otsego

You should read the first post.

Thumbs up! It's incredible and disturbing how many people go ahead and try to flash something as important as a BIOS without even having a look at the readme. Unfortunately, this disturbing trend will most likely continue, one day ending up in people bricking everything they've got.

So, long time since I've posted here, my logic board died from the USB recovery method of flashing, and I've been away from home since that time. Anyways, Dell replaced my logic board under warranty repair, and when I saw the new method of flashing via DOS, I found out I'll try to repeat my journey, which this time went completely perfect! Thank you so much svl7 and anyone else involved in this to make the Unlocked BIOS available and possible to flash!

After a time without my Alienware due to a botched flashing and lengthy logic board repair I once again tried to flash the unlocked version. There I proceeded to disable the graphics card according to instructions given here, and it now works perfectly. Thanks to all of you!

EDIT: Also, I can see a real life performance improvement with GTX680M only. Using MPC-HC with LAVFilter and madVR I can actually upscale using Jinc 3 tap without any lag as opposed to Optimus where I only could upscale with Lanczos. Some of you may not have any idea what I'm talking about, but trust me, disabling internal graphics actually give a performance boost.

eivan: not to be rude, but seriously, read the first post and the readme. It clearly states you have to be on A05 before flashing the UNLOCKED BIOS, or you have to blind flash the unlocked BIOS directly (which in my case hard bricked my laptop). Please read and KNOW what you are doing. Flashing this should be unproblematic, but ONLY if you know what you are doing. This is not something you should even consider to attempt if you have no clue about what BIOS-flashing does.

I just think I was damn unlucky... Called Dell, they'll be here tomorrow, so we'll see. I have successfully flashed to A05 Stock in the past though, this was the first time flashing directly to A10 Unlocked.

ehau: Correct, you have to downgrade from A09 to A05 using the recovery method, or you can flash directly to A10 via recovery method. Keep in mind though that I completely bricked my system with this and need a new motherboard...

Okay, I'm severely screwed right now... I put the A10 unlocked BIOS on a USB stick, renamed it, held the end key and connected it to power, started the usual full fan, beeping and so on. Then suddenly it starts to beep rapidly, stops beeping and fans run on full for a long time before powering off. Now the computer is a paperweight, can't do ANYTHING. The recovery procedure doesn't work, will not power on, also tried to remove the battery for a minute. Anyone have an idea what to do now?

Thanks svl7! Going straight to flashing mode (which I am unsure is smart if it's just a couple minutes since I've waken up, maybe some coffee first ).

Chris_c81 over at notebookreview uploaded it to Mediafire, I've flashed it on my own M17x R4 and can confirm it's working.

M17R4A10WIN.exe

Dell put up A10 on their websites today, although the file cannot be download yet *sigh*

Driver Details | Dell United States

Seems like Dell has a changelog this time, which is as follows:

Fixes & Enhancements

1.Update 306A9 CPU Microcode to M12306A9_00000015.

2.Reduce post time.

3.Update Intel legacy RAID OpROM to 11.6.0.1702. (The corresponding driver version is 11.6.0.1030.)

4.Update Intel UEFI RAID driver to 11.6.0.1702. (The corresponding driver version is 11.6.0.1030.)

5.Fix Intel UEFI RAID driver 11.6.0.1702 can't display ODD name in Setup Menu when UEFI mode.

Chris_c81 over at notebookreview uploaded it to Mediafire, I've flashed it on my own M17x R4 and can confirm it's working.

M17R4A10WIN.exe

Mr. Fox, thanks for the info, however at least in BIOS A09 there is no option to turn of the IGFX. Maybe this is some crappy issue with the latest BIOS they have released seeing that others are experiencing the issue as well.

Is your current BIOS anything newer than A05? If so, read http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware/2252-information-about-bios-updates-a07-a08-higher-m14xr2-m17xr4-m18xr2.html first. And then read http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m17x/1978-%5Bm17x-r4%5D-bricked-bios-fix.html.

Nope, it's not a 3D-display, just plain old 2D I'm aware that 3D-displays don't have the IGPU connected.

Edit: I can actually see that another user is having the same symptoms (altough a different color) here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/700848-alienware-m17x-r4-igp-switching-problem-green-screen.html Seems like it went unanswered...

I received my M17x R4 two days ago here in Europe, and I got the 240W edition WITH a blue ring/light. For the record I also ordered the GTX680M option, whis is most likely why I got the higher wattage PSU.

Good question. I've heard that you can achieve better performance by going dedicated GPU only, instead of sending everything from the 680M to the Intel HD framebuffer before viewing on the screen. However, apparently there seems to be something wrong with only the GTX680M running the entire laptop...

I just got my M17x R4 a couple of days ago and have ran into a weird issue. When running the unit with integrated graphics, the laptop is working perfectly. Gaming Battlefield 3 for a couple of hours, no issue. However, the second I press the I/D GFX switch button and reboot, the entire screen gets a reddish tint and starts to flicker with several artifacts. How come the NVIDIA GPU works perfectly fine when the integrated is also enabled, but goes all haywire when integrated is disabled. Any thoughts?

Alienware M17x, 680M, BIOS A09.

I have the 80.04.5B.00.02 VBIOS on my card and can confirm that fast boot is working perfectly