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I decided i'd compare the performance of two famous tweaks done to the OS to improve SSD performance. Those tweaks became famous due to the previous generation of laptop chipsets that were limiting SSD performance to preserve battery life. I'll be comparing a Vertex 3 240GB SSD on SATA III (6 GB/s) interface inside the Alienware M17x-R3. (Note : Even though the tests were made on the M17x-R3 the results are almost identical with the M18x, since they use the same chipset. I confirmed it with [MENTION=5]Brian K.[/MENTION]) I measured the performance with CrystalDiskmark in three cases. Default install without any tweaks JJB processor power state tweaks via windows power management IntelPPM tweak, brought to us by our own @StamatisX which for previous chipset models brought the best performance increase. So without further ado, here are the results. As you can see, no much gain there. Here's another look at the results, the graphs are improvement in percents over the default result in read and and write. We can see that the best performance increase is achieved with the intelPPM tweak, at 4K reads. Rest of the improvements are quite negligible - under 5% in in some cases i even saw a decreased performance. One note about intelPPM, it does seem to disable turbo boost on non-extreme CPUs so, it's quite unusable for most of us. You guys can draw your own conclusions of course, but for me, those tweaks are not worth the trouble. Another conclusion is that the current HM67 chipset does not seem to suffer from bad SSD performance, at least not as much as the previous chipset was. Opinions ?

Thanks Stevens for posting this...this simple steps have seriously improved gaming on battery in my M17xR3... And by the way,I'm also one of the guys who got banned from NBR...Charles said that I sold my spare parts too CHEAP(seriously) and he also said I'm not supposed to sell anything via Western Union..and I got banned. The dude who got my 940XM specifically requested for WU and now he is using it on his M15x and I'm the one who got banned for selling it via Western Union for supposedly too CHEAP. WHAT A CRAP!!! BOLLOCKS!!!

I just bought one off ebay oles! Impulse buy lol. M11x R1 INBOUND!!! Cheers. Alienware M17x R1, Nebula Red Base, Intel Quad Core Q9000, 8Gb DDR3 1333Mhz ram, GTX 260m SLi Alienware M17x R2, Nebula Red Base, Intel Core i7 840QM, 8Gb DDR3 1333Mhz ram, Crossfire Dual 5870s Alienware M17x R2, Nebula Red Base, Intel Core i7 920XM, 8Gb DDR3 1333Mhz ram, Crossfire Dual 5870s M11x R1 Inbound! - for testing purposes! M18x = WANTED! Rage3D

I talked with a long time gaming buddy of mine who happens to work for alienware and has for at least 5 years. It had been about 7 months since we talked but when I told him I was finally buying myself an alien he got excited. I told him about the talk online about gaming and battery and his reponse "I only game while plugged in..." he also thinks that any gamer who would compete like we did wouldn't use a laptop and if they had to it would be plugged in no questions. I never had the heart to tell him my $4800 custom gaming rig was sold and turned into a music server. I don't miss that 80lbs beast on road trips to LAN tournaments but the gaming was fun and the prizes were always great.

SONY on 22 Feb announced the VAIO C series which is exclusively known for the Green and orange neon color design. This is powered by Intel’s the second generation core i5 processor (on the website of sony in Australia has the i7), AMD Radon 1GB graphics card and has a blu-ray Disc. Some good features are that, the keys are Backlited so that at dark it would be easy to view letters to type in. The Webcam has Exmor sensor which allows to take a picture or Video chat online with Low-Light conditions, and the Facetracking technology automatically focus the camera when ever you are doing video chatting. There are 2 models: VPC-CB (15.5" Full HD VAIO Premium Display 1920 x 1080 ) and VPC-CA (14" LED backlight 1600 x 900 ) If you buy before May 31 they give you a Free Bloggie Touch camera "Crafted from a special light-catching material, the all-new VAIO® C Series laptops appear to glow with energy (Neon Green and Neon Orange only). The modern lines shine as the edges of the touchpad, VAIO logo and lid radiate light. Destined to turn heads wherever you go, you'll have the ultimate stunner, whether it's the 14" or 15.5" screen size. The Signature Collection C Series is available in four exclusive colors: Bolt Black, Lightning White, Neon Green and Neon Orange" 14" C Series specifications 15.5" C Series specifications Battery life: Features: - Intel Core i5 Processor available (Model VPCCB17FG has i7) - 14" and 15.5" screen sizes - Vibrant, light-catching colors (Bolt Black, Neon Orange, Neon Green, Lightning White) - Up to 500GB (7200rpm) or 750GB (5400rpm) hard drive available - Up to 8GB DDR3 SDRAM - LED backlit QWERTY keyboard - Electrostatic Touchpad (Multi Finger) - AMD Radeon HD 6630M Hybrid Graphics with 1GB VRAM or AMD Radeon HD 6470M with 512MB VRAM - Blu-ray Disc burning capability - keyboard skins (realy nice btw) - Weight 2.3 kg Btw, you can buy keyboard skins You can see a few reviews here Another review here They are not the finest, the lightest or the most powerful, but certainly they take the prize for the most striking/shining The design of the C Series is, at least, original. The top cover has been coated with an acrylic-like material and painted with fluorescent colors. Just the slightest light on surface and is like a Christmas tree lol Starting price at $749 I think they are quite attractive, and as I can understand are quite solid. Do not know how powerful it is for games, but in some videos I've seen running new games with relative ease, like GTA IV, Crysis 2, Mafia 2, etc Mafia 2 HD Benchmark: Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 1080p Benchmark Lost Planet 2 1080p Benchmark Crysis 2 - Video Recording Test Devil May Cry 4 1080p Benchmark Left 4 Dead 2 1080p Benchmark EDIT: Official Manuals (Model VPCCA) PDFs: Care and Handling of Your VAIO Computer Quick Start Guide Safety Information User Guide VPCCA Series Hard Disk Replacement Instructions VPCCA Series Optical Disk Drive Replacement Instructions How to change the memory and hard drive in a Sony Vaio VPCCA - Kingston PnP 8GB 1866 memory and a 128GB V100 SSD Kingston PnP 8GB 1866 SODIMM & 128GB V100 SSD Sony Vaio VPCCA Upgrade & Review

@Stevenxowens792 I have to say it's wonderful to see your very actively working on improving battery life. I have used similar tactics to accomplish that... but I don't own any CPU with an Intel GPU yet. I will be getting a M18x someday if my credit would be applied already. Been since forever that I had my M17 R2. Your advice can be applied to all laptops out there which is great. Thanks for putting so much effort in. That is a great 3DMark11 score on battery. Just wow! Keep up the amazing work.

I just record 30 seconds at a time with FRAPS. Then I use Windows Live Movie Maker which is free with windows 7 (just download it from microsoft). Good Luck and Thanks for the benchmarks.

Grats on the incoming M11x R1 kinda cool you picked one up!

And here I was thinking nothing those morons could do would surprise me any more.

sig added hope it isnt to cheesy

This sounds awesome and looks amazing, keep up the progress that silver looks ten times better than the one i have! Keep up the good work maybe some of us can pay you to do that mod? Would you be willing to do so? It's better sometimes to do that than buy a newer machine, the R2 will become like the M1730 refusing to die.

Got any calibrated profiles for the R1's AUO display?

I just finished a 2-2.5 hour gaming session of League of Legends, had high performance battery profile selected. Max cpu temp was 78c , but when I checked inbetween games in would be at around 69c-73ish c. Guessing those numbers aren't too bad. One thing of notice was that the game was running off the intel graphics and not the GT555m although I have it set to run on the GT555m in the nVidia control panel... Anyway, just wanted to post some of the temperatures I was getting! On idle and surfing the web it stays around 50c on the first core and 45c-48c on the other 3 cores. -- Enfore

Try to uninstall the Intel Storage Raid thing. Happened to me when I installed SSD. But you can try.

Thanx for the prompt reply steven. Feels good to know what u told me here :-) in my eyes, this laptop is a beauty, even with the sata 3 issue as of now.. And to have a dedicated and sincere forum like this just for it, is the icing on the cake! Hope someone over at dell is paying attention here.. They might get a clue as to how to approach the battery issue, though as u said before, its actually a not one really..

All i want in the video is some sharks with FREAKIN laser beams.. Is that too hard to ask!

Welcome Enfore! And thanks for the feedback. Hope you like the forums. As I was saying this is an easy going place where you can hang out, make friends, contribute some good articles or ask questions. Heck you can even post some of your favorite boobs in the off topic forum and if your a gal, well... feel free to post some man boobs. I am not the creator of T|I but I can say with some certainty that the goal of the site is NOT to BAN as many people as possible so please have fun, post often, learn something, teach us something and let us know what we can do better. Best Wishes, StevenX

Hey everyone, also my first time here and I'm really happy I found this forum! @Steven: I just wanted to say thank you for your help on the battery issue and also the quiet profile setting. I haven't tried the quiet mode yet as I'm at work and my M14x is at home but I'll be sure to put in action as soon as I get home. Really excited to try it as yesterday I was just browsing the internet and such and sometimes the fan would kick in a bit which would be annoying in a lecture environment. Thanks again, can't wait to get home and try it! =) PS: Loving this laptop! It's an amazing machine. -- Enfore

Hi all! This is my first time on this forum.. Seems like a lot is going on here :-) @steven : hi stevenx, saw ur post regarding the battery issue u solved and i will admit, this is precisely the reason i joined this forum :-) my m14x is due to arrive in a week or so, and this issue (non-issue, really, as u correctly pointed out) had been a slight discomfort to me.. Glad to know there is a way around it! That said, i have a couple of questions regarding ur solution.. It seems we r setting the cpu to run at a constant 90% using ur solution on battery.. Does ur approach have any negative or detrimental effects on the processor in the long run? Also, did u try the same solution on a couple of other games than BFBC2?? Dont have an depth knowledge of such topics, hence pls excuse if i sound noobish :-D

Did some benches in DIRT3. Hope someone is ineressted: GPU STOCK 1600x800 60Hz 2xMSAA Vsync:Off Medium Quality (ALL) AVERAGE FPS: 51 MIN FPS: 35 1600x800 60Hz 2xMSAA Vsync:Off High Quality (ALL) AVERAGE FPS: 44 MIN FPS: 35 1600x800 60Hz 2xMSAA Vsync:Off High / Ultra (if possible) Quality (ALL) AVERAGE FPS: 20 MIN FPS: 17 GPU OVERCLOCKED (760 Core / 950 Mem) 1366x768 60Hz 2xMSAA Vsync:Off High / Ultra (if possible) Quality (ALL) AVERAGE FPS: 31 MIN FPS: 27 1600x800 60Hz 2xMSAA Vsync:Off High / Ultra (if possible) Quality (ALL) AVERAGE FPS: 24 MIN FPS: 21 1280x720 60Hz 2xMSAA Vsync:Off High / Ultra (if possible) Quality (ALL) AVERAGE FPS: 33 MIN FPS: 29 1280x720 60Hz 2xMSAA Vsync:Off High Quality (ALL) AVERAGE FPS: 51 MIN FPS: 34 1600x800 60Hz 2xMSAA Vsync:Off High Quality (ALL) AVERAGE FPS: 51 MIN FPS: 32 1600x800 60Hz 8xQCSAA Vsync:Off Medium Quality (ALL) AVERAGE FPS: 46 MIN FPS: 32

My advice for taking your m14x apart. Tools: a. Small Notebook Phillips Screw Driver b. Scotch or Masking Tape (masking preferred) c. Black Marker d. Old credit card or soft plastic flat edge to help you pry. e. Cotton Swabs f. High quality alcohol or rubbing alcohol g. Quality thermal paste. h. Print outs of each step from service manual or extra notebook to download the steps. 1. Follow each step of the dell manual on how to remove your system board. At the end you will also need the instructions on how to remove the heat sync. 2. As you remove screws, attach them to masking tap and label them by step and part. Example remove hard drive, step 3. 3. When you need to pry items such as the palm rest, start very slow and be cautions. If you break any of the plastic tabs it will not sit correctly. (I can say that my notebook feels even more solid after taking it all apart and putting back together my way). 4. The difficult areas on the break down are removal of palm rest and removal of system board. You CAN NOT get to the heat syncs without COMPLETELY removing the system board from the case. 5. For the palm rest, once everything is completely remove, gently pull up on each side of the mouse touch pad. about two inches to the right/left of the mouse pad where you removed the keyboard. This seems to be the "sweet" spot. 6. For the system board after each screw is removed and all cables are removed, gently pull up from the right side and pull to the right. The way the system board fits, on re-assembly you have to slide the left side of the system board in first and then get the right side to fit down (if this makes sense). Good Luck So far my GPU temps are 4 to 5 c lower and the CPU temps are 6 to 7c lower. (also keep in mind my heatsync screws were NOT as tight as they should have been originally in my opinon.) Best Wishes, StevenX

I was going to use wax paper as I normally do but forgot to pick some up so I just had my wrist static guard. Everything's working fine. Sometimes we have to improvise and also nothing was scratched or damaged during the install. Thanks for the responses. GPU temp differences during BRINK @ 750/1000 went from 74c to 69c. I bet it might creep up another 2c so that's not bad results.

Yep, it's not the best idea because of the static electricity. I would suggest a piece of cardboard or similar if you want to put it on something softer than the desk surface. The only place I used fabric is when I need to open the laptop and have it up-side down.

Oh yeah, what thermal paste you use doesn't really matter, where you gonna see a huge difference is after you do the retention mod (this way your heatsink will be attached to the cpu die with bigger force) and then you calibrate each screw separately (I currently use only 2 screws, the rest of them are there but not screwed cause they make my temps worse) in order to get the best result (lowest temps).

Hey guys, I made a video intro to promote my website. Let me know what you think. Thumbs up if you have a youtube account

As promised! Here's a tutorial on how to take your Alienware M14X and Changing the Hard Drive Part 1: Part 2:

I like it! Just one tiny thing - I think it would be nicer if you could see the top part of the text that's appearing more clearly. Right now black just blends with black.

same from me, text was really hard to see.

30 Seconds is fine for me but like those who voted on Tech Inferno's video... the majority preferred it under 30secs. But I think you did a wonderful job.