joker

Not an exact solution but I'm using linux with my aw and no none of those buttons work out of the box there. What I did was check the scan code the buttons give and map that to a character code. Then this character code can be used as a shortcut to launch the commandcenter or administrative panel in my case. It can also be configured for any action you want. If you just want the regular workings back, the solution that jmonroe provided is the one. But if that doesnt work, you May try to Google about scancode mapping in Windows. In linux. It's part of the X-window system so Basic component. Not sure of the windows side.

Well for the sleep and hibernate I would normally suspect the OS sending some wakeup call. Would happen quite usually with Vista. Not sure of the current state of Windows. Could happen on linux too wit messed up cron. But you said that it also powers up from a shutdowned state. If it happened then and still persists, following common knowledge it has to be one of the remaining components. The case usually has nothing to do with the computers operation. If the csse itself though has some wires, you can try to leave them unplugged. It should only effect some lights, But you never know. If the GPUs are the same. You can try to unplug then too and see if the problem is still there. If yes, then it somehow just simply has to be the psu sending some random switch on events. Could be that it turns itself on and the rest of the computer thinks it as a pushed power button. Tha is just a wild quess but what combination of solutipns are there

Just did a GPU upgrade myself. Upgraded to 8970M. Got all the upgrade parts in a nice package from eurocom. They were kind enough to include the installation instructions as well. The heatsinks they recommended for R1 were 05WJ8P7 or 05G1VG for primary and 0Y48TK for the secondary one. don't know which one they sent, didn't look the code, but works nicely.

Bought myself an aw m18x-r1 in the 2011 and just now it needed an update. Would still be running the old GPUs if one of them didn't say goodbye. Had the xm CPU and maxed out RAM when I bought it. was doing a lot of data intensive coding on it besides the gaming that's why the 32GB RAM. Never liked the windows side of things and did an arch linux install on it. Ran all games with wine that didn't work out of the box even got multiGPU/SLI working for some applications (With a lot of fiddling for each). Even when NVIDIA says it can't be done. There was a profile for doom and I played with it. The Only one I needed to go back to windows was StarCraft II. Anyway The card I upgraded to was AMD 8970M. I got it through Eurocom. They even were kind enough to include the installation instructions with the package they sent. The package itself had pretty much everything I needed for the upgrade excluding the tools of course. Now with that I'm able to ditch the windows all together as even the StarCraft II now runs perfectly. Upgrading the graphics cards really has an effect so I would suggest to upgrade the graphics first and see then if you need anything else. Did my upgrade from 460M SLI.

I have been using an alienware laptop for a while now (bought it in 2011) and have been quite satisfied with it. I'm aware that these computers do come with a high price tag for what's in them, but for the purpose I had and the technical skills I had at the time, It was a great buy. Been getting a little better with technology and now upgrading the graphics cards. Was surprised by how easy these are to tear apart and put back together. I'm not sure how it goes with the console version, but I do like to keep my hardware clean and in good operating condition. I wouldn't dare to even try to touch the Playstation. What is a good buy really depends on what you are looking for and until you yourself know what you want, no one can really help but give their own experiences as reference.