Bought an M15x..

Hey Guys (and maybe Ladies?),

So I bought my 3rd Alienware laptop last week (see specs in the signature below). I am enjoying every bit of it. I started out with an M17 and later an M11x r1. Did some lan parties with the M11x and alway got those WTF looks I do enjoy pulling stuff apart and putting it back together again (mostly working). I have worked on... multiple... machines in my carreer (in IT).

Back to the M15x. So it's not as great specwise but as I am catching up on some fine reading here I will be upgrading the M15x as I go. I changed out the old 250 GB 7200rpm disk that came with the M15x and swapped it out for a Crucial Mx500 SSD (250GB). Aaaand I stole my wifes 8gb ddr3 sodimms from her Thinkpad 410 and put it in the M15x... just dont tell her. Already have a 240W adapter on route. It came with an old Dell 65W one which wont be enough later on.

So I do have some wishes for the M15x.

-Better videocard..
-Other CPU (920XM or 940XM).
-16GB of ram.

Did I forget something? Maybe.. im getting old will update this when I get some more parts and stuff in (can take some while). If there is some interest in it I can make some photo's and put them here when I do some upgrading.

Anyway good to be back (havent been really active since I had my M17).

 

The 920XM will give you much better performance than the i5, with throttlestop and adequate cooling you can clock it to 3.5GHz on 4 cores. (Unfortunately the warped heatsink in my M17X R2 prevents me running it at that speed). Technically the 970M works in the M15X, though the CPU will bottleneck it in newer games - especially stuff like Battlefield 1. The Clevo 8970M is also an option I believe. Talk to @Raidriar for more information about it.

 

920XM, liquid ultra thermal compound, GTX 970M, and 2 x 8GB ddr3 ram is the best you can do. Clevo 8970M will NOT give native fan control in the M15x

 

Personally, I would swap out the LCD to the 1080p model

 

Thanks for all the info and suggestions. Will look into the processor, memory and videocard. The LCD panel is not a top priority. Might look into that later when most upgrades are done. I am also kinda limited in my budget so it will take some time to get it all together. I also noticed to late someone near me had a 7970m for sale. That might have been a nice upgrade (though I prefer nVidia). Havent heard of liquid ultra thermal compound. I always try to use MX2 (non conductive) and it gives me great results. I do tend to have a certain form of "luck" when it comes to conductive stuff...

Actually havent seen anything on upgrading the M15x with an MSata SSD?

 

You can use Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut if you don't want to use Liquid Metal, i've had good results with my GPU temps after using it compared to MX4.

 

Ok will look into that. I kinda don't like working with conductive stuff around sensitive parts.. Something about luck and electrocuting myself..

 

You won't electrocute yourself lol

 

Got an upgrade kit in the form of a i7 840qm, Ati M6000 and some Kryonaut paste. All for a nice price (under 100€ total). M6000 is a Dell part.

 

My 240 watt adapter came in today. Looks like I wont be spending money on a new battery to soon. The thing is charging as we speak.

Cleaned out the keyboard today. Got rid of a crap ton of hair and... muck. Very nasty sticky black stuff. I can see the keyboard lighting again ruined no buttons in the proces. Washed the keycaps.

 

Not bad. I just reinstalled GTV V and fired it up on the 5850 &(750/1000). At 1920x1080 with some all shadow eye candy on and limits off the machine returns around 45fps. This was a surprise for such an old card and all the while only hitting a max temp of 80c in ambients temp of 25c.

M6000 is not a bad card. Clock it up nicely for a good return in performance and be on the look out for a 920xm they come cheap and is alot faster than the 840qm. When I play GTA V for example I run a quick OC of 3ghz all cores and this is not even pushing it with stock cooling. 840qm you are stuck at about 2ghz max across all cores.

 

Thanks. I will be on the lookout for a 9x0XM. Those dont come on the market near me so much so... Hmm. Also working on a budget at the moment. Wife wasnt to happy to give me budget for this upgrade.
Would have love to have gone a bit farther with the upgrade. Atleast I am going dual --> quad core. Have been playing some Star Trek Online, GuildWars2 and World of Warships recently on the 5730 currently installed. It isnt to shabby but it could do better.

 

Ok so after working a bit more on the problem I think I found the problem. The original x bracket that came with the card is .. crap. Installed the 5730 one and the cooler mounts without problems. However I have a gap between the card and the cooler..

 

Have been reading some older treads about the M6000 cards. Have seen people that have to use shims and others that dont have to use them. Is there a great difference in temperatures and so on when using a shim? Orderd some shims today and some new thermalpads.
Had the M6000 installed today and did some graphics tests but the card would cut out @ +/- 80C. Used a homemade shim made from a 2 eurocent coin. Card would not cool down one bit with the graphics tests not even with fan @ 100% speed.

 

DO NOT USE SHIMS. YOU RUN THE RISK OF CRUSHING YOUR CORE!!!!!!
what is happening, is the original screws have built in limiters. Remove the c-clamp securing the screws, remove screws, replace with dell screws from m17x r3/4 or m18x r1/2, this will give proper contact with the core. Do not overtighten screws.

Your card is overheating because stock screws are not making enough heatsink contact with the core.

 

Ok so I dont have screws of just about every laptop around.. I have a ton of screws from Lenovo's but I cant tell if those would fit. Also still need to wait for new thermal pads. Would love to know why some people need a shim or screw adjustments and others just trow it in there and it all works out of the box. Shorte screws would work for this problem? Crap I need sleep (my typing is all over the place).. Working a 13 hour shift the next 2 days...

 

Agreed shims = crushed card.

Get on ebay if necessary and order correct ones. If it takes couple of weeks so be it otherwise you will have a brick of a M15x.

 

Will look for some screws. Might have some lying around (deconstructed a lot of laptops).

 

So just tested with some custom (longer screws cut down) Seems to work great like this. Not a bad temperature (older pads got new ones comming and artic silver thin spread). PowerMAX does push the core to 100% got the newer AMD drivers installed so it isnt seen as a M6000. Could install the M6000 driver which works without fail as well.

 

CRAP.. busted my card. Physically warped after replacing the thermalpads.. Wont start with it installed (blinking Caps/Num/Scroll lock). Back to the 5730... Will look for on that fits the laptop without fancy smancy mods and stuff..

 

amazing how all of this could have been avoided by purchasing a dell nvidia xbracket and using proper sized thermal pads....

 

The problem was not my x bracket (the bracket from the 5730 fitted like a glove and did not warp the card!). The thermal pads however... that was the problem. However even if the pads would have fitted perfectly the cooler still mounted slant on the card due to a slight hight difference. Ah well the next card will be one I dont have to mod or do any weird mechanical shyte to get it working.

 

The 5730M bracket is not perfect, it is slightly shorter than the dell nvidia xbracket, coupled with thermal pads sized 1.0mm you certainly will crush things. Do yourself a favor and get the card with the right bracket, use soft compressible 1.0mm thermal pads and not the high thermal conductivity stiff pads

 

Replaced the 5730M with a Dell Quadro 3000m (yeah not the fastest card out there but sufficient for me). Also had a 6870 but that didnt even show any image. Only got me blinking Scroll Lock and Caps Lock. The 3000m works like a charm (though its a bit hot).

 

Further tweaking resulted in a max temp drop of 20 degrees c. Went from a top in the 85-88 degrees c to 65-68 degrees c. The laptop reacts better/quicker in games. Powermax bench runs through the whole bench instead of just cutting out due to thermal restrictions. Very happy with the results.

 

Right so havent been working on the M15x for some time. However I recently bought an AMD M6100. Received it and built the card in as I did with the current Quadro 3000m. Turned on the machine.... no screen.... heard Windows starting and decided to hook up an external monitor. Screen came on and started working. Windows detected the card and went on working fine (except for showing anything on the integrated screen). Thought I screwed up something and placed the Quadro card back.. Voila got screen working. I am at a loss as to why the laptop did not show anything on the built in screen. Does anyone have any advice?

 

Interesting how the m6100 didn't work, it worked on mine but it ran hot despite making decent contact. By the way did the Quadro require tinkering with the drivers to work?

 

Nope just got drivers and worked like a charm. Only requires tinkering when you need newer drivers.

 

What drivers are you using? Anyway there is another card I know works and that is the M6000 but just be mindful that the core sits lower than just about any other card. Certainly runs a lot cooler than most only having 40-45w TDP and overclocks decently. The M6100 is a small furnace and my other Alienware that being an M18x R2 doesn't like them not having normal fan control and worse still the thermals are horrendous despite having the fans manually controlled. Runs hotter than my GTX 675Ms x.x

 

My 17 R1 with proper tinkering liked it, but did need custom fans. Whats weird is my clevo liked them in crossfire and even had auto fan control