My new/old area-51 m15x

well my buddy had an area-51 m15x that the video card crapped out on him and the hinges broke. so he bought a m11x. i offered him 200 for the the broke laptop and he took it. so i epoxy the hinges and loosen them up and i baked the video card and everything is running fine and the hinges work great.

specs
skullcap lid i think
T8300
4gigs of ram
200gb hd 7200rpm
8800m gtx
1920x1200 display
windows vista ultimate 32bit

a few questions. how long can i expect the video card to hold up?

also i have 2 copys of windows 7 64bit. when i put the cd in the disk drive windows tell me that its not compatable.. how can i upgrade to windows 7 64bit without losing my drivers? id hate to do a clean install since it would be a pain to get all the drivers for this lappy. any comments?
thanks

edit: just seen if your upgradeing window vista ultimate then it has to be window 7 ultimate. i have windows 7 premium. any one help with the drivers on this thing so i can do a fresh install. any advice on the best way to do this. thanks.

 

you cant upgrade from 32 bit to 64 bit you have to do a clean install. its easy enough. the baking is hit or miss, mostly its a short term solution and eventually the card will just die. i would replace it asap. there are plenty of cards that will fit that machine.

 

I had an issue upgrading to windows 7 when I had mine. It wouldn't let me install the graphics card drivers. I had a 8600m gt in it and it would not recognize it. I tried everything to no avail. Hope you don't run into the same problem.

 

whats does the respawn disk do? can i do a clean install then pull the drivers off it? if not where can i get all the diver for his laptop. like the mober and chipset driver. what about the alienfx?

 

heres the thread that has all of the windows 7 drivers for your system. if you use the search function it will reveal the world!!!!
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...9-windows-7-64-bit-drivers-m15x-not-m15x.html

 

I also have an m15x and my 8800gtx died, i have not tried baking, but cleverpseudonym, you said there are many cards that will work with the m15x, do you know where i can find a list of cards that will work and/or where i can buy them?

Also I'm looking at an 8600gt on ebay and wondering if the 8800 gtx heat sink will fit the 8600 gt?

 

3870 is the answer to your problems

 

Just as granyte suggests...

The ATi Mobility HD 3870 is THE card to use in the m15x now. Sadly every card that was offered with the m15x (any nVidia 8000 series card, and the 9800GT) is a ticking time bomb, defective from the start and destined to break.

The 3870 on the other hand is a very reliable card that should function fine, even in the high heat conditions of the m15x (provided it's not TOO hot). It'll run cooler than that old 8800GTX/9800GT as well.

I'm not too sure about the heatsink compatibility though, I'd check up on that. I can't remember which heatsinks fit what on the m15x.

The nice thing about the 3870 is they're actually a good price, and Alienware themselves should be able (and willing) to sell one to you if you talk to the right rep.

It also performs almost as good as a 8800GTX/9800GT. It IS weaker but only slightly-the difference is not big enough to need to change any graphics settings, you'll just lose a few frames a second.

 

I actually called alienware today and at least the person I was talking to said that they no longer carry anything for the early m15x, i did plan on buying one about 9 months ago, when my 8800 gtx died, and they did have a 3870 available, but no longer.

Do you think I can use any of the other ati mobility cards? Because I don't see any 3870's out there to buy on ebay or even just a google search for a vendor.

 

You might be able to use a different mobility ATi card (if it fits; it needs to be MXM 2.1 if I remember rightly) however the question is whether or not the BIOS has support for the card. If the BIOS doesn't support it, it will never work, whether or not it fits.

 

Yea on ebay theres a 260 on sale thats an MXM 2.1 which i think will work but its 400$, why is it so hard to find a 3870? this is very frustrating

 

260 wont work i tried it. there is no support for nvidia cards in the bios. the older m17x(area-51 version) might have support for it since they used the 9800gtx cards, but the m17 doesnt i bought one and it went str8 to black screen. i might have a 3870 here in a few days but it will be around that price since its in such high demand

 

Wrong!
The 260 and 280 are offered as an upgrade in the M15x by MXM-Upgrade and they work. The GTX280 does however run hot and therefore it is advised to use a 260 in it.
I'm sure if JDELUNA is around he'll pipe in with his experience of upgrading to the 280 on the m15x.

 

id like to see that as well. i can only speak from personal experience and i have tried it on 2 separate occasions and they will go into he mxm slot but the computer will not boot. i tried updating the bios..etc etc. so if he got them to work them i would to hear how, especially since i cant find a 280 with a mxm connector compatible with the m15x, since it uses the type 2.1 connector or HE, and all the 280s i seen are 3.0b. you are talking about the m15x not the M15x right?

 

As I stated MXM-Upgrade offers the correct MXM 2.1 spec GTX 260M and GTX 280M cards for the old m15x.

 

i went digging beacuse this was the reason i got rid of my m15x,after a few days was that it was not really upgradeable past the 3870..i didn't find anything other than a signature claiming to have the 280 in there machine. if this works it would be nice to see the process, cause i tried for an entire day to get it to work with my 260. would be good for the current owners to see that it can be done instead of speculation, one way or another.
EDIT: i found it. 280 in a m15x?!

temps seems crazy high but it looks like if you did some cooling mods it would be ok. i stand corrected, my machine must have just not liekd me or im a dunce.

 

What I have going on with 260m and the m15x