New Alienware 14 Discussion and Sharing

[zorrus]

tricky part is that the Alienware notebook battery is built in

oh! i din realised!
anyone went to upgrade the inbuilt RAM? how much is it in the market?

 

[tarhan]

you do not need to worry about battery wear when always plugged in.

/1/New Alienware 14 - Battery Wear? - Alienware Arena Forums

 

[FlushX]

oh! i din realised!
anyone went to upgrade the inbuilt RAM? how much is it in the market?

Hmm. wanted to upgrade the RAM. But read around and saw that 16GB ram is actually unnecessary, so decided not to. Should spend the money on a SSD instead

going to install the SSD later tonight, hope everything goes well

 

[onefineday]

I just installed msata sd 128gb for os and the 750gb hdd for my other stuff. woots

Does the laptop come with the screws to install the msata? I havent personally open up the laptop to look inside yet was wondering if the screws for the msata is inside the laptop or come with the ssd

 

[tarhan]

Does the laptop come with the screws to install the msata? I havent personally open up the laptop to look inside yet was wondering if the screws for the msata is inside the laptop or come with the ssd

There is a screw hole but it dosent come with the screw. I just took a screw from the battery for the msata lol. Dosent really affect anything.

For me, the hard part is getting the os on the ssd. I could not install my os until i removed the original hdd under the cd drive.

Hope this helps

 

[hamsterblur]

There is a screw hole but it dosent come with the screw. I just took a screw from the battery for the msata lol. Dosent really affect anything.

For me, the hard part is getting the os on the ssd. I could not install my os until i removed the original hdd under the cd drive.

Hope this helps

I'm also trying to install the OS onto an Msata and keep the HDD as a storage drive. Question: how do you get the OS disk, since it doesn't come with the laptop?

 

[freakerknoid]

I'm also trying to install the OS onto an Msata and keep the HDD as a storage drive. Question: how do you get the OS disk, since it doesn't come with the laptop?

Hmm, yr laptop should come with os disc, it's the recovery media disc.

 

[freakerknoid]

Hmm. wanted to upgrade the RAM. But read around and saw that 16GB ram is actually unnecessary, so decided not to. Should spend the money on a SSD instead

going to install the SSD later tonight, hope everything goes well

Yeah, for game 8gb is more than enough but if you are doing designing stuff like Adobe Photoshop or video rendering stuff then 16gb is a good option.

 

[FlushX]

Hmm, yr laptop should come with os disc, it's the recovery media disc.

Hmm. I only have the 'Resource DVD' not sure if this contains the OS.

 

[watzup_ken]

I'm not using Alienware's Notebook, my AC adapter is always plug and on when i using the notebook, but i never put my battery into the notebook. i only used battery once in a while to avoid spoiling by leaving the battery keep only it drained out

Don't mind me saying, but I think the idea here may end up killing your battery faster. The battery's optimal charge level is between 40 to 80%. Best stored at that charge. Leaving the cells drained, will kill it even faster.

To be honest, battery nowadays are pretty good. With almost 10 months of usage, 80% charge on my Samsung laptop still maintains at around 6+ hours of battery life with Wifi usage, and 50% brightness. This is close to the original state when I first got it. So I recommend to just carry on using the battery. Keeping it stored all the time is not gonna help much since the cells in the battery have a limited lifespan anyway.

 

[freakerknoid]

Hmm. I only have the 'Resource DVD' not sure if this contains the OS.

I don't think so, that dvd i think its for the drivers and applications

 

[watzup_ken]

Try here,

http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/w...ginal-windows-8-32bit-64bit-isos-4046396.html

 

[hamsterblur]

Yup, the Alienware 14 only comes with a resource DVD but no OS disk nor recovery media.

Dell, after I called their technical support hotline, will send me a Windows 8 OS disk by mail, but will take 3-5 business days. Think I might try downloading the ISOs to try while I wait for the disk.

 

[FlushX]

Cool. Nice to see all the responses here.

So now my SSD can't work. The original Alienware 14 caddy is not available in the market yet as well

For all users who are looking to upgrade to SSD, I'd recommend getting the mSATA SSD to save yourself all the trouble.

Unless you're looking to replace the HDD only. For me, I'm looking to use both the SSD and HDD and that requires the optical drive to be removed.

 

[FlushX]

Will be getting a USB3.0 2.5" Enclosure for the HDD later today I suppose. Then can forget about the Optical Drive Caddy liao. Guess it won't be cheap also

Edit: found a 3rd party HDD Caddy

$30 Euro with shipping. Don't know whether to take the plunge or not.

 

[tarhan]

Will be getting a USB3.0 2.5" Enclosure for the HDD later today I suppose. Then can forget about the Optical Drive Caddy liao. Guess it won't be cheap also

Edit: found a 3rd party HDD Caddy

$30 Euro with shipping. Don't know whether to take the plunge or not.

Y don't just use the msata ssd and keep the dvd drive?

 

[tarhan]

I'm also trying to install the OS onto an Msata and keep the HDD as a storage drive. Question: how do you get the OS disk, since it doesn't come with the laptop?

For me, I was being a total noob and did a fresh install of os using a bootable usb which i downloaded from P*****bay.

For all the other guys out there, hold your horses and watch this vid first.

How to get Factory Settings on new Solid State Drive! FAST!! Alienware SSD - YouTube

Alienrespawn is your recovery disk!

Also, rmb to take down the windows 8 product key from the system menu before installing in case you need it. And remove the original ssd to prevent confusion.

Hope this helps

 

[FlushX]

Y don't just use the msata ssd and keep the dvd drive?

I bought the 2.5" SSD before I received the notebook. So ya

 

[hamsterblur]

For me, I was being a total noob and did a fresh install of os using a bootable usb which i downloaded from P*****bay.

For all the other guys out there, hold your horses and watch this vid first.

How to get Factory Settings on new Solid State Drive! FAST!! Alienware SSD - YouTube

Alienrespawn is your recovery disk!

Also, rmb to take down the windows 8 product key from the system menu before installing in case you need it. And remove the original ssd to prevent confusion.

Hope this helps

You did it the right way with a clean install because recovering to a new SSD using our updated version of AlienRespawn does not work (think the video was from 2012). I did try it before looking for a Windows 8 OS. When attempting to restore to the SSD, AlienRespawn said the SSD was too small and asked for a hard drive of at least 750GB (the original drive is 750GB). Guess AlienRespawn is an imaging software, so it won't work unless the new drive is similar sized or larger than the original drive.

 

[FlushX]

You did it the right way with a clean install because recovering to a new SSD using our updated version of AlienRespawn does not work (think the video was from 2012). I did try it before looking for a Windows 8 OS. When attempting to restore to the SSD, AlienRespawn said the SSD was too small and asked for a hard drive of at least 750GB (the original drive is 750GB). Guess AlienRespawn is an imaging software, so it won't work unless the new drive is similar sized or larger than the original drive.

Hmm. I'm gonna attempt to clone the entire HDD into my 128GB SSD. See if it works. Hopefully it does. Wish me luck!!