rtho782

As others have said, a prerequisite for the OEM logo (in this case Alienware) to show is that you are booting with Secure Boot and UEFI. If you've installed Windows without using UEFI, you will need to do a Windows reinstall to use UEFI/Secure Boot. 1. Create a UEFI bootable USB stick, following this guide: UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 8 with 2. To boot the USB you will need UEFI enabled yet legacy boot methods still enumerated. Enter the BIOS with F2 and on the "Boot" tab, set "Boot List Option" to UEFI, "Secure Boot" to disabled, and "Load Legacy Option Rom" to enabled. Will look like this: 3. Save and exit, then repeatedly tap F12 on boot, selecting to boot from the USB. 4. Install Windows 8/8.1 as normal. 5. Once installed, go back to the BIOS, disable "load legacy option rom", and more options will appear. Then, you can enable Secure Boot. Your BIOS should look like this: 6. Save and exit, done!

Why do you want to turn off optimus? Turning the intel GPU off would mean you get no display, as with Optimus, the display in the m14x is fed from the Intel gpu. Only the displayport output on the side is connected directly to the nvidia gpu.

I do think you are kind of banging your head against a wall here, Dell are unlikely to care. My personal opinion is that they put the 67 degree limit in after the nvidia "bumpgate" issues on the 9xxx GPUs. Got sick of returns. I've found it isn't a problem if you set an aggressive fan profile.

Removing the ram cage makes a difference? That's insane, it doesn't seem to obscure any vents etc.

Actually both the mSATA port and the primary HDD port in the m14x R2 are SATA 6Gb/s, the ODD bay is only SATA 3Gb/s. The only reason mSATA SSDs tend to be slower is that they generally use fewer NAND channels and quite a few of them are only 3Gb/s controllers. There just isn't enough room for 8 NAND packages on an mSATA card!

I have mine sat at the limits of the "locked" BIOS : techPowerUp GPU-Z Validation emf5s 3Dmark11 score is 2808, I'm on A10 as stock, not sure about flashing the BIOS as I hear it's not simple due to the Windows 8 secure boot rubbish. Card is completely stable at these speeds though! NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3630QM Processor,Alienware M14xR2 score: P2808 3DMarks