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    M17 - Win XP - Mobility Radeon 3870 Crossfire

    Discussion in 'Alienware' started by Sunnfire, May 8, 2009.

  1. Sunnfire

    Sunnfire Newbie

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    Ok. So here is the quick story.

    I have a new Alienware M17.

    It came with Vista Ultimate.

    I removed that and installed windows XP professional.

    I then went through a bunch of the reference threads here getting the appropriate drivers.

    I still have some 'uninstalled' devices, but thats not what this particular problem is about.

    I downloaded the latest desktop drivers from the ATI website, and used mobility mod on them, V9.4.

    I did a clean install (removed old drivers, rebooted with VGA, did a sweep, etc.)

    Now the graphics are working fine, it sees both cards, and in the CCC it shows both, as well as in the hardware manager.

    I have not put in E-Wrecked's version as I am fine right now with the native resolution options.

    I then downloaded, GPU-Z, HWMonitor, Reflect, 3dmark06, etc.

    the problem is that when I run the 3DMark06, I get the following scores.

    SM 2.0 Score
    5571
    SM 3.0 Score
    6625
    CPU Score
    4171
    OS
    Microsoft Windows XP
    CPU
    Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Extreme CPU Q9300 @ 2.53GHz
    CPU Speed
    2527 MHz
    GPU
    ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2

    Memory
    3072 MB

    Those seem abysmally low. When I run GPU-Z it shows both cards, and at the very bottom says ATI Crossfire - Enabled (2GPUs). When I go into CCC it lists the GPU as disabled.

    That does not seem right. Any ideas? or have people had these sorts of scores with WIN XP?
     
    Sunnfire, May 8, 2009
    #1
  2. rickscafe

    rickscafe Notebook Geek

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    i dont understand y do u get ultimate if u dont like it, just get xp directly from aw
     
    rickscafe, May 9, 2009
    #2
  3. Sunnfire

    Sunnfire Newbie

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    They only sell ultimate, and MS allows a downgrade of ultimate of business to XP Pro.
     
    Sunnfire, May 9, 2009
    #3
  4. Pman

    Pman Company Representative

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    I got Home Premium with mine i only ordered mine a few weeks ago
     
    Pman, May 9, 2009
    #4
  5. Sunnfire

    Sunnfire Newbie

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    Yes. Windows Vista Home premium.

    I do not want any version of vista. I meant to say they only sell vista (not ultimate, which is just one version of vista).
     
    Sunnfire, May 9, 2009
    #5
  6. __-_-_-__

    __-_-_-__ God

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    they don't sell the windows xp because they don't offer driver support for the M17 with windows xp despite the fact there are drivers available. I've multi boot with xp without any problems.
    the uninstalled devices have xp drivers to be installed in order to work. search this forum, there's already several topics regarding that.

    about the low scores, have you tried any other drivers? have you run some real games to see how it performs? it can be a driver issue. I'm running 9.2 drivers with xp and I've good benchmarks.
     
    __-_-_-__, May 9, 2009
    #6
  7. pingfreak

    pingfreak Notebook Guru

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    pingfreak, May 10, 2009
    #7