first step with m9700

XP works great with games, but Vista will work also. It will really depend on your setup, what vid card(s), processor, memory and screen, and your uses.

For specific tech info on the m9700, Alienware's knowledge base is a great resource. Here's a link to a search I did for m9700 windows install driver order.

In the windows installs, you'll see that you will need to install the RAID controller driver before loading the OS, and how to do that either with a floppy drive, or a program called nLite that will allow you to put the drivers into an iso image of the OS disc.

The drivers for the m9700 can be downloaded from AW's driver download page, any other info you need will likely be in the knowledge base somewhere.

Hopefully it has one Vid Card at least

LOL... Yeah, buying an "Alienware" on eBay is like a box o' chocolates... you never know what you're going to get...

Saw your post in google, so I thought I should register and give you some advice.
I have had bad experiences with Vista on this system. I managed to find all the necessary drivers for the m9700, finding audio drivers for it though is damn near impossible. The latest audio drivers I could find for x64 vista was dated back in 2006.
It seems that the audio chipset used is the Soundmax AD1986. Don't get this confused with the AD1986a as this driver will not work, I kept getting "The device cannot start(Code 10)" in device manager.
Another problem in vista that I believe to be related to the audio driver, is that if there is any medium to heavy hard drive activity the audio will stutter heavily, Which makes it annoying to play video games like Crysis and Bioshock.
Right now I am trying to get XP x64 to work on it. Again, drivers are hard to find for it. I did manage to find all the drivers except for the webcam drivers, I managed to find some but the only way to use the cam was through the actual software, which made it entirely useless as it could not be used with any other software.

The M9700 works great in XP x86 though. Don't get the driver for the wireless from the AW website though, as that one kept failing on me, instead go directly to Realtek for it.

If you need any video drivers head over to http://www.laptopvideo2go.com to get the latest.
I hope with my advice you don't get as frustrated as I did with my laptop.

BTW... Rather than slipstreaming Raid/SATA drivers, is it possible to copy them to a flash drive? I can load the drivers from a flash in XP x64 setup, but as soon as is begins to copy files it asks for NVIDIA SCSI drivers. Am I using the wrong drivers? I just dont want to slipstream a CD then realize that I am just gonna get the same error again.

Alienware didn't sell the m9700 with either XP or Vista 64 bit OS'es. That's why there aren't 64 bit drivers available through AW for the m9700.

The likely reason you're having issues with Soundmax drivers is the driver packages are written for each specific installation, so other soundmax drivers likely won't work correctly with the m9700. Unfortunately, since AW doesn't support 64 bit... they don't have a driver package written specifically for this setup.

The 32 bit versions of both XP and Vista are supported, and the drivers are available from Alienware's driver download page.

I didn't install Vista onto my m9700, so I can't compare performance from XP to Vista on the platform. Early Vista adopters weren't too happy, and many switched back to XP due to better game performance, but I'm not sure if that's still the case with all the updates to Vista now...

I have Vista on my desktop, and I'm getting used to it. It works fine for me, but whether that would translate to the m9700, I can't say... I haven't had any issues with any games, and I'm very happy with the performance.

I'm almost certain the last time I reinstalled on my m9700, that I used my thumb drive. I might be confused though since it's been a while and I've set up several computers since then... I think I have the bios set up to recognize usb devices, and it sees the thumb drive as the A:/ drive when it's plugged in. I'm really foggy on this at the moment though, might be my desktop I'm remembering...

There is an easy way to eliminate the BS though... Download a program called nLite. It will make it easy to insert the RAID drivers into the .iso file for the windows disc, then you can burn a new cd and just use that. nLite slipstreams the RAID drivers onto the install disc. Several people have done that here, and say it worked fine.

To use your USB flash key as the XP “F6” RAID driver you need two things.

1.your bios must support USB flash boot. (as far as I remember the m9700 does)
2.you have to partition your USB flash device. To do that:
a.open a command prompt and type diskpart
b.from diskpart type list disk (then enter)
c.Find which Disk # is the USB flash. Don’t get it wrong or you might clear your HHD instead! (it’s probably disk 1)
d.They type the below, each followed by enter
i.Select disk # (the disk from c.)
ii.Clean
iii.create partition primary
iv.select partition # (from c. again)
v.active
vi.format fs-fat32
vii.assign
viii.exit

Now just copy the files from the XP F6 RAID driver floppy to your USB flash and you’re all set.

If your MOBO support USB Flash Booting (set in the BIOS normally) you can also copy a boot disk to your USB flash and boot to it. This is very helpful if you want to use Windows Restore Environment (Vista) or any other 3rd party offline imaging software (I use Symantec System Recovery *it’s the same as Ghost really*)

Thanks for your advice guys, I now know that I was not using the correct drivers on my flash drive to install XP x64. I'll try finding proper drivers so I can install on Raid.
It just frustrates me that Alienware chooses to put a x64 processor in their mobile systems but chooses not to support it.

For the errors in device manager, make sure you've downloaded and installed all the drivers from Alienware's driver download page. I think you need the mobo chipset driver for the errors you're getting as the chipset driver handles the bus. Go to Alienware.com, click on "support", and then driver downloads. Also make sure you get the cpu driver.

For the video, right click on the desktop, click properties, then go into the advanced properties for the vid card. There is an option in there to enable or disable SLI. You can run 3dMark06 with it enabled, and disabled to see the difference in performance.

As for the hd's, there are two trays on the right side of the base of the laptop. These are for the hd's. Pull them out and see what's in there. If you want RAID, you have to enable it in the bios. nLite must have worked, because if you didn't get the controller driver in there, the hd wouldn't show up at all.

The 1440 x 900 screen is one of the original options. It should be fine for this size laptop, and will help game performance over the 1920 x 1200 option.

For any other issues, try Alienware's knowledge base. On the support page, there's a search. Most of the information you'll need will be found there. Lots of tutorials and instructions with pictures for just about everything.

Hi there,
BCM92045NMD I believe is the bluetooth, which you can get the latest software from the Broadcom website. As for the other two, you should be able to get the latest Nforce4 drivers, install them and the unidentified devices should disappear.

The nForce4 drivers are listed as the chipset drivers on AW's download page, and the bluetooth drivers AW certified for the m9700 are also available there.

Those drivers are dated back in 2005. Normally I would also suggest going to the laptop manufacturer site for drivers, but AW driver support sucks in my opinion.

Yeah, I agree... AW driver support is lacking, especially now that games are released with specific drivers recommended.

The reason I would start with the AW certified drivers though would be to eliminate that as a concern if there are issues. I have my m9700 updated to the latest chipset drivers from Nvidia, but I started out with the olde AW drivers with my last format.

Thanks for your help by the way answering his question.