OFFICIAL: Alienware M15x Owners Lounge

[Brian 1980]

Official M15x owners lounge thread. Driver list coming soon.

[iloveb00bs 874]

here is a link for my thermal paste guide:

Download THERMAL PASTE GUIDE.rar from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

gpu replacement guide:

Download M15x GPU.rar from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

[svl7 5714]

11.5 seems to give a bit higher scores... did some late night benching yesterday:

3dMark11:

And vantage:

I'm getting to M17x r3 levels, hehehehe.

[Jimbo 696]

Well, you are running a 6970!

Nice scores though, you're nearly matching my desktop!

[svl7 5714]

Well yes, hahaha, I know. It's basically a smaller r3 with an older CPU.

[mw86 1362]

My stock M17X R2 scores were around that congrats for sure! This was my stock scores i posted in M17X R2 Benchmark thread. I took off tape from gpu heat fins, removed non invasive gpu retention clip mod that used cardboard washers cut into c-clips. I Set laptop flat on table with no laptop cooler, reset Dell's factory set TDP of 62, i did not utilize throttle stop or Hwinfo controlling fan speed. The clocks are all stock, the multipliers are all stock, and the bios options are all stock. Here's a 3DMark2011 run to compare overclocked and stock speeds. http://i1237.photobucket.com/albums/ff474/marcwwaters86/Benchmark/3dmark201146173dmarksstocksystem.jpg

3dmark 2011 4617 3dmarks Stock clocks

Result

[Brian 1980]

11.5 seems to give a bit higher scores... did some late night benching yesterday:

3dMark11:

And vantage:

I'm getting to M17x r3 levels, hehehehe.

Who needs an R3 when you got that M15x with magnesium build and 6970M?

[Michael 1315]

I do, for the 17" screen

[svl7 5714]

Yeah, and the num pad can come in handy as well, but the pixel density of the 15.6 inch screen is great

[mw86 1362]

Those 11.5 drivers are proving there's been a improvement over 11.4 and thathad a big improvement too.

[svl7 5714]

My new highscores, finally 14k GPU vantage.

[StamatisX 1066]

Nice! you know what's strange though? that you have higher clocks for 3DMark11 than on Vantage, I have noticed that Mark11 pushes the system harder so I would expect your clocks to be the other way around.

[svl7 5714]

Yeah, I did a vantage on 850MHz as well, but the GPU score was slightly lower... and since I was alerady benching for a while I decided to make a break. Maybe I'll try it again today.

[svl7 5714]

You were right Stam! Here's a run with 850Mhz core and 1100MHz vram. Everything higher made the driver crash.

Edit: And as bonus a 1024M wprime 1.55

Actually I wanted to see whether I get it working with setFSB, but I only got instant BSODs as soon as I started the test... so this is simply with 26x and 8 threads.

Edited May 21, 2011 by svl7

[mw86 1362]

Svl7 Those are great benches I like the work you do! I think it's great have a 6970M in a M15x! Setfsb does work and is perfect for going beyond 140mhz Bsclk. It does work, just is very sensitive. Try setting system in windows to a non-overclocked state set the fsb with the proper "offsets" then re-apply your overclock with Throttlestop. With generic dell ram I got around 148.3mhz on my baseclock for 24*148.3 to give 3.56Ghz. It helped raise my cpu score related test on benches. StamatisX got 137.7*26 to get him to 3.58Ghz. Both of us used stock ram voltage and StamatisX has the 940XM and I had the 920XM. The both of us utilized stock volt on the I7 cpu's especially since any voltage increase raises temps about 5-10 celcius per 75mv. The longer you keep it cool... the higher performance and bench scores you'll get. Both cpu at 3.57~ were on all 4 cores. TDP and TDC maybe StamatisX has a suggestion, I always had mine set a bit over what was actually needed. But if it's causing extra overheating... Back off a little on the wattage or amperage. Every CPU and chip of ram is different...

Edited May 22, 2011 by mw86

[svl7 5714]

Hehe, heat wasn't a problem during these runs... Check the temps in the second pic, lol.

Thanks for all the advice! So far I haven't been successful with SetFSB, it seems I simply haven't enough patience Everytime I play around with it I get BSODs as soon as the CPU has a lot of work to do. I will try it again next time I do some benching.

About the RAM voltage... I once tried to raise it in the vbios to the next higher setting (1.6V). The result was that the system got in an infinite boot-loop (turned on, alienhead, crash). I had to remove the BIOS battery and reset the BIOS to get it working again.

[Brian 1980]

For some reason ram doesn't like extra voltage. I noticed the same thing.

[svl7 5714]

GTX 260m back in the system... slooooooow. Look how this sucks:

lol

Damn, this 6970m was way to expensive to be dead.

[DeeX 11]

Trying to decide between a 660m and a 7970m. Do all 660m(s) require a shim?

Regarding the 7970m; Is there any throttling at stock speeds? Well maybe the CPU on max with TS.

Thanks in advance.

[King of Interns 13]

Get the 7970M. It is far better! There are no issues with throttle anymore with this card. The only issue that remains now is to keep voltage under 1.1V. The mainboard cannot handle it and you either will not fully attain full clocks or if you do you won't game for long before the machine shuts off.

Better yet stock clocks only requires 0.975V down from 1.05V. A huge power saving meaning a VERY cool card under load.

If you want to push the card you can attain at least 950/1450mhz stable at 1.05V if your cooling can handle it. WIll need some mods. You will need the dell 210W,230W or 240W power supplies to power the system though. In order for the power supply to not be limited you must disable the center pin on the 240W adaptor. On the 210 and probably also 230W the PSU is not recognized by the M15x anyways so no need to disable the pin. Disabling the pin does not allow you to charge the battery but will allow you to pull as much power as the PSU is able to supply before it cuts out. Therefore either install a switch into the PSU cable between brick and computer so as to flick between modes or easier option keep your original PSU handy if you simply pull the pin out permanently. The 210W and 230W can't charge the battery anyway so the 150W original is needed to charge the battery.

Hope this helps.

koI

[freekinrican71 10]

I've searched the forums and ca't find any specifics, so i figured i'd try here. i have dual radeon 6970's and for some reason the crossfire keeps disabling. the only application i can think of the MAY be turning it off is SWTOR...but i really don't think that's it. i'm pretty meticulous about updating drivers, so i doubt that's it either. any thoughts?

[grudie 11]

just reinitialised my m15 after it being in storage for 12 months ......popped the battery back in and a quick charge and it fired up as if it had never been boxed away ....now for the 17 and 11 and all the mac stuff :-)

[Whag 10]

Hi there

Been lucky enough to find a m15x on ebay with a dead mother board. I ordered a new one and I've been running it for about a week it looks like he can burst 5x times what he got ! (pretty nice benchmark you have SLV7)

3dMark11 actually gives me 2299 with 705/1050Mhz on the 5850 with a 740qm

I plan using it for 3ds and UE4 so I would like to boost it as much as possible, I'll probably be looking for some advices in the next weeks

[iloveb00bs 874]

does anyone here have a copy of my guides. just realize the links don't work no more and my backup is dead. pm me if you do.

[gertzerroz 11]

I'm thinking of selling my lenovo y510p because it has a whitelist that doesn't allow me to replace the internal wifi card. Does the Alienware m15x have a whitelist? and is a fully packaged m15x better than my current laptop? My friend had a m14x and he said it was very poorly made and started to fall apart after a year. Is the quality of the m15x better in anyway ?