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OFFICIAL: Alienware M18x Owners Lounge


Brian

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I'm entertaining the thougt of upgrading my M18x r1 with a newer/stronger CPU and GPUs.

my specs at the moment are:

i7 2670QM

2x HD6990m

16Gb RAM (Original)

512Gb Samsung 850PRO SSD

1000Gb Hitatchi Travelstar

I think a new CPU with the 3pipe Heatsink would be the best choice but i dont know wich CPU fits and is supported.

I would like to keep the GPUs for now because i think they are still pretty fast, if they can work toghether properly (some games dont realy like Xfire)

Any Suggestions?

3-pipe HS w/ a 2920xm or 2960xm for OC.

GPUs, you really have a wide swath from which to select. It depends on your gaming needs...

.....and budget. ;)

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True, but don't forget to factor in resale value of your 6990's to offset the cost of new card(s) (if you go that route).. CPU performance wise, an extreme 2920/2960 is right on the heels of the 3920/3940 and in many cases beats the heatboxed, locked down Haswell 4940mx. I do prefer the screen of my Alienware 18 over my m18x r2, though. I've also grown to prefer it's form factor and look and it is easier to break down and reassemble too IMHO.

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didn't think about selling my old cards, because I didn't think anyone would buy them. But with selling them in mind the price of new ones isnt that horendous. I will keep an eye open for the parts. after all I have got a buddy to beat at benchmarks since he upgraded his desktop system :sweat:

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Been part of this club since November 23rd, 2012. :3 Sign me up for the Nebula Red lounge too! I remember when the Alienware 18 came out, I was bummed out thinking that it looked so sleek and was just going be a whole lot better. Flash foward a bit, and we've all grown to see that the AW 18 is unfortunately a very limited machine that pales in comparison to the M18x R2 and even the R1. I fear the day these machines hit a brick wall in terms of compatibility. The new Nvidia 980Ms are JUST skating by in these laptops. I hope the next in the Nvidia line don't turn out to be so finicky too. I love the solid build quality and how cool these machines run as well. I don't mind the LEDs and exaggerated styling either!

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  • 4 weeks later...

hey guys, been thinking about upgrading my m18x-r2 as well... it's sitting there with it's 3920xm and 675m sli, now i'm thinking about getting new gpus as well. what i saw is, i could get 2 x 680m for around 520$ the pair (new ones), or i could get for around 560$ one 880m, and in a few months get another 880m. i had the 780m's back when i had the aw18 and didn't like those...they got quite hot. now i'm just about to go and read up on i the 880m's also have probs with the heat. i never had any probs with my 680m's i used to have and also they never ran too hot, even under hardcore oc. now i'm not too sure what to do, what would you guys do or what do you think about it?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello guys , i have bay recently one AW M18 whit 880m SLI and i wonder if my procesor 4700mq prevent not smooth running of SLI.

I wants to know if this procesor being enough for 980m SLI.

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  • 1 month later...
didn't think about selling my old cards, because I didn't think anyone would buy them. But with selling them in mind the price of new ones isnt that horendous. I will keep an eye open for the parts. after all I have got a buddy to beat at benchmarks since he upgraded his desktop system :sweat:

Most of the higher-end cards that sit in these m18x's are indeed sought after and definitely sellable. It would depend on whether you've ran them overclocked or not. I wouldnt buy a laptop-GPU if I knew it's been overlocked. I myself ran dual 7970m with a pretty hefty overclock and vBIOS mod for higher voltages and they slowly degraded to finally die in the end.

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  • 4 weeks later...
hey guys, been thinking about upgrading my m18x-r2 as well... it's sitting there with it's 3920xm and 675m sli, now i'm thinking about getting new gpus as well. what i saw is, i could get 2 x 680m for around 520$ the pair (new ones), or i could get for around 560$ one 880m, and in a few months get another 880m. i had the 780m's back when i had the aw18 and didn't like those...they got quite hot. now i'm just about to go and read up on i the 880m's also have probs with the heat. i never had any probs with my 680m's i used to have and also they never ran too hot, even under hardcore oc. now i'm not too sure what to do, what would you guys do or what do you think about it?

using 880m sli in Alien 18 I recommend choose another high performance card. 1 980m perhaps? might equal stock 880m sli performance :D The 880m do get hot for the work and 980m gets about the performance of 880m sli with half the power draw!? Good to see ya @deadbydawn

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  • 2 months later...

Warning AW owners...

Windows 10 Upgrade Warning for Alienware Owners | NotebookReview

@All, Windows 10 & v353.62 has blown out four Samsung display panels -> AW18, M18xR2, AW17 <- Please uninstall current driver (DDU/Clean & Shutdown) and install v352.84 from here http://forum.techinferno.com/nvidia/6307-%5Balienware%5D-aftermarket-upgrades-driver-support-modded-inf-31.html#post136061

Win7/8.1 users please install previous version 353.49 as a precaution, from here http://forum.techinferno.com/nvidia/6307-%5Balienware%5D-aftermarket-upgrades-driver-support-modded-inf-45.html#post138999

Samsung LCD displays:

Alienware 18 R1 , M18xR1, M18xR2, Alienware 17 R1 60Hz & 120Hz (Samsung & AUO), M17xR4 120Hz...

Please post your concerns here Windows 10 + Official 353.62 Drivers Has Killed Three Samsung LCD Displays

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Been running Windows 10 and the 353.62 since it''s been released, no problems here, might go back just as a precaution, thanks for letting us know.

No problem.

Samsung LCD displays:

Alienware 18 R1 , M18xR1, M18xR2, Alienware 17 R1 60Hz & 120Hz (Samsung & AUO), M17xR4 120Hz...

Please post your concerns here Windows 10 + Official 353.62 Drivers Has Killed Three Samsung LCD Displays

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Only one person has had this problem ? Actually I fail to see how a gpu driver can do this to a monitor.
Well, the display driver can influence refresh rate, resolution, color depth and probably a lot of other things that are way over my head. If the display driver forces a monitor to run at frequencies that are not healthy for it to run, guess what? Bad stuff can happen. The problem is, we don't know for sure what the deal is or why it is taking place. The common denominator seems to be NVIDIA's latest drivers and Windows 10. And, unless you purchased a model that ships with Windows 10, the OEM doesn't have to take care of you... not their fault if the end user decides to install a new OS.

At least three people identified. But, I wonder how many people are having this issue that we don't know about that have no clue what is happening to their laptop?

Even I assumed the first one was a random hardware failure. I only know otherwise because of it happening to three of my displays. That cannot be a coincidence.

Well , I have been bugging Mr. Fox for a solution the past 3-4 days to help revived my M18x R2 since the day it died ( 8 beeps ).

1) Free Windows 10 update

2) Left the house for a stroll

3) Came home , laptop was turnt off , so I power it on , then 8 beeps.

4) research the 8 beeps , and found out it was the LCD issue (amazed on a new LCD that I just bought went bad)

5) I swap back to the old LCD that was working fine also , and it still made the 8 beeps.

6) I did the power drain/cmos , came back with 5 beeps , then the 8 beeps came back.

It's just weird how it just happen. I gave up.

I got my 980m from woodzstack and installed it and all worked perfectly. Full uefi discrete install. Played about an hour of gta 5 and temps were 63 degrees. Then after I shutoff the computer, an hour later came back and got 8 beeps, lcd failure. Swapped back in my old 770m and still 8 beeps. Swapped back in 980m, 8 beeps. So it can't be the video card. In the meantime I change nothing else at all. I'm honestly stumped. Thinking either my bios magically got screwed up somehow, the lcd cable burnt out, or the lcd is dead. Anyone have any ideas?
My lcd magically busted today on my 17 r1 after using windows 10 and the new nvidia drivers for not even a whole day. Installed at 3 dead at 10. Anyone have any ideas how to check if it's the screen that's busted and not something else
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  • 3 weeks later...

1st , I need to give major props to Mr. Fox. My M17xR4 runs well I added a 970M and I'm jazzed Mr Fox.you are my new hero!! ( alittle throttling ,but I OC it mildly). Now to my puzzelment,.......Picked up some basket case M18xR2's and put in an 970m, along w/ 32GB of hyperX @2133 , a 3940XM, crucial 920GB C drive , a 512GB Msata along w/ a WD750GB drive(7200). Working w/ Win 8.1 and trying to get thru all the steps for this damn card to work( BTW , I'm not going to SLI unless I go backwards to snag a pair of 680M's) almost drove me to toss this as deep in the ocean as I could on my dives...........maybe deeper. Using a clean install of WIN 7 everything runs great ( I can even run alot of earlier games on the IGFX), ADD the 970M...............8 beeps,pull the card and post's with no issues. any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Hi guys I have what may seem like a stupid question. I didnt want to create a new thread as mine seem to be rather unpopular!

I have an M18xR2 which has 3 mini pci slots inside, one is for a half height (I have a wireless card in it.) One for full height (I have a M-SATA card in it,) I am unsure of the third slot which is wider allowing for more pins. What type of slot is this? and what cards can I put in this slot? I have previously had a second half height wireless card in it, using only 2/3 of the slot, but since I went back to windows 7 it sent the system bonkers.

I have had a look through the parts list but nothing jumped out at me and I have tried to search the forum but with no clue as to the correct keywords to search!

Thanks in advance for any help :)

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  • 3 months later...
On 8/3/2015 at 6:25 PM, Mr. Fox said:

Well, the display driver can influence refresh rate, resolution, color depth and probably a lot of other things that are way over my head. If the display driver forces a monitor to run at frequencies that are not healthy for it to run, guess what? Bad stuff can happen. The problem is, we don't know for sure what the deal is or why it is taking place. The common denominator seems to be NVIDIA's latest drivers and Windows 10. And, unless you purchased a model that ships with Windows 10, the OEM doesn't have to take care of you... not their fault if the end user decides to install a new OS.

At least three people identified. But, I wonder how many people are having this issue that we don't know about that have no clue what is happening to their laptop?

Even I assumed the first one was a random hardware failure. I only know otherwise because of it happening to three of my displays. That cannot be a coincidence.

 Windows 10 has many problems with the M18xR1 for sure, however I overclock my display on windows 7, sometimes as high as 90hz over the stock 60hz. However it can cause faint issues or catastrophic failure. Just a natural risk of going and doing what the manufacturer doesn't officially support.

 

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  • 1 month later...

Hello guys, I just upgraded my M18x r2 with one 980m (coming from 7970m crossfire). Except some problems I have with the drivers I am satisfied with the performance. Do you think it is worth it to add another 980m later for SLI? I was thinking maybe I should sell this laptop and get the newer AW 18 with proper 980m support. whats your opinion?

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  • 1 month later...
On 3/3/2016 at 3:19 AM, bassistas said:

Hello guys, I just upgraded my M18x r2 with one 980m (coming from 7970m crossfire). Except some problems I have with the drivers I am satisfied with the performance. Do you think it is worth it to add another 980m later for SLI? I was thinking maybe I should sell this laptop and get the newer AW 18 with proper 980m support. whats your opinion?

Totally worth it with the new drivers. I'm running SLI and 0 problems.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 4 weeks later...
  • 4 months later...

For me I had no issues with Win10, that was until the anniversary version came out and now I've lost the quick launch buttons again,except the wireless button, happened when I tried to manually go to Win10, when MS finally let me have a version it worked fine, then update and pooft off they went again!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hey everyone! :) not new to the Alienware, but new to the site and the modding aspect of the system. Current rig is the M18X R1.  Specs

Time of this report: 11/29/2016, 05:02:13
    Machine name: DESKTOP-VCBBUD3
    Machine Id: {A93AADE5-BFEA-401C-A9A6-778E2EC370C6}
    Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 14393) (14393.rs1_release_inmarket.161102-0100)
    System Manufacturer: Alienware
    System Model: M18xR1
    BIOS: InsydeH2O Version 1.0 A05
    Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2860QM CPU @ 2.50GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.5GHz
    Memory: 16384MB RAM
    Available OS Memory: 16366MB RAM
    Page File: 4317MB used, 28432MB available

Card name: AMD Radeon HD 6900M Series
    Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Chip type: AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x6720)
    DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
    Display Memory: 5875 MB
    Dedicated Memory: 2035 MB
    Shared Memory: 3840 MB
    Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)

It came with dual 6900's in CrossfireX, but 1 of the cards blew up so removed the CrossfireX cable and swapped the cards in the slots. Now just limping along with 1 card. :( 

 

I have a 32G kit of Corsair Vengeance coming and also have a 850 500G SSD prepped and going to run the current dual 600G Velociraptors in RAID 0 as a storage drive once I convert the CD/DVD to a HDD caddy. 

 

Anyone with upgrade insight or ideas, please hit me up and let me know. I want to push this ole beauty to its' absolute max!

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  • 9 months later...

I am scared to even update I have always had win 7 but it seems like you may have to soon

On 11/3/2016 at 6:14 PM, MavUK666 said:

For me I had no issues with Win10, that was until the anniversary version came out and now I've lost the quick launch buttons again,except the wireless button, happened when I tried to manually go to Win10, when MS finally let me have a version it worked fine, then update and pooft off they went again!

 

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