M17 General Information Thread

[granyte]

i just changed my case and now my power strip is not working anymore i don't get why

edit after furter research i found out that i damaged the ribon card between the media/power button and the motherboard now i need to replace both of them

PS: having to pull your csmos batterie t force the laptop to boot is very annoying

[nodeffect]

Hey guys, I think my power adapter is going to broke.... it produce noise when I move my mouse or watch video or do stuffs like that.... Is it ok to used the new M17x laptop power adapter? Really need help. Thanks

[granyte]

as long as it output the same voltage and amp you should eb fine i'm using a dell adapter because they are smaller and lighter

[FoxTrot1337]

There are a few M17 adapters on eBay you could buy. The lowest I think was 45 dollars.

I had this problem last year but it was because I dropped it. My professor opened it and resoldered a loose transistor (or some copper coil, can't remember exactly what it was).

[nodeffect]

Thanks for the info guys... guess I'll just buy a dell adapter with same voltage...

[julian-nold]

Hi guys, long time no see

I am really happy to see this thread has grown to 100 pages wow, never expected that^^

I am not sure, but I will give it a try and ask this question here, hope you can help me!

It's about time to say goodbye to my Alien and is there a better place than here? So my question is what can I get for such an old but still nice piece of equipment?

Alienware m17 (late 2008) 3DMark06 12.538 (1280x720) & 12.188 (1280x1024)
3870 CrossFireX | T9400 2,53 GHz | 4GB DDR3 1067MHz | 2x160GB Raid0 | Windows 8 RC 64bit


Thanks in advance!

[ill_i_bus]

I don't suppose anyone has tried adding USB 3.0 ports to the M17 via the expresscard slot? I've been trying most the day using a startech expresscard 2xusb3.0 but with no luck. I get a code 10 device won't start error in device manager when loading the drivers.

Assuming the replacement expresscard doesn't work either, could it be anything to do with the bios (I think I used .29) or the intel chipset driver? I used the last Intel Chipset Driver posted in the Windows 7 drivers thread for the M17. Also tried the newer chipset driver recommended by Intel. Not sure what else to try. Is there a special expresscard driver aside from the manufacturer's one for my USB 3.0 expresscard? Or is it part of the chipset driver?

The plan was to setup a backup for my 3 internal drives to a raid 1 array. 1.5tb backup over usb 2.0 will take AGES! At the moment I've been backing up with lots of random small HDDs, USB sticks etc. Now I want to get a bit organised.

Edit, for some reason, uninstalling the expresscard driver makes windows reinstall the IR receiver device in the M17... I was thinking of trying out the expresscard either in linux or a clean WIndows7 install to check it's not a registry etc issue. If anyone has any other advice, ideas etc, please let me know. I had hoped to get at least another year out of my M17 and this USB 3.0 hub would have helped that along.

[granyte]

wow i just found out a broken keyboard can prevent this lappy from booting .....and can eve fake a dead gpu ...

[granyte]

Never mind the gpu is dead my second 4850 just died.

So anyone remember the link to that usefull reflow guide?
also isn't the lead vapor toxic so you have to use an oven you wanna throw?
Is the heatgun methode as good as the oven one?
any one tried reflowing an ati card?

[JasonNH]

Sorry to hear about that. I believe this is the thread that you were thinking of:

HOW TO: repair your dead graphics card in your alienware!

I don't know how much lead vapor if any would be given off at those temperatures, nor how much would be present in the first place.