ichime

I'd also like to test 470Ms after I get my 6970Ms in Crossfire (tomorrow hopefully).

Thanks guys, I actually thought about leaving it as is because right after I took it out of the Drano mix, it looked so shiny and white. But then, it got oxidized and looked a bit used, even with some polishing. Next step is to sand out the edges (it had some dents and scratches) and then send it over to the anodizing shop. In the meantime, I wait for the 6970s I ordered because I'll be designing a heatsink based on that design (I need the dimensions and I'm too lazy to open up my system now )

I asked someone who has both, but I haven't got a response yet. Anyways, ever wondered what the M17x shell looks like de-anodized? I still have to get rid of some of the old anode stains then degrease the hell out of it to get them ready to re-anodize.

UPDATE: I placed an order for two 6970Ms to try out Crossfire. Also, I got started on #4 on my to-do list. I bought a lid and base. Apparently the base was in poor shape (which wasn't mentioned in the ebay ad). Nonetheless, I only needed the outer aluminum of the base. I used a Dremel rotary etcher to soften up the edges and dents on the aluminum piece. Afterwards, I stripped all of the plastic and mounting pieces of both parts so that it's just bare aluminum: Now, I'm getting the pieces ready to de-anodize by placing them in a bath of hot-water + Crystal Drano (30% sodium hydroxide). More to come...

Hey John, does the power adapter for the M18x work with the R2? Also, it sucks to hear that it's harder to gain access to the M18x internals. I was hoping the opposite given how the M17x-R3 was designed.

Or option 3 (which I'm hoping): an underclocked Radeon 6950 core. I mean, why not since the 6950 consumes less power than the GTX 560Ti which the GTX 485M and 580M are based off of. BTW, I no longer have the 1120 shader 6970M But either way and like you pointed out before, the 6970M and the current enthusiast grade notebook GPU lineup have plenty of power.

The way I have it planned out, I'm going to use two of the four available antenna cables to power the WHDI/WiHD module. Amimon has a PCI-e module shown here that can use the internal antenna cables. That card would take the place of the bluetooth module that's already on it (which only takes 1 antenna cable). The remaining two antenna cables would be for the Wifi since the 6230 only needs two. The only problem is that one of the cables might be too short to extend to where the WHDI module would be. I could always get another notebook antenna/wire to replace the shortened one if need be. And since the WHDI module is compatible with any WiHD receiver (like the ones Asus and Dell use since they use the same technology), it should be able to sync up with minimal issue. EDIT: I'm still reading more information about SiBeam (the more widely used Wireless HD system) and it's a competitor to WHDI. WHDI already has transmitters available in the market that can be hooked up to today's HDTVs, so the setup should be fine even though I wouldn't be able to use it with SiBeam receivers. I actually found a website/company that deals with custom heatsink design, seen here; they even have a link to a CAD program that specializes in heatsink design and I'm definitely giving that a try. As for the GPU solution, it's still AMD, just two regular 6970Ms that I can get in Crossfire. I went with that because I found a vendor who is selling them at a really good price. However, if the GTX 485Ms were being sold for $600 each, I probably would have went that route for the uniqueness factor, though no one has tested them on a R2 or a M15x.

I've owned a lot of high end gaming notebooks since the Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2. I haven't owned a mainstream or a multimedia powerhouse notebook since then; strictly gaming notebooks. My first notebook mod was making a hybrid between an Inspiron XPS Gen 2 and the newer XPS M1710 (Gen 2 Lid, M1710 base and motherboard). That experience got me hooked on modding the other notebooks I got my hands on; from green palm-rested M9750s running Radeon 3870s in Crossfire to a OCZ Whitebook that was actually white and carried a TV tuner. Now comes the M17x-R2. In terms of functionality, specs and everything in respect to its time of introduction, this is the best gaming notebook I have ever owned. Attractive design, modular components (MXM, Mini PCI-e), amazing screen; it's hard to find a notebook that can beat the M17x in terms of the overall package today (and I think the M18x has the best shot of doing that). So now comes that time again to fully mod this machine before I send it off and upgrade to another gaming notebook in the late future. This time, I'm going all out: from changing the GPUs to reanodizing the frame (yes, reanodize it) and I've already gotten started, despite it being exam week for me. Now since most of you guys are notebook enthusiasts like me I'd like to hear your input of what I should add/upgrade to this machine. Here's a check list of what I've done so far: Keyboard/Key Replacement (darker, but more luminescent keys) Unlocked A10 BIOS V1 IR Remote And here is what I plan to do: 1) WiFi/Mini-PCI E replacement: getting rid of the Ultimate N-6300 to possibly the following: - Intel Advanced N 6230 (since it has bluetooth, it opens up the other Mini-PCI E slot for something like a TV tuner or a WiHD module) - Atheros WiFi/Bluetooth combo (similar to the 6230) - BigFoot Killer N 1103 (and deal with the loss of bluetooth and upgrade the second slot to TV tuner, WiHD module, or something else) 2) GPU Replacement: I already tested a 6970M in the system and there are still things to be worked out. Thanks' to Mumak's progressions, the 6970M in a R2 seems to be more practical. Though I got rid of my 1120 shader card, I bought an even better setup. Probably not as exciting and most can guess what it's going to be... 3) Optical Drive replacement: This system came with a boring 8x DVD burner. Time to upgrade to a Blu-ray burner. There's the 4x BD-R Panasonic UJ235A that's on ebay, or I can wait for the slot-load version of the UJ240 with 6x BD-R. I'm still looking for a Sony/NEC slot-load BD-R as I've had a better experience with that brand for optical drives 4) Body work: I thought about powdercoating or just spray painting, but something about anodized coating stands out more. So, I decided I'm going to go with that. I've already bought a spare lid and a spare bottom base that I've already stripped down so that it's just the aluminum pieces. I'll have to remove the current anodized coat using Lye and send it off to the nearest plating firm to coat it. That, or I can do it myself... I haven't decided on the color yet, but I'm leaning towards a dark sapphire blue. 5) Power: Thought about getting an extended life version of the M17x battery, still looking into that. All depends on how much of an improvement in average life and average decay they provide. Also, depending if the new 330w PSU that comes with the M18x works in older systems, that's another option. Nothing too fancy or ambitious. 6) Heatsink modification: This is probably the most ambitious of all my goals, but I know a few shops that could help me out with this. Basically my goal is to completely redesign the GPU heatsinks to make it more focused on dissipating heat through the vents. This includes adding three copper pipes for each GPU heatsink (the third to soak up the heat from the memory banks, which the current heatsink doesn't have. And if I can't make my own, I'll see what I can do to improve on the current one. So that's what I'm looking at now. What do you guys think? any suggestion of what to do/what not to do? This project should easily replace the amount of gaming I do and also reduce my daily caffeine intake. EDIT: Also, I'll use this post to document any updates on this project if you guys are interested.

I'm excited for you Brian. Do you still have your R2 btw?

At one point, I wanted to try two GTX 460Ms in the R2 to see how well SLi would scale on it. I had two 460Ms in my possession (bought from Eurocom) but the idiots at Dell kept sending me the wrong Sli cable (I needed the SLi cable from an R1 or an R2). I even lied to them and told them that I had an R1 instead of an R2 and they kept sending me desktop SLi bridges. I did test a single GTX 460M in my system and compared it to when I ran a single 5870 on the same system. In most of the games I had, the 5870M was significantly faster but the 460M ran much cooler; it didn't even reach 80 degrees despite the fan control not working. I could only speculate how two GTX 460Ms in SLi in a R2 would have compared to 5870s in CF (boy I really wanted to do this), but considering how improved Crossfire scaling is getting with the latest drivers, you'd probably see a similar margin as a single GPU setup.

The way I did it, I pressed firmly on the bottom edge of the key while at the same time pulling on the top edge of the opposite side of the key until you hear a click or a pop sound (i.e you hold down the left bottom edge while pulling on the top right edge). You have to pull on it a bit because pulling it too hard right away might break the clamp that holds the key to the white plastic that's bound to the keyboard. Also, with the shift key, there is a metal bar that holds it. When putting your shift key back, remember to place the metal bar first and line the bar with the holes that it goes into on the keyboard. Once you start pulling off the keys, it'll be easy enough to put back after a while.

Would anyone here happen to have the old 5870 VBIOS by any chance?

And they're still using older drivers for both cards. The 6970M CFX system should have used the 11.4 drivers while the 485M SLi system should have had the 270.51/270.61 drivers. Both would offer some performance increases and be a better indicator of the performance differences between the two setups really is at this point. EDIT: What StamatisX said basically

Well this all started when my Enter key broke off. Luckily, I had a keyboard from an Area-51 M17x from a project I wanted to start about 2 years ago. However, the mounting of the Area 51 keyboard didn't fit in the R2 and it didn't have the built-in lighting. So, I simply plucked the enter key from the Area 51 keyboard and replaced it in my R2. I noticed that the new Enter key was significantly darker than the rest of the keys, but the tone in the key's inscription kinda matched the light tube on the touchpad when it's not lit up. So eventually, I started pulling off keys from my R2 on purpose and replaced them with the A-51 keys. The Esc and Alt key from the A-51 was damaged while I was doing this and couldn't mount on. So I ordered another A-51 keyboard to finish it up. Surprisingly, all the keys and inscriptions match up with the R2 keys with the exception of the F6, F7 and F8 keys. In the R2, F6 showed a picture of a TV screen, F7 read "GFX" (probably for gfx switching) and F8 didn't read anything. The A-51 set had the F6 key read "HDMI/LCD" (which is probably better than the R2's TV screen), F7 was blank (again, better since the R2 has no integrated graphics) and F8 is the eject button (Fn+F8 doesn't eject the CD in the R2). That being said, I don't have a before and after picture and the camera on my phone sucks but here are the pics. It doesn't look like anything is changed, but below is the difference in "whiteness" of the original R2 keyboard and the one from the first M17x (Area-51). I plucked out the Esc key, the minus key and the 5 and 8 key on the number pad from the R2 and placed them on top of another Area 51 M17x keyboard I bought and it's easy to see how much darker the Area 51 Keys are: I also noticed that the R2 keys are outlined with white, while the Area-51 keys aren't outlined at all; the inscriptions are see through rather than written over in white. Because of this, the Area 51 keys are a bit brighter than the R2 keys when lit up (which is shown below). IMO, the system looks better WITHOUT the lighting now with this transplant; more stealthier look in person. Next up is getting a powder-coated M17x lid and base painted and coated with a rubber finish. I don't know what color to use though :/

Cool. Thanks for the info! Already started my own project on my R2 and I finished replacing the keys on the keyboard with the more stealthier ones from the Area-51 M17x (the original ones stand out too much while these keys go well with the black palmrest of the R2 as as well as the lighting being crisper too!

where did you buy/order those vinyls? I'm thinking of doing something similar to my M17x

Oh yeah, forgot about the 32gb of memory and SATA 3. Also, 16:9 is evil.

Probably a pair of Kidneys...

The only things I like is that it can use the on-chip Intel GPU (kinda makes me wonder why Dell couldn't have used a modded HM55 in the M17x-R2) and the fact that it uses the same connector for the Power Adapter.

It depends on which chipset they use for the M18x. If they use the PM67 chipset, it probably won't support IGP. A modified HM67 or QM67 chipset (modified to allow for dual discrete GPUs) would support IGP, or one of those nVidia chipsets like in the M17x-R1.

That is gorgeous. Thank you very much

Can you try a dark blue for me?

must......not.......pay......off........credit..........card...........and........use...........same..........credit..........card.....to........buy.....................ARGH THE PAIN!! God the computer industry is evil with all this new tech, but not as evil as credit cards

I would have alternated between nVidia and ATi around 2006 when it came to high end notebooks. However, nVidia's pricing really didn't allow me to do so as I would on the desktop side of things. Anyone remember how much the 9800M GTX costed? Also, the 6970M is probably faster at higher settings (1920x1200, high AA, etc.) than the 485M, which is type of settings the consumers for these type of cards play at. Luckily, the 485M came out before the 6970M. If it were the other way around, the 485M would have looked like a semi bust (but nowhere near the type of bust the 480M was).

It's strange there's no nVidia option when most of Dell's discrete lineup uses an nVidia GPU. Also the M11x and M14x uses nVidia GPUs. I think it'll be added later on though or someone would do it themselves.