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

Fantastic machine.

First issue

OK, went ahead and did a clean install of the OS. Installed Dell ATI drivers, then 9.12. This is the problem:



No information displayed. Also, some other parts of the menus are blank.

Ren? Don? Drake? Moo? Anyone?

 

Use driver sweeper and try again.

 

I never tried the 9.12 on here since Mandrake mentioned nothing changed.

Did you installed the R2 version of the ATi 4870 Driver?

 

Just to make sure I try this again right:

1. Go to Device Manager, from there uninstall driver for both cards
2. Safe Mode: Driver Sweeper ATI Display
3. Install Dell 4870's
4. Install Modded 9.12

Yes?

Edit: Wait, so just the driver from Dell will do fine performance wise?

 

between 2 & 3

Safe mode: Run CCleaner Reg cleaner

Boot & install Driver 9.12

 

Guys, with the new bios you have this to look forward to:



I didn't do anything special either. Just 5% OC via bios and OC'd the cards. No bottom panel removal, no special cooling and used stock dell drivers.

 

Thats a very good score tbh. Did you use AtiTool for the GPU o/c ?

 

no flickering with the 720, big shock.

 

Nice score, 660 on the core is high. I need to update the M17x benchmark thread now.

 

anyone post there 720 rigs vantage and 06 stock scores?

 

Not sure if anyone else saw this but, is this even possible?? I calculated his out with a 820qm and took 15% off and with tax its still over that price.. Am I missing something here??

 

I used RivaTuner + flashed the vbios to 1.1v. Use these instructions: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5827254&postcount=1668

 

I could probably hit 700 if I hex edited the voltage but that's reserved for guys like you to do. I'm not a benchmarker.

 

1.12 is the highest I was able to hit on the 4870s.

Benching with the 720 is not any fun.

 

not even to see the numbers

 

Here is a stock Vantage run....rather depressing.

 

so the 920 gives a 4.5k diffrence how much is that in gaming performance a big jump or just like a hiccup?

 

Probably very little difference unless the game is very CPU bound. I'd honestly recommend everyone stick with i720/i820 CPUs. They run cooler and give nearly the same gaming performance. At the end of the day, who cares about synthetics?

 

I'd say not much. The 720QM is more than strong enough for gaming, and unless the game is HEAVILY CPU intensive you're not going to really see any difference at all.

I've seen performance benchmarks of the 920XM vs the 720QM with the same video card, and the differences were negligable.

Processor intesive tasks/benchmarking are really where the difference will show through, but for gaming, the 720QM is more than enough.

A hiccup, I'd say.

 

Delta, I been gaming in my R2 with the 720QM and all latest games run perfectly fine, and then some...
I am a man of many hobbies and while I would not mind at all having the 920, I decided to use the cash difference to buy an effects processor for my recording studio.
The 720 will do fine in all, gaming, video processing, photo editing and all CPU intensive apps.
When I get some extra cash I will probably upgrade to DirectX11 vid cards in my R2, but I will keep my 720 till my next Alienware lappy

 

Greetings!
First of all, I've been hovering this forum for quite some time now, thanks for all the useful info I've been able to gather from folks!

@joker glad to hear v1.1 bios made a world of difference for you! Had a lot of folks hinging on the outcome of your situation.

I ordered my M17x last month, all the bells and whistles minus the the Blu ray burner. I noticed a few days ago that it's again available as an option under the customization pages. I've tried three times now to order this upgrade (just the Blu Ray burner) with no luck. One salesperson even said that the slot cd/dvd burner I ordered as part of my M17x can't be removed. Then he tried to push an external Blu Ray device on me. What a load of bull butter! I did finally find a rep who knew what he was talking about, but he couldn't find the Dell part number for it. Would anyone happen to know the part number for the Blu ray burner? I've looked all over Dell's product upgrade pages with no luck.



Alienware M17x-R2 Intel® Core™ i7 920XM / 8GB DDR3 1333 MHz / 17" RGB LED / Dual 1GB ATI 4870 / 256GB SSD / Intel Ultimate N 6300 / Slot-Load Dual Layer DVD Burner
Should be here any day now!

 

Heya Mandrake. I am about to run 3dmark vantage on my 820 stock...is that the best to benchmark or ?

 

a question for those who owned both the m1730 and the m17x, which is heavier ?

 

Once you get your order call into dell and tell them you want to return it and order another one with the blue ray option. Since you are within the 21 day period you will have no issues except the fact that you will have to wait for another one to be sent out.

 

I just returned my faulty one and reordered and got free next day shipping and a free upgrade form the blue ray reader to the burner. Hopefully this one wont have issues.

The sales rep said the delays were due to gpu's and led screens

 

It's one of the popular ones.

 

M17x by a few pounds, for sure.

 

So what kind numbers should I expect stock drivers and all, its a 820

 

Yeah, M17x is heavier.

 

ok joker, mandrake, and regensey i got a question for you. i'm not really a benchmarker and am not gonna pay for bench programs. but i do want a kick a$$ gaming machine that will still be able to play games for about 2 years as ordered and maybe four or five after upgrades. is the M17x gonna work for me, if i do order it it will be full bore 920 and xfire. or do you guys think i should just wait for 5870s, i'm just afraid that those will just be another set of problems.

 

Buy bare and upgrade later. With the 5870s it'll more or less be a BIOS update and you can slip them in easy. Best way to go, IMO.

 

I have a replacement coming tomorrow. I am thinking of selling it new in the box. What do you all think? Should I sell it and try to make a little more than I spent or return it? I hate returning things for no reason. I really want the red version of this machine and a better cpu. Just looking for some advice. I thought I would be fine with the lower spec system. I played Bioshock 2 last night every thing on highest settings and it was awsome. No problems very smooth. Im not a hardcore gamer. I really like the red version also. Sounds stupid but I am the one that needs to be happy with this. I do love the machine. I have had no problems other than a stuck pixel.

 

The m17x-R2 is plenty that can handle a boat load of games with max settings. You should not have to worry. I can say 3+/- years max with i7-920xm plus X-Fire. Basically you are riding on a Yamaha R1 vs. Yamaha R6

 

Hey guys just popped my Alienware cherry. Thanks for all the helpful info really helped me pull the trigger and make the purchase. Ordererd on 2/13 estimated ship date is 3/19 seems a little long but maybe i'm being impatient.

 

Anyone else notice on M17X-R2 the touchpad make the pointer jumpy and the scrolling is lousy to fast or to slow i spent 2 days trying every combination and it is crap compared to the one on my Inspiron 9200 from over 4 years ago.

 

Its due to the texture they used for the trackpad. You can adjust settings in the Synaptics control panel - get to it via the Mouse CP. If all else fails, uninstall the driver and use the default Windows driver.

Not much can be done other than tweaking the settings.

 

you can use the windows drivers

 

Yep the Windows drivers are better IMO.

 

+ 1

 

Hi all. Just joined up to post my current situation. I've currently got a XPS M1730, dual 8800's and all that gear. My lease is coming to an end and I need to find something new and exciting. I am worried however by reading so many horror stories to do with the M17X R1 and to a lesser extent the R2. I don't game any longer, but I want something powerful and I need something that isn't going to require a technician out to look at it everyday.

Is the M17X the laptop for me? I do most of my web/email/IM on my asus 1000HE netbook, all my large laptop does these days is photos, video and movies and downloads. My XPS has been mostly reliable, had 1 dead pixel and the LCD was replaced and a dead video card that I found on a Fri night so had to wait till Monday.

So basically, are they really that bad? Or is it just a higher rate of one off problem systems? In Australia my specced i7 is about AUS$2800.

 

I always use a mouse unless I really really have to use the pad.
On my netbook I do use the pad when traveling etc, but on the R2 I do use a mouse, of course my intended use for this laptop is mostly gaming which is hard to do without a mouse anyways.
And on another unrelated topic, just want to comment that I am loving the HDMI output on my R2, it is so easy to play my MKV movies on our LCD TV from this output, and the image out of the 4870's is excellent. I had to calibrate the levels in both Catalyst and the TV advanced image settings, but now with those profiles saves is just a pleasure to use

 

For those wondering about making recovery media, I posted some info in the benchmarking thread here.

 

I might add that my spec is a i7 720, 7 Pro, 4GB RAM, 4870. So from my reading, any issues should not occur with this combination?

 

This will give you some limited Vantage results for the 820QM.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5847809&postcount=655

 

Just received the Euopean version of this monster machine. Swapped out primary HDD for an SSD (was cheaper to order it with HDD and order SSD somewhere else. Besides that, who needs a factory installed OS with all that crap anyway...).

No problems yet, but haven't really put it to a thorough test yet. Haven't found the time to play games yet, I use it for work mainly.

Pros
+ Build quality
+ RGB screen
+ Available options
+ Looks gorgeous

Cons:
- NO HARDWARE VIRTUALIZATION SUPPORT? I mean: What were they thinking?
- Price
- Weight
- No docking station support

 

I got yesterday a PM from Jhon B, if you are reading longer here or out there you should know who is him; he said that R2 are not having troubles with DPC latency, this must be cause R2 are using ATI cards instead Nvidia; i had the same question and i did it to batboy in the "Alienware M17x DPC latency thread", and, what i understood was some of them with R2 are having minimal DPC issues

 

Yeah. You are not the only one complaining about virtualization. There was a whole discussion couple of pages back. I suggest that you do what some of us here already did. Let alienware know how important it is to you. There is a AW representative here,his username is nagshead. I suggest dropping him a pm. Plus since you already have the machine you can start complaining to tech support too. Not sure that you are aware but the problem is not with the processor. It fully supports vt-x. The problem is that the bios does not have the option to turn it on. And since a new bios is being worked on right now we need to demand they add this support too. How hard can it be? My five years old computer has it. Rediculous...

 

If you really think you can get what you paid (or More) than shure, Otherwise return it and get the one you really want.

 

That is correct, and it seems the soon to be released BIOS fixes any issues

 

Planning on getting an M17x. In the SG store, there isn't an option for 4gb of RAM, so I'm thinking of getting this setup:

-i7 820qm
-8gb ram
-1tb HDD(500gb x 2 in RAID 0)
-2x HD 4870s in xfire
-RGB LED screen
-3 years dell care premium warranty

Any opinions? Is the 8gb worth upgrading from 6gb for 100+ bucks?