Bios to allow overclocking with i7 920 released

 I'm angry right now... My Aurora ALX worked like a charm since I got it.  But as I saw all the users who have overclocked their CPU to 3.2 GHz, I thought "hell why not do it too, even if I don't really need that extra power for now"

So I went to the BIOS and activated the level 1 OC following the Auto Overclocking (Dell Factory Default) procedure.

After exiting the BIOS, the PC pasts POST successfully but after that, it says "Missing operating sys_" and nothing happens.

Now I'll have to re-install Windows. And what I see in the partition manager of the windows installation disk is not funny.  I have 2 hard drives in RAID0 which I had partionned in 2 partitions (50/50). Now I only see one of the partition and it says that it is Unallocated!! Does that means it whipped out everyting on my disk!?!?

If I press F10 when booting to access Alienware respawn, nothing happens. Maybe the recovery partition has been erase too. 

I never should have press that darn Level 1OC button in the bios....

Anyway, I just wanted to let know people to backup their stuff before doing the OC. Maybe there 1% chance that things go wrong, that chance happens to me.

Edit: I chose the unallocated partition, created a new partition by clicking on the new button, and the windows setup says it is unable to install windows on that partition. Great, now I cannot even install windows on my PC....

niklai, during you set the bios to default, the raid controller was reversed, so it should be enough to set the bios back to raid mode, Chris schould add this point to his auto overclocking guide for all raid users...

niklai, if I were you and running RAID0 I would not even attempt any form of overclocking without a full backup is extremely risky practice.

Unfortunately, the Dell Tech Support is equally clueless - knowing absolutely nothing about RAID and overclocking, so it's better that you read up yourselves about these topics and understand the consequences and the technicalities behind the two.

Anyways, after you have re-established your RAID volume you can restore from the AW Respawn discs ...

Well now that I already have lost everything on my disks, I can OC my CPU without any risk, that's the good thing ;-)

But now I'm stuck, my CPU is running at 3.20 Ghz in the bios, fine, but I can't manage to get the drives to run in RAID. The tech guy told me to type CTRL+I when booting but that doesn't make anything. I have a disk read error...

Anyway, I guess my RAID problem is an issue I should discuss in another thread, since this one is reserved to OC the 920.

niklai, I set up my raid0 on aurora as follows: set bios to raid, install windows as usual on one hard drive and create finally the raid0 configuration via intel matrix storage manger, this sofware is on you driver AL disc. This works with a good performance and is probable the only way to do it... the CTRL+I combination, as adviced from the dell help desk is surprisingly not work on our bios, my experince...

I received my Aurora today, I paid for the factory overclock but it was delivered totally stock at 2.67 of course. So I'm going to call to get that $200 bucks back. But worst is the desktop artifacts my HD5870 is displaying. It appears as if the card's memory or something is clocked too high. I've read that its a driver problem with theses cards and I did update to the latest drivers but I still have the artifacts.

I think its a software issue that needs to be worked out. I used driver cleaner to uninstall all of the ati stuff, than I installed the latest 9.12 drivers and now all the artifacts are gone. I'm gonna keep a close i on this though just in case there is overheating problem with this card.

I had the same issue with my system when I received it, small artifacts appearing on my desktop. Updating the drivers didn't help so I was about to call dell for a replacement card but the artifacts suddenly disappeared and never reappeared again. I think windows update has  something to do with it, after win 7 updated itself the artifacts disappeared.

so I was about to call dell for a replacement card but the artifacts suddenly disappeared and never reappeared again.

Never had this problem when I had the 5870 in my own built PC's - might want to keep an eye on the card and RMA DELL asap in case it is genuinely faulty ....

Please forgive my lack of technical expertise on this subject in advance. 

Given the fact that I only have the 525W power supply and 1067Mhz DDR3, what risk do I have (if any) of  permanent damage to my computer in using the default Level 1 OC?  I noticed it is now required to have at least the 1333Mhz DDR3 when building the overclocked i920 on the Dell website.  Obviously, the new bios wasn't available at the time I bought mine and didn't upgrade my memory at the time. 

eddiebell, no permanent risk of damage to your system so long as u keep in mind that you steer clear of high end graphics cards eg GTX285, 295, 5970 and possibly even 5870.

The low power PSU is fine for low to mid end applications but no more. 

Also keep in mind that your 1067Mhz DDR3 is being overclocked and you should test ur system for possible instabilities. 

Consider also replacing the DDR3 with 1333Mhz rated memory for stability.

I have almost same system: Aurora 525W  9Gb DDR3 10067Ghz Memory, Geforce 260 GTX and is running OC1 for 2 weeks and not a single problem. First I try to OC to 3.4Ghz and got critical error and blue screen, I turn it back to OC1 and I am happy now.

Okay I found out that my HD 5870 card wasn't bad after all but I had a bad dvi to hdmi cable connected to the card. But as far as the factory overclock, I called Dell which connected me to their technical support. The tech guy took over my computer system remotely thru the alienware web site and said yep, your system isn't overclock. He then guided me to overclock my computer step by step just as described in this thread. That level one option and everything. I told him that I read how to do that myself on their forum and the system wasn't delivered as ordered but he said its overclocked now and that is all he can do for me. I asked to talk to a supervisor regarding this and was put on hold for 45 minutes and never spoke with another person. I'll  have to handle this after christmas but just a warning to others, do not chose the overclock option that dell offers.

Premetimex,

I def need your help here! Maybe you can help me out...I'm done with alienware support!

So the first problem I've been having is that the computer is locking up constantly...black screen, then reboots. So I reset the BIOS, reformatted the computer, using the alienware disks to reinstall everything. It locked up again, but so far this morning hasn't given me any issues. Normally by now you couldn't run it past an hour. What do you think the issue was/is?

Second, I've lost all the alienware themes! Would you happen to have those wallpapers and theme files? I liked having that unique login screen.