M14x/M17xR3/M18x - Wireless HD/SiBEAM discussion thread

So the vizio receiver is needed to display the wireless hd even with the internal transmitter? I had the internal hd upgrade when i purchased my m14x and i specifically asked if i'd need the receiver to have it connected on the tv and was told no.I had it connected with a hdmi cable but the settings were off as the screen was cropped an the screens didn't match up.It's pretty much used or all movies as i dont' do any gaming on the computer.Sure it's simple but any help will be appreciated.

 

Yes, it needs the receiver.

 

k thanks

 

So I have a WiHD transmitter in my m14x, and I have a WiHD receiver. However, when attempting to connect to the receiver, I get the message "Video Connection could not be established, please check your PC display mode and WIHD receiver settings".

The reciever shows up in the "Network" tab on the left side of the Sibeam software.

Anyone know what's going on?

 

That's exactly the problem I have with my m17xR3. The vizio transmitter works with the receiver fine so I'm pretty sure the problem isn't with that equipment. I've been completely unable to get someone from Dell to actually talk to me about this problem - they keep promising me a callback from the special department that handles this stuff and then I never get a call (or they put me on hold and then hang up).

What I've been able to figure out on my own is that some sort of connection is happening - if I open the nVidia control panel after hitting Connect, it does show a second display and that display has the name of the display my Vizio receiver is connected to. Obviously some data is being passed to my internal card. However, after about 15 seconds I get the "Video Connection could not be established." method and it disconnects.

There's a WiHDValidate.exe executable in the Sibeam directory in program files. This appears to be some sort of test program or diagnostic utility. Everything passes for me except for the "GET_SIGNAL_STRENGTH" test, which always fails with a signal strength of 0%. Not sure if this means anything, but it makes me wonder if they forgot to install in the antenna or something (if that's even possible). Otherwise I don't know how to explain why the card appears to be installed, it even can kinda handshake the receiver, but it can't establish a video link.

 

After several grueling hours of contact with Dell/Alienware technical support, during which I was first told that the Vizio receiver is not compatible (a 5 second search on Google shows this is obviously not true), they're now saying that the transmitter driver does not work with the nVidia 3D Vision drivers. They suggested that I plug my laptop into the Vizio transmitter and just use it that way to get my Wireless HD working. They refuse to admit that the wireless HD transmitter isn't working and as such will not offer me a refund or a repair. According to them, it's simply a driver conflict that they will not take responsibility, despite them being the ones who built the system this way and installed said drivers. They did offer to take the system back without charging the 15% restocking fee, provided I turned around and bought another system from them. I asked them if they could simply refund me the cost of the wireless HD transmitter upgrade ($99) and they refused, since according to them it's working (it just can't be used).

This is absolutely galling to me. I've never had such poor treatment or such a crock of an answer from customer support in my life, and this from a boutique brand I've spent thousands on. I've had better treatment and service from Acer over a $250 netbook than Dell/Alienware over a $2,500 laptop.

The two takeaways from this are that I'd highly advise against buying a system from Dell because their support is useless and their warranty is lies. However, if you are buying one, don't get the 3D Vision and Wireless HD together, since they'll gladly let you pay for that upgrade despite knowing that it won't work.

 

can those that have it working post their video driver versions please?

those that don't also post what driver you are using?

 

Maybe someone has run into this before and can help me out. When I use the wihd to output to my Mitsubishi DLP @ 1920x1080 it overfills. Like it cuts out the borders of the screen. It also does the same thing if it clones the displays and tries to stretch my laptop screen to the TV. I have updated every driver I can think of, screwed around with resolutions, and everything else I can think of. I'm pulling my hair out.

 

most likely your TV is running in overscan mode.

 

Awesome answer, thanks. Apparantly rear-projection DLP suffers from overscan issues. Gives me somewhere to start.

 

Wait. They sold you something with both 3D Vision and Wireless HD knowing you'd be using both but didn't validate that there would be no conflicts? That's not a "it's working fine so it's not our fault" issue, it's a "we didn't thoroughly test the system configurations" issue. You need to escalate. I know you're pissed at Dell, and rightfully so, but having been a LONG time customer of theirs, I can assure you that their support is actually quite good - you just need to talk to the right people. I would call back and ask to speak to a supervisor.

If they are offering to refund your money, it may be worth taking the refund and putting the $99 toward a better processor or something. After all, if there truly is a hardware conflict, there's not much Dell can do about it beyond learning from your experience and making sure other folks don't run into the same issue.

And just to be clear, you WANT to use 3D and wireless HD, right? You didn't just install the 3D driver with no intention on using 3D, right (like as part of a Standard option selection during the driver installation)? I didn't read all the posts about your specific issue. If you're only using 2D, uninstall the driver and test. Heck, uninstall the driver anyway and test it. Does it work or do you still get the issue? If it's the latter, you disproven their theory.

Just food for thought.

 

guys can someone post the output of the dell system config tool (on dells website you need your service tag) here, specifically with the wirelessHD and screen part numbers?

 

I want to use 3D and paid for it specifically. The upgrade for having a 120Hz 3D screen was $200 by itself and the 3D drivers came installed on the machine. I'm actually not sure if uninstalling the 3D is even an option since it's an actual hardware difference between a 2D and 3D system - normally you'd have the Nvidia Optimus drivers installed and you'd be using a hybrid of the Intel integrated graphics and the Nvidia discrete graphics, but if you have 3D they disable the Intel card altogether so that's not an option.

I bought the machine using the Saveology deal from a couple weeks ago, which gave me a price of $1,700. The refund deal they offered me was to give me my $1,700 back and they'd sell me a new machine without the 3D for $1,900. You heard that right - to fix this problem they offered to let me pay them an additional $200 to send me a new machine that would be like my current machine but minus the $200 upgrade I'd already paid for. I told them what I'd accept would be a replacement machine like my current one, without the 3D, and with the price of the 3D upgrade refunded, but they wouldn't agree to anything involving a partial refund.

This problem is supposed to be escalated - I was told that it was being passed up to their Level 3 department and that I'd be contacted within 48 hours. This was over a week ago, and the last time I spoke to anyone they said they didn't know anything about that, and would I like to let them remote into my machine to start troubleshooting over again?

 

Yeah, time to call them back. I would seriously pester them on this.

That said, $1700 with a 3D AND wiHD upgrade?! Holy crap! What are the specs on your machine?

@Neil - I think this is what you're looking for: 5HT44 Card, Planar, Wireless, Dell Marketing Communication, Alienware

 

Saveology.com had a hot deal for a 25% off coupon for any desktops or laptops sold from Dell. It also included 2% off for EPP and stacked with another $50 off coupon code.

So it's the i7 2670QM, 4GB RAM, GTX 560M, 3D Vision 120Hz screen, Wireless HD Card (lol), 500GB HDD (going to add a SDD myself), and Killer-N networking.

It actually came out to $1,600, but sales tax pushed it over the $1,700 threshold.

Do you have a phone number you'd suggest over 1-800-ALIENWARE, because that simply puts me in touch with their call center in India, and I'm really tired of going through their scripts.

 

Thought I'd throw in my wireless hd experience since my current problem is not fixed. I got a m17x r3 with the 2820qm 580m 8gb 1333 killer 1103 and the wireless hd by sibeam and vizio receiver kit. Got it beginning of august. Had various problems, one of which was the internal card never made it into the machine. Took dell a month to send it when i got it a tech put it in and it worked fine but there were other problems. A second tech visit did not fix the problems, a shipment / trip to the repair facility and stuff happened that required dell to send me a new machine.

I got the new machine with the newer cpu 2860qm and 1600 ram, rest the same, 580m killer wifi card. The new machine will not connect to the vizio receiver at all. I wiped the drives prior to sending it back to dell on the old machine but since the new one would not connect i reformatted the old mahcines drives and did a reinstall of windows from the alienware flash drive backup and guess what, connected to / worked fine with the reciever.

I've spent hours looking online and what i see is similiar to what's happening to me. No networks show up and can never try to connect, the connect and refresh network buttons are greyed out or become available depending if i turn off wihd or reboot the machine or whatever, sometimes their not greyed out but still can never get a network to show up or connect.

So yea, not sure what's different on the newer machine, really seems like antenna or wireless hd chip problem. The customer service rep that helped me with my replacement machine over unrelated to the wireless hd problems emailed me back this after I had inquired with here about the wireless hd problem.

"About the Wireless HD not working a talk to several engineers from here, and they said that we are having issues with that at the moment, and for now there is no solution for it, but they are working on it and as soon they have a solution they will make it public in the web page."

I think it is rather lame how quiet they are being about it, I realize they don't want to threaten sales of the upgrades but come on, let us know instead of having us wonder and waste time looking online and calling clueless customer service reps. Ugh. Spent over 3 grand on my first ever (always coveted) gaming laptop and 5 months later I still don't have a machine that has all of the options I ordered 100% working and never have since the first one showed up, thing wouldn't even boot windows. F.MY.L

 

Quick question, I have an M17x R3 and wanted to put the wireless HD card in. I can snag this off ebay:

New Dell Alienware M14x M17x M18x Wireless HD WiHD Board w Cable 39PKF 039PKF | eBay

I was wondering if I would potentially run into problems in the future??

 

Hey guys, my m18x has the WiHD transmitter in it but I decided to buy the external receiver later. Now I wonder am I forced to buy the one at dell's store or is there one cheaper on say Amazon that I can get? I don't want to buy something that I don't need, I have seen some on amazon who have both transmitter and receiver so I didn't know if I should get those or not. Any help would be appreciated thanks!

 

You don't have to buy it from Dell - any WiHD receiver should work. I haven't found just the receiver though, so you will likely wind up buy both the receiver and a transmitter (like the Vizio).

 

I've seen just the Zyxel receiver on Dell before, but it seems to be currently out of stock. I've read that the external transmitters have better range however...

 

Thanks for the info guys, I will keep my eye out then.

 

This probably explains the backorder on the Wireless HD receiver on the M17x I just ordered, the laptop has an EDD of 2/9/12 but the reciever isn't due until 4/16/12. Not a big deal, but at least now I have an idea why.

 

I got to make the interenal WiHD transmitter to work with the aerobeam receiver that came bundled with it. But, it took a lot of trial and error and it was very difficult.

Here is how I got it working:

1 - Setup the receiver so it has a clear view to the laptop, try putting it at the same height as the notebook.

2 - Depending on the surface the laptop is sitting over, tri tilting it in a little angle a bit, I only got it working after I used my external fans that make it tilt a little.

3 - Setup the display to duplicate (or extended).

4 - Set the TV to the HDMI channel the receiver is connected to.

5 - Start the WiHD application, wait a few seconds so the "Associated" field display the mac address of the receiver.

6 - Click connect when the button becomes enabled.

It's important to note that step 5 is very important. Only launch the WiHD application after all previous steps are correctly followed. Restart the WiHD application to try again in a different config. If the "Associated" field does not display the mac address, try reviewing better ways to follow the steps. The de vice is very sensitive if you're not very close to it or the line of sight is not very clear.

Even though I got it to work, it's very unstable, even though the signal strength show between 98 to 100% I couldn't watch a whole movie without the connection dropping and need to redo all the steps. Add some bumping or passing between the laptop and the receiver, instant kill.

P.S.:

My system is an m17x R3, with bundled 3D vision and geforce 580 card. It seems some are worried about conflict, it's not the case as I got it working. I even turned on 3D testing while WiHD transmitting and it was working (obviosuly not the 3D @ 60Hz)

 

Thanks for the feedback and guide. +1 rep

Ok, so here's my experience (just received my Zyxel WHD Receiver from Dell). Followed the same steps and connected on the fly. Strong and stable signal with no issues at ALL! I absolutely love it! Now, I can shoot movies to the TV for my kids and keep working on the M18x at the same time, whoa! Thinking to cancel our telus tv and switch over to netflix, hehe.


Edit: Not a single blink, even if you walk in front of the laptop, shake the laptop, etc. Very stable signal (distance is 6 meters). So far, super happy!

 

Thanks!! I guess I will contact dell and try to get a receiver replacement, maybe the issue is in the receiver not good enough for the internal transmitter.

 

Could be. One thing is for sure, the Zyxel receiver works like a charm. So far, the only little nuisance was when the beast entered the sleep mode while still connected. Had to reboot to get the WiHD software working again, as it couldn't be restarted.

 

Any thoughts if the Zyxel receiver is better/worst than the Vizio one? Also, anything think it's worth getting the kits since I've read the kit transmitter is better/more powerful?

 

No idea which is better but I do know that the Zyxel receiver works great with internal transmitter. The signal is always strong and stable. Played a few games yesterday, no lag or FPS drops whatsoever. Top quality.

 

I was wondering the same thing. Tried two Vizio receivers and never got either of them to work, and was concerned that the issue was with my Wireless HD card, and not the receiver. Might give that Zyxel a shot. Do you know if Dell has a 30-day refund policy (like with Amazon/Best Buy)?

 

Ok, so after almost a week of non-stop streaming, not a hitch. Connection is instant and stable, signal strength is always 100%.

 

Thanks for posting this. It's not so much I was worried about the conflict between 3D Vision and the WiHD as it was that when they couldn't get it working that's what Dell TOLD ME THE PROBLEM WAS. If that's in fact not the case, it sounds like I may just have a faulty transmitter and they should replace it. I'm just not sure how to actually get in contact with someone on their support who might actually be willing to acknowledge the issue.

 

works flawlessly, with 6990m..

install is a breeze
hdmi to aerobeam power up..
power up laptop, goto wihd

connected in under 3 minutes...perfect crisp display and perfect crisp sound

 

somebody please help me my m18x has the wihd transmitter with the antena "im pretty freaking sure lol, as i saw another card next to my wireless and extra cable from it going inside my screen" dell is all out of sibeam recievers and im wondering what other ones will work with our built in transmitters??? i bought the rocketfish wihd kit from best buy and my laptop did not find the reciever, im afraid of buying the vizio kit off ebay for same reason. how do i know what will work and how? if any1 purchased any of these wihd kits from anywhere else but dell and got them to work please post ur info, thanks

help me out here, u said if i have wireless hd i would have those part numbers on my specs right? well i dont have any of the but i can physically see the wihd car next to my wifi card and a fat cable going from it into my screen and in device manager i have the yellow caution mark untill i install some drive which puts the wireless hd program in my start menu. so am i crazy or just dont get something

CAN ANYONE PLZ confirm this will actually work?

meaning confirm that it will work if you bought the kit separately at say ebay. and the reciever from the kit actually connects to you internal laptop transmittler?

 

This one will work
ZYXEL WHD6215-R Wireless HD Receiver - Dell Only : TVs - Flat Screen HDTVs & Accessories | Dell

 

100%. Works perfectly!

 

Sorry if this question has been covered, but do current m17xr3 come standard with wihd transmitters? I only see an option to upgrade to a wihd transmitter for the m14x, but not the m17x..

 

I'm considering getting a wireless HDMI kit to transmit games from my M18X to my TV. Has anyone got any advice? Or suggestions on which product might suit my needs?
I'm in Europe so my M18X didn't have the option for wireless HDMI installed.
Are these transmitters good enough for gaming?
Thanks for any help.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I just bought the wireless card off of EBay and bought the Zyxel receiver from Dell. These two are all that will be needed to turn the M18x into what your describing.

From watching youtube, gaming won't be an issue at all.

 

I finally received my card in the mail today and will be attempting to install this, hopefully I won't run into any problems.

Today I received my hd wireless card am in the middle of tying to install it, but I can't seem to find where I'm suppose to plug the card in the MB at, it's already mounted in the monitor...

Could someone please tell me where to look or share a picture with me? I have the whole M18x apart except for the GPU's and CPU's, everything else has been removed.

Thanks

Never mind. I just install the antenna...need to order the card seperatly...damn

 

Would love to get a WiHD card, but can't find any sellers on eBay selling them. What search terms are people using?

 

Here is the card you'll need. card

Here is the antenna for it. Antenna

 

Yep, that's where those eBay listings will get ya. The are selling the wire and "board" but they don't meant the actual card that needs to go on the motherboard by your wireless card.

 

At least now I have the antenna already routed and ready for plug-in once I get the card...lol

 

I have the zyxel reciever and the wihd already installed by dell when i got my laptop but i can only get it to work on the integrated graphics, i get an unsupported resolution error when trying with my 580m sli mode

any ideas?

 

I would really like to know how your install goes. I just ordered an M18x R2 because I was waiting for the Ivy Bridge CPUs. Well it looks like they took away the Wireless HD transmitter option and are relying on Intel WiDi (totally stupid, WiDi is not for gaming, I'm not even sure it would work considering it relies on the iGPU). Anyway, I ordered that card and antenna on eBay, the Zyxel receiver with the laptop, and I'm crossing my fingers that I will still be able to install them in the R2. Sales guy promised they didn't change the innards so it should work, but you just never know with them. At least I have a 30-day return policy if this doesn't work out.

They also really pissed me off by taking away the Killer Wireless-N 1103 (so I ordered one of those off eBay too).

 

How comfortable are you taking you computer all the way apart, including the screen?

 

This is annoying me to alot, all i want to do is play bf3 on my projector without having to plug a hdmi lead into the back of it. i tried playing bf3 with the intel hd3000 integrated graphics card.... it didnt work out too well.

so any1 else have the same issue as me? where the wihd thing will only work with integrated graphics and not discrete ? comes up with some unsupported resolution error thing when i try on my sli 580m.

i rang up alienware support and asked them about this... they basically had no clue what they was talking about so i gave up on them right there...

it seems like a driver issue i think, currently on 296.10 but have also tried with dell stock drivers and no luck. it seems to associate itself with the receiver but another display is not being detected.

its driving me nuts can any1 help?

 

I've built every desktop I've used for the past 16 years and I've upgraded dozens of laptops. I don't think I should have a problem with the disassembly/reassembly, but I am curious if you easily found the mounting holes in the display housing for the transceiver card, if the parts came with the appropriate screws, how difficult it was to route the cable, etc.

Another thing that worries me is the complete lack of documentation on the WiHD module in Alienware's field service manual...

 

My machine has a 560m with nVidia 3D Vision installed, and as a result of the 3D vision it always runs in discrete mode. The internal wiHD has never worked - it can pair with the receiver but can't output the screen. I've spent over 5 hours on the phone with dell tech support and the best they ended up offering me was a refund if I'd ship the laptop back to them and that they'd graciously waive the 15% restocking fee along with some hand-waivey talk about them working on a driver fix for this problem that was theoretically going to be out early this year. They assured me that the 3D worked and that the wiHD worked and that the only problem was that they just didn't work together, but didn't seem to think this was a defect.

 

What's gong on. The WiHD disappeared from the M14x now too. I even had a configuration save in a cart and it's gone from there too.