Just got the M15X, question about the PSU?

Basically, found a 7970M for dirt cheap and tried upgrading my M17X R1 which resulted in failure. And to my luck, found an M15X (specs in my sig) for dirt cheap as well with the 5850M. I put the 7970M in, and it worked, simply plug and play .

Already ordered the 1080p screen, another 8GB ram stick, going to put 2 2TB drives inside (one of them formatted for Win 7, Win10, and more storage), removed the DVD drive to make room, and looking to upgrade to the i7-920XM. It looks like this will replace my good old M17X.

As for the PSU, I have an extra 240W PSU from my M17X R1. However, I have read that it is limited to 180W in this machine unless I remove the middle pin? I would like to confirm that.

For reference, the M15X is on the A09 bios and the 240W PSU does charge the battery.

 

Before pulling the pin, get yourself a right angle adapter and pull the pin off that to eliminate throttling. This way you can still charge the battery when needed by plugging the adapter directly.
http://www.amazon.com/90-degree-Connector-Converter-Latitude-Elitebook/dp/B009KUI41S

When I had the 7970 it would still throttle even with the pin pulled until I enabled, then disabled stealth mode and restarted the PC. I think this procedure is mentioned in the thread linked below.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-m15x-throttle-the-final-solution.729756/

EDIT: the first post in the above link lists a different procedure for eliminating throttling. For me enabling, then disabling stealth mode and restarting without unplugging the adapter with the pulled pin worked every time. I was using the 210W adapter though. Not sure if it's different with the 240W adapter.

 

Ahh they make an L-shaped adapter? Perfect! This fixes my one gripe with the M15X as opposed to the M17x - the location of the power jack on the back of the M17X is perfect as it keeps that plug away from sight, or being snagged, etc. The Plug being practically in the middle of the left side is such a poor design decision in my opinion, this should help fix that along with not having to pull the pin from my actual PSU

 

Looks like you have caught the M15x bug Akimitsui. Welcome on board

Toggling stealth is indeed needed at times if pin is pulled to enable full clocks but not a restart.

Or you can boot up pinless and not need to toggle anything.

If you are not sure simply test your clocks with gpuz render tool to make sure full 3d clocks are enabled before you game.

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Welcome to the M15x club!

Sent from my overpriced Galaxy S6 Edge +

 

Thanks for the welcomes and all of the info =). It really is amazing how flexible this laptop is in terms of GPU upgrades when compared to the other Alienware models of it's time

 

Corrected you there there is no more compatible machine than this!

 

I was so impressed with the M15x I gave one to my daughter and daughter in law. Each has the 920XM and 970M. Both love them.

 

Really makes you wonder when the sad day will arrive that the 920XM will become too outdated and start severely bottlenecking future GPUs.... or when MXM 3.0 will become replaced or just completely not used

 

Well, the time is coming. But for now the M15x is still viable. The only things I miss are HDMI out and USB 3. SATA 2 isn't that much of a hinderance in everyday use. I am still one of the first people to enter a map in Mechwarrior Online.

 

You can always use a Display Port to HDMI adapter and an Expresscard USB 3.0 card (not quite native 3.0 speeds but loads faster than 2.0)

 

Yes, I have the expresscard USB 3.0 adapter. But whenever I plug in a device I have to disable/enable the card in Device Manager to get it to work.

DisplayPort to HDMI does work well. I bought Amazon cables and have had no issues.

Sent from my overpriced Galaxy S6 Edge +

 

I actually have the same issue with the Expresscard when I plug in an external hard drive. Not sure why this happens but for a $7 piece of hardware I can't complain

 

Yeah, I only use it if I need to move some data. Like copying WoW folder or steam games.

Sent from my overpriced Galaxy S6 Edge +

 

I plan to try a mod that might be viable to extend the M15x viability.

Step 1 enter a 70w gpu (hopefully polaris) part.

Step 2 lightly grind away metal subframe between gpu and cpu. Just enough so that a single heatpipe can bridge across.

Step 3 attach a metal bracket to the heatpipe and bore 2 screw holes into the subframe either side of where heat pipe will rest.

Step 3 dab some thermal compound on cpu and gpu heatsink and fix the heatpipe in place.

Gpu heatsink should have thermal capacity allowing up to 4ghz on 4 cores and up to 4.2ghz 1/2 cores air cooled on 920xm in games

Imagine that. 100% OC nearly on air on standard cooling. Mind you this wouldnt be prime 95 stable only gaming stable

I have done this. I played through an entire game at 4.2 ghz all cores! The trick is how to overvolt with less than +200mv as this is too much voltage.

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Woah, that's an insane overclock! Can't wait to see that heatpipe mod when you get that done .
Out of curiosity do you happen to have a guide on how to overclock the 920XM? I realize that you have custom cooling already so there's no way I'll hit that 3.7GHz you have running as of yet. Going to be purchasing the 920XM within the next few days

Hmm... and now I am really tempted to scrap the dual 2TB drive setup in the M15X, and go with a 500GB SDD + 2TB. I think that I'll take the 500GB mSata SSD out of my Thinkpad X230 Tablet, replace that with a 128GB or 256GB one, and get an mSata to Sata adapter for the M15X. Only issue would be waiting on slow shipping from China, as the adapters here locally cost as much as an SSD

 

3.6ghz since I put cl8 ram in. With CLU and good contact stock cooling can manage just under load.

The heatpipe mod will make 3.6ghz comfortable and give a little headroom for some minor overvolting.

I hope to figure out manual voltage control circuit for the cpu as the wire mod can onlu unlock +200mv which is too much!

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I don't remember how the wire mod was made, but couldn't you use a diode on that wire to drop the voltage?

 

It is done by simply deactivating a VID pin by connecting it to VSS (cpu ground). As you know the holes are teeny tiny so the wire has to be very very thin to not snag on the cpu pins.

Good guide by SVL7 here : https://www.techinferno.com/index.p...ew-levels-by-increasing-the-cpu-core-voltage/

I am interested in your diode idea. question is how to attach this diode to this wire when it is so thin!?

 

It is done by simply deactivating a VID pin by connecting it to VSS (cpu ground). As you know the holes are teeny tiny so the wire has to be very very thin to not snag on the cpu pins.

Good guide by SVL7 here : https://www.techinferno.com/index.p...ew-levels-by-increasing-the-cpu-core-voltage/

I am interested in your diode idea. question is how to attach this diode to this wire when it is so thin!?

 

I've done this on an old Pentium M motherboard. I used some stranded copper speaker wire with thin strands and a pair of tweezers to put the wire in place. It wasn't as hard as it seems.

 

Very easy BUT only vid 4 does anything. Other vids that should deliver a smaller voltage boost do nothing when grounded. I tested with 2 different 920xm chips with no success.

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I think I know why . What is the default max voltage of your 920xm? Look at the binary table svl7 has on his post and see what pins are active in calculating that defaul voltage. For example, you want to add 100mV(pin3) - the problem is that in calculating the default max voltage, pin 3 is already disabled. So what you do is actually affect a lower and higher range of values.
What I suggest is to look at the table, identify your max voltage, see what pins are enabled and disabled for thst voltage and see what the combo is to add 100mV -> you have to enable a pin that is disabled and disable a pin that is enabled. After this, recalculate the table with those pins blocked so you make sure you don't have 'very big' voltage jumps. Hope it helps, let me know how it goes


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Ok, so I assume you tried pin3 and it dis nothing, means it is already disabled. What tou have to do is connect pin4 to ground(+200mv) and connect pin 3 to Vcc. I just hope it's physically possible.


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