unityole

BIOS Mods are coming...

lol thats good to know.. a chance to turn off cstate means a lot to me.. but which two ports runs at sata II speed..

hey guys, which four of the six ports are sata III 6gbps speed? three 2.5" (including optical drive), two msata and esata port?

also any possible way for unlock bios? to turn cstate off...

this would work with 780m in m18x R2 i assume? cause iirc Johnksss got R2, or maybe upgraded to the new AW 18?

heres something I noticed and might help

sometimes blind flash wont work after inserting flash drive, hold END key and plug in power cord it'll turn on but just shuts down after. this issue normally happens and will always shut down when the power button has no light. resetting BIOS to default seems to do the trick though and can blind flash afterward

uh, i dont get difference between A09 and A09 FTP. reading instruction on page 1 confuses me lol iirc A09 and onward includes the OROM 11.6 so is that why 11.6 isn't specified at download section?

so.. as per wikipedia (still subject to change) specs showing 680mx becomes the next 780m. I think I just lost a load of respect for nvidia, giving us something half a year old that Apple already has their hands on while charging us premium, possibly the same TDP as well, load of bs man..

look up 680mx and 780m Comparison of Nvidia graphics processing units - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

change log:

[h=3]Fixes & Enhancements Fixed issue: Under setup menu MSATA and ODD show "not detected".[/h]

good enough for me, thanks again svl7

thanks for the amazing help and guidance by @svl7 i am happy to announce the unlocked A10 BIOS modded by yours truly! First post updated with the download link.

Cheerz!

im confused, unlocked means with OROM 11+ or not? some unlocked has OROM thing beside it some doesn't.. I'd assume no because it doesn't have OROM 11+ beside it.

whats the difference between these two? which one has the OROM for raid0 TRIM?

• M18x_R2_BIOS_A09_-_[unlocked].zip (4.63 MB, 77 views)
  
• [FPT]-M18x_R2_BIOS_A09_-_[unlocked].zip (2.09 MB, 7 views)
  

also any of you R2 Owners experiencing no audio issue? seems to be a major problem with the R2 but a few have manage to fix it. I am currently using A08 unlocked bios with OROM and sound still disappeared from time to time, very annoying and frustrating. the best fix is to reset CMOS battery seems to do the trick everytime but I'd lose the ability of overclocking and setting multipliers.. and reseting bios with F9 isn't enough, which again loses bios settings.

still looking for more of the story lol. stuff you'll only see in tech inferno.

There is always an element of risk, so it is understandable that it would cause some hesitancy. I had A08 on my new M18x R2 motherboard. I blind flashed it to the stock A03. It had to sit roughly 5 minutes with the obnoxious beeping going on, but it eventually completed.

looks like I found the answer lol, 5 minutes is scary though =(

Download the original Alienware unmodded A03 bios from Dell at Drivers and Downloads | Dell [united States] The file is named "M18R2A03WIN"

Extract the contents of M18R2A03WIN to a new folder named "Alienware recovery" anywhere on your useable computer. In there you should have a bunch of files. (9 in total)

so I downloaded the same file with link provided, extract it with WINRAR and gets 12 files in total.. the hell?

AnandTech - TRIM & RAID-0 SSD Arrays Work With Intel 6-Series Motherboards Too

looks like bunch of other 6 series chipset getting adopted with 11 series OROM, also for Trim in raid 0, doesnt have to be 11.5 as long as it is 11 or higher Trim will work. any chance to try it out again? the hm67 chipset..

so does this mean the up coming alienwares will have hard time flashing an unlocked bios? paying additional 250-300 just for overclocking sucks and it probably won't have options to an unlocked bios. I flashed a while back and realizes a bunch of feature I uses in bios matters like Cstates enable/disable, changing CPU frequency/multiplier, adjusting fan speed and temperature when fan triggers etc.

Think of it this way. A 675MX uses 100w. A 680M uses 100w. The 680M is faster/has more cores with the same 100w usage as the 675mx, so a 680mx should be able to work within a 100w range too if they improved he fabrication process.

actually that is false assumption. normally it would be right if one does not know 675m is basically 580m, theres no changes made, however 680m is basically 1 year after 580m (675m) which technology improved.

actually on the USA alienware config site it still offers 3940xm oc to 4.2

so this means theres no choice but to pay for additional 250-300 to Dell for future alienware eh? looks like m18x R3 will be costly

The SLIC is a table in the bios, put there by big OEMs. Together with a certificate (manufacturer specific) and a licence key ((manufacturer)/edition specific) it allows you to activate windows offline.

The forums at mydigitallife.info know more:

Windows 8 preinstalled licenses, AKA OA2.2 and OA3.0

ah right, I did recall MS stated something about windows 8 at a BIOS level to prevent piracy, now it all make sense.. this sucks, because of MS can't have easy unlocked bios =( never will I use windows 8 =)

could someone explain how this is to do with microsoft, I am confused.. and what is SLIC modding?

im wondering if this had something to do with dell changing pricing and combining OC and non OC to a single sale which is now only OC avaliable on the extreme CPU. if you look under config page both US and Canada website, only overclock option is there, no more non OC option. I dont like where this is going.. they changing the BIOS so can't be easily flashed/unlocked..

mr fox, i tried your settings on the A04 unlocked bios, everything seems to stick except for the long duration PWR limit under performance options menu and Advanced CPU control. After each reboot, it reverts back to 0, seems the highest number that will stick is 80, any suggestions?

I have the 2960xm on A04 unlocked bios. Much Thanks in advance

why not try A05?

Sure if you can find a more quiet fan of the same size. Actually it has a relative quiet (for Dell) Foreconn fan inside which is a low budget but relative low noise fan compared to other fans Dell put into their notebooks. Sunons are far more noisy and they are more common in Dell notebooks. I couldnt find yet a less noisy fan that can run at 4000-5600rpm with less noise than the current but good luck to you.

for the 4000-5600 rpm, do you have any listing where i could find one that would fit in m14x or m18x? noise isnt an issue for me.. either ebay link or w/e would be fine, or even the name or model number.

What @littleone562 said is correct, it does what it says: maximizes clocks and doesn't drop them down during lower utilization as much. The throttling experienced while overclocking is completely different and has been explained several times now why it happens.

so any chance nvidia release something like 685m? just like 680m review from techinferno? since this card has so much potential it would only make sense they do that. unless of course nvidia is planning carrying this card over to the next gen again, like 580m to 675m, which would be retarded then at that time release a 680m but with higher clocked and name it something else.

So any luck pushing these cards past 850mhz in SLI anyone? I just dont understand why with one card it works but with two people have issues. Could it be a power issue?

Why would it be bad for the R1? I mean I didn't push my cards too far, but at 853mhz they seem stable and thats a 135mhz overclock.

what i meant was, is it bad simply because its for R1 if you push it further than 900mhz will it be the same for R2 if you push over 900mhz still gets throttle?

sorry if im asking the obvious but.. this 680m SLI OC is bad for m18xR1, what about R2?