New 17: OS installed on ODD?? and other questions about the system and GPU settings

Hello! I bought a new 17" from Fry's (980m, 1TB ODD, 128 SSD, 16GB RAM - only $1830, thanks to internet price matching!). The dedicated graphics card wasn't detected at first, but it's running now, and so far I'm pretty happy with my new toy

I was surprised to find Windows 8.1 installed on the ODD, and the SSD is the "data" drive. Is this common, or did I potentially get a refurbished unit? The guy was pushing hard for a refurb... Anyway, I might just live with it, but if anyone knows of a simple way to switch them, that would be great.

Also, I have a few miscellaneous questions, any help is greatly appreciated!

• I remember watching video reviews that mentioned Alienware had a pre-installed overclocking utility similar to EVGA Precision X, but I cannot find anything like it. Did I watch a video review for a different unit, perhaps, or did they discontinue that software?
• When gaming, the GPU pushes up to 70 C, and the CPU cores are in the 90's. Do those temperatures seem reasonable? My old water-cooled gaming rig had similar temperatures, but I don't know if notebook temperatures should be lower.
• I constantly run CPUID HWMonitor in the background so I can periodically check the temps. Will this meaningfully tax the system when gaming, or is this a good practice?
• If I play a game that really pushes the GPU but doesn't seem to stress the CPU, then would it make sense to switch Nvidia's PhyX software to run on the CPU instead of the GPU?
• Do you guys have the dedicated GPU running for everything, or do you use auto select? I don't care about battery life, but I also don't want to burn out the GPU... the integrated graphics seem to work just fine for most of my non-gaming tasks.

Lastly, if anyone has any suggestions for "must do" tweaks to increase performance for either Windows 8.1 or Alienware/Nvidia specific software, that would be greatly appreciated. Google searches just give me search overload.

 

It is an odd arrangement, (also I think you mean HDD (Hard Disk Drive) rather than ODD (Optical Disk Drive).

You could use an imaging program to image your HDD and restore it onto your SSD, just be sure to use one that supports SSDs properly to avoid misalignment.

Are you thinking of MSI afterburner? Intel XTU?

Notebook temperatures tend to be a bit higher, your CPU is perhaps a little hot, if you feel able a repaste may help.

It may keep your GPU active and consuming power when not needed to keep monitoring open.

Technically yes but the physX on GPU and CPU act very differently, it's not quite the same thing.

Keep it on auto and only force it if optimus is not selecting the dGPU when you open a game.

 

I'd like to double-check on that CPU, it's not normal that it gets so high.
If you want, you can send me your computer's Service Tag via PM and I'll take a glance at it's history.

 

Ah, yeah I meant the HDD, thanks. And thanks for answering all the questions, I really appreciate it!

I'm not familiar with Intel XTU, but yeah I think I was expecting something similar to MSI afterburner. I don't mind downloading a program on my own, I just thought one was pre-installed with AW command center? I guess not, perhaps I'm remembering wrong.

 

Thanks! I didn't realize that an AW employee is on this site. Right now I'm having some issues with the macro keys (they aren't back-lit) so I may end up exchanging it if it's a hardware issue, but if I don't, then yes that would be great!

 

We have a small team that checks the board regularly.
Did you check the lightning zones in the command center?

 

Here's what command center looks like, but no luck so far.

 

Try the AlienFXTester. Exe, it's on the Command Center's installation folder.

 

Hmm, couldn't find it, perhaps this is the problem? I also tried searching under the "this pc" directory, but it wasn't there, either.

 

And in case it matters, I do have view hidden files turned on.

 

Okay, nevermind, I found it manually! I don't know why it didn't show up in the search but whatever.

So when I ran the program, it said it was version 15, and I clicked turn everything red. The macro keys still did not light up, but everything else went red - is this confirmation of a hardware issue?