Follow this steps

what GPU are you going to get? what will you do of 7970M?

confirmed: if you have activated your oem copy of w8.1 single language via ms phone support, the activation tokens backup via advanced tokens manager (atm) will work.

atm warned users that it has only 'partial' backup, i.e. successful restores can only work for those activations via phone, not the online activations.

hehe now i can do unlimited fresh installs that i want, again

the only problem i have now with windows 8.1 is that i cant play Batman Arkham City , something wrong with games for windows live. have tried everything founf on the net to restore it to no avail.

Not sure man, current 7970 seems to be problematic.

go nvidia lol!

what exactly are the problems for a 7970m? drivers?

The artifacts on the screen that happens pretty often. Also after I recover from sleep mode, the screen looks funny. Moving lines across the screen that doesn't go away till I restart. It's getting to be pretty frustrating.

[attachmentid=3762037]

EDIT: Contacted Dell today and spoke to another rep and explained the issue. So far GPU changed 5 times and LCD changed once. Touch pad was changed once but that was another issue. The keyboard is beginning to not respond that well on certain keys but that's a different matter. Rep said that she was going to submit a request for a new unit. Of course, I'm not very happy with that. I like what I have now, I just want the problem fixed. And if it's approved, I get one of the new ugly designs So we'll see how that goes. The ram I'm using on this machine might not work on the new one as well. DDR3 vs DDR3L. So another issue. Not prepared to see 32GB of ram go to waste.

I've had this machine for about 1.5 years now and it's been pretty problematic this whole year.

Also, if you're talking about the drivers it's not a great subject either. I think I'm on 13.8 and that's pretty much the most stable one so far. The latest ones suck and I've been through most of them till this point. Nvidia would have been a lot easier when it comes to drivers, but the expense would have taken my notebook over my budget.

This post has been edited by refnulf: Dec 10 2013, 01:08 PM

Be happy la! I am sure you will get a new machine

Latest update, Dell has approved a new unit. Now wait for the email with the quote.

Do let us know the quote. And you got the right to reject quote and then they might give you improved one. So try to get more out of them if possible. Maybe 780M

Thanks for the advice, I'll update once I have the quote. Should be in a day or two.

wow damn. i didn't know it's that bad; a whole year with that is painfully frustrating if i were you :/ since component replacements couldn't help, getting a new unit might be better for you.

yeah the ram's are not compatible. (well, they will work; but they're not good for other components in the long run)

Only reason I was able to hang on so long was because I was away long stretches of the time so I wasn't really using the machine that much. But whenever I wanted to, horrible issues that Dell couldn't fix.

yeah figured that out in your older posts. i think if you managed to do call dell for replacement units a few months earlier you might get one with 680m already. (i said this because nvidia 680m in my r4's are fine).

Few months earlier they were replacing my GPUs week after week. 3 arrived DOA, lol.

And I was away for weeks in between the replacements so it took some time to get done. Never went through a replacement before, so let's see what happens. They might have another R4 around hopefully!

This post has been edited by refnulf: Dec 10 2013, 04:20 PM

it's really too bad. good luck with the new machine just sell off the ram's and get new sticks.

Looks like I'll have to do that if I get a new model. If not, then I can keep em.

yeah; about the new model, it's not that bad

What new model are you guys talking about? Sorry for being ignorant.

the current aw 17. refnulf has a chance to get one as replacement to his r4.

This post has been edited by horns: Dec 10 2013, 06:17 PM