Let's share upcoming upgrade plans for the M15x beast :)

Hey guys,

This forum section is getting a bit old and grey! Let's revitalise it!

I have been putting together some plans to upgrade and restore my prized M15x. I share with you my plans and the costs involved. Perhaps others can do the same and we get a good idea how much things cost in reality NOT just dreams



As you can see. My plan is to restore the crap I have done to my machine. Replace many critical parts, upgrade the cooling fans to 11.2 cfm instead of 7.8 cfm.

The actual upgrading doesn't cost much.

The one thing I don't have a clue about is the GPU. Should I wait till Pascal or get a 970M now. I currently waiting for the next gen

So..

what are you thinking of doing to your M15x. Can you upgrade for less? Care to share!

I think it would be fantastic if we can share a model answer to those that ask whether to ditch or upgrade with the true costs involved. The machine can still be tweaked to perform as well as any current single GPU laptop. I can't imagine its days are over yet!

May we return this M15x forum back from the brink of death!!

 

Are you sure you haven't overvalued your parts for sale?

My currently upgrade plans only include getting sexy copper vram heatsinks to replace the moddiy slim profile ones. Coupled with my 140mm fan, this should improve cooling performance some what.

GPU is a massive ????? As I can't help but thinking that any new GPU including maxwell will get savagely bottlenecked by the platform in modern demanding games. Ram can't exceed 1333mhz. CPU has limited bandwidth and relatively low IPC compared to haswell or skylake. I will probably wait to see how much a gtx 970m goes for once pascal mobile is released.



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So far most aaa titles the graphics is the bottleneck.

Iam hoping that win 10 gets more mature by pascal mobile release and that dx12 can help our aging cpu along a bit.

Either way it certainly is a waiting game. Cant really lose; the above upgrade plus a cheap 970m in 6 months would be an okay package!

But yes the platform has its limits. We will see....

 

I also think you'll be a bit disappointed with hearing about anyone else's cooling mod ideas. Not many are willing to take the plunge and start drilling or soldering their beloved laptop. Would loved to be proved wrong but we did get the watercooled M15x recently which was pretty innovative. I'm hoping my new cooling mod will allow me to push 1ghz on 7970M at 1.05v and temps around 70 degrees. King did you test 1ghz @ 1.05v and was it stable for gaming?

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Nope. At 1.05V i could get to about 960mhz game stable.

Really depends though. Your card night fare much better.

So i guess at this point you are aware of the risk of killing the card. 7970m font have best OC survivabilty track record. Mine survived because i gamed rarely.

True about the watercooling. I was going along that route before now iam into restoring the machine. It seems to fetch a good price these days! Collectors item? LOL

 

Well I've got some pennies in the bank finally so I'd be well placed to finally build a desktop but I don't really want my 7970M to die. I might try 950/1400 (I think my memory doesn't like higher particularly in GTA) at 1.05v.

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I would suggest ZBook 17 fans, they are the most powerful and readily available fans I've ever came across. Of course this is if you have space for a 6.8 cm wide and 1.4 cm tall fan. I would also suggest Crucial or SanDisk SSDs, but it is just me. The choice is yours. Good luck with your upgrades anyway Sadly @fatboyslimerr is right, I don't see many people modifying their laptops and even less Alienwares.

 

For me, this little alien has a huge power and can withstand all the hard work that you put. Good materials, sexy and brutal design.

We may not have the latest generation processor, but the list of games that can move is long. It's an old bully

I encourage your update

 

I think some people get a little to wrapped up in all the newest tech specs... My M15x is on the edge of nearly ten years old (purchased in 2007). I've upgraded the GPU to a 7970M, and the CPU to a 920XM, and I'm still playing all the newest games I want (did before with my 5850/740QM). It runs GTA perfectly fine, and played the new StarWars Battlefront beta perfectly fine as well, to name a few "triple a titles". I haven't had to compromise quality either, everything is still at 1080P and near highest settings. So all this talk of bottlenecking comes off as a bit of a load of horse crap, no offense.

As for mods and upgrades... I've managed to keep my new CPU and GPU at stock settings, in fact I under-volted my GPU to 1V because it ran too hot. Would love to overclock it but I still need to obtain a new PSU to replace my ratty original one that the wires are pealing apart.

Lately I find the card is running hotter then usual, and we're moving into colder weather. So some cooling mods are up my alley, especially if I can overclock it a bit.

I normally run my laptop over my cooling pad, which blows cool air through the whole bottom surface, with it propped up, and the laptop propped up, I also keep the bottom cover off my laptop for better flow. Helps a lot. But I still go into HWiNFO and boost my fans to max speed before starting a game.

So lets hear some cooling ideas... LOL

 

The fact that you aren't even overclocking your CPU means you will 100% be facing bottlenecking but you aren't noticing it. It probably means you can increase graphical quality too without decreasing fps as you move the bottleneck over to the GPU. The fact is that I doubt you can play GTA or The Witcher 3 or whatever at a smooth 60 fps on medium/high and I reckon even upgrading to a GTX 970M wouldn't improve this situation greatly due to CPU. You should try overclocking your CPU

 

Wow you are proud to keep a 920xm at stock! Why did you buy one then? The 840qm runs the same if you don't OC.

Anyways I am sure you don't mean it but your tone is a bit aggressive....we ain't talking horse crap....

 

No no guys, not being aggressive or disrespective, not my intent at all. While I understand the technical fundamentals and complexities, I don't think the philosophy that triple a titles, particularly upcoming ones are excessively ground breaking to the point they render all hardware but the latest and greatest as weak and problematic. These systems are nearly as old as the Xbox 360, and still hold more future proof, framerate and graphics capability then even the latest gen consoles, which every triple-a title is built to run on before PC. I just find people are a bit keen to the concept only the newest every six months in a fresh slate $3K build is the way to game and it usually bites my nerve a bit - we've had a few of those trolls on here recently. I just don't find the hardware to be any sort of a bottleneck unless you're after highest frequencies/clocks and 3D mark scores. If anything I find the cooling to be more of an issue or bottleneck then anything. Anyways, moving on as it's a pointless debate/conversation.

I've overclocked it once, and did for a bit. But forgot about it as I stepped out of gaming for a bit. The one time I did push, I pushed to a point the system shut down as the PSU reached it's boiling point. My CPU temps are great well within 60C max of 70C when I overclocked it quiet a bit (can't recall the extent). My GPU though tends to peak to 80C at points in the weirdest of places, such as a menu for a particular game, but no where else in the game.

Read someone putting in better airflow fans into the stock coolers which I'd be down for, even adding or modifying the heatsinks.

 

Hey man. We certainly agree! I wouldnt be sinking around $1000 into it to restore and upgrade if i didnt!

What we are simply discussing is the limits of the platform. It is getting old now. In some instances the 920xm performs like a champ! In other ways it shows its age.

With the jump in performance expected with Pascal we will for sure see this highlighted even more. I do hope for better dx12 and mantle implementation to help out but otherwise there is nought we can do.

I am also going to take another look into ram options as tighter timings is the only way to boost IPC on the 920xm

I wonder if there is newly released stuff we can get to run at CAS 6 haha!

 

I've been wondering about that CL7 stuff svl7 had. Haven't seen any available. Do you think certain types of 1866mhz cl9 ram could run at 1333mhz 7 or lower?

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CL 7 has worked before. Kingston hyperX 16gb 1600mhz CL 9 can be flashed with thaiphoon burner to CL 7 at 1333mhz.

The important thing to remember is that you need micron D9 Memory chips which this kit has.

I wonder whether cas 6 is indeed possible or not though! At 80 quid a try not exactly cheap to experiment!

 

So are you planning to get a kit of these bad boys?

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Of course my friend of course

Then I experiment with my current set of G-skills. Worthless anyway

I might start purchasing very soon! Within a fortnight I hope! Everything except for a new GPU.

 

Purchasing complete! Just GPU to buy next year.

Thinking to put together an upgrade pack on the marketplace. 680M+8GB ram+Samsung 470 256GB SSD and a 330W Dell PSU for 300 dollars plus shipping.

A good deal for those running vanilla M15x!

 

You got all the fans and heatsinks? Very interested to know how all that turns out. Have to say my huge 140mm fan keeps my whole laptop very cool these days.
Under heavy load 940xm never goes over 80 degrees at 25x or 26x four cores. It is a pain having things sticking out or having to carry the cooling pad with me though so your internal fan mod is a really good idea.
Keep us updated!

 

I have got everything plus a right angle adaptor tip and new metal vents (I even modded those haha)

External cooling doesn't do it for me anymore. I looking to "restore" this machine to its original state with the ability to cool itself better than before.

My M15x isn't to be ground breaking anymore really! Triturbo and I were discussing what could be done though.

The M15x is likely capable of sporting a couple of mSATA slots and even a 4K screen due to having an unpopulated eDP inside.

This however take ALOT of know how and very fine soldering skills.

What I would like is the ability to fine tune the CPU voltage a little like with the M17x R2. That would be enough to hit 4ghz stable on certain XM chips without burning a hole in the desk.

 

mSATA?
by format or upgrade to SATA3?

 

You guys ought to check out Triturbo and his 8740w! Same chipset and era laptop. He managed to solder in not one but two msata slots.

Pretty unbelievable really!

 

But what do these connect to on the motherboard and what is the throughput like? Surely not standard mSata speeds?

 

SATA II since our machines are limited to it. I just have spare lanes that I've re-purposed to mSATAs - ODD (to make room for coolling) and the Docking station's upgrade bay (it's for DVD/BD or 2.5" HDD/SSD, so not really useful, if it was 3.5" I would've had some doubts). As for you, there are 3 spare SATA lanes waiting to be made useful. Of course that's on the schematics, and I could never know what the actual machine end-up with, unless I have it in front of me. Also if there's room to fit them, granted they are small, but still require some empty space. Then comes the question if the BIOS sees them. For my implementation, check my signature.

 

There is room for 1 mSATA drive sitting atop the ODD caddy. It would fit perfectly I think and flush inside the rear cover.

Other than that we are hard pushed to find additional space without removing the ODD entirely and have multiple mSATA's.

What is the speed on your mSATA's limited to triturbo? You get the full speed as modern laptops with mSATA integrated get?

I am due to upgrade the GPU next year we should spend the next few months looking into the 4k idea! I would love to try implementing it!

 

I just traded my X220 Tablet to my mother, who was using the M15x. She complained it was too bulky and I don't travel as much anymore, so I gave her my X220 to use instead.

So I have the M15x now. It had a ATi 5730 but I tried to stuff an 8970M in there, but fans are full speed and that doesn't work for me. It has a i7 620M that I will surely be upgrading to a 920XM/940XM. Already has the 1080P screen so I'm good there. I know there is a dual MSATA to 2.5" adapter so that's one way to squeeze more drives in there. I'm open to other suggestions.

 

Raidrair you mean this?

http://www.startech.com/HDD/Adapters/Dual-mSATA-SSD-to-2-5-SATA-RAID-Adapter~25SAT22MSAT

This is very interesting indeed, especially the part that says the RAID is OS independent, meaning it is not a soft-Raid which is good news.

 

This is the same one, yes. I may try it at some point.

 

That's a bummer. So, M15x is even more space constrained than 8740w? I find it hard to believe.

I've just ran it:



Hard to tell without a machine in front of me. Should be doable.

What brand is it?

You'll be limited to SATA-II speeds with the risks of RAID 0 (drive failure), so I don't see much use of such adapters, unless RAID 1 for security.

 

Dell. Pulled from Alienware 18

 

The 8740w is much bigger machine than the m15x. It stands to reason that it has a bit more space!

 

Strange, it should've worked. Have you tried a Clevo vBIOS?

Well, 8740w is not your typical 17" just as M15x, is not the typical 15". I love to say that 8740w is a 17" display in a 15" chassis (if you see it disassembled, you'll see how much inwards everything is), that's as good as it is bad. Good because it is really portable and relatively light (for an upgradeable 17"), bad - pretty much everything else - cooling, storage space and etc. M15x on other hand is a bit bigger than most 15" machines, so I would've expected to be at least a tie when it comes to available aftermarket expansion space. Anyway, I still think there's space to put at least two drives in there.

 

Yep. Still full fan load.

 

Erma Gawd...

I've been suffering wicked GPU temps lately.

Said frig and and did a rip down today. I normally blow my fans out every few months. But decided this time I'd really clean it all up and reapplied some thermal compound. I'm seeing 5-15 degrees difference pending on the game, no more minimizing or frame locking to cool it down every few minutes when it approaches the 80 mark.

Might be able to OC my GPU finally. lol

 

Wow today the PSUs arrived. They sent me the wrong model!

These bad boys pack 180w but are tiny! Fantastic! Check it out!


In the pictures you have 210w, original 150w and the new 180w.

Model is DA180PM111.
Now i get 360w+ in small form factor!


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Can't wait to mod the fans and put things to rights with a new SSD and better ram this is going to fly!

 

If you guys are interested in having something similar to the above setup there is an opportunity to buy one!

Check out this thread and give your support. It really helps to open up the full potential of the M15x!
Order your Modulable PSU Mod for Alienware laptops [+info inside]

 

PSUs are cool! I'm really interested to see how your RAM flashing goes! 1333mhz cl7 and ~4ghz on your CPU will be very fast!

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A bit scared of the flashing part lol. I will try but I might wimp out lol! Lots of research when they arrive for sure.

4ghz on the cpu? Not possible without a voltage bump. Unless I can figure out how to increase voltage in smaller increments NOT +200mv off the bat it won't happen. 3.6-3.73ghz for now.

If the cooling upgrade works wonders I may try my hand again at voltage modding. Why not!

 

Well messed around with my new fans. Upgrading cpu fan really is a no go! spent several hours and pretty much destroyed a couple of fans!

Gpu fan i try tomorrow....

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Oh no! Space constraints? Hope you have more luck with GPU side. CPU always was going to be more tricky seeing how the fan is housed within the heatsink. One idea would be to break off that housing but not sure if that would be a good idea.

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Also have you seen svl7's custom copper heatsink for m15x over on TI? Its frickin' awesome!

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Yeah he developed it befor3 kepler and gcn! Would love to my hands on that. Shame about the cpu really! That is the component that could do with extra cooling.

Gpu looks good. The m17x fan has to be completely stripped of all plastic which is difficult but looks like it may well function! Unfortunately one fan i managed to pull the power wire (blue) off its solder mount. I will repeat process with my other m17x fan and then tape the solder points firmly to give more strength while i test.

The i will glue the assembly in place of the old fan although off centre as it is big and finish.

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There's always the MSi GX620 fan for the CPU. I'd guess it is small enough to fit in there.

 

Well with my fingers desensitised from glue! Iam happy to show you guys the gpu fan upgraded!

It fits! Just. As I planned i had to grind all the plastic away from the motor and cut the metal off the exit vent of the fan.

Still more work needed. The fan is still scraping something a little so needs adjustment and i will have to cut the opening larger as airflow is currently limited. Then to plug the big ass hole in front of the heatsink! hard work!




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Once complete i will be in short order replacing both heatsink assemblies and popping a new backpanel on. These i already have.

Then new exhaust vent covers and finally when they arrive the ram and ssd...

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So I understand, you took a M17x fan and put it into the M15x steel housing.

Fan definitely looks a lot more efficient on it's own compared to these original ones. Following closely.

I too wish I could get a hold of the documents to manufacture or buy that coppy heatsink, I seen it over on TI as well. Freaking would be awesome.

 

As cool as this copper heat-sink looks it does little to cool, unless you blow air at directly. The best way to cool is BIG radiator, BIG fan and plenty of pipes.

Nice job King! You can shave a bit of the housing if the fan touches it. That's what I did with my Acer. What is the diameter of this fan?

 

Having issues with the trusty M15x! I replaced the heatsinks, fans and repasted both cpu and gpu but the computer wouldn't boot. Loosened the screws on the gpu and it boots usually but sometimes still gets black screen during boot!

Reckon I have not seated the GPU properly...annoying. CPU runs super hot too. I think the stock sink just cannot deal with the heat. Need to rack my brain what to do without going down the destroy the chassis route again!!

Tempted to place an additional heatpipe between cpu and gpu but while this will greatly help during cpu intensive situations the gpu heatsink would get completely overloaded while gaming!

Perhaps Pascal will bring a very efficient cool gpu into the mix allowing me to do this! Experimentation experimentation!

 

I think your first idea of adding small vram heatsinks to the heatsinks and heatpipes is still the way to go. I know you want compact but you're too constrained if you go down that route. I've just bought some pure copper vram heatsinks to replace the low profile ones from ModDIY I've been using for a few years now! Will get those attached and possibly widen my bottom cover hole so I can fit more on the CPU side. Couple this with my super duper cooling 140mm fan, should shave off a few degrees. As it is right now it takes 10 minutes or so for prime95 to reach above 90 degrees at x25 on 4 cores which is great and gaming temps in GTA V never go over 80 at the same overclock. I'd just like this cooling mod to be powerful enough so that the CPU fan doesn't spool up as high and therefore make less noise.