Joebarchuck

Ah ok, maybe I'll try the NBR marketplace then. Thanks for the advice.

WOW that was great. So you sold it through Ebay? If you want to PM me on how to protect myself to sell such expensive items through Ebay that would be great. I've never done it for a PC and I would not want to get ripped off.

How much did you sell it for? I am now thinking of selling mine but I am not sure I want to lose $1000.00 on it as it is a new machine almost...

Congrats to all that have ordered the M18X. Can't wait until we get some benchmarks and reviews.

Brian did you return your R3? Were you in the 21 days refund period?

I ordered the digital soldering station. Once I get it, I'll try out the soldering and let you guys know. Hope it all works.

It's not as expensive as I thought last week. It's basically $500.00 more expensive than my R3 for the same config except with one 6970M more than mine and a 1.1 in bigger screen than my R3. The question is that worth $500.00 more... Not sure.

Ok, I am ordering a soldering station similar to what you linked. I think I'll be able to do the job after.

I'll keep you guys posted but it's now looking good...

Is it possible to just tape them on to test it? I'm not very familiar with soldering so I can't help ya there

I am 100% sure it will work as the cable has 6 wires and it's labeled LED. All RGB LED use 6 connections from what I've seen so far therefore I can only assume it will work.

Ok guys, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that it's doable, I found the 6 connections needed for RGB LED to work. The bad news is that with my current soldering iron, there is no way I can make such a small solder to connect. These are miniature solders and if I mess up, I will end up connection one or two cables all together which will short out the LED. I need to buy a high tech soldering iron and until I get that the project is on hold.

If anyone here is able to help me in finding what kind of soldering iron will be able to make miniature solders such as made by the Dell machines, please reply so we can take this project one step further.

I may have another solution which might not involve such small solder but I need to confirm that it works before I pursue this idea also.

I'll keep everyone updated.

after taking the 2 screws off, just slide the panel down and left it up. super easy. yup only 2 screws holding panel in place. just did this earlier when i was checking for the widi leads.

So it slides down just like the back panel?

Hi guys, I need help, I took apart the computer, took the display off the PC but I am having issues going into the display. There are only 2 screws and I am not sure where to go from there to go into the display. Dell's service manual does not offer anything but how to take the display away from the PC. I am wondering if they made this one unit as screen, lcd, etc...

When looking at the M17X R2 service manual it's clearly in the guide how to actually take the display apart.

Any thoughts?

The good news is I found the 6 cables to solder the 5050 LED to, the bad news is the display above and the fact that I don't think I am capable of making such small solder.

Thanks for the help.

I will make a video of the mod and post all the material but it's a 5050 RGB LED, just type that in google and click images and you will get a pic of it.

When I have time, I'll make a detail explanation of what I am planning to do.

Well, if I can make the connection from the written "Alienware" logo on the bottom of the screen, there will be no problem but if for some reason I have to connect it to an LED on the chassis then it might be a problem to have cabling going through the hinges. At this point I am speculating since I have not tried it yet and it may just work out fine.

$0.77 so yeah it's really cheap. I am only worried about the cabling, it will have to be extremely fine, not sure yet what to use there.

LED shipped today so I might be able to get this working by the weekend.

Oh I had not realized they took it away but I agree with Brian, the USA will see it last and I find this not fair since we represent most of AW sales.

I believe I found the right RGB LED so I will try it out in the next few weeks.

I ordered a 5050 RGB LED from superbrightled. I don't see why this would not work if plugged correctly. The only thing I am worried about is that the color would not be exactly the same but at least there would be color.

I checked over the weekend and making the slim LED fit should be fine.

I am in shock to see that UK and a few other countries have had the M18X for over a week now and still nothing for the USA. I guess that's the new way AW is getting products out since it also happened with the R3.

The mod to get the Alienware logo the same color as the Alienware name on below the screen should not be hard at all and I am sure it would require an RGB LED and three wires and that's it. It could be connected directly to the RGB LED Dell uses for the Alienware name below the screen and a thin wiring could be run into the Alien Head Logo.

If I have time I will look into it.

I ordered the R3 over two months ago therefore I am stuck with it. I would love to go with the M18X but the R3 has been nothing but perfect so far so I am not complaining.

Thanks guys for the warm welcome.

Awesome job, I wish it would be aluminum to be able to powder coat it.

Hey guys, well, I've been on here for a while at least looking at the post on a weekly basis but I have not had time to discuss with the community. I'll try harder.

I had a lot of people asking me for this video so I finally made it.

I hope this will help answers some of the questions people had about re-pasting.

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Hey Joe, welcome to the T|I forum. Glad to see you found your way here.

-Brian aka 5150 Joker in case some don't know.

Yeah I am glad to be part of something new and hopefully were we don't get banned for providing valid info... :D:D:D