Help Restoring my m15x

Hello Everyone,

I recently purchased an Alienware Area 51 m15x off of eBay. However, the seller did not have any of the original discs; therefore, he sent it to me running some kind of modded version of Windows 7. He called it Windows 7 Alienware 2010 or something like that. The computer does not recognize the nVidia graphics card in here as anything but "Standard VGA adaptor".

I would like to restore this system and get it running as nicely as possible. I am aware that this laptop is a bit out of date now and I am not looking to make it run the latest and greatest games--I just want to restore it to run as decently as possible.

I am completely clueless when it comes to installing everything from the ground up and would like your recommendations.

1) Should I keep this version of Windows 7 or restore it back to Windows Vista?

2) Where can I obtain the proper drivers for this laptop? I tried installing a driver from nVidia and it gave me the BSOD on start up. I am not sure which nVidia card is in here since the system only recognizes it as "NVIDIA" or "Standard VGA"

Thank you!

 

Hi,
I've just sold mine.. was running 7 very well with the nvidia card working fine.
If you want to install vista, I imaged the resorce disk and uploaded it to rapidshare..

If you read the sticky: windows 7 64bit... you will get all the answers you need..

if you cant be assed here is my vista driver disk.. this is an iso image from xpburner..
https://rapidshare.com/files/3893149928/m15x_r1_resorce_disk.rar

Dont forget to load the drivers in the correct order.. have fun.

 

If you can, go with Windows 7 64bit. It is soo much better with overall performance of the machine. Not near as power hungry. Follow the directions in the above mentioned sticky IN THE CORRECT ORDER. That is key.
Also the latest driver for a Nvidia graphics card in that machine will be the 186.XX versions. Newer ones just dont work. Go ahead and get the video drivers from Nvidia's website, just go to the "beta drivers" page.

 

Thank you, everyone. This was very helpful. I have Windows 7 Ultimate on here now and the video card works just fine.

I have just one more quick question regarding the RAM for this computer. I have heard that the maximum amount of RAM for this system is 4GB, which seems reasonable since it is a 3 year old computer, but I just want to verify that this is correct. If it can utilize more than 4GB, I would like to install more, but I'm not expecting much there since it is an older laptop.

Thanks

 

I have 8gbs in mine. Only downer is that the "sleep" option does not work. Only hibernate. But it will take 8gbs. I couldnt really tell much of a perfromance difference between 4 and 8gbs but I guess its all mental. 8 is better than 4.

 

I could never get sleep to work on a Win 7 m15x-r1 either. It would sleep but never come back out of it.