Hey Everyone,
I have finally been able to MOD the BIOS for the M18XR1. I've upgraded version A05 to be UNLOCKED, Have Intel's RST OpRom 10, 11, & 12 (and all sub versions), and the RST Rom I used is modded to support TRIM in RAID0 (Confirmed by TRIMCHECK tool)! I've also been able to upgrade the Intel ME Firmware to the latest / LAST version of 7.1.80! If anyone is interested, please send me a message as I'd be happy to give it away! I'm not looking to ask for money or anything like that. I just want to help support the community!
Also, I'd like to update the BIOS even more, so if anyone knows where we can get an updated GOP Driver, vBIOS, NIC, etc... OpRom, please let me know as I'd like to add those into our systems as well.
Also, just a word of warning - this update worked fine for me, but I installed my OS in legacy mode, not UEFI. When in UEFI, you MAY need to reinstall the OS. However, that's not a definate. To try and make it so you don't have to do that, I'd suggest a gradual upgrade, like the one I did. I created a bios with OpRom v 10.0, then 10.8, then 11.2 then 11.6 and finally 12.9.0. You may not need to do all of that, but just a suggestion.
Again, if you'd like to upgrade, please let me know. I made this simply to contribute to the group. Any donations are appreciated, but not required. I'm just wanting to make our Alienware M18xR1's relevant again!!!
Thanks,
Swick
PS. The BIOS is completely UNLOCKED, so you will have TONS of options that you would normally not see!
Plus, this bios is Win flashable by using the insydeflash utility. Just run the flash utility, follow instructions, and profit. (Backup data first, as you MAY need to reinstall OS if you are in UEFI. I installed as legacy, so I didn't have that problem, but a tester of mine had to reinstall Win 7 because of that darn UEFI!)

We figured out that it was just the process - the way of doing the upgrade. Raider helped me out, and works perfectly. (No problems!)
Plus, the IME upgrade doesn't need to be done. I just offered both as an option. However, it's working, as several have tested without problems - all the way up to 13.5 OpRom! :)
Mr Fox was the first who tested, and he did the Inte ME upgrade first, then the Bios UpDATE. That caused a TON of problems, obviously!
However, Raider, did the bios update first, then the oprom (versions 12.9 & 13.5) and they both worked!!
I've tested it out on all my m18xr1's several times, and the Bios update then the IME worked fine.
However, I just updated the BIOS with new microcode, and want to flash that, but am worried cause I do not want to run into the problem that Mr Fox did, lol!
Otherwise, there wont be any more upgrades to our bios, most likely, so if I can figure out how to flash this newer bios with microcode, I'll then be in good shape! :)

Thanks,
Swick

PS. I didn't give a download link here or anything like that on here, yet, because it was in testing. But now, it's working well, thankfully/luckily! heh