*OFFICIAL* M14x R2 Owner's Lounge Thread - READ BEFORE POSTING

I bought an M14X R2 locally yesterday and it came with an i5-2540M and GT 650m. Is the CPU upgradable to Ivy Bridge? Seems weird to me that it had an older CPU but the newer GPU


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Should be upgradeable. The cheapest available R2 SKU features a i5-2540M to be, um, an economical option. Check first if your system has HM77 and if yes you should be good to go with any i5-3xx0 or i7-3xx0. Just be warned that the disassembly procedure for CPU repasting or swapping is hideously troublesome (by standards) for the M14x due to its excessively vertical design.

 

Thanks for the info. Is there a certain program that I can use to check if I have the HM77 or would that info be in BIOS?


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Use CPU-Z, the 'mainboard' tab should tell you. However I think it generalizes it to 'Ivy Bridge' now... That's what it says on mine.
If yours says Ivy Bridge / ID1E57 as in mine, you should have the same motherboard.


Either way, CPU-Z is always a great tool to have around.

 

Thanks a lot for the pictures. I'll check it out when I get home.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

 

Greetings fellow Alienware owners,

I currently own the M18x and M11x, while I love the horsepower of the M18x it's just too big for me to bring with me everywhere, and while I love the M11x for its portability...it’s really too small of a screen for me to edit pictures on the road with.

Enter the option of the M14x for me... Is the first generation made out of plastic or aluminum...seems like the second is plastic from what I've been reading.

 

The casing for the R1 and R2 are the same. The R2 is strictly an internal hardware upgrade.

 

Thank you very much, REP given...M15x it is...

 

I wouldn't worry about the fact that it's made of plastic. It's made of very good feeling plastic, and it's a lot less of a brick the M15x is.

 

First time poster. Got mine. Best laptop that i ever had. core i7-3610QM | 16GB DDR3 1600Mhz | GT 650m 1GB | 750 GB 7200rpm | HD+900p. I'm looking forward to upgrade whith some ssds. I saw posts about forcing sata 1 to seagate hdd and relocat it to odd instead of dvd drive, but i cant find the .

 

Still amused by how much better the 650m is than the r1 555m. I tried playing some emulated PS2 games on the r2, and it runs very very sweet. Around 60fps for all titles I tried in PCSX2. Running at double or triple the original resolution. The r1 could barely keep fluid framerates and seemed like it was heaving. The r2 (mine is repasted) stays around 50c and doesn't break a sweat. Very impressive IMO.

 

I have to agree. I just sold my m18x that I loved because it was getting no use since I got the m14x. While I do realize it is not a desktop replacement notebook, nor the top tier GPU, it does so well that is all honesty it does just as good as my m18x did in real world situations. True the FPS may be lower in most situations, and when on the road I’m running a lower resolution, but I still max most games just like the m18x did and I don’t have to mess around with the dual card issues or heat problems. With a few games that didn't like the dual cards it actually runs better! When at home I use the same large LCD and K/B and mouse so you wouldn’t even know the difference.

I have had a ton of Alienware laptops, and love the huge powerhouses, and also the tiny portables, so the m14x is a very nice mid-sized compromise for those like me who want power but portability.

Excellent laptop, hope they don’t stop making them and keep going for an R3 and R4 eventually!

 

All they really need to do is:

-more details re: displays, more choices
-matte finish for outermost layer of display?
-redesign the front edge of the notebook to make the vents functional AND sleeker (no over-designed ridges that dig into your skin)
-start offering IC Diamond as an upgrade option (maybe $20?)
-implement an Alienware Turbo control in the Command Center, allow users to decide through the OS what Turbo state to use
-less crappy packaging, make it more like the r1
-return to the longer power cable

???

 

Got mine...im an oldie here..probably one of the oldest posters on the forum

 

If I want to overclock using msi afterburner what should my core and memory clock be? Also should turbo boost be on or off in bios?

 

Most people seem to say +100 for clock and +200 for memory so that's what i use.

I have turbo boost on personally but u can turn it off if your getting throttling issues i think (gpu hitting 65C causes throttling). This will reduce performance (though not to the extent that throttling will)

 

At last, I'm an AW user now. I'm very happy with my new m14x. This is my very first Alienware system and I'm very proud of it.

I upgraded the ff:
- i7 3610
- 900p screen
- Killer wireless
Other parts are the basic configuration.

The old lappy that I'm replacing with this is an HP dv6:
- Core 2 duo T6500
- 4gb ddr2 (very expensive to upgrade, unlike ddr3)
- Intel GMA graphics
- 15.6 720p screen

I think this m14x is a very nice upgrade from my old HP :thumbsup:

How long usually does the e-gift card from dell arrives? Just wondering if it's closer to the 20th day or 10th day after ordering..

 

Congrats on the purchase...your going to love it.

 

Does anyone know some good cooler's for the M14x R2? I haven't found any yet.

 

In my experience, a notebook cooler didn't help the M14x much (and I'm talking about a huge 19" notebook cooler with dual fans). Well, it did - it reduced the maximum running temperatures by a major ten degrees. But this was when the fans were off, and there was no siginficant change when I turned on the fans (beyond the extra noise). It seems that the M14x has a rather poor intake design that is starved of air when it is placed flat on a table, in other words the M14x needs its rear to be raised off a desk to have sufficient airflow.
Well, probably if I shifted the notebook downward a little or relocated the fans inside the cooler a bit upward so that they'd blow into to the M14x's vents and intakes more, it might have a more noticeable effect, but I reckon the main quick-temperature-fix for the M14x is to just prop its back up a little.

 

As soon to be an owner of m14x and "Oh God, I've been using m1730 since its release" person, I've never bothered with notebook coolers. m1730 was overheating like a boss. Until last bios rev. mid 80's were usual for GPU's, but later version made it run a lot cooler... Eventually I've build a stand for it from LEGO's. Not only it took my idle temps down by 10 degrees, but when on maximum load temps were lower by 5 to 7 degrees. What used to be 70+ degrees on maximum load, now is 63-65. idle is 49, used to be almost 60.

So I'll just do the same for m14x and see how it goes.

 

Hey guys, I'm new to the Alienware Scene, but I've been surfing around this forums for a couple of days.
I ordered my Alienware M14x R2 yesterday (i7-3610QM, 900p, 16gb 1600MHz DDR3 Dual Channel, 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M, 500GB 7,200rpm SATA, Killer Wlan). I chose the stock 500gb harddrive because I thought that the SSD upgrades from Dell are well overpriced :S

I'm now looking for a nice 512gb SSD I can put in, and I was thinking about the Ocz SSD 512 GB Vertex 4M Serie 2,5". Does the 9mm size fit in? If not, I'd go with a Transcend SSD720 512GB 2.5" SATA III (TS512GSSD720).

I'd be glad to hear your opinions, and already thank you for your responses.

Have a nice evening.

Mastaa

 

9mm size should be fine. The current hdd drive installed is also 9mm. The thinner, 7mm should also be fine since there's a caddy to put the drive in.

 

Mastaa - Not sure if you bought your M14x R2 new or what, but they have a discount code good for 20% off refurb. Good for any home desktop or laptop including Alienware.

I just ordered a refurb Nebula Red M14x R2 I7-3610QM, 12GB, 750GB HDD, 2GB NVidia, Killer WLan. Dell has (expires tomorrow 9/19 9am ct) a 20% coupon code. My purchase price before tax $1,063.20. I'm psyched.

Dell Outlet Home and Home Office | Dell

Coupon code is on the banner (purple).

 

My M14x, when it first arrived, was clocking 95 degrees Celsius in Cinebench R11.5 on the i7-3720QM without any aids.
Propping it up on my SF-19 resulted in a noticeable drop down to about 85 and less, or very high seventies.

The GPU on the other hand is always below 70 - it really has room to get warmer - the CPU is the one I'm more worried about because a graphics chip usually can handle more heat than a CPU can. Especially because system instability comes more easily from an overheating CPU.

I expect you'd see 80 degrees or 70 degrees on your M14x too, depending on your climate. The report I received is that my propped up M14x is enjoying the cold Washington night air and only maxes at 70-ish running full 3ds Max renders.

 

sweatytaco got a slick deal

 

Yes, I ordered myself a new one, but with another discount code (we can't use the same here in Switzerland as you do in the US), I saved some money too.

Do you know this for a fact? Because I don't want to spend a not so small amount of cash on a SSD I'm won't be able to use later...

 

What I'd actually like to have, would be fan control, to make it run at least at 50% all the time and at 100% on load after certain degrees reached. heck, I'd love to be able to just set it to 100% when I want to.

 

I bought some Kingston HyperX 8GB (2x4) sticks prior to buying my M14x R2 with 12GB OEM. Should I return the Kingston sticks or will downgrading to a lower, but better memory be the same, better, or worse? Any suggestions?

 

Yup. I have a samsung 830 which is 7mm. The stock drive that comes with my system is a Seagate 500gb 9mm (considerably thicker than the sammy).

 

Thank you very much for your help. Have you ever encountered problems with your Samsung SSD? Maybe I'll go with a Samsung too, because I've read that a couple of people had problems with an OCZ drive (bios couldn't find it sometimes).

 

I just got my r2 yesterday, and it has bios version A08?
It is the HM77 chipset...

anyone else have this bios on an r2?

 

@Mastaa - Actually I haven't installed my samsung yet, no time to reformat yet (I just got my AW last week). I just disassembled my M14 few days ago and make sure that my SSD fits. I'll probably install it in the next days.. But I've read hear that users were getting good performance with Samsung 830.

@matty429 - Mine's also A08, version date shows 6/29/2012

 

does anyone understand the bios naming convention?

Dell-BIOS 8/14/2012 A04

 

Generally, the pattern I've seen is that the it goes A(number in order) so A04 comes after A03 which came after A02 which came after A01 (original release BIOS).

Since I don't have the system on me for the next few months I haven't been paying attention to the BIOS updates for the M14x, but it's kind of surprising me that there'd be such a sudden leap from A04 to A08. Or have there really been a whole four revisions in the last month?

 

so i have the intel hd graphics driver installed from the dell drivers site but i just noticed that windows update has a newer version. should i update to that one or stick with the manufacturer one?

 

exactly, it's kinda strange to skip 4 whole revisions.

 

also a04 has a later date than a08.

I'm afraid to flash to a04...I don't see any way to get back to a08...

 

I have an 128gb Samsung 830 and I haven't run into any problems since I installed it. Great speeds too.

 

Um... I just thought of something, are you two guys using R1 or R2?
The M14x R2's latest BIOS is A04. The M14xR1's BIOS A08 came out a long time ago.
I don't think I need to stress about how important it is that you don't install the wrong BIOS for the wrong model, do I?


If you are using a R2, and have A08, perhaps you could also say what country you're in? Sometimes different regions have different revisions or BIOS.
And if you are not sure, a R1 has a GT555M and the R2 has the GT650M as the main difference.

 

Computer Model

Alienware M14x R2


Shipping Date

9/14/2012


Country

United States


BIOS Vendor

Alienware


BIOS Version

A08


BIOS Date

06-29-12

 

Thank you, after reading another lot of posts about problems with OCZ and only good reviews about samsung SSD drives, I'm going to order myself an 830. My M14x should be shipped Tuesday, I'll know more then.

 

I just installed my samsung 830 128gb, and the WEI ratings for primary hard disk jumped from 5.9 to 7.9.

I was using this ssd before on an old hp dv6 core2duo laptop and the WEI for the drive was only 7.6 (but that was understandable because that system is only using sata2 speed).

So far so good, boot up was very fast and I can open any program right after logging into windows.

 

Thank you for your advice. My M14x shipped yesterday, and I already installed a Samsung 830 512gb SSD, which works fine, no problems occured (full windows clean install). My specs are now: i7-3610QM, 16gb DDR 3 RAM, 2gb Nvidia GT 650m, Samsung 830 512gb SSD.

Bios version is A08.

So far so good, I already love this system, it's power is impressive.

 

Hey guys, I've had my M14xR2 for a little over a month now. I was loving it until I got a BSOD about memory management.

Have any of you had a bsod yet?

 

Hi guys, can someone tell me the normal temperatures of the hdd. I've put a secound hdd and i'm a little worry about the temperatures. And i don't want to disasemble the laptop to do mesering with only one disk.

 

I had a BSoD the same day I received it.

And the worst part was I didn't even know what caused it because I was out for lunch when it happened.

 

That's just horrible. Did you call tech support to see if they would do anything?

Any more blue screens after that?

 

No, no more BSoDs after that so far, which is why I didn't bother tech support with it. However I'm still waiting on a hinge issue.

 

Hinge issue?

After spending some time on w/ tech support and running some memory tests, they decided to replace my dimms and mobo. As of now, no bsods yet but still wary.