HELP!!! M17 R1 Guide

Hello! Just recently purchased this notebook from a member on here and was given to me with Windows Vista and a 0.29 BIOS! As I installed the W7 update CD it asked me to delete the Catalyst and Wireless! After I did that it went into installation but the computer kept crashing and could get a complete install! I then tried to install windows by booting up to CD and reformatted 1 of the disks to get a fresh install but I guess it had a problem with raid once I clicked one of the hdds and so I had to disable raid and install in one of the hdds but for some reason once I turned on raid 0 again it wasnt booting windows!

I then tried to reinstall windows 7 while raid 0 was on without wiping the hdd and it worked and then proceeded to install different drivers! As I was installing drivers and updates alot of crashes occured and the notebook just doesnt seem stable!

And so my question now is can anyone give me advice or the best guide to having, at least, and almost crash free notebook? Any new BIOS or drivers or updated guides I should refer to? It seems like guides here were last done/edited in 2009 and I was hoping there were new software that could stabilize the computer!

Also, what OS would be the most stable to use? I am mostly just using this computer for photo editing and just surfing the web and watching videos and was hoping for some minor gaming as well but even now that I havent really installed much I am already having lots of trouble with the notebook crashing alot! I dont want to edit photos then all of a sudden just have the notebook freeze and loose all the work ive done!

I really need your help and it will be really appreciated!

Basically here are my questions:

- What OS is most stable to run on this notebook?
- What BIOS is most recommended by everyone?(I am running 0.29 currently)
- Can you link me to the most updated guides or give me advice on what steps to take to get a stable notebook?

Here are some info about the notebook specs:

System Name BEAST-PC
System Manufacturer Intel
System Model W840DI
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Extreme CPU X9100 @ 3.06GHz, 3066 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Intel W840.029, 4/10/2009
SMBIOS Version 2.5
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.1.7600.16385"
User Name Beast-PC\Beast
Time Zone US Mountain Standard Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 3.99 GB
Available Physical Memory 2.86 GB
Total Virtual Memory 7.99 GB
Available Virtual Memory 5.99 GB
Page File Space 3.99 GB


Once again your help would be really appreciated and I thank you in advance for whatever help you can provide!

 

Really no one? Even just advice on what would be the best bios I can run or maybe what specific drivers to get?

Pls help! :-(

 

every os is stable on that computer (except linux wich hate the dual gfx setup)

b14 and z.29 are both stable on some machines and unstable on some others a machine can be stable on b14 and unstable on z.29 whil an other can be stable on z.29 while unstable on b14


also if you have raid 0 it would seem you need to add raid drivers while you install windows

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/426562-official-alienware-m17-drivers-page.html