Alienware M17 *OFFICIAL* Owner's Lounge

Where can you get the OC bios for Alienware m17 extremes? On Alienware's website yet?

 

If Alienware released the OC Bios then it should be available in your "My Hive" section

 

hi all ive just looked into my hive

bios b10

is that old or new

 

There should be a date "added" or dl and look at the properties.

I'll try to log in to myHive^^

Greetings
Julian

Edit: ok in my myHive there is now Bios (german myHive)
only: CYBERLINK YOUCAM WEBCAM APPLICATION is new, isn't it? (It wasn't "blue" => downloadable)

 

b10 is my original bios...

so no new bios on uk alienware

 

Has anyone tried a 2 x 4GB SODIMMs in M17 yet? I found this module available from crucial but have not had any luck finding any others.

http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?imodule=CT51264BC1067

I really need 8GB to run my vms! 12GB or 16GB would be better

 

I believe that the former OCZ Whitebook was able to take 8 GBs so I guess it is the same for Alienware.

 

Don't call it former. you make it sound old. Lol.

 

its alive in spirit and will never dissapear ....

 

Morning - or Evening to you guys in the USA. Just crawled into work to find you guys online.

Shame that the OC Bios isn't available yet, well never mind will be out soon enough. My PC seems to be giving way. Even so it was only for a couple of minutes is rather disconerting playing Left 4 Dead with Pink Walls. Well thats the Graphicscards slowing giving up.



- Also they don't really like starting up anymore, my PC takes something like 4-5 Restarts before it buts up normally.

Well at least I have a justification for my Wife and myself as to why I need a new machine soon.

 

Are you getting a m17?

 

Most proably - will wait for the 4780 to come out on the M17 -> and hope that my PC doesn't give up on me in the mean time. Would really suck since I really enojoy my playing L4D with my old University buddies.

-> btw just uploaded a higher quality Screengrab (imageshack doesn't do so well for me).

Just a shame that nvidia has the monopoly on PhysX since they bought AGEIA.

 

dngfng, I am doing the same, sitting out for the new gfx option.

 

hi will,
so you are waiting up for the next m17x?
Well Cebit is just around the corner so you never know, I heard rumours that Nvidia will anounced its next generation of Highend Laptop Graphiccards.

 

No the m17 with the HD4870 Graphics Option
I got told that Ati is better in a laptop, cooler temperatures and use less power. Will alienware ever put AMD in a laptop? I know they are behind on performance though aren't they?

 

well the HD4870 are going to better then the current 9800, however according to this German news site they are excpecting the release of the next generation of Nvidia cards for Cebit.

New High-end cards from Nvidia are expected to beet the HD 4870 by 30%.

-> Still its only Markteting talk so far, but we will see after Cebit or whenever the first tests are out. Still Ati seems like a very good option since the m17x is alot more expensive when you max it out then the m17.

And I do hope that the prices arn't going to sky rocket when the HD 4870 is out.

But you are quite right about the heat issue, at least I have read reviews of the M17 that state that its fairly quite for a gaming rig.

 

I see that Alienware is finally using 64bit version of Windows, but really disappointed that the max RAM is only 4GB when there is other machines out there that can do 8GB. Personally, I would not buy another Alienware notebook after the customer service experience I had with them on returning a dead battery. They accused me I not returning the battery and charged me fore it. After I got my credit card company involved they finally admitted they did receive it and refunded the money. But they accused me of damaging the battery.

 

hmm - well there are always cases where something goes wrong, I know that that must have been a pain in the butt

You can get the m17x with 8gigs of Ram, I have been reading around a little and everywhere I looked it was the same, unless you are doing heavy Graphics Work like CAD or real Modelling its fairly pointless. At least for now.

Obivously thats going to change, who would have thougth that their would be gfx cards with 2Gigs of Ram a couple of years ago.

 

hi guys,i kown an m17 and i have a small issue with my laptop. It seems at times it sttuters a lot and even the graphics and sound sttuter a lot and the game becomes unplayable. I think its a heat issue..any suggestions wat to do?

 

Also 8GB is very useful for developers (and others) to run virtual machines in. I personally would like 16GB but 8 would do nicely. Over time people will find a use for it and it will be commonplace. Just because you haven't realised a substantial need for more than 4GB ram doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

 

Well first of all I would conntact Alienware Support - afterall they have a good service history.

 

Yeah i'm a student. i'min my 2nd year on college. and i work also. i'm busy everyday thats why i'm not on the forums all the time. if i'm not at school it work or church. i'm always out. why you ask?

 

Was just wondering, kind of guessed that you are a Student. I joined the working crowed a couple of years ago. - Student life was well easier to say the least.

 

wewell here is the thing for nVidia. that you cant deny. they always want to be the best no matter what happens.(gt280 vs 4870x2 then they released gt295) if they dont see a competitions they abuse it.(8series being renamed to 9series) the true reason i believe they are waiting so long to come out with the cards if a couple reasons.

cebit: they want to show everyone (includeding ati) what there made of. they also want to sell out all the other crap that they have now(if the gtm cards were released now, what are the chances of the 8,9 series cad being bought. they cant lower the prices on them to much because companies alreadly bought the cards so they can also file a lawsuit(which everyone is doing now adays) for the older cards. nvidia if they make a wrong move they will be drop by alot of manufactures. right now i can bet any money that nvidia has about atleast 5 of the whitebooks(m17) and about 10 of the asus w90(4870CF) and benchmarking the garbage out of them and then they are going to then design there card to be better then them. "at aaffordable price"(i cant even tell you that)
but here is some links for there desktops news from the 280, 4870, 295 and the mistakes that went down and i know nvidia is not going to let that happen again. but i'm stil ati for thinking about us 1st.

there's alot more about the companies not taking the new gt260 with eh 216 stream cpu's because they cant sell out the old ones(192stream cpu's).but i cant find them. and it's to early. and i'm tired.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/AMD-...s-to-Take-Away-NVIDIA-039-s-Crown-89059.shtml
http://news.softpedia.com/news/NVIDIA-Afraid-of-AMD-89205.shtml
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Pictures-of-AMD-039-s-HD-4870X2-Surface-89162.shtml
http://news.softpedia.com/news/NVIDIA-Lowers-Prices-for-GeForce-9800-GTX-88563.shtml
http://news.softpedia.com/news/NVIDIA-vs-AMD-Round-1-88489.shtml


but the biggest problem that ati facing right now. is that the cards that they released now for mobilty(even though they are desktop cards) they are to underclocked. my 3870CF is untruth and in fact suppose to kill 9800m gt sli. but because the clock speeds are so low it depends on the cpu to much to do most of its work. and the 4870CF is suppose to kill everything out there but the clocks are way to low. i think ati should of tried alittle more to keep the clock speeds the same by providing a smaller mm chip. and manufactures should of tried to get a better cooling system. if the they putthe core back to 775 and the memory back to 1800, OMG our battery would be dead in 2days. all the cells will be no more. Lol. but i'm not in there shoes so my words doesnt matter.

 

My m17 FINALLY arrived today. Took 28 days for it to ship to an Iraq APO, which is pretty good. There was no noticeable damage to the box when I got it which eased my mind a whole lot. I will post some benches later tonight for the hell of it after I throw in my other RAM and hard drives.

No problems so far, its only been an hour of light use while bored at work. I have read a few times that there have been a batch of these sent out with tape still on one of the GPUs which will cause overheating, I didnt see anything abnormal except some crazy cloth looking fabric with flextronics written on it crossing the two GPUs, this being my first dual gpu system ever, I left it alone.

 

congrats. hurry up and get us those benchies. Lol.

 

I also have the Same Issue
& its soooooo irritating
even when im watching Movies online
it happens

Feels like a the comp is draging & blurrs
Im disappointed after spending $5000
& still have issues

 

if you have the sound issues i found it either stems from the gpu driver or the actual vista install. i have seen and fixed both. in some cases resinstalling the gpu driver worked great others i reinstalled vista and the sound stuttering was gone

 

you updated your gpu driver? it's crossfire

edit:nvm zfactor bit me to it.

 

seems from 8.12 modded and on i had no stuttering audio and very little either

 

when i flash to the ocz bios, how will i get my illuminated keyboard to work?

 

there should be a option in the bios for illuminated keyboard....and i think you need to reinstall ocz keyboard bios (i could be way wrong though)

 

i think it'll still work with the appropriate Fn+F... combo. the keyboard lighting isn't AW-exclusive.

 

i guess this means we will get a bit more battery life huh ? lets hope

 

wow, your VRAM is gonna use 20% less juice. that'll get you at least two extra minutes of battery life...

then again, you m17 owners need all you can get

 

wow i guess it mean you m15x owners will get squished in all aspects of gaming AGAIN lol

EDIT who needs battery we are desktop replacements ...

 

hmm last time i tried the ocz bios the keyboard didnt light up no matter what

 

yeah and i never saw a option for it...can someone link me to the latest ocz bios for my m17?

 

I don't know is if this is the latest bios or not...
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=62EGMQFO

BTW, are you using software to overclock or is there a setting in the bios itself?

 

halo did you try the bios i sent you?

that should work no problem a lot of people have used it.

flash the bios first, then the keyboard firmware after that. you should be good use the fn + f key for the color change

 

yeah i have it now, thanks zfactor, i will wait to flash when i get the qx9300

 

that bios update is fully automated you will not have any issues. trust me call me while you do it if you want to.

 

will it void your warrenty on the m17 if you paint the laptop with another matte finish? I was looking for differnt colors, i have been lookin but haven't found any thing. Sorry if it has been adressed before. Kinda cant decide since you dont open it and change anything but you do take it apart.....arhhhhh

 

I guess you loos the warrenty for the parts you paint.

Greetings
Julian

 

Well my first trial run with my new m17 failed miserably. Farcry 2 black screened before I could even get past the opening sequences after a streak of the audio and video stuttering. I'm pretty sure this was a heat problem since the fans were screaming when it happened, and hopefully this Zalman NC2000 I just got today helps that. Weird thing is that after I rebooted it, i kept getting these painful pin-like shocks while touching random spots of the case. After the temps lowered, they went away. I think my m17 is trying to kill me.

I am going to do a clean slate wipe of the machine tonight and hopefully all of the up to date drivers solve the stuttering. As for the heat, I downloaded GPUz at work and will see what they are at before it goes nuts this time.

 

Are you sitting on your couch or do you have carpet where you are using your M17? I get the little "pin like shocks" as well, but I'm nearly 100% sure that it is static electricity going to ground through my laptop/AC adapter.

Did you just get the M17 then? If you're having heat issues, take the bottom cover off and see if Alienware left the tape on the GPU cores. I believe you can see it without removing anything but the bottom cover.

 

There are pics of the tape on the gpus inside of the m17 sticky under fusionsenses issues thread I can't link on my iPhone sorry

 

Yeah I wasn't too concerned with the whole shock thing, it probably was just static since I had it sitting on my bed propped up on game cases while I was using it sitting in one of those cheap plastic folding chairs. It went away after I repositioned it a little.

Yeah I just got it 2 days ago and haven't really dug into it very much yet, I installed new RAM and put a 500GB seagate in it while looking for this infamous GPU tape, but had no idea what I was looking for. Thanks moo for pointing out the pics, exactly what I was about to ask for.

 

Hey folks,

How to clean the screen properly btw?

There is so much dust on it that like..sticks to the screen lol :S

 

all the static electricity wouldnt let any thing come off with out a fight but the case that came with it, the black slip that came on the laptop pulls it right off ?!?!?! just saying

get a micro fiber cloth to do it right