nice yeah just have fun with it.

m17x r4 is a single-gpu laptop. there will not be a crossfire or sli.

680m should be good. however from what i have read, 980m will be available in the next few months.

what do you mean by, 'ssd sure lower data'? it's a must to have ssd if you wanna see your laptop perform well.

hehe a 256gb ssd should be fine for OS, some apps, and a few games that you play most. there is nowhere a hdd can match a ssd in terms of speed. as for the ssd options, for the time being just avoid samsung 840 evo (there is an on-going issue with this ssd). a more practical size imo is 480gb or above.

to start, you can put 1x ssd for OS/apps/games, and 1x hdd for data storage. (the max m17x r4 can go is 3x 2.5" ssd/hdd, and 1x msata ssd)

talking about ic diamond, you should know that it's abrasive in nature. if you wanna maintain the laptop regularly, i suggest you use more common ones, such as arctic cooling mx-4. ic diamond also leaves marks to your heat sinks. to me i think coollaboratory liquid ultra is better. (for cpu especially. however special care must be taken when apply. it's electrically conductive in nature)

normally the triple-pipe heatsink for gpu is efficient. my 680m for instance never get pass 80c under load. (TIM used: mx-4)

no problem

uh? using ssd for download? normally we don't do that.

usually ssd is used to house OS, apps, and games because the strength of a ssd is much faster load time. (more reads, less writes) and it's expensive. hdd, on the other hand, can handle rigorous writes, like downloading stuff. and it is low-cost with large storage space. also, as always, hdd speed is still much faster than our internet download speed. so it makes more sense to use hdd for download and storage purposes, while spare limited space in ssd to store more apps and games.

for m17x r4, msata slot and dvdrom port are sata2 (250MB/s max), while hdd sata port is sata3 (600MB/s) so yeah sata ssd is faster than msata ssd (not because of ssd, but the speed limitation due to different sata versions)

still, 250MB/s is not that bad. you still can run OS from msata ssd.

Hahahaha! Yes! Its finally here! 980m is really worth the upgrade if we look at reviews :) the power efficiency might be the real cure for laptops to run those specs lol!

For desktops, imo its better to wait for ti.

uh? i'm no sifu lah. there are so many hardcore people here. i just kepoh this and that only.

try coollaboratory liquid ultra. my 3820qm and 3840qm almost reached 100c before this (98 to 99c; long hours of bf4). it's been weeks after CLU application, it never get pass 86c under loads at hot room temperature. (yeah. a brutal 12 to 13c drop, literally)

for gpu, the triple pipe heatsink does magic. with just mx-4 the gpu can stay below 80c at all times. impressive

haha nice

have fun with that r4. it's a good machine i must say; plenty of rooms for improvement.

no. it's stock heatsink that came with 680m. well yeah someone replaced that cpu fan with the one in m14x/m15x which is of much higher cfm (i forgot which one but there was a tutorial about how he did it)

haha for laptops i saw a number of home-brew wc solutions too. however imo it's too much.

surely desktops are more fun. just get a good case and throw whatever you want in lol!

i have used the machines for almost 2 years. there is no sign of surface peeling off yet.

i think it's legit because initially i read about them from cyntrix technology fb page. now i think the sellers here also can offer you that. (just pm them and ask)

oh. i think i can just spray the whole cover with plastidip if that happens lol

it's easy to take it off hehe

no need. i have done it before.

Ah.. I didn't take pictures. Previously what I did was a failure because i wanted to see the outcomes too eagerly. (Simply sprayed tbh) I torn it off after that lol!

It has no effect on the soft touch surface.

unplanned. bought plastidip go home and just spray haha!

er.. the soft touch surface remains but it's covered with plastip. the surface is still fine after tearing plastidip off.

plastidip is just a layer of rubber-like coating that protects the surface. it's fun to play with lol!

yes if it's not reversible i will not play with it hehe

there are plenty of videos at youtube.

.. good idea about custom rigs. maybe i spray the frames of my h440 to become all black

just plain black. that's what i want

to do a fresh install, it's always better to keep a local copy of all latest drivers published at dell support site.

after the fresh OS install, DON'T connect to the internet first.

install all the drivers, start with intel drivers first (chipset, rst, management engine, etc.), then followed by others (ethernet, wifi, audio, gpu, card reader, freefall sensor, etc. for gpu, you can skip intel integrated gpu if you wanna run solely on discrete gpu).

this make sure all the drivers can run properly even without windows update.

then, connect to internet and install dotnet 3.5 from programs and features. finally install the apps, like the osd, and command center.

of all fresh installs that i have done to my laptops i never had a single issues before.

haha so your problem is about dvd/bluray ripping software that has its proprietary drivers. how come it didn't happen before? is it the newer version?

ah that is the actual reason lol! usually it happens when you have too many different apps like this.