Alienwre M18x R2 maintenance

Hey guys I have had this beast for around 3 years now and it has aged (battery is dead now because I never unplugged it, so now while I do actually have a battery, if I disconnect the AC adaptor it instantly dies) and of course u know the occasional dent and scratch because of my rough usage.

The laptop is still great but I wanna run for problems and see if I have any. This machine did come with Windows 8 but I downgraded to Windows 7 (which could have been a bit problematic) a while ago and ever since games would get an occasional stutter (as in while running in world of warcraft it isn't as smooth as before) but really the laptop seems fine.

Anyways, I am beating around the bush, I basically I
1. want to troubleshoot for any hardware problems (besides battery) and also for software (if I have any missing drivers ect.).
2. Also will having a dead battery affect my performance?
3. while booting my pc I would sometimes get a half black screen half white stuttery type but this issue hasent come up in the past 2 months (which is also another factor as to why I want to troubleshoot).
4. IS there anyways I can sort of refresh my disc speed and overall laptop performance in general (perhaps a disc clean up or something).

Thanks in advance !

 

- I always liked a fresh OS every now and then, perhaps every 1-2 years. A new start, new drivers...etc
- A dead battery WILL NOT affect performance, the computer uses the adapter under load/gaming.
- 3Dmark, Heaven benchmark, gaming to test for stability/performance.
- You could upgrade some of the components (CPU, GPU, HDD to SSD.....) results will be excellent!
- Pre-boot Assessment Tests (PSA or ePSA ) can be accessed while POSTing press F12 or thru the BIOS.

P.S Keep away from Dell SupportAssist.exe it's the mother of all sh*t, funny things starts to happen using it

 

ahhhh ok thanks, but how can I know if I am missing any drivers ? like HDD drivers, processors, ect. ? is there a diagnostics test I could run ?

 

You could check Device manager (right click on "My computer" choose "manage" -> device manager. Or run Pre-boot diagnostic Test by pressing F12 when you first turn on the computer.

 

Other than video drivers, you're better off leaving a stable machine alone and not updating any of them. Using the original stock drivers and what Windows provided natively is the best bet if the machine is totally stable and reliable. Same applies to firmware for the most part, unless you're talking about a mod that unlocks access to settings the OEM hid from you. Making changes to a stable system can often make it unstable. There are exceptions now and then where a driver update fixes a known issue, but for core system components like chipset, ME firmware and low-level drivers for things like HDD controllers and processors they are few and far between. There are seldom any newer HDD controller and processor drivers other than what Windows provides natively. If you want to improve performance, look to hardware ugrades.

I agree with @Solo wing that a clean Windows install can make an old system feel fresh and new again, but none of those other things will improve performance.

 

The thread title states M18x R2, your signature states M17x R2. These are very different machines. Which one do you have?