Status Update

Apologies - I have been a bit busy lately. Updates will resume soon. Thanks for your patience and for following the blog. :)

NVIDIA releases 197.16 WHQL Driver - *UPDATED*

As part of their Verde Program, NV released 197.16 (WHQL) today.

AlienFX Tutorial available for download - Dell Support

Not sure when this went up on the support.dell.com site, the Documentation area for the M17x now includes a link to a tutorial on AlienFX.

SLI Profile Updater - Updated!

With the release of the NV 197.15 driver, I figured it was time for another update. I grabbed the SLI Profiles and have updated the 'modded' batch updater. Again, this is to be used if you are having issues with enabling SLI on newer game releases with your current driver.

Dell posts NV beta driver to resolve DPC audio interrupt

Today Dell posted the 196.86 NV Beta driver. This driver implements the change which ManuelG of NVIDIA Forums spoke of here:

The fix does not disable Powermizer. The driver was in a DPC state for too long and this was corrected. It should not have an adverse affect on performance. Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will be releasing a new driver which unfortunately does not include this fix as it did not make it in time (the fix was added shortly after this driver was built). The fix will be in drivers following this. Once I get the exact driver versions, I will update this thread. Quote Source

Piriform updates CCleaner to v2.29

Piriform updated CCleaner to v2.29 on 2/25.

DPC Latency Revisited - Part 2

As all M17x R1 owners are aware, the recent workaround posted Friday on the Dell blog did not fully resolve the DPC Latency issue. I was fortunate enough to speak with Alienware's Director of Engineering, Patrick Desbois, on Sunday concerning this. As it turned out, Patrick had a visit to the Bay Area scheduled for Monday and he was kind enough to set some time aside to meet with me.

Command Center updated to v2.5.44.0

Today Dell released an update for the Alienware Command Center. This update is the first which combines all three models (M15x, M17x and M17xR2).

Resident Evil 5 Benchmark demystified... FPS Drop FIXED

Notebookreview.com member Kade Storm approached me with an interesting issue. The Resident Evil 5 benchmark as some of you know has issues with Area 3 and Area 4. A very low FPS drop shows up in Area 3 and also slightly impacts Area 4.

Current Win7 64 Drivers (R2)

Coming Soon

Synaptics TouchPad updated to v.14.0.19

Yesterday, Dell posted an update to the Synaptics TouchPad driver. This updated driver was posted under the M11x drivers however since both the M11x and M17x (R1 & R2) share the same touchpad it is compatible.

In Memoriam: ChrisRay, 1982 - 2010 (NVNews)

I saw this earlier over @ NVIDIA's forums and wanted to pass it on. Some of you may have exchanged PM's or posts with Chris in the past. He was very active in the NVIDIA community.

NVIDIA SLI Profiles (MODDED) Updater - Updated!

Well, since NV recently released the 196.34 Beta driver I figured it was time for another update. I grabbed the SLI Profiles and have updated modded batch updater. Again, this is to be used if you are having issues with enabling SLI on newer game releases with your current driver.

Driver Updates - IDT Audio, Bluetooth and ATI

Dell released a few more driver updates. The following were released for the M17x r2 however they also will work with the r1. I have confirmed both the bluetooth and audio updates. The ATI driver I am listing since its a Dell release for the 4870's. Owner's with the 4870 have other options of course.

IDT 92HD73C1 Audio Driver v.6.10.0.6259 Released

Today, Dell posted a handful of drivers for the M17x R2 refresh. Among these drivers we have an update for the IDT Audio Driver. The rest of the drivers released so far for the M17x r2 are the same version we have for the r1. I will be checking versions and testing compatibility as they are released :)