Nospheratu

DONT use Meguairs products on the screen! I say this cos i speak from experience. My ex thought she'd dust my old M15X's screen with a cheap feather duster that had a piece of wire sticking out at the top tip hidden by the feathers Needless to say it got scratched and I tried to fix it by using Meguairs PlastX. There is a thin coating on the screen that you only notice when its gone Luckily it was only on the black edge but I will never use anything other than a specific cleaning product for the job. Have to admit it was stupid of me to use PlastX which is a mild abrasive but it really hurt looking at that scratch and I was desperate to fix it...

I reverted to 12.6 after using these. Playing Mass Effect 2 atm and it was locking up and then cutting feed to the display. Only fix was to force shutdown using the power button. I know the game has issues but 12.6 seems to be more ME2 friendly.

Whichever takes the performance crown at the point of purchase. I initially disliked nVidia when they trashed 3Dfx though No preference between brands really, although I do feel as I'm missing out when the game has extra eye candy from PhysX.

I've got a Zalman ZM-VE200 which is absolutely awesome. Has eSata + USB2. There's a newer model out now, the ZM-VE300 with USB3 and no eSata though. Best thing about it is that its a normal external enclosure + virtual drive (think hardware version of Daemon-Tools). No more burning ISO's! Its also able to emulate disks using floppy images and also raw images of hard drives. edit: Here's a good review that post up transfer speeds comparing the USB3 of the VE300 and eSata of the VE200. Seems pretty even. Downside with the VE200 is that you have to use the USB cable for power in eSata mode.

Its not difficult if you use the right tools. Follow my mini guide here and you'll be able to mod images in almost any exe including the OSD. Good job with the mod @robby_hd +1

Good job man I've added a link to your post to the first post in this thread so peeps can find your red mod more easily. I've also noticed this but have no idea how to fix it. Functionality still works though so I haven't given it much thought. @trikz I'm honored your first post was here Thanks for the compliment and welcome!

I've been using A10 from the time it was released and have not experienced any issues. There's also a modded A10 out but I wouldn't recommend that especially on a work machine. I've never had any problems with any of the Catalysts from AMD apart from the beta's and I've been updating as they come out. I'm on 11.9 atm and have had no issues. I've just completed Deus Ex: HR with them and also played with 11.8 before the 11.9's were released. I'm playing F1 2011 atm and again no issues, but the loading times in this game sucks even with an SSD. I haven't benched the 11.9's yet for comparison. Although since you have the 4870M your experience may differ.

You've got the right idea there, it really looks like a fresh install is in order. Even if you manage to remove the driver with tools like ccleaner, driversweeper, etc I would still trash that install and start fresh. There would be nagging at the back of mind whether everything is really working as it should especially on a high end machine where you're tweaking for optimal performance. It looks like you pretty much covered all you can do and are planning to do. So all that is left is to sit back, relax, and enjoy that beauty once your new drive arrives

@widezu69 Updated to the latest Aero Fix version from Dell. Check the first post to download Let me know if you experience any problems.

Haha... I have a feeling a lot of people are going to want a copy of that bios now, it may be the aero fix Dell were working on If that is the case it should be up on their site soon.

Good news man! Couldn't have worked out better:) Would have never guessed BIOS.... is there an update out on Dells site for your cards? Maybe the version you were running was also preventing you from installing the reference drivers from AMD. But the strongly advising against using them is a load of bollocks me thinks... you should give it a try

Maybe someone with an R3 can confirm but it is possible by setting the speaker grills to black with the Command Center. For much more freedom in changing the lighting colors you should try AlienFX Lite. I'm not certain as to whether the R3 is supported, but you can select any color you can think of and aren't limited to CC's predefined color palette . You even have the option to change the "eyes"(HDD active indicator) a different color to the alienhead on the power button which the Command Center doesn't offer.

@iloveb00bs You're welcome Mods can you please change the name of the thread to "M17x (All Revisions) OSD Icons by Nospheratu". Thanks!

Yeah its cool man. Drop me a mail or PM me when you've posted it here. I'll add a link to your post on the first post of this thread so peeps can find your color mod quicker

Don't even think twice about it. Once you update your vbios that recovery partition is pointless for us R2 owners since it contains the older driver that causes the bsod with the latest vbios on boot up. The clean install doesn't contain the wallpapers, avatars, login screens, etc. You can get all the originals you need from this thread. And the applications and drivers direct from Dell.

Congrats! Lunar Silver is the best imho, pity the newer generation don't have the option. Its like the RGB screen, if you don't have it you don't know any better The touchpad polling problem was fixed in a newer revision of the BIOS so the laptop probably has an older version atm. Update to the latest A10. There is also the A10 modded but I've read some users have stability issues, cant remember with what exactly though. If you're having issues with the vbios flash see my post here.

Haha, thanks man Unfortunately I don't have the time. Behind on my code as it is. I can give you a little tut on how you can change the colors by yourself though. Download Anolis Resourcer from here. Download irfanview from here. Download the ICONs.zip and OSD_for_Area-51_m17-R1.zip‎ from the original post. 1. Extract all icons from the zip files into one directory. 2. Use irfanview to change the hue of the unzipped icons. Only change what you need though. You can see which icons are needed in the next step. 3. Use Anolis Resourcer to open up AlienwareOn-ScreenDisplay.exe and you will see the icons under the BMP and PNG "folders". You can click on an icon and then select replace and select the icon that matches from your edited ones. 4. Save the file. 5. Replace the original installed exe with your edited one. 6. Done! I use Photoshop for hue changes but I mentioned irfanview as its free. If you are using Photoshop go to Image->Adjustments->Hue and Saturation. With the change hue functionality you basically can change the color to whatever you like. I haven't used irfanview in a long time but I know it has hue change capability and the ability to process images in batches. I had to create the HDMI IN icon as its unique to the R3/M18x, I've attached it to this post. The CD Eject icon can be found in the OSD_for_Area-51_m17-R1.zip file. The remainder of the icons are from ICONs.zip Drop me a PM if you experiencing any difficulty. Have fun!

@Alex Six I've uploaded the modded exe for the R3 in the first post. I tried emailing it to you but I forgot about the exe restriction that gmail imposes. Give it a shot, or anyone for that matter even you M18x owners. I downloaded the original exe from the R3 download page at Dell and it stated that the install was for the M17x R3 and the M18x. EDIT: Forgot to mention that the exe is missing the below icons. Don't know if the newer models don't display these. - Bluetooth - Clone display - Extended display - TV -> HDMI

The R3/M18x's OSD uses a different application with the icons built into the exe. I don't have the R3 to test on so if you don't mind testing it PM me your email address and I'll send you the modded exe once I've completed it

You can read up about the plugged in not charging problem here. Its just a bug that sometimes shows up when the laptop is plugged in and the battery doesn't charge. The quick fix is to pop out your battery and back in. I've only experienced it once but my Alienhead does change colors often to indicate its "charging" even though the battery is fully charged. It generally isnt a M17x R2 specific problem as most of Dell's line up have experienced it. From what I understand it stems from the use of the use of their propriety chip in their PSU's so that prevents you from using a generic PSU. Our PM55 chipset has issues with 4K read/writes with SSD's. Theres two well known tweaks to optimise SSD performance on this chipset. The first is @StamatisX Intelppm method here which he is using atm and the other which I am using is JJB's power profile tweak which you can find here. The SSD will help with the battery life but I think you would have to disable crossfire and optimise your power plan to reach two hours. Also Throttlestop is a handy tool to reduce CPU power consumption. It has profiles you can load with hotkeys for max performance or least power consumption. Its a really powerful tool for this laptop. Bear in mind that the newer generation of Alienwares have excellent battery life due to the onboard gfx controller. Don't let this info deter you from buying this laptop though. I can honestly say this is the best laptop I've ever owned and everytime I use it/look at it I think to myself, "What an awesome piece of industrial art"

I may be too late since you might have already picked up that beauty but you you should look at the screen closely, preferably with an all white and then all black background to see if there's any dust that's collecting under the screen. Its not a common issue but it does happen. The only real fix for that would be to replace the entire screen assembly as its one unit. Trying to pry apart the lcd to "clean" the dust off is a mission and not recommended at all. Other than that there's no other real common issues that I can think of apart from the intermittent "plugged in not charging" problem which shouldn't stop you from buying it at all. Its a very well specced example and the rgb screen is where this laptop really shines. You should seriously consider upgrading to an XM chip to get the maximum performance/value out of it although it really depends on what you intend to use it for.

Thanks guys @StamatisX My first ever sticky! Thanks!

Thanks man Glad you like it. Don't forget to update your sig with your new specs

^ excellent post. I have no retention mods yet and have my chip running at 3.5ghz with Shin Etsu X23D with FSB @ 140mhz and RAM @ 1.6v. Throttlestop really unleashes the power(literally ) of XM CPU's and I have my TDP/TDC set at 95/75 with a max turbo ratio of 25x across all cores. My GPU's are flashed to 850/1100 @ 1.1v also no retention mods with X23D paste. I can get my gpu up to around 830 with stock volts. I am still waiting for my ICD sample to perform the retention mod to bump up the clocks a bit. @Alex Six I see you're planning on using an SSD. Our PM55 chipset has issues with 4K read/writes with SSD's. Theres two well known tweaks to optimise SSD performance on this chipset. The first is @StamatisX Intelppm method here which he is using atm and the other which I am using is JJB's power profile tweak which you can find here. You may also want to also change your OSD icons as the default ones look a bit old. The link is in my sig. @KyleGates Welcome! Have fun guys, this is one gorgeous, powerful piece of art EDIT: you can also upgrade to Xfire 6970M's but its not really needed atm imho.

Yeah there is lag but there's options that are configurable including response time, areas of the screen to capture, etc. I just went through the config briefly and haven't used it since but I'm sure it can be tweaked. Its just an exe, so no install required. Nice to have but only useful at a party if your using your laptop for music with a visualization, but then again, there's also ingraters winamp plugin for that.