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Dell released BIOS revision A09 for the Alienware M17x R3.

Under "fixes and enhancements" it says

Fix SATA SSD compatibility issue.

So it seems they have done something similar to the BIOS as with the most recent M14x BIOS, this might result in lower SSD speeds. It has been said that Dell changed the BIOS so that it really applies to the SATA 3 specifications, with the result that some SSDs don't completely adhere to these specs might now run at SATA II speeds. Firmware updates of the SSD vendors might fix this.

SSD manufacturers will probably say that the controller on the motherboard is the issue and not the SSD itself... I have no idea what is actually true, fact is that the SATA 3 didn't get removed, it still works with some drives.

Anyway, I recommend everyone to use this BIOS since the SATA "enhancement" or whatever you want to call this is certainly not the single change in there. Dell always fixes a lot of other small bugs and improves the BIOS, expect this to be true for this revision as well.

Download link: M17x R3 BIOS A09

Edited by svl7
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I had used it for a little while and the start up was so terribly long that I stoped. (Talking about 5 to 6 minutes compared to 1 to 2 minutes)

**** Never mind that was the previous released one my bad ****

Edited by robby001
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Sata III will probably only work with the OEM drive ie the Samsung 830 which is in itself a decent drive but not the most popular one. Sata III doesn't work on my Performance Pro or Crucial C300. Reverted to A08 for now.

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Did you do some real testing instead of only CBM? Maybe you could copy a movie or so from one folder to another and measure the speed of this for A08 and for A09... I somehow don't really trust the SSD benchmarks.

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Yeah I didn't have time and I can't be bothered at the moment but the benchmarks were indeed night and day. Despite CrystalDiskInfo claiming Sata 600, I wasn't getting anything like I did in A08. Also boot times slowed by a second.

Sorry bud. BF3 and Arkham City is ruling my life at the moment.

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yeah I was going to get one but I already have 95GB on my OS drive and that's programs only. and my storage drive is 141GB and that's nothing compared to the 2-3TB I had.

I understand the speed thing I really do and I really want one in this system considering everything have done to it already but until the price of a large drive comes down to the $100-200 mark I just can't see having a mega fast drive but no room to do anything with it. 64GB SSD's are still $120+ and I can't see paying 2 dollars a gig to load a file 10 seconds faster. I bet when the price wars start up, which they will I will have one in this machine soon after.

Now that this machine is where its at I can't afford to do any more upgrades. I have a powerful machine and I have to accept that there will be a few out there that are faster but I know that the metal plate under this one has my name on it LOL.

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yeah I was going to get one but I already have 95GB on my OS drive and that's programs only. and my storage drive is 141GB and that's nothing compared to the 2-3TB I had.

I understand the speed thing I really do and I really want one in this system considering everything have done to it already but until the price of a large drive comes down to the $100-200 mark I just can't see having a mega fast drive but no room to do anything with it. 64GB SSD's are still $120+ and I can't see paying 2 dollars a gig to load a file 10 seconds faster. I bet when the price wars start up, which they will I will have one in this machine soon after.

Now that this machine is where its at I can't afford to do any more upgrades. I have a powerful machine and I have to accept that there will be a few out there that are faster but I know that the metal plate under this one has my name on it LOL.

Fair enough!

I'll wait for that "WOW!! This shit is fast" message from you once you do :D

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Fair enough!

I'll wait for that "WOW!! This shit is fast" message from you once you do :D

lol sounds like your joking but i know your not my first time going from platter based hard drive to an SSD my jaw dropped.

but i see the need for large storage with no need for fast access for price i am going to put a 750gb in my optical bay when i have money. put the blu ray rom in an external self powered enclosure. and fill my main drive bays with my Sata 3 SSD's... all that for apps... and a external hd for document storage which i will needs access to much less often than any of it.

Edited by mw86
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