Stevenxowens792

About a month ago or so I saw... YOUR HIGHNESS... And Natalie Portman has a nice rear view! WOW.. even my wife was like.. WOW... Movie is hilarious! I also saw PAUL. That guy Simon Peg makes me laugh so hard.. loved it! and.. the controversial movie... SUCKER PUNCH! I LOVED IT! The critics can kiss my @SS! If they have to be spoon fed the plot to understand it then go twoop yourself to death. It was a great movie. Granted it could have been told in 15 minutes without all the special effects, but it rocked. The first hella fight scene where BJORKS' ARMY OF ME is just hammering at full volume gave me flashbacks to 1992's tank girl and me being just out of high school and heavy into the alternative music scene.

No, so it in digital but not 3D. 3D always gives me a hellacious migraine. The kind I have to take special meds for and turn the light off for 8 hours or so. NO 3D FOR ME.. Ive had enough. Last movie I saw in 3D was Tron and I paid for it later.

Settings... See Screenshot but in a nutshell.. ALL HIGH, NO HBAO, NO AA/AF NO VSYNC. Dx10 Benchmark Type (Dynamic), logged while in 32 player MP match, Rush Isla Innocente. System: I7-2630qm, 555mGT @ 750/1000 driver 170.61 2011-05-15 23:17:24 - BFBC2Game Frames: 28046 - Time: 266902ms - Avg: 105.080 - Min: 44 - Max: 162 2011-05-15 23:22:29 - BFBC2Game Frames: 82908 - Time: 987159ms - Avg: 83.986 - Min: 26 - Max: 155 <--- Notice extreme server lag killed the score but still very high. A couple of quick tips to great performance out of BFBC2. 1. Check your PERFORMANCE tab of your TASKMGR. If your cpu goes above ZERO at idle then you need to optimize. 2. In your BFBC2 config file, make sure render frames ahead is set to ZERO. 3. Set DX level to 10 or 9. 4. For MP make sure network throttling is disabled. 5. Never enable HBAO... It kills performance and no real improvement. Good Luck and Happy Pew Pewing. StevenX

I took a chance, knowing I could get pinged since im on call and saw THOR on Saturday. Now.. please keep in mind I love MARVEL over DC. I like DC... my favorite has always been BATMAN as far as DC goes.. but I LOVE MARVEL.. always have.. always will. Im an old guy now and for the last 13 years been spoiled to xmen movies and spiderman. Now the THOR movie. As I geek, you may think I would be tempted to critique each detail for accuracy and comic book references but in truth.. I am too tired and just want to experience each movie and see if I enjoy it. I enjoyed the movie a lot. The effects were of course good. The whole premise of 9 realms was not really believable but again, it made the movie enjoyable. Surprise at the end of course after the credits that I will not give away. Acting was ok. Story was predictable but good. Sound effects were top notch All in all I say 7 outta 10. I am very very excited for the Avengers Movie. I pray to GOD it will not be pure cheeze whiz. I want a real story and substance... Like the SKRULL invasion or something. Just my .02 Best wishes, StevenX

Its a pretty simple NBR policy. Say Yes and agree with the mods, or say no and your magically "that guy". And of course nobody likes "that guy". He's "that guy" he disagrees and causes mayhem and eats cereal with a fork etc... you get the drift. My advice if you really want to post at NBR. Pretend to be an automaton, with no personality, ask your question or whatever and get the response..end transaction. BLEH! StevenX

@mxm - Let us know how the witcher 2 plays! I tried the first one and didn't like the control structure... but I try to clear all preconceptions when new games come out. I really liked two worlds 2, love oblivion but didn't care for Dragons Age 2. Looking forward to hearing your review! Best Wishes, stevenx

Faiz - OMG. My son has that same vtech! He's had it for a very long time. Too cool!

x2 = 1600

My advice for taking your m14x apart. Tools: a. Small Notebook Phillips Screw Driver b. Scotch or Masking Tape (masking preferred) c. Black Marker d. Old credit card or soft plastic flat edge to help you pry. e. Cotton Swabs f. High quality alcohol or rubbing alcohol g. Quality thermal paste. h. Print outs of each step from service manual or extra notebook to download the steps. 1. Follow each step of the dell manual on how to remove your system board. At the end you will also need the instructions on how to remove the heat sync. 2. As you remove screws, attach them to masking tap and label them by step and part. Example remove hard drive, step 3. 3. When you need to pry items such as the palm rest, start very slow and be cautions. If you break any of the plastic tabs it will not sit correctly. (I can say that my notebook feels even more solid after taking it all apart and putting back together my way). 4. The difficult areas on the break down are removal of palm rest and removal of system board. You CAN NOT get to the heat syncs without COMPLETELY removing the system board from the case. 5. For the palm rest, once everything is completely remove, gently pull up on each side of the mouse touch pad. about two inches to the right/left of the mouse pad where you removed the keyboard. This seems to be the "sweet" spot. 6. For the system board after each screw is removed and all cables are removed, gently pull up from the right side and pull to the right. The way the system board fits, on re-assembly you have to slide the left side of the system board in first and then get the right side to fit down (if this makes sense). Good Luck So far my GPU temps are 4 to 5 c lower and the CPU temps are 6 to 7c lower. (also keep in mind my heatsync screws were NOT as tight as they should have been originally in my opinon.) Best Wishes, StevenX

Cheers Katgirl.. Please dont gauge performance by GTA 4. It's one of the worst console ports ever and even monster machines have trouble running it well. Please post and let us know if we can do anything to help or improve your m14x experience. StevenX

@MW - I appreciate the suggestions. 75 seems to be the sweet spot for me so far. If I lower the minimum I get to lowered frame rates. This setting is specifically for gameplay... I tested it with BFBC2 which uses all threads in my setup and the gpu as well. I already have a SSD and the other options are off in bios. Wireless I need for gameplay so I keep it on and at max performance for bookstore online play. Best Wishes, StevenX

All, If you have time, can you please try this test and see what your processor does during the test as far as turbo characteristics? Install Throttlestop (set to off but keep it open to observe Turbo and cpu speed) Install wprime Open both, set wprime to 8 threads and run 1024. Watch your multiplier during the test. Example (I have mine set to max turbo duration) so I have 26x for approx 3 minutes then it drops to 25.34-25.54 for the rest of the test. If I set my BCLK to max it will keep the characteristics the same but temps increase a little and power draw is higher. Let me know how yours does and temps as well. Again my new max temp with 6 consecutive runs is 80c. Again I will assume this will go up 2c over the next 2 weeks even though the paste said no set in time necessary. Best Wishes, StevenX

I was going to use wax paper as I normally do but forgot to pick some up so I just had my wrist static guard. Everything's working fine. Sometimes we have to improvise and also nothing was scratched or damaged during the install. Thanks for the responses. GPU temp differences during BRINK @ 750/1000 went from 74c to 69c. I bet it might creep up another 2c so that's not bad results.

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StamatisX -- That's a bit much for me... I think I will be ok as is.. If I need to reapply again I will feel much better the next go around but the shin etsu has like a 6.0 level of conductivity or whatever they call it and arctic silver only has 3.58. It worked really well in my old m15x (which is for sale on ebay everyone.. hint hint) Edit - 1755 3dmark11 score is the best I can get with bclk at max and gpu set at 800/1080. @810 I get artifacts so that's cheating in my book. StevenX

@Stamatisx - What do you mean by retention mod? I haven't heard of that. So far.. 3 consecutive runs of wprime 1024 max turbo settings 79c max. But when I first got the m14x that's what my temps were as well. I know the paste dries a bit after a week or so but even if it goes up to 81c that's better than 87 or 88. Running wprime run number 4. StevenX (Edit) Runs 4-6 now seem to hit at 80c max but spend over 99 percent of time below 79. Note.. I always game, surf, whatever on a belken lap fan thingy that's concave with 1 fan. I never use the fan as it makes very little difference. Having the intake air seperated from the exhaust vent helps a lot. Tests for wprime were done in the same way I did them before, same setup, same turbo clocks and the bclk at stock. 99.80 default. StevenX

Let me also add that i completely understand that normally less paste is more. But I will be the first to admit I went a bit heavy on the cpu. I cleaned the heck out of it and then added it on heavy. So ... lets see how it goes. Running thermal tests now. 8 threads wprime, turbo time limits and temps maxed out. My old highest temp before was 88c but most of the time at 87.

OMG.. I am about a nervous wreck after that. It's not the most difficult I have ever done but it ranks right up there. I didn't do a full step by step or pic by pic but I took some shots while it was open and I have a few tips to help out. The hardest part for me was the palm rest and motherboard removal. Running tests now on cpu to see what the difference is.. I can tell you from the factory they DID NOT tighten the heat sync screws enough. That along will make a difference. Pics to follow later.. I need to drink a Margarita now. Time of completion.. 2 hours 4 minutes. Steven X

Brian - Actually I have monitored boost and because of my bios settings I raised the time limit to max (3 minutes basically at 26x) and then it scales back to (25.1-25.34). I also raised the wattage pull as well. So it remains at all times 25x on all 8 threads or higher. (I have confirmed this with wprime 1024 on all 8 threads). The options in the m14x bios are NICE! I think it's time to repaste. Just a stressful week and I need a massage and a margarita to calm down... Think positive---Think positive---Think positive...

I was checking more wprime temps lately with throttlestop and man... My cpu temp gets up to 87 max now. That's very high in my opinion. Even lowered my bclk and it didn't help. I may have to break down and replace the TIM now and I really didn't feel like dealing with it as I have been very busy this past week... Anyone else wanna chime in with current temps lately for the CPU? Thanks, StevenX

TITS AHOY Inap

Correct Jimbo.. it wont break anything but it's just easier and better performance in the long run! Please addendum 4.5 (set SATA option in bios to AHCI).

@Arganon - Hey thanks for posting. I have a question before jumping in to help.... 1. Did you order a conversion caddy for your optical drive assembly? (Its the 9.5mm not the 12) I will assume the answers no here and try to help... Most folks (including myself) understand that SSD's purchased 3rd party are cheaper than from dell. So we order a vanilla notebook with standard HDD then switch them out. That's what I did. 1. Step one, to be safe backup any data needed via usb drive or external drive. 2. Remove old hard drive from m14x. (Manual at dell website is pretty easy to follow and we have a great writeup here as well). 3. Install SSD. 4. Boot into bios to makes sure new drive is recognized. 4.5 - Set SATA option in Bios to AHCI (Thanks Jimbo!) 5. Change boot sequence in bios to make sure CD/DVD is before HDD. 6. Insert Windows 64 bit dvd into optical drive. 7. Reboot and follow the windows 64 bit install. 8. Once windows install complete use the alienware application dvd (whatever it's called). 9. You can now use your old drive for an external drive or if you dont use your dvd optical drive you can purchase a caddy to fit the hard drive in it's place for extra storage. Good Luck, Steven X

@Azn628 - PM the mods and see what they say. I don't to stifle any opportunity to allow someone the chance to do something new and get experience. I appreciate the vote of confidence but my last wish is to have any bad blood on the forums as this place is soooo much better than NBR. Take Care, StevenX

Within Temptation. One of my absolute favorite bands that never tour the US. (most of my tunes are industrial or gothic.. sometimes 80s metal)