Busta Bloodnut

So i put my new GPU in and so far so good! The card itself was very nice looking. Way better than most "Frankenstein" cards ive seen. Didnt even have to put Vbios on it. Only tested slightly but I'll test it more though when i get more ptm 7950 since I didn't have enough of it to put on the card. At this point its just generic thermal paste that i dont want to use. that and I didnt want to wait for the x-bracket to get here, so i put in one from another card. Seems to fit okay. After gaming for a bit, it seems to run very good with it not going any higher than 42c, but i was playing dead Island from 2011. Even on its highest settings its not the best game to truly test it out, but like Durabat, im not that much of a gamer either. It will be tested more with Blender though since i do more of that than anything else and that should be a good test.

I ordered the mounting bracket from Amazon. The only very cheap one i can find anyway. The same seller who sold me the adapter has a bracket as well, but i refuse to pay that insane amount just for that. Speak of the devil, i just got it today, the adapter, and so far so good. Was able to OC a bit more to 4.79 ghz. Tried to get it to 4.8 but it kept getting BSOD, it did hit 4.84 before it did though lol. Im not that much of a wizard, so im not equipped to figure that out lol. I hope i still will be able to keep it the same speed when i get that card seeing as the PSU is 780w, though i doubt this machine even with that card would be able to get close to that amount of power draw lol. Thats good to know then. Idky XVsion says it doesn't come with VBios. Maybe things have changed since? i guess ill find out. No big deal if it doesn't. Thats easy to do. I also ordered more PTM 7950 so that'll help with cooling not to mention i also have a Llano cooling device and that thing works wonders lol. Well worth the money, imo lol.

Yeah, i wish the 4090 was cheaper, but apparently there's thermal throttling and other issues, but i just seen some of the wizards on here make improvements with that and other newer cards, so theres still hope for that yet. So when you got your 3080 did you have to get an X-bracket and VBIOS? I messaged XVsion and they said that the card doesn't come with either.

Got this, https://www.ebay.com/itm/134146959388, beastly 780w adapter for my Alienware m18x r2. Anyone here have any experience with this adapter for this machine? Or any machines from this generation? Luckily, for me I found a slightly cheaper one that wasn't being sold from Canada with those insane shipping and import fees...BUUUT i did have to buy the Alienware cord from that seller in the link since the adapter i bought came with a Clevo one :( . 67$ and 55$ shipping and import fee respectively (OOUUCH lol). I actually spent more on that wire than the box itself lol. Also upgrading my GPU from a Quadro P5000 to an RTX 3080 from X-Vsion. And...oh man...I gotta tell y'all....that was the most bizarre purchase experience to say the least lol. Also had to buy the custom heatsink and X-bracket since it doesnt come with a bracket. Seller who sold me the adapter said he got one from that seller from the link and it got lost in customs for a month and half and just bought another one and then got the delayed one a week after buying the other adapter lol. Man, I hope that doesn't happen with my cord lol. Anyway, posting this to give updates during this process and MAY come into road blocks so I might ask you wizards here for help if needed. Wish me luck y'all!

Just completed my Alienware collection with this m17x r2 and was wondering a good GPU upgrade path? It doesn't have to be the best/highest upgrade, but anything thats way better than the shitty AMD ATI SLI cards that this machine came with? I seen that the the GTX 780 is the best official Dell upgrade, but anything beyond that for an unlocked bios? I have a spare 980 sitting around not being used, but i read that that card has issues with the machines display. I tried researching for good cards, but there doesn't seem to be any clear answers and this machine seems to be a pain in the ass when it comes to GPU lol. How are 880's with this machine?

Sorry for the late reply. Thanks and yeah, im proud of my collection and just found a m17x r2, so now my Alienware collection is complete (The models i wanted anyway as i know theres way more, but i have no interest in those models). So this JBOD would load both those disks and the NVME?

My main m18x r2's OS is on a NVME SSD and want to know if I would be able to use the main HDD 3 slot ribbon tor extra storage for my OS since that HDD port is not being used. Is there any way to do that?

Ahhh, so it IS a custom one then? There's no stock ones? No wonder why I couldn't find anything. I figured I would have to go to the legend himself for one. Just bought a custom cpu heatsink for my m18x r2 from this cicichen lol. Thank you for answering my inquiry. Happy Holidays!

I have an Alienware m17x r4 and want to upgrade the cpu to a used 3940xm from my m18x r2. I seen a past post on here where some users had a triple copper pipe heatsink for this specific cpu in their m17x 4's. I cannot seem to find those particular heatsinks ANYWHERE. Like, even google images doesn't come up with any images of such a heatsink. Not saying they dont exist, but like, i would at least see an old image of one on google at least from past sales or w/e. Are they THAT rare? Do i have to go to cicichen594 for a custom one?

So I recently got 3rd r2 (Ik, ik, i have a problem, but it was mad cheap 😞) and this one didn't come with a modded BIOS. After checking to see if it works on the spare SSD i have, It seems like the screen seems brighter than the modded bios r2's that I have. Also the Command Center color schemes also seem to work better (ex: the white scheme is actually white and not off in some spots on the modded ones, specifically where the volume/eject/wifi button area is on the bezel sometimes seems to not match everything else). Also, always meant to bring this up in past posts but always forgot and its sort of relevant to this, but the button on the bezel area that opens the Command Center doesnt seem to work on the modded r2's either. Is there any way I can change the brightness via BIOS? Keyboard color scheme via BIOS? CC Button?

I have m18x r2's and recently i got a open boxed 3940 for my most recent r2. The older r2 had the older 3940 passed down from a broken r2 and i had gotten that cpu for that machine around 2021 (That r2 broke Oct 2023). Lately the fan on the older r2 has been acting up (as in being more active and louder) and its been hitting temps around 90, though very rarely. Mostly its still hitting 70s and occasionally 80s (lately). The newer one hasnt even hit 80 yet and the fans much more silent. They both have Llano cooling pads, which do help. Both r2's also have PTM7950 applied to them, with the older one having applied around January this year and the newer one half way through March. Both CPUs are OC'd to 4.5, which is of coarse is why they're hitting those temps, but my issue is when i got the ptm for the older one, it was nice and silent like this new one for like three months, but like this passed month it seems to be getting higher temps with the fan going more often. Could it be because the CPU is older and more worn from being OC'd? I REALLY hope it isnt the ptm because that stuff is (was) working like god tier. I mean, if i have to, ill just keep replacing it but i had seen from numerous sources that this stuff lasts way longer than anything else and that it gets better overtime, even when OC'd, Unless those sources weren't reliable? I mean it was ALOT of people swearing by this lol. Edit: Forgot to mention that the performance has been relatively the same when i applied that PTM-now even and had done a stress test and the highest it hit was 103 but passed every test. No BSOD either unless installing Nvidia Driver or transferring files to external drive or mSata. But thats been happening since ive gotten this machine. The new r2 one however doesnt do that at all. The only BSOD that one has gotten was from me accidently OC'ing it wrong.

Im using "debate" for lack of a better word as im not looing for an actual debate lol. Its more of a debate in my head on which GPU to get? Anyway, I have an Alienware m18x r2 and originally wanted to upgrade to a RTX 5000, but then seen ssj92's post about getting a Geforce RTX 3080. Now I dont know what to get. Is that 3080 stable enough to run or on an Alienware m18x r2? The benchmarks are better than the 5000 after all but would the 3080 still be better for 3D modeling too since the 5000 is literally made for stuff like that? Plus theres already a custom heatsink for that card and i cant seem to find one for the RTX 5000 for my machine. Im assuming i cannot use the standard heatsink for the 5000 since the core is slightly offset. Also that 3080 seems to be cheaper than any RTX 5000 ive seen, with the cheapest being some green card that looks like a standard MXM card that says Adlink on it on Ebay. Im leaning towards getting that 3080 for the reasons i listed and its much newer. Just unsure of its stability, though im unsure of the 5000's as well lol.

Hello. I have an Alienware m15x with a GTX 980 already installed. Everytime i start this machine I have a post screen that says: ***Powered by premamod.com*** Version 84.04.88.00.C1 Prema Mod - Personal - NOT FOR SALE! It happens before splash and seems to hinder its start up time. Is there a way to remove that? I understand that the Premamod is the vbios for the card itself but ive never installed a vbios before, so idk how to disable that screen. Im just looking to disable that screen not the vbios itself. Unless its supposed to do that and ill just have to deal with it?

Thats what im thinking about reflashing because today i just booted windows 10 via mSata to USB and it worked. Obviously Im not going to do it that way permanently though. I just wanted to see if Command Center would work because some of the lights werent on when i got the rig, so it had me worried. Thats why i made a big deal about getting windows to work right away. All lights worked btw thank god lol. Now, when you say "Clear CMOS" im assuming you mean unplug the CMOS battery and then plug it back in? If so i already did that and still nothing. Im assuming im going to have to reflash this machine. Ive never flashed before so would i be able to reflash a modded bios? or would i have to reflash to vanilla A11 and then reflash again to modded A11?

So i enabled UEFI mode and still nothing. Not even showing up in the UEFI boot list. *Update: I even tried using HDD caddie and still nothing.