HDD / Smartbay / Recovery disk / Performance button

Hi all,

Well I got my new machine a while ago and it's great - my only complaint in the build area around the camera flex's in when you touch it to open the lid - the only other thing is the touch button on the far right - I always have it on high performance if I press it shouldn't it switch to low or balanced performance? or does it do something else would someone kindly help me out.

I got the following spec's
* 2.8 exteame
* Silver skull cap
* 1gig (upgraded to 4g)
* 8800 GTX
* 120 gig

So my problem now is my hard drive is just to small only have 40gig left after
installing the following games - but I always planned to upgrade myself.

*crysis
*Witcher
*Guitar hero's 3
*Conan - online

So I want to pick up a 320 gig 2"5 sata harddrive from overclockers uk (correct me if I'm wrong about the size or the sata I'm not positive they are correct better yet here's a link

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp... 7200RPM SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD3200BEKT

) to change out as my main harddrive.

So I've heard you can buy a blank hdd chassie smartbay from Alienware - can I just pop my old 120gig hdd into the new smartbay chassie (do I need to any special screws? should I purchase the 80gig harddrive or can I just swap em out that easy - like it click's in or something ?)

Also once I shove in the new 320gig to use as my main harddrive - can I just pop in my recovery disk that I bought from Alienware and then everything should go back to stock standard I don't mind reinstalling the games again etc, but I'm just wondering if there will be any problem with this as it was "specced" to the 120g harddrive?

Sorry for the extended post kept thinking of other things to ask - I would like to thank you all in advance for your replies (p.s. I'll give you rep - heh)

 

I don't know about the screws and bays and such, but I do know it's not a problem to put in a new hard drive (the "specced" part is absolutely not a problem). If you want to save some time, you could look into disk cloning utilities. Then you wouldn't have to reinstall everything, but just have all the contents from the old hdd copied to the new bigger one.

 

note that you can also buy an empty SB hard drive cage from AW.

 

Hi Whizzo,

Yup I want to do that as per above but I want to know - will my existing harddrive just "pop in/need screws etc" as per above

Cheers bud.

 

Hi Zilu... have you had a chance to check whether your CPU downclocks?
If you could search for the "CPU downclock" thread and make those tests, it would help everyone get an even better view of that problem.
Cheers and congrats on your positive experience.

 

well i suppose you will need to screw it in in some way or another... although chances are those screws will be included either with the HDD or the SB cage. the necessary adapter should also be included with the SB cage, although because i haven't done this myself, i can't make any guarantees.

 

tah I might give AW a call and deal with customer support - see how I go,

Can anyone confirm

2"5 sata is the one I require - and has AW released a change your hardrive
guide - I know I'll need to change it back if I send it for repairs at any time.

Sweet so I can pop the disk in the new HDD - thanks

Eh still confused as to the performance increase/decrease button on the far right of the touch controls - what's it do? I can change from high to low manually through vista tray icon or going into the alienware editor but I have no idea how to tell if the button does anything or there is a display that show's the change - cheers,

Hay Milc's remind me again how I do that or link the thread I've been away from he boards /working for a long while now, CPU-Z/3dmark06 - either of those do it? I haven't noticed any downclocking but age of conan - has so many problems lag spikes/error msg's/random shutdowns etc I can't tell what's going most of the time - I have nothing on my m15x but the games for max performance.

 

There you go:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=248848

 

Cheers old boy

If anyone can help with questions above - pls feel free.

 

If you refer to this post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=263138
You will see that this is the 320GB HDD that they have used and validated to use with the M15x:

MOBL-HD320GB72SATASG

SEAGATE 320GB 7200RPM 16MB SATA HDD

Saying this, I'm sure you will be able to use that WD with no problems.
I would advise you to write or phone CS and tell them you are going to do it so that they can better advise you on your upgrade. Just make sure you say you wan't to upgrade it yourself as their prices are completely over the moon.

And you are right regarding everything else (smartbay, recover (which I assume is the respawn thing, which is actually an image of your HDD when it was sent to you)).

Good luck,
M.

 

The stealth mode buttons will lower the clocks for your GPU and CPU. This means that stealth mode will force them to run slower. This helps with noise temperature and battery life. You will know stealth mode is on if the touch control is bright. If it is dim it means stealth mode is off. Its very clear what it does once you get the machine and you play around with it.

Here are the pics that i took a while ago to show people how the smart bay hdd looked like on the inside.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=240250&page=3

i did swap it with a 250 gig hard drive and it worked fine. The screws should come with the cage when you buy it with AW but i bought the smartbay HDD when i bought the m15x so im not sure if the screws will come with the cage itself. Im guessing it most likely will.

 

Milc's

Ran the stress test for an hour last night - no downclocks - yay I almost can't believe it, was about 2973.5 cpu speed / kept within 75-80 degrees / all tests completed no errors / didn't change from x14 multiplier the whole time - but I'm really unsure if these numbers are perfect.

Still can't get stealth button mode to turn off and on with the touch controls - but as I always have it plugged in for now it's no biggy (for now) - still its disappointing - I thought I got perfect machine and was really worried about ordering the 2.8 cpu for a long time with downclocking and heat issues most of the time the laptop is sitting on the zalman 2k cooler but took it off to do the stress testing.

A very helpful tech support agent (I think he's name was Joss - alienware please keep this guy employed he's one of your good ones) pointed me towards alienware.com site - support drop down box / click FAQ-Knowledge base / Search by Keyword/ 5769 and press search - Comes up with *How do I assemble or disassemble the removable optical drive cage of the Area-51 m15x mobile system" - if your putting a new hard drive in your smart bay - follow the images and instructions to image 8 (only) the rest is for optical drive instructions - nice.

 

Hi Zilu,

Those are good news. You are the only one with an extreme processor that does not have downclock!

Can you post some pictures please?
Also, make sure you use the combination of these programs:
- Prime95 with CPU stress (small FTTs).
- RMclock to follow clock constantly and in a graphic way
- HWmonitor (to keep a record of accurate maximum and minimum temperatures. The temperature you should look at is ACPI.)
- Thermofan (for fan speeds and CPU temperature).

If you wouldn't mind running Prime again with all this programs turned on and, take some pics during one hour, that would really clear out whether you are the only lucky owner withtout downclock.

Cheers,
M.

ps: for what I read in your post, I'm assuming your used CPUz or something like this, to monitor your CPU clocks. If you did, it's very likely you didn't see any problem (if there is a problem... which is statistically very likely.).

 

Hay Milc's

Hu - the only one that doesn't downclock... scary... but yeah guess I should run some more tests then - ergh... I will try man but I ain't tech minded so I'll see how I go.

 

Well... the new bios is supposed to fix it, so I guess that you should update the bios and test it after the update!

 

Yeah was just reading that good news day.