*OFFICIAL* "All Powerful" M17x-R2 Edition Owners Lounge!

Has anyone had a message popup about your PSU not being a Dell? I've had the message popup once in BIOS and twice in Windows (and I've only had my R2 for 7 hours.) It's really intermittent and doesn't seem to affect anything, but...

Also, anyone with a single HDD actually get the 2nd cage/interposer? They stiffed me on mine. Looks like a call to tech support is in the works.

 

Yes I believe 2 others with R2's have posted about this. So you're not alone

 

Hey Nburro, let me know how that call goes...as I'm planning on adding a second drive as well and will be curious if it was a mistake or a change.

 

i had this prob too when i first turned it on and it did it again both times in bios so off to call dell i was. i talked to them and everything. they got me to take the battery out and hold the power button for 10 sec (to get all power out of the mobo) i know what they told me to do was completely irrelevent to my power adapter problem but it hasn't done it since i did that so whatever.

 

That solution might work for a while, but I bet it is a bad psu.

Dell slim adapters are garbage......

 

yea i was kinda pissed cause i spent 3K on a machine and a) i had the power adapter thing b)i ordered my hard drives to be in raid 0 and guess what...they weren't so the first thing i got to do with my brand new laptop is install windows. fun times

 

Will do. I was looking thru the "system configuration" page thru dell support--just enter your service tag and it'll be over on the left side and saw the following:

1 F584N ASSEMBLY..., BRACKET..., HDD, W/CON, SECOND..., M17X

I can only assume that means I'm due a drive assembly.

On a related note, I was surprised to see that HDD0 doesn't have an interposer.

 

That is usally the first thing I do anyways

 

yea i was planning on doing that anyways, i just wanted to mess around a little bit first didn't want it to be the first thing i had to do out of the box

 

I got it twice.. than i realized I didn't push the plug all the way into the back of the laptop.

 

good to know. ill keep an eye open for that. thx

 

Combined total of 2 GB.

 

So, notwithstanding those minor snafus, how do you like it?

 

I thought in crossfire or sli they still use only 1 gig total......

 

Nope, that would kinda defeat the purpose of the cards. Each 4870 is 1GB of DDR3. Crossfire=2GB. I'm just waiting for Crosssfire 5870s

 

just wondering where did you guys hear about Dell having the 5870 in the M17x? just guessing? or did they say they will offer it on the M17x?

 

trd1 is correct.

Your frame buffer size is equivalent to the smallest size of your cards in CrossfireX (or SLI). Each frame buffer has to store the full render portion, even if it's only doing calculations on half of it.

So no, you have 1GB of video ram total.

 

Im hoping you will just need a BIO's update and you can install them into the R2.

 

no, you have 1GB of video ram total.

 

DUAL 1GB 4870 = 2x1GB Cards.

 

Ikuto did you read this post?

 

It's like this, only 1GB of total vram data is used, as each 1GB worth of vram data on both cards is an exact duplicate or mirror of the data on the other.

So 1GB, both trd1 and Hakaslak are correct.

 

Sorry for asking I'm a newb, what is the difference in performance having two gpu's vs one?

 

About 60-90% greater performance.

 

60-90 percent?

 

nvm.............................

 

Moo I just didnt think it was that much of a difference.

 

In my personal experience I would say anywhere from 0% to around 60% increase depending on the game. Just my experience though, YMMV.

 

Didnt see that post. My bad.

 

Good grief. With 2 1GB 4870s, you have a total of 2 GB. When used in Xfire, the cards essentially mirror each other, so the effective vram will be 1/2 the total, i.e., 1 GB -- but you have to have a physical total of 2 GB to get that virtual or effective 1 GB in Xfire or SLI.

Edit: Didn't see all of the above when this was posted. We're all saying the same thing. Not sure everyone understands it.

 

Good gief. Wow your smart.

 

so how long does this r2 last on battery for web surfing

 

1 hour maybe 1:30

 

Yep, compared to some.

 

lol most of us are.

 

For those wondering about the 256GB SSD option, I ordered it with my m17x R2 and it came with Firmware VBM24D1Q which does support TRIM according to CrystalDiskInfo.

 

Exactly what I was saying, but I didn't know were were wading this deep in the water. So yes you physically have 2GB, and are using 2GB, and in SLI are storing 2GB worth of data because you have 1GB mirrored. So the effective vram is in fact 2GB because you are using 2GB though the data is just duplicated. Just like copy and pasting, you get twice as much space filled, but only half the content.

But it's all symantics anyway. I agree with your last statements. Sorry if I'm late to the game, my time zone throws me off. Plus I figured I'd get in one last kick at the dead horse.

 

soooo, a single 2gb would be better than Dual 1gb right ? Or I don't understand this at all ?

 

Only if you needed 2GB of texture memory, but if you theoretically did, then yes.

 

I mean for gaming purpose. Would my gaming be better with dual 1gb or single 2 gb ??

 

It would be better with dual 1gb because you would also have dual gpu's and that is more important for gaming performance.

 

Yea, you would get twice as many transisters than you would have with a single card

 

Sorry about that noob question, but at least it clarify it for me with what everyone was saying about it, I wasn't sure. My idea was yes, it was better, even if I didn't really known why

 

So are people with the 920xm really experiencing a strange stuttering in all games that 820 and 720 people are not?

 

It seems like it. But we aren't sure.

 

This is the consensus right now...

 

Shall I take a shot at this?

You could think of the problems in terms of humans:
Two people working in tandem with 1 gb memory available to each
vs.
One person working alone with 2gb memory

Now, which group would you think would finish faster if the problem they were working completely fit in 1 gb of memory? The two people by a large margin due to the work being split between them (how well this is done is up to the drivers telling the "people" how to cooperate).

What if the problem required right at or just above 1 gb? Up to a point, the two people would still have the advantage as their cooperation more than makes up for time lost to retrieve data that didn't fit in memory (you can also think of memory as a table with stuff on it in front of each person; you can only fit so much on the table before you have to go elsewhere to retrieve something that didn't fit).

What if the problem required a vast majority of the 2 gb? Then the single person would have the advantage as the group of two would be spending a lot of time retrieving stuff that didn't fit on their tables. Keep in mind, I can't think of a game out right now that uses near this much memory, so for the foreseeable future your best best would be the group of two i.e. Crossfire or SLI.

Hope this helps.

 

haha, thank a lot !! That's put in words I understand perfectly !!! +rep ! when I can

 

Well, I believed I encountered my first issue with my m17x. The Volume buttons on the media bar barely work. Sometimes they work and others they don't. The Down Volume was working better than Up but now neither works all that well.

 

Yeah, I notice that too. It's aggrivating. I had the same issue with the slider volume touch bar on last year's m15x.

AW could benefit from enhancing their touch controls, because IMO they kind of suck. I find myself just using windows to adjust the volume, because using the touch controls tends to be a hassle.

Minor gripes though. I guess it's because Apple has so many damn touch patents or something, but I never notice non-Apple devices having good touch controls. Regardless of what it is. Same goes for trackpads, and I think the m17x has a pretty damn good trackpad.