Refresh my memory please ! Picking up Alienware 18 and looking for some basic help..

Been a while since I’ve been back into an older machine since the few 17 R2s I had. Currently using an Alienware 14, daily driven for 7 years straight now and it’s been great. Came up on a tempting machine and it’s an Alienware 18 (looks like my Alienware 14 design wise). Had some questions about it:

Is the Alienware 18 , the r3 ? Same thing or different ?
Any thoughts on the 4940xm or dual 880m sli in the machine ? Is there any upgrade or support for the 880m to anything newer ? I believe the 980m was the last top end card in the 18s ?
How many hdd slots in the 18? My 14 has an early nvme m.2 (think that’s what it’s called?) that I plan to remove use as a boot drive in the 18 and hoping I can fit 2 2.5” ssds inside.
Are there any screen upgrades available ? I doubt it being a d/c size in 18” but there are a few videos on YouTube showing a 4k screen ? would love a 1440p or 4k option no matter the cost.
I used to have a link for drivers list for the 18 but I can’t see it anywhere. Is there one anywhere someone can share ? Want to do a fresh install of everything from scratch.
Lastly I read something about the killer WiFi but this machine has the killer e2200. Should I upgrade to any other WiFi card ? Another post mentioned there was a better intel card upgrade.

looking for any input and feedback. Pretty excited to get this machine in the next few days.

 

Hey, since I'm a Alienware 18 owner, I'll answer a few of your questions, the other questions I'll leave to everyone else as I am anticipating the amswers to these good questions you are asking. The Alienware 18 is yes, the Alienware 18 R3 and is even sometimes called the Alienware 18 Viking. I have the 4940XM CPU. And even though, I bought mine with dual SLI GTX 980m's but right now, I'm only running it with a single GTX 980m because one of the 980's went bad probably from being overheated; watch and monitor that the fans work as they should. There are forums on here where owners and modders have upgraded the GPU to as high as a GTX 1070; search the forums on this upgrade. That's all from me, and waiting for the other Alienware enthusiasts to field the other questions.

 

BIOS A12 and later added native 980M support to the Alienware 18. I have factory 980ms and secondary heatsink special for 980M available if this is the route you want to go. 980M must be flashed with special Alienware VBIOS to work in Alienware 18 or else the fans won’t work and the cards will cook themselves to death

 

appreciate the replies ! I’ve been going through the long threads trying to absorb as much as I can ! From what I gathered I think the 880m heatsinks were the ones that will work on the 980m? Seemed that way some said the lower model gpus had a smaller heat sink etc.

I may not look to upgrade right away but I’m surprised I see the 880m aren’t exactly the most favoured cards. I don’t really Play anything too demanding (fortnite, wc3 tft, wow) etc

 

from what ive read, i think the reason why 880m arent popular is because they are essentially heavily overclocked 780m, and are prone to failure due to that, even more so inside of the newer 18 models due to space constraint and heat generation

 

880M ate too much power and delivered mediocre performance compared to 980M, that is why people immediately opt fir the 980M. The NV100 heatsink was used for 780M and 880M but Dell released GTX980 heatsink when they released it again with 980M. It was made to accommodate extra phase and power consumption on the 980M

 

Showed up today pretty excited. Still undecided which configuration to go with for the drives .. comparison shot beside my 14, which has been rock solid being used 8-12 hours a day 6/7 days a week for around 7 years straight without an issue.

trying to read up on wether or not I should go with Windows 10 or not ..

 

Looks to be in fantastic condition! Many would disagree but I love the glossy display compared to the matte one.

I'd definitely go for Windows 10 but it's up to you.

 

Thanks I think I got a pretty good deal just wish it had the box too.. I tend to keep all my stuff. The condition is quite good and screen is perfect and hinges very tight. I agree 100% I prefer glossy.
What I loved about the 14 is I felt it was a great size and the proportion. The screen to body etc just looked right. The 18 has some big bezels.. but I’m excited to see the screen when using it. my hope is the nvme drive from my 14 will work in the 18 as a boot drive, and then I can put in a few 2.5” ssds for my stuff.

Anyone know off hand how many drive bays are available ? is it a double cage and is everyone referencing a 3rd bay as a dvd slot replacement or are there 3 actual slots ?

 

Yeah it has a dual sata cable so unfortunately 1 less than the M18x R2. Do you use a 2.5" Sata to NVMe adapter in your 14? I'm not sure how this will work in the 18 but hopefully it does.

 

I’m probably getting the names wrong.. I believe it’s an nvme m.2 ? It’s a little chip looking ssd I believe was early m.2 style that slots in The motherboard.

 

Ahh that's an mSATA SSD. Yes the 18 has an mSATA slot.

 

That’s it ! Nvme ssd. I’m confusing myself I think. Haven’t really followed up much since I got the 14. Glad to hear I can use it in the 18

 

It's just under the black mesh panel on the base of the laptop so it's pretty easy to get to.

 

I’ll use it as a boot drive. I just have to figure out how to move all my stuff over from my 14. Something I’m not very good at over the years. Have a lot of photos I edit using Lightroom on there want to make sure I can keep everything.

Windows 10 should work fine with this machine ? Just read up a post where updating seemed to be an issue with windows 10 but it was resolved.
Wondering if the w7pro key will work for a windows 10 install?

 

Can't help you much there. I always do a fresh Windows installation as I don't like cloning drives especially when transferring to a different computer that requires different drivers and chipsets.

If you currently have Windows 7 Pro on the mSata then you should just be able to throw it in the 18 and make sure you are connected to the internet for a little while so that the Microsoft Activation Servers can see that you have a legit version of Windows in the laptop. Then go to Microsoft and use the Media Creation Tool to 'Upgrade This PC' to Windows 10 Pro. It should work fine. If you have a Windows 7 Pro installation CD then it will definitely work if you do a clean installation. I do it all the time.

 

I prefer to do clean as well just want to make sure I get all the important stuff copied and backed up before I wipe and reinstall. It didn’t come with any discs but I have a lead on an oem w7 pro I’ll try and get one and do it that way. I’m not knowledgeable enough to know if keeping it on w7 will cause any issues. I just play a few games and use a few programs that’s all I need it to do so keeping it on 7 is ok by me. Will look at doing all the bios updates etc and getting all the drivers dl’d and ready to install in order.
Appreciate all the input !

 

Definitely a good idea to download all the drivers onto a USB before moving over to the 18. Windows 10 is good in the fact that it auto-installs the drivers and the ISO even comes with a basic network driver so you can get started straight away. Most of the Windows 7 CD's didn't have a network driver so you had to use a USB to at least get access to the internet. Also if you're going to do a clean WIN7 install make sure you use the driver install guide. I like to download them onto the USB in the correct order as they are time stamped so it makes installing them easier.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...all-order-guide-for-alienware-systems.556721/

 

Perfect thanks !! That’s the exact link I was looking for. I used to have it bookmarked for all my previous machines but it’s been a while

 

Was checking to see if it had a Blu-ray drive and saw this .. confused as to how it would’ve been setup if there are 2 drive bays and an nvme slot ?

 

if you decide to do a clean install of win10, u should be able to use the win7 key that is on the 18 to activate it

 

You must've have an optical drive then. I never realised they gave that option from factory. Not sure if quad RAID 0 is really necessary.

 

should I do an upgrade to Windows 7 install ? Or just go straight to windows 10 ?

I dug out my old box of Alienware parts and lots of hdd cages and adapters in case I needed them. memory and cloth covers etc (old 17x won’t fit on the 18 lol). Had a few mins though and opened it up and I think it provided all the answers. Looks like from what I dug up was a pricey option that removes the optical drive for a hdd cage. To my surprise .. all the ssds and nvme ssd are still in place ! I had guessed the seller may have removed them.. they’re only 256 so not really useful for me but still cool to have should I ever sell to be able to put it back to original config etc.
To be honest I have never tinkered with Raid. Not too sure I quite understand it either let alone quad raid ? Given the nvme is different brand and format than the 3 Samsung ssds.. not sure how it works together speed wise ?
The screws were mark free and snug and loc tire clean on them.. don’t think it’s ever been opened up .. Few pics :

 

I love getting virgin machines that have never been opened. Very nice.
There are different RAID setups for different applications but the most popular is RAID 0. basically it splits the data across the drives evenly and when it needs to access the data it can grab it quicker as it only needs to get a % from each drive. So if you have quad RAID 0 then 25% is stored on each drive. The issue is that if one drive fails then the data is gone.


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Pretty cool. I may just try and put some games on it and try it out with the drive. Shows 1tb storage seems like p.o. Reset it to original state possibly with the recovery or backup not sure. Might just get an external and put my important files on it and try and use this machine as it is. Has me tempted to try 3 1tb 860 ssds but not liking the idea of searching for a 1tb nvme to match.. if they exist at all... or 500gb hmm..

 

mSata remember, not NVMe. Very different. There are 1Tb mSata drives available but they aren't cheap and they probably wont be an 860

 

My bad ! Yes msata ssd. Yeah not sure if I can justify a pricey big msata. I’m confused about one thing if you don’t mind me asking. I dug up an old w7 pro recovery disc from an old m17x. If I do a clean reinstall .. do I need to configure anything extra to keep it running in this quad raid ?
i don’t know what the previous owner did but everything was wiped clean it seems but it booted to desktop and did update when I shut it off (didn’t turn off auto updates I figured I was going to clean install anyways).
i have all the drivers downloaded on a thumb drive ready to install in order

 

If the drives are already set up to be in RAID then you shouldn't have to do anything special when reinstalling Windows. It's been a long time since I've done it though so I can't really remember what happens. During the installation you will get to a point where you have to select the drive that you want to install Windows on. If all 4 drives are set up in RAID 0 then you should only see one drive (Drive 0) which will be split into partitions with one partition being 900gb (probably around 930). This will be the drive you format and select. If there is a big list of different drives labelled 0, 1, 2 and 3 then the drives are no longer linked together and you have to do it another way.
When you boot you should briefly get to a drive setup screen which you need to press CTRL-I quickly to get into. I remember having to set up my RAID drives from there but like I said, it's been a long time since I've done it.

 

It's actually possible to put an NVME SSD in the Viking if you really want to. If you're not using the slave GPU slot for anything, you can get an MXM to m.2 adapter.

Having said that, good ol SATA SSDs are still really good.

 

I should have my MXM to NVMe adapter in a few weeks!


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@Emm3 yeah you can do an inplace upgrade from 7 to 10, it would then create a hardware ID license from your win7 one which ties it to the motherboard, so if you ever need to reinstall again, it would automatically activate once you connect to the internet. Personally since its a different machine, id recommend a clean install due to potential driver incompatibilites

 

But how it’s possible to boot an m2 sata drive if AW18 bios doesn’t have the necessary drivers to boot it? Or am I wrong?

 

Appreciate all the replies !!
Ok so usually what I do is slip in the cd and wipe the drives and install the os. Then do all the driver updates in order, and then the windows updates. Has always worked well for me.

So I’ll need some input on how to proceed here.. I brought the machine to work with me with all the drivers on a usb and a win7pro dvd and just realized there’s no dvd drive lol !

do I need to try and get a win7 pro onto a usb stick ? (I do have a win10 on a stick I used for my desktop).

I’m assuming the previous owner used respawn and shipped it out hence it booting in to desktop and there’s GeForce exp there etc. I’ve never tinkered with respawn tbh.

here’s a pic of how I see the drives .. I’ll get a shot from the bios to see the setup

 

Here’s what I see in the bios. No expert here but all drives show up.

 

All the drives will show up in the BIOS as separate drives, that's normal.

It looks like the four RAID drives have been split into two main partitions with the larger one being for the OS and the other as a smaller storage drive.
If the laptop currently has Windows 7 Home on it then you won't be able to upgrade it to Windows 10 Pro for free. You will need to clean install using your Windows 7 Pro CD (using an external CD drive) and then make sure you do all the updates and then you should be able to head over to Microsoft and do the upgrade. I have found that if I rush the upgrade before doing all the old updates then I won't get my free activated Windows 10.
If you don't have an external CD drive then there should be software available to copy your Win7 Pro CD ISO to a USB but I've never done it.

 

I'm not sure about the 18 but the M18x R2 is able to boot from the NVMe so I can only assume that the 18 can also do it. The M18x R1 can't though.

EDIT: This is due to the M18x R1 not having UEFI support

 

i don’t have an external drive but can source one if need be. It does have 7 pro installed and the key on the bottom is a pro key

 

If all the Windows 7 updates are done then you should be able to upgrade straight from Microsoft. It doesn't always work though. I've been working on an old M14x R2 this week that had Windows 8 Pro installed and I tried upgrading direct from Microsoft and it won't activate for me.

On previous laptops when I use my Alienware Windows 7 Pro CD and do a clean install and then try to upgrade it usually works. It's a little hit and miss. I'm going to have to do this on the M14x and see if it works. There is a Windows key embedded in the Alienware CD which seems to still allow a free upgrade for me.

 

Oke dude let us know

 

@UltraGSM has already tested a few drives in his adapter and it seems to be working great at good speeds.
@Baddemichl should also be able help you out if you're looking to get one

 

Just a little update. Didn’t want to make a new thread so figured I’d post here. I haven’t swapped out the drives yet, I was going to just run it as is as a spare machine I take to work so just needed 2 games on it and I was good. I had downloaded an older windows 7 iTunes and accidentally updated it yesterday .. and after that when I would connect my Bluetooth headphones the sound was a horrible mono like am radio quality and if I turned them off with a game on I got a blue screens :/

anyhow I used the Alienware respawn to put it back to its original shipped state. I downloaded all the drivers then realized that in this state all the drivers are already installed since it isn’t a clean reinstall.
Im thinking to remove all the drives so I can return it to an as-new state should I ever sell etc thinking the os is spread over the drives (assuming that’s how raid works) .

so questions I have are if I want to fresh install w10 on new drives , switch to uefi and should I be able to install via USB key ? Again this machine has the cd drive delete option so I can’t use cd.
Appreciate any input on how to go about this...

 

If you want to go win10 non-raid0 it’s very easy. Just make a Win10 USB installer using the Microsoft tool, set bios to UEFI, secure boot on, and windows 8 fast boot on, plug in flash drive, hit f12 on BIOS splash screen, pick the flash drive and install windows 10 it’s really not complicated