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Alienware m17 r1 ( 2008 ) upgrades


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Baught this old beast the pre dell m17 r1

t9000

dual 3870

4gigs ram

 

wonder how much i can upgrade this guy.

 

i know the cpu can go q9000 series, gpu 4870 from m17x r2 should work also ? Its mxm II not sure theres better gpu’s?

can it handle 8/16gigs ram?

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Wil restore it to its original glory, parts are hard to find… i know it shares chassis with other laptops like m9700 but i know bottom case is nkt exactly the same. The map with install/drivers cd’s i have included. Will upload those to nbr for others to have it

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The best mxm2.1 video card you can put in this laptop is the black asus 4870 that was put in the asus w90. As far as I remember nvidia graphics cards will give a message about invalid mxm structure

4870.png

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3 hours ago, panda_zzz said:

The best mxm2.1 video card you can put in this laptop is the black asus 4870 that was put in the asus w90. As far as I remember nvidia graphics cards will give a message about invalid mxm structure

4870.png

Damn it even have the extra connector at the pci slot! I dont see a sli connector does it mean no sli with this card? 
 

yeah i also believe nvidia wont work good with this model! 

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IIRC the power delivery to the CPU was a bit lacking. While I had one, I had to dump the quad-core in favour of a dual-core; The quad-core was over-taxing the board and introducing wild frame-rate problems under load. YMMV but something to watch out for...

AW M18 R1 | i9-13900HX | RTX4090 | 64GB DDR5 

AW M17XR4 | i7-3940XM | GTX1070 | 32GB DDR3

AW M15X | i7-940XM | GTX970m | 16GB DDR3

Formerly Schurke of NBR and TechInferno

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(also, I'd suggest going faster single-gpu if you can over crossfire/SLI; crossfire support was hit and miss and nominally broke after a driver rev I can't recall; not sure it's even properly supported on the legacy channel)

AW M18 R1 | i9-13900HX | RTX4090 | 64GB DDR5 

AW M17XR4 | i7-3940XM | GTX1070 | 32GB DDR3

AW M15X | i7-940XM | GTX970m | 16GB DDR3

Formerly Schurke of NBR and TechInferno

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1 hour ago, Naberius said:

(also, I'd suggest going faster single-gpu if you can over crossfire/SLI; crossfire support was hit and miss and nominally broke after a driver rev I can't recall; not sure it's even properly supported on the legacy channel)

Good point, but isnt the fastest this 4870 ? Its mxm 2…
 

il check with quad if the framerates wil have issues

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2 hours ago, Pfudaniel said:

Good point, but isnt the fastest this 4870 ? Its mxm 2…

yes this is the fastest ati card for the mxm2.1 connector. the fastest nvidia card is the gtx280m.

 

asus 4870 supports crossfire connector for it is located in the back, but to find the cable as well as two cards will be quite difficult. in addition, for the main and slave card need different vbios


unfortunately there are problems with the bios if you try to run a card from another manufacturer in the laptop. tested on pre-dell Alienware Area-51 m17x and Alienware M5500i-R3/ Amilo Pi1536.

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39 minutes ago, panda_zzz said:

yes this is the fastest ati card for the mxm2.1 connector. the fastest nvidia card is the gtx280m.

 

asus 4870 supports crossfire connector for it is located in the back, but to find the cable as well as two cards will be quite difficult. in addition, for the main and slave card need different vbios


unfortunately there are problems with the bios if you try to run a card from another manufacturer in the laptop. tested on pre-dell Alienware Area-51 m17x and Alienware M5500i-R3/ Amilo Pi1536.

Yeah i baught a asus w90 after u mentioned it 🫣 unclear if there is 2 inside tho. 
 

true i got a m5500i-r3 also with x1400 i cud not get the nvidia GO to work.. tried 3 different bios for it…

 

do u know where to find the main/slave vbios for the 4870’s? 
 

 

 

 

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22 minutes ago, Pfudaniel said:

Yeah i baught a asus w90 after u mentioned it 🫣 unclear if there is 2 inside tho. 

We'll see if you're lucky.)

 

22 minutes ago, Pfudaniel said:

true i got a m5500i-r3 also with x1400 i cud not get the nvidia GO to work.. tried 3 different bios for it…

as far as I remember nvidia cards need bios 1.25 and ATI cards need 1.19. But with nvidia support more than 2gb of RAM is not detected.

 

22 minutes ago, Pfudaniel said:

do u know where to find the main/slave vbios for the 4870’s? 

Here's the bios from the main card I have. I don't have the other one, unfortunately.

ASUS.ROM

 

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13 hours ago, panda_zzz said:

We'll see if you're lucky.)

 

as far as I remember nvidia cards need bios 1.25 and ATI cards need 1.19. But with nvidia support more than 2gb of RAM is not detected.

 

Here's the bios from the main card I have. I don't have the other one, unfortunately.

ASUS.ROM 61.5 kB · 0 downloads

 

Thank you so much for sharing the rom!

will when it arrives all hunt for the slave card vbios. I saw that the asus sli cable is different from the alienware one. I guess one cud cut the asus sli cable and wire it back together to make it fit.
 

yeah correct this is what i know also with the nvidia support and ati cards of on the m5500. But il leave that one just with the x1400. Cud probably drop if ever a x1600 in it or higher ?

 

lets hope im lucky! I saw from the back all heatsink are in tho 🫣

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1 hour ago, Pfudaniel said:

yeah correct this is what i know also with the nvidia support and ati cards of on the m5500. But il leave that one just with the x1400. Cud probably drop if ever a x1600 in it or higher ?

If you're interested, here are the current specs. I bought my 4870 just to try to install it instead of the 4670, even if it works, I will have to lower its frequency. The 4670 is a good card and the temperature has never been above 75.

m5500.thumb.png.94d03547f2f8f8e785fc8a9955165b98.png

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3 hours ago, panda_zzz said:

If you're interested, here are the current specs. I bought my 4870 just to try to install it instead of the 4670, even if it works, I will have to lower its frequency. The 4670 is a good card and the temperature has never been above 75.

m5500.thumb.png.94d03547f2f8f8e785fc8a9955165b98.png

Damn thats pretty cool!!! Ur in 1.19 aswel with 4gb support ?

then thats my next upgrade 🫣 first finish of the m17 r1

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33 minutes ago, Pfudaniel said:

Btw does a MSI 560 work in alienware m15x r2? 

 

What do you mean? If we are talking about dell alienware M15x (2010) then it works any video card that can display the output via lvds that is max - gtx980m.

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12 minutes ago, panda_zzz said:

 

What do you mean? If we are talking about dell alienware M15x (2010) then it works any video card that can display the output via lvds that is max - gtx980m.

This cardIMG_4371.png.22f7a514262e6c09627464e5a1846001.png

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1 hour ago, Pfudaniel said:

This card

 

Depends on where you want to put this card. If in Dell M15x it will work, if in pre-dell M17 r1 it will not fit physically, because it is a card format MXM 3.0 type B

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32 minutes ago, panda_zzz said:

 

Depends on where you want to put this card. If in Dell M15x it will work, if in pre-dell M17 r1 it will not fit physically, because it is a card format MXM 3.0 type B

Yeah in the m15x from 2010/2011 with i7-950 cpu. Alright great then il get this since the 460 is dead… i managed to scoop a pretty amazing one. Like factory new with box and everything included7896286D-71DB-42AF-88BB-207F1582B1B9.jpeg.9e7a479490cfb6ed15553fefc23e90b5.jpeg 

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On 7/16/2024 at 9:05 AM, Pfudaniel said:

Yeah in the m15x from 2010/2011 with i7-950 cpu. Alright great then il get this since the 460 is dead… i managed to scoop a pretty amazing one. Like factory new with box and everything included7896286D-71DB-42AF-88BB-207F1582B1B9.jpeg.9e7a479490cfb6ed15553fefc23e90b5.jpeg 

 

Nicely done! TBH, I still use my M15x as a couch computer (and console emulator... and sometimes another client machine for testing low-end specs on software projects... it gets around). They're surprisingly capable when kitted out. Good choice!

 

AW M18 R1 | i9-13900HX | RTX4090 | 64GB DDR5 

AW M17XR4 | i7-3940XM | GTX1070 | 32GB DDR3

AW M15X | i7-940XM | GTX970m | 16GB DDR3

Formerly Schurke of NBR and TechInferno

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On 7/14/2024 at 7:24 PM, panda_zzz said:

I will wait for news of your m17x r1)

I got news! And yes they both working! Thing is tho. Shud i even use the asus w90 for the parts? The laptop itself is very rareIMG_4453.jpeg.81cd3c6b826cbc6437dd3b9a32510cb2.jpeg

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8 hours ago, Naberius said:

 

Nicely done! TBH, I still use my M15x as a couch computer (and console emulator... and sometimes another client machine for testing low-end specs on software projects... it gets around). They're surprisingly capable when kitted out. Good choice!

 

Yeah this one is for sale:)

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50 minutes ago, Pfudaniel said:

I got news! And yes they both working! Thing is tho. Shud i even use the asus w90 for the parts? The laptop itself is very rare

 

You decide for yourself) yes I agree asus w90 is a rare laptop but essentially I wouldn't say it is fundamentally different from pre-dell M17.
The differences are more interesting chipset and support for 3 RAM slots)

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1 hour ago, panda_zzz said:

 

You decide for yourself) yes I agree asus w90 is a rare laptop but essentially I wouldn't say it is fundamentally different from pre-dell M17.
The differences are more interesting chipset and support for 3 RAM slots)

Agreed! Wel il compare and think about it.. i might sell the asus otherwise 🧐.. i got to many laptops

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