New to the scene, need some help :)

[Adam Noble]

Hi Guys and Gal's

I am new to the forums having only just discovered that such a vast resource existed I have had my R2 for about 12 months give or take a few weeks. I had searched the net for some information regarding swapping out my Xfire 4870's for a single 6x or even remain in XFire with a pair, i also wanted to swap out the CPU and HDD's but after a few weeks of searching i could not find anything besides what was on the Alienware wiki (this was around 3-4 months ago) so to cut a long story short i could not find anything and gave up the idea of a overhaul.

But then after searching the other day i went back onto the wiki to look for anything to do with HDD's and was linked here.......Alienware Valhalla!! so i have dug up my old list and i am going to ask you inhabitants of TechInferno my questions i will post my build first as it may help;

Windows 7 Home Premium x64 SP1

1.7Ghz Core i7 Q820

Crossfire HD Radeon 4870’s

4Gb Ram

2 x 350Gb HDD RAID0 Configuration

DW1520 Wireless-N Network Card

Sot-loading Dual Layer Blue-ray Burner

Now for my questions which looking back on them may be silly but i need to know from people i know use Alienware's not from people who claim have "Computer Knowledge", my questions/problems are;

* I want to upgrade my HDD's, i already have 2x350Gb 7200rpm drives in RAID0 but i want to replace them with a 150Gb SSD for system only and a 1Tb HDD that i will partition into 2 drives, one for media and the other for Steam + Games. I took the back off my beloved and took the existing drives out and saw that they are listed at Sata but the drives i want are listed as SATA2, is this going to be a problem? can i install to SATA2 drives into slots that used to hold SATA1 drives? i would just normally just try and order SATA1 drives but i cant find any larger than 60Gb if someone could point out a good SSD that would be cool

* I have been on the page about getting the Alien back into Alienware with all the links to backgrounds, sounds and programs and it reminded me of a small problem....actually two problems i have. 1 of them is when i use the touch controls on the top i will get double icons come up :S and now that i have changed the icons i have two sets of icons come up :S it is not the mods i have done as it has done it since day one but i cant seem to find a hit on the net for the problem. the second problem is that when i try and create a new AlienFX profile it crashes to desktop without an error.

Well that's it......for now i may be back depending on the remaining mods left to try out

Thanks

NOBBY

[Michael]

Hey there and welcome to T|I.

you're in the right place

I want to upgrade my HDD's, i already have 2x350Gb 7200rpm drives in RAID0 but i want to replace them with a 150Gb SSD for system only and a 1Tb HDD that i will partition into 2 drives, one for media and the other for Steam + Games. I took the back off my beloved and took the existing drives out and saw that they are listed at Sata but the drives i want are listed as SATA2, is this going to be a problem? can i install to SATA2 drives into slots that used to hold SATA1 drives? i would just normally just try and order SATA1 drives but i cant find any larger than 60Gb

The R2 supports SATA2 Speeds, so yeah, feel free to drop in any SATA2 Drive. (You can also use SATA3 drive, but it'll work in SATA2 mode).

an

* I have been on the page about getting the Alien back into Alienware with all the links to backgrounds, sounds and programs and it reminded me of a small problem....actually two problems i have. 1 of them is when i use the touch controls on the top i will get double icons come up :S and now that i have changed the icons i have two sets of icons come up :S it is not the mods i have done as it has done it since day one but i cant seem to find a hit on the net for the problem. the second problem is that when i try and create a new AlienFX profile it crashes to desktop without an error.

Sounds like you need to reinstall Alienware OSD and the Alienware Command Center.

Uninstall both, then install the OSD and then the Command Center.

Download those from here : Drivers & Downloads

[mw86]

@Adam Noble Welcome to tech Inferno glad you joined... we all love, live and breathe tech here lol. You can uprgrade your cards like this: http://www.techinferno.com/2011/06/10/installing-amd-radeon-6970m-in-your-m17x-r2-single-gpu-and-crossfirex/

1

111

here is the T|I SSD bench thread which shows some of our members SSD's you can see stats there:http://forum.techinferno.com/storage/1031-official-ssd-benchmarking-thread.html

Edited October 27, 2011 by mw86

[unreal25]

Hey Adam, welcome.

I'd also highly recommend upgrading one of your drives for an SSD. The general performance gain is huge. SATA2 drives work fine (I use OCZ Vertex 2) even though you need to do some registry tweaking if you want them to go all maxxed out (I don't use those tweaks).

About the GPU upgrades, I think only the crossfire setup is worth it. (Since 2x 4870m are pretty good.)

[Adam Noble]

Thanks for the replies guys, i now have my SSD and HDD on order and i can now look into the new graphics cards, i think you are right and i will try and get two of them for Xfire, if now i may pass for now. i can see a lot of time spent on here

Thanks again

Nobby

[Adam Noble]

Right i have the new HDD's ready and being cloned as we speak, i have also sourced a couple of sandybridges and some new 6x ATI's but i want to play with overclocking before i retrofit the thing, could i get a nudge in the right direction for CPU and GPU overclocking and monitoring?

[Adam Noble]

Awww i broke my Audio I have not made any changes or modifications but this morning i booted it up and got no startup sound so i rooted around and found that i get no sound period. Diagnostic claims everything is ok and even makes sounds during bios tests but i cant get sound once logged in i have tried removing and re installing the drivers with no luck, any ideas?

EDIT: Right this s looking strange, every troubleshoot i run says that i am getting an audio source but i am not, even when i use and external source like my Logitech Z4 or my Alienware headset i still don't get any output :S could the unlocked A10 bios cause this because i flashed that a couple of days ago but i had sound yesterday when i was testing OC settings with Rage. any suggestions or should i open a new thread?

Edited October 30, 2011 by Adam Noble

[Brian]

Go into device manager and delete the IDT sound. Then click on refresh in device manager and let it pick up on your integrated sound again and it should work. If it doesn't, I'd check the windows sound properties and make sure you don't have it muted by mistake. Other than that, if the sound still doesn't output, it could be a sign of hardware failure.

[Adam Noble]

Go into device manager and delete the IDT sound. Then click on refresh in device manager and let it pick up on your integrated sound again and it should work. If it doesn't, I'd check the windows sound properties and make sure you don't have it muted by mistake. Other than that, if the sound still doesn't output, it could be a sign of hardware failure.

Hehe thank god that did the trick, could not work out why it would not give an external source too, anyway its going fine now thanks again =)

[Brian]

Hehe thank god that did the trick, could not work out why it would not give an external source too, anyway its going fine now thanks again =)

Glad it worked out for ya.