I have fixed gaming on battery... Please do not repost in other forums

[SlashX]

@mw86: I seriously agree with your post mate...and that is a SWEET score on battery.

When ur M18x arrives, I think u'll be able to game much longer and with better graphical detail than any of us..!!! Let us know what happens.

[mw86]

@SlashX thanks I am excited about the M18x too, there are a few here already with their M18's and they seem very happy with them. Do you have a rig, or are you getting one soon? If so maybe you can add it to your signature. Also welcome to Tech | Inferno pal!

[Maitreya]

Steven,

Awesome million thanks:20_003:

[mw86]

@Maitreya Welcome to Tech | Inferno... glad to have you here enjoy posting without the thought of unwarranted bans or infractions! This community is a wonderful friendly one. Enjoy full mobility now on your M14x thanks to Steven!

[Maitreya]

@Maitreya Welcome to Tech | Inferno... glad to have you here enjoy posting without the thought of unwarranted bans or infractions! This community is a wonderful friendly one. Enjoy full mobility now on your M14x thanks to Steven!

Hi all,

If I am asking that is because I know here in China it would not be dificult or costy to cut some insider parts to adapt an SSD while keeping the DVD

My main consern is, do we have a third conection there?

For the room sapace I am sure they will find a slolution, all i need is to have a confirmation that my wishes may come true

[Stevenxowens792]

I haven't had time to take the notebook apart again to see about a 3rd port. The primay HDD can definitely be replaced with SSD. No problem there. The optical drive can also be replaced with SDD but the problem is it runs at SATA 1 speeds 150 (max). (This is the problem I have now...)

I dont know about 3rd port yet. Again very busy this week at work and have not had time to go surgical on the m14x.

Sorry,

StevenX

[mw86]

@Maitreya I hope someone or Steven (when he has time) can open the system up and confirm the 3rd port for you. I have a feeling there may be no extra ports since the motherboard is made specific for 1 hard drive 1 optical drive... but for the love of modding I hope it's there for your sake and all other M14X owners. Given it's size there should of been no reason to not fit 2 hard drives and an optical drive.

[Adroc]

@Stevenxowens792 thanks so much man! Have had no problems running SC 2 on battery thanks to this guide. You have been a huge help for a lot of things so mad props to you. But I do have a question I am curious to know the max battery people have been able to get out of this beast. I just want to kick back in bed and play some Baulder's Gate, most battery i get in about 2 and half hours on full charge. but was wondering what other M14X owners have been able to stretch out battery to. And if any one had extra tips for getting most battery life.

[Stevenxowens792]

Im sorry as I dont have a maximum battery time. I can tell you that you can do the following to get more battery life.

Bios First -

1. Disable all items in bios that you do not use such as HD Wifi or LAN/Ethernet.

Operating System -

1. Use msconfig to limit the threads that are enabled on startup. By default the computer has 8 threads and will park 4 of them if not being used. In msconfig you can change this to 4 active threads and the operating system will "probably" park two of them.

2. Use your power configuration to change how much GPU power you have. Balanced or Max Performance.

2. Use your power configuration to further adjust CPU speeds. You can set max at 90 percent or 50 percent depending on your needs. Older games like baldurs gate will fly at much lower cpu levels than crysis 2.

3. Disable Alienfx lighting.

4. The SSD you purchase will help increase battery life.

These are just a few. Good Luck, StevenX

[Maitreya]

I haven't had time to take the notebook apart again to see about a 3rd port. The primay HDD can definitely be replaced with SSD. No problem there. The optical drive can also be replaced with SDD but the problem is it runs at SATA 1 speeds 150 (max). (This is the problem I have now...)

I dont know about 3rd port yet. Again very busy this week at work and have not had time to go surgical on the m14x.

Sorry,

StevenX

Great, I've read in other forum that it seems there is a third port lets finger cross, and wait!

And what about the 3G slot I have it but when inputing a card nothing, do you think we will be able to adapt one sooner or later?

[HTWingNut]

Thanks StevenX, looks like I have a buyer for my Sager NP8170 and was leaning away from M14x because lack of ability to game on battery, so was just going to go with NP8130. But with this I may go back to M14x.

One question on your procedure in first post. You state:

1. Step 1, hit f2 on bootup and go into bios.

2. Choose Advanced tab. (Note also make sure you have stock bclk)

3. F10 to save and exit.

So what do you DO in Advanced tab? It looks like you just choose advanced tab and then save and exit. I guess I'm not sure what this accomplishes?

In any case if I get an M14x I will be sure to link to this post at NBR if you're ok with that. I'm not sure why they haven't kicked me either, lol. I've ruffled a few feathers over there too. Over an hour with Bad Company 2 is commendable, especially considering you probably get much better frames than with the M11x R1.

Edited July 11, 2011 by HTWingNut

[Granyte]

gaming on the batterie is a quite bad idea you guys should monitor your battery wear level

i killed my first battery pack that way (ok i admit that my system is of an other caliber but still)

yup an other freshly imported from nbr i haven't gotten banned but i honestly hate how they manage the alienware legacy section

[Stevenxowens792]

Batteries are finite. They are meant to wear out. Can you explain what happened a little further.

[Granyte]

i got my plug pulled by accident during a gaming sessions and noticed it 30 minutes later and my wear level got up 22% in one shot

[dredd1893]

i got my plug pulled by accident during a gaming sessions and noticed it 30 minutes later and my wear level got up 22% in one shot

Granyte, how do you measure your battery wear? how long gave you have your machine?

actually I own an m11xr2 (which literally shows a 4% wear over 2 hours gaming on battery) but I don't see battery related problem there, so I apologize if posting here is off-limit (although stevenx review on m14x make me considering m14x all of a sudden)

[Granyte]

hwinfo32, batterybar or hardware monitor gives you wear level

the m11x is a special case the battery is built to handle the whole power drain of the laptop

i had my m17 for 2 years and passed through 2 battery

[dredd1893]

Ok, so basically when the battery is forced to discharge in a full-load level (where all-out output is exceeded), it will promote wear?

Got it. will make sure I to check power i/o when upgrading to better models.

[Granyte]

it's all about the C rating of our lipo cell but generaly we cannot obtain such information about the lipo that compose our battery pack naturaly oem generaly won't disclose that kind of information bu since laptop battery are made for (hopefully) long run and not high current aplication so we can assume a C rating of about 2C (C rating will tell us how much amps we can drain from a pack)

i'll make the calculations for my laptop since i don't have the spec for the other laptops

my battery spec are 97wh, 14.8V, 6450mah, 12 cell made off ICR18650-22E Samsung 2200mah 18650 with a 2C rating

so to know the maximum amount of amps that can be drained from a laptop battery pack

the pack is rated a 6450 mah

2X6450 = 12900 mah max curent that can be drained in mah

12900/1000 = 12.9 ah

so with a 14.8v output 12.9 *14.8 = 190.92W is the absolute max power that can be drained from my laptop batterypack and if i would drain more i'd be exposing me to the risk of seeing my battery pack take fire or even explode

my laptop typicaly drain around 172watts when gaming wich is way to close to the danger zone and as such damage the battery pack

[HTWingNut]

This is why most laptops have safeguards and downclock the CPU and GPU or don't let your system draw past a certain limit. Most laptops do this.

[Granyte]

ya but on the m14x they are butting on that limit and compain about it ...

[dredd1893]

Thank you for pointing me the research granyte.. +1

[Stevenxowens792]

@All,

Fair points. All batteries are designed to wear. 2 years in a notebook battery is what I consider average life span. The m14x will shut down on battery if you are on bios A01 and the dedicated GPU is not set at Balanced. Personally I have no problems using the product as designed. I can play games on the go at a balanced level and after about an hour shut the machine down knowing I am pushing the limit. I think the A03 bios went a bit too far in the "safe" range but again that's just my opinion. I think the real opportunity is for alienware to understand that the products need to be checked carefully before released. I think they have received a bit of backlash because of this issue and I think they have lost sales because of it.

On a side note... I don't think anyone makes what I would consider "high power" gaming on battery. It's just not possible. (I define high power as a 3dmark11 score over 3500 and gaming for over an hour at that level). I think the market is looking for something that's just not possible yet.

[Ninjahunter]

Thanks for the post stevenx.

On my bare bones M14x (i5) and a little more aggressive settings(see below) im almost getting 2 hours of gaming on mine. I tested with half life 2 episode 2 and beat half the game while maxed out (-AA).

My settings: cpu at 1.7ghz(roughly 70%) with turbo off, brightness at 70% and wifi on Max power save. I have GPU at max performance but in my testing it made no difference.

[Stevenxowens792]

@Ninja - I believe that means you have the new bios A03. You get more time on GPU gaming but less power. clocks are like 290/300 or something like that. (I can't remember exact numbers).

[Ninjahunter]

@stevenx - The Clock is actually at a tiny 203/324 and im getting about 1/3 - 1/4 performance apposed to plugged in. But ya im on AO3 according to the boot setup menu. I dont suppose theres a way to make it a little faster?