Can I Mod my M17 ?

hey everyone,
Im thinking of buying an Alienware M17. i wanted to know if could buy an M17 with the least costly harddrive, ram, and processor. If I bought it this way could I buy the upgraded parts for cheaper off ebay or something and safely install them myself?

thanks for the help

 

That's what I did. the cheapest possible.

 

Yes you can, but if you have to send it back then it will need the original parts.

 

If you change the processor during your warranty period it will void the warranty. Alienware will only warrant the processor change if your purchase it from them and send the laptop in for them to install it. The ram and hdd's would be no problem to do it yourself.

 

If you do a good job on change CPU, would they know?

 

well yeah due to the fact that the CPU being different to what you ordered

 

And if you put it back in before you send it back, I'm sure they won't know

 

Umm..the cpu upgrades on the site are cheaper than, say if you get it off of newegg. That and the video card are the only things I upgraded on their site...

 

They are only cheaper in the sense that they are only charging you to upgrade to that processor at the time of purchase but your are still paying alot more as the processor your are upgrading from is factored into the price.
If you call up Alienware after your original purchase to buy a better processor it will cost way more than if you buy it from on online store.

 

ok thanks for the help. if i bought lets say a quad core processor what are some good resources i could use to know which processor i need and how to do it without breaking my computer?

also i 4got, could i also swap the dvd drive for a blue ray drive?

 

I don't know if you want to go around voiding the warranty's on AW laptops If you have seen the m15x's track record. Then again the m17x's is good.

 

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=34259&vpn=D3N1066-2G/EAJ&manufacture=Buffalo&promoid=1130

would this do for m17?

 

looks good, yeah. you'll want two of those i suspect.

 

If you want Quad core, you might as well get from Alien ware. The QX9300 can get very expensive - $1000+

 

I dont need 2 of those right now. 3gb is good enough for games at this moment. Even 2 gb was pretty good on my m1710.

 

problem is, if you buy 1Gb of RAM with your m17, you'll get 2x512mb sticks. and because the m17 only has two RAM slots, you'll have to take one of those out to put in the 2Gb stick, giving you 2.5Gb RAM in the end. might as well get 64bit OS and 4Gb imho.

 

You can't get 1gb of ram with m17. 2 is the minimum. And I chose 64bit vista, because I have "working" version of 32 bit vista already. So I will stay with 2 gb for now, and probably get 3 or 4 gb when DDR3 come down in price.

 

really? hehe AW ripping y'all of again

 

I would choose 0.5 gb ram to save money if they allow me.

 

Vista already takes up 1GB+ of ram. Just wanting to let you know.

 

I think he knows. He said he was getting 3 anyway (Assuming he's keeping one AW stick and putting in the other stick he linked earlier). 3 Gigs has been totally fine for me. Never seen it get used past 79%.