useful information has been up on these forums which have also contributed to me making a decision to purchase an m11x r2 as well.

A problem I am having which I believe is a physical defect, but sometimes the keyboard lighting zone will turn off and if I move the laptop a little it will come back on. If anyone else randomly knows a solution to this problem that would be excellent but if not don't fret I have warranty it's just annoying installing everything all over again and such if I have to get a refurbished replacement.

 

If you're not averse to wielding a screwdriver, I suggest going taking the screws out to get the keyboard up. The keyboard has two cables coming off of it, one for key presses and one for the LEDs. It sounds like the one for the LEDs isn't attached as well as it should be. That is trivial to fix, so don't think you have to live with it.

If you don't want to take it apart yourself (but really there aren't many screws you have to take out), call tech support and tell them the issue. It shouldn't take a tech more than 15 minutes.

 

Hey guys.

I have a 2 year old 22" external monitor I'd love to wear out with my new M11x R2 that is coming.

Problem is, R2 got rid of the VGA port

How would I connect the HDMI/Displayport to the VGA input of the monitor, as VGA is analog?


THANKS!