excidius

Yeah, Nvidia is the way to go for linux users.. AMD's driver support is a little lacking.

I prefer using switchable graphics for saving battery life...

But as an occasional linux user, It frustrated the hell out of me that I couldn't get the AMD drivers to work with the alienware, unless i disabled the onboard in bios.

The generic intel drivers ubuntu installed by default were ok.. But I couldn't watch HD videos with it, or use compiz effects. Plus I had severe page tearing when dragging windows around.

It drove me mad for such a powerful computer that it should be.

.. Now I'm dual-booting: BackTrack Linux - Penetration Testing Distribution - and it's nice to have that kind of arsenal at your disposal when needed.

Removing the battery won't ruin the warranty.. Nobody has to know anyways..

I left mine out.. unplugged my machine, large battery out. - Let sit for an hour.. and it went back to normal.

I thought pushing the power button would speed up the process of the drain, but no luck.. I had to let it sit for awhile.

Be patient.

If you wanted to disable Onboard Video, The method SVL7 told me was to switch video to PEG, and disable Onboard Video.

And that worked for me without getting the beeps.

No need of A05 anymore as I am unlocked but I was just wondering

Now my Alienware wont boot, looks like disabling integrated graphics was a really really bad idea. I thought it would only disable my HD 4000 but now the computer when I turn it on has no display and beep really loudly :/

If I need to take the motherboard battery away, am I gonna lose warranty?

Thanks Again!

Video: PEG / Disabling Onboard works and is exactly what I needed..

This has saved me a lot of frustration with my laptop. Thanks dude!

Try it like this: Video Configuration -> Primary Display -> set it to PEG

Then go to Internal Graphics Device and choose 'disabled'.

This should do the trick if I remember correctly.

If i disable onboard video in Bios.. I get a crazy amount of angry beeps.. I have to remove the cmos battery, and let drain for a while to get the system to turn back on.

My video options are set to SG by default.. If I set to PCI, my Radeon 7970m disapears in the device manager.

Is anyone else having a simillar problem? or is there a more correct way to do this?

I can confirm your new method worked for me flawlessly... I can't thank you enough!!

First post updated with new file (A10) and new flashing method.

Let me know if you have any questions.

There's a lot of us that do appreciate your hard work, it's not like there's anyone else stepping up to the plate to help us out.

I think it's just that were impatient and scared to brick our systems, especially since there's a 'safer' way that will be posted soon.

Sorry to hear about losing your HDD, that shit can be depressing.

You guys complain way too much. I do have a offline life as well, besides my SSD died last week and I need to redo most BIOS files since I didn't have a backup of all my mods.

I'm looking forward to this post, since I bricked my machine following the last instructions. - I had to send it in for replacement.

I need to disable onboard Intel graphics, so I can install my AMD drivers under linux.

I'll post the details and files for a very safe upgrade procedure soon. There's no more need of the blind flash method.

Sure there are ways... one of them is the recovery method which is part of the current AW systems. Also the so far only way to flash the modified bios has been a bit risky... but as mention above, I'll post the instructions to a safer procedure soon.