What can we upgrade ourselves?

Hey peeps,

Newbie here...

I'm in the process of ordering my M11x, I'm into upgrading a good laptop myself as and when it's needed but I've not owned an Alienware product before so it would be helpful it someone could clarify what exactly can / can't be manually upgraded. The main reason I ask is because I want a SSD but I'm not going to pay $600 for Dells upgrade, I'd rather buy a unit and install myself, the same goes with the RAM and in the future, maybe the graphics card - are all these possible? The only thing I assume won't be possible in the future is the CPU?

Now, the other question I have is; has anyone regretted buying the M11x over the M15x (money not being an issue) or is the M15x not even a consideration when it comes to having a portable gaming laptop due to its weight?

Thanks for your time

 

Drive, Memory can be upgraded - CPU/GPU cannot.

Try the forum search feature. You'll find multiple threads which discuss this.

Your 11 vs 15 question - well, thats of course preference. The reason why people tend to go with the 11 is, in my opinion only of course, the fact that its an 'ultra-portable'.

 

Thanks for clarifying that BatBoy...

I'm torn between the two, the 11 for how portable it is and the 15 for the more powerful GPU/CPU but obviously this comes at a cost as well as the extra weigh - I would be interested to hear others opinions on this one as well - I've read a few posts regarding gaming issues on the 11 but I would have thought that if you tweaked the 11 enough it will play 99% games on the market just not on Ultra?

On a different subject, has anyone bought a SSD to install themselves, if so, what make did you get and how is it performing?

 

I'm running a SSD I installed myself, still have the 320gb it came with of course but installed a 128gb SSD the minute I got it. It's really not very hard as long as you have another computer with a disk drive and also a flash drive, or just an external disk drive for the m11x to do a clean install.

 

Can't you just get an enclosure (which you would need to use your internal as an external anyway) and then clone your current hard drive onto the SSD.
I am sure that is what I was recommended to do when I mentioned upgrading to an SSD not long ago.

 

You can do a clone yes, I prefer to do a clean install with my preferred set of video drivers, I also do a very stripped install of windows that only takes up about 6gb of space instead of the approximate 20gb install that comes stock. Now if you're installing a 256gb+ ssd it's not so much an issue but the 15gb I save by using my method with a stripped install comes in very handy to not have to carry an external hdd with me everywhere I go.

 

Thanks for the tips, I think I will go for the 11 over the 15 and just tweak it to max performance.

I've been searching the net for the SSD and I can't decide what make to go with, has anyone got any opinions of this?

 

Can you potentially pull out the hd, insert a new one, proceed to do a clean OS install and it will work fine?

 

Yes, assuming you mean:

- Backup all files that will be required on the clean install
- Remove HD
- Replace with new HD
- Reinstall Win 7 via an external DVD drive
- Reinstall drivers either directly from Dell Support site or from an external backup that contains previously downloaded drivers

It can also be done via a bootable USB stick pen containing win 7 (if you don't have an external DVD drive).

This is also my preffered method when changing out the HD. Whilst I know you can clone your current HD I do prefer a nice fresh system, especially if I am changing from a HD to a SSD.

 

from my experience cloning a standard hard drive to an SSD won't work.. I have tried it on both desktops and laptops and it just blue screens.. even in safe mode.. I don't know what causes the BSODs and I removed the drivers for the disk drives and it still did not work.. so a clean install will be great!

 

easiest route - as long as you dont mind the factory image...

AlienRespawn ----> Create Emergency Rescue USB Flash Drive (or optical media) ----> Install new HDD or SSD ----> Boot to USB flash (or optical) and restore image.

Done.