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M15X Memory Upgrade
Hi All I have a couple of questions regarding my M15X. I have had my laptop for a good few years now and decided it needs updating/upgrading. I have an alienware M15X, i7 q720 (1.60ghz), ddr3 4gb Ram and a NVidia GTX 260m installed. I was looking to upgrade my RAM to 8GB 1333MHz (max recommended in the manual), however I have read in a few places that people are installing 16GB and this runs fine and is correctly recognised. I wanted to know if it is worth doing this or even if it makes that much of a difference or if there would be any issues? I also wanted to improve my FPS while gaming online, what other upgrades would you recommend? I have also been reading about updating my BIOS, but don't think it will make any difference in performance, am I right in thinking that? On a side note, I have just bought a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB SSD that I will be installing in my m15x. Thanks in advance
89fordprobee
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February 14th, 2014 17:00
based on your cpu. you got the M15X R1 ... and to be honest unless your doing ram intense programs or opening everything on your system at once going from 8 to 16 gig will have almost no effect, in turn might actually slow you down.. but if I remember correctly the R1 dosent support more then 8 gig but my memory aint what it use to be.
SSD will drastically speed your system up, it will be like night and day, but if you do have warranty left remember to keep original parts as they will be required for trouble shooting purposes, changing parts doesnt void warranty unless you damage something in the process
Dhneil
25 Posts
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February 14th, 2014 17:00
Hello Milli84,
Upgrading your RAM should do wonders with the speed of your system, though that SSD that you are installing will also increase hard drive read/write speed exponentially.
I am not sure how it will effect your warranty to go outside what Dell specifies but 8GB will more then likely be high enough with the processing power and graphics card you have. If you want to try and upgrade to 16GB you may run in to issue's that somebody else already figured out, or those people may not be using the RAM to their full potential because the system just can't do it. There is also the chance that 8GB was the highest that was tested by Dell and 16GB works just fine though.
Milli84
2 Posts
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February 15th, 2014 04:00
Thank you for the replies, it really helps.
i am going to stick to upgrading to 8MB ramm and my SSD. Hopefully this should be ok for the next year or so, I'll just change my laptop ver at that time.
Alienware-L_Por
842 Posts
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February 18th, 2014 10:00
In order to increase the gaming performance I would say that the video card needs to be upgraded as well. The SSD+RAM will help you a lot with software and multi-tasking but won't do much for gaming except for decreasing loading times.
Dhneil
25 Posts
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February 18th, 2014 13:00
I agree with Alienware-L_Porras to an extent. Depending on what kind of limitations/lag/latency you were feeling because of the read/write speed and use of paging file during in game experience the upgrades will do wonders.
Of course after that there is the graphics capabilities or limitations that you will run in to and if as an end user you find that you want a better GPU, here is a link to the teardown/service manual.
ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_laptop/esuprt_alienware_laptops/alienware-m15x_service%20manual_en-us.pdf
Finding a graphics card that is compatibile with your chipset and motherboard is another issue though. At the following link you can enter your service tag and see if there is available graphics cards, or possibly the name of your motherboard. Once you know the motherboard you can find out what videocards are compatible but make sure you match up how much power and cooling is available.
http://www.dell.com/support/my-support/us/en/04/product-support/product/alienware-m15x#alienware-m15x/upgrade?&_suid=1392753884670004759041637357797
I would also look up reviews for any kind of configuration you plan on doing first to see if anyone has previously been successful or not - you might even find someone who has done all the work for you already. If you stay within the same family of cards you might be able to use the same drivers but you will have to think about this aswell.
I'm not trying to dissuade you from doing this, but atleast you know what you're getting in to.