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Hey guys, I had a looooooong drive to my first Alienware - the M17x R2. I upgraded it from CPU to GPU to even better Memory.. and I sold it, what I deeply regret. I'm now at my desktop with i3 and gtx 660.. buyed it just an half year ago but I hate it. It also takes a lot of Space at my desk.. the dust not to mention. ^^ So I'll gotta go for an used Alienware Laptop, but which one? I would have enough place for an M18x, but dont know whetherthepower, guess It's overpowered for me. I even dont know which Revision I should take :/ These new M17/ M18 are pretty awsome, but way too pricey. So, I'm comingfrom an i7 920xm (oc to 3.6ghz) to an i3 3220 with 2 cores @ 3.3ghz. Should I take the Sandy Bridge or the Ivy? 'Cause I dont know if for example you can overclock an i7-2670QM that high as you can overclock an extreme Series processor, I definately would upgrade to an extreme processor. So then, the graphic: I dont play the newest Shooters, I'll play an very exotic FPS called Shootmania Storm, which can handle my gtx 660 easily at 90fps. Just sometimes I'll play games like Assassins Creed Brotherhood (best evaaar), Relevations, Mafia 2, Bioshock Infinite and Grid 2. As I wrote in the beginning, I upgraded my r2 with an 7970m. It was pretty awsome, but I wanted to get an nvidia card for the 2D Lightboost. So a little question here: Is it possible to activate the Lightboost on the integrated Display? For what would you guys prefer for my have? Two gtx 580 in an M18x, one 7970m in an R3/ R4 or an 680m? I'm not really interested to upgrade my graphic card an half year later. So some more questions which really could help me consider which Model I'll get. Are the M17x R3 or 4 made of anodized aluminium or does they have some kind of rubber on top and the sides? I know the M18x R1 does have anodized aluminium, like the M17x R2. And how is the heatabsorbation compared in the R3/ R4 and the M18x R1 ? When you're arrived here, I wanted to say thanks for reading this shit whats now out of my mind to make it more clear Eh, last but not least: What would be an fair price for an M17x R3 with normal i7 quadcore, 580m, 8gb ram, 500gb hdd? And what with 680m? Thanks for the read Iamcurious about your answers. Greets, mav

win8.1 m17R4 , UEFI 680M my Desktop, appears Secureboot, why ? How to solve this problem?

Hello, i have msi gt70 with gtx 680m and i also have nvidia 3dtv play supported LG 3d tv so i'vs wanted to play games on it, when installing the program it tells me that there's no 3dtv detected while the tv is already connected to hdmi and showing my desktop. I've read that it's because of optimus and the tv hdmi was handled by intel hd4000. Is there a way to disable optimus or anything to make my tv detected ? Thanks in advance.

As you may or may not know, enabling IGP via FN+F7 does not work when a Clevo 680M is used in the M18x. However, when an unlocked bios is used, you can go into the advanced menu section, then video configuration and force IGP as the primary display (rather than PEG). Once the system reboots, it'll be in IGP mode BUT and I can't stress this enough, DO NOT press FN+F7 to switch back to discrete else your system will go into an endless loop. If that happens, you have to take out the 680M and blind flash the system with a recovery usb. So save yourself the trouble and don't press FN+F7. To re-enable the PEG, just turn it back on as primary in the bios and reboot. I've been playing with the PowerXpress settings but none seem to be able to work with regards to FN+F7, I figured dynamic would do it but apparently not. UPDATE: The PARTIAL fix is very simple Download the unlocked A05 M18x-R1 Bios Boot into the Bios, go to advanced-->video configuration and change the display from PEG to SG (switchable graphics). Keep PowerXpress as FIXED MUX. Reboot and now you will be able to use FN+F7 to switch between discrete and IGP. NOTE: You will again need to set SG in the bios after using FN+F7 one time since it resets back to PEG. Thanks to @johnksss for the SG tip.

So after reading endless discussions on another forum with respect to the 7970M and 680M and which is truly the better buy, I wrote the following response: This has been on my mind for quite sometime and once we rev up T|I reviews again in the future (we will likely have to hire full-time writers since admins are too busy), I plan to implement a scoring system similar to what I described above. I'd like to hear what our members think of my proposal as well as your own suggestions.