[Alienware 17R4 / 15R3] - Disassembly + Repaste Guide + Results

I ordered my 17 r4 in december, and returned it, as i was hoping for something exciting to come up at CES in january, but from what i've read, there wont be coming anything interesting to the gaming laptop market any time soon. And when there does come something from intel, it will most likely be hexacore cpus, that are less than 10% faster on single core performance. We might not see 8th gen overclockable laptop CPU's before Q4 2018 or even 2019 So no performance increase compared to a slightly overclocked 7820HK.

So i just ordered the 17 r4 again a week ago, and will keep it this time.

 

I also read alot about upcoming laptops, and there does not seem to be anything much more exciting on the horizon anytime soon.

I got a very good deal on my R4 (which will be delivered tomorrow, yay!), so I already decided to keep it. The 1440p screen @ 120Hz G-sync combined with a GTX 1080 will most likely fulfil my needs for a good while anyway.

I also found a local computer shop that can repaste my laptop, should I need to, so all bases covered.

 

Owner of 15 R3, 6700HQ + GTX 1070 in pair.
I'v done LM repaste 2 times in this model (my motherboard was replaced, turns out it was just a coil whine lol) and what I can say is... Holly molly, heatsink in AW is insane. Like if you compare to other brands...
Soo lets talk about numbers.
Fans are at 3500-4100, most of the time around 3500.
! Bear in mind that these are temps achieved with undervolt, both CPU and GPU, and laptop is raised by piece of plastic, about 2 CM heigh, no cooling pad.
CPU at full usage in games, vary, but most of the time 68-73, sometimes will hit around 75 (but not stays there), at -170mV undervolt, this thing is rock solid.
Disabling turbo boost (I7 have plenty power, and runs smoothly all titles I play, PUBG, Witcher, GTA 5, you name it) can decrease temps further to AVERAGE 65 degress, you hear me right, AVERAGE 65 and max noted by HWinfo was 68. It's ridiculous, my friends desktop I5 runs hotter!
Now lets move on to GPU section where things get unbeliveable.
I was testing voltage and GPU clock, and found that my unit sweetspot is 0.863v at 1822MHz. This puts me at 64C max noted temp on HWinfo, most of the time its 61-62. I'm shocked, like literally. With just a few tweeks this laptops is beast in both thermals, and power, and will deliver this power in upcoming titles if necessary, by ramping up CPU, or GPU.


Here is 1 PLN (Polish "Złoty") next to nicely painted GPU using Grizzly
I inspire you all. If you ain't scared about electronics, and looks for big gains - go for it, benefits are too high to look away from this

 

Those temps are outstanding, but even a fixed Alienware heatsink is still unified. Wonder how well it would do if both pipes were separated?

GPU will still bleed some heat to the CPU.
MSI's system keeps the GPU completely separate from the CPU, however the GPU VRM heatsink is routed to the CPU fan, which means hotter VRM Radiator will cause higher CPU temps.

How hot does your well LM'd CPU get if doing a CPU stress test and the GPU is idle?

Haven't disabled turbo boost but setting the 7820HK to the max 4 core muliplier for 7700HQ (3.4 ghz) and undervolting a lot gives really frosty temps... the GPU runs hotter than the CPU...!
I haven't tested gaming like that though.

 

Those are some outstanding results. How did you undervolt your GPU?

 

I think it will take quite a while. Since AMD cant bring out anything to challenge Nvidia in both the desktop and laptop market. hey will not hurry for launching Volta based cards. Can take even up to a year I suspect.

 

I would love to know this as well

 

Nice temps and good work. Did you protect from LM pump out? Did you CPU benchmark to check CPU power draw and clock frequencies are being held at max turbo values for all cores (3.4GHz)?

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

It'll be the voltage curve (Ctrl+f) in MSI afterburner

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

But you need an unlocked bios for that right?

 

Not to undervolt

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

Thanks! Going to try it out then!

 

Repasted 6820hk here and got temps down from 90’s to 60’s. took a couple of attempts. Great stuff, thanks for the guide.

 

A huge thanks to iunlock for this guide. I found this thread after searching for people having similar issues when I discovered my AW15 R3(7820 and 1070 model) was hitting 97C while just idling on the desktop(no over clocking). I’d even seen it hit 101 while playing Destiny 2. This was especially annoying because I don’t even use the GPU, as I run the machine on the Graphics amplifier with external monitors.

I’m no stranger to taking apart and repairing laptops, but what would have been 2 to 3 hours of carefully taking the machine apart poking, prodding, examining, and labeling things and taking notes... became a 45 minute breeze, thanks to all the detailed pictures.

I re-pasted with arctic Mx-4 because it was the highest wmk rating of any of the pastes available at my local shop. And I don’t intend to overclock so there was little to be gained by going all the way to liquid metal.... Even so, Instead of hitting 97C directly after booting to the desktop, with nothing but an alcohol cleaning and a paste swap, I’m down to 70C. And while playing Destiny 2 for a couple hours the highest Max temp I saw, was 77 on any single core, down from 101. For just 8 dollars in paste. Holy Crap Dell ...what gives?

 

Mx4 will worsen in a week, try checking this thread and see if you can get the paste mentioned in the list in your local store http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...nd-apply-traditional-and-liquid-metal.806840/

 

nice guide, does anyone know if the amount of thermal pads needed is the same for the AW 17 R4 6820HK 1070 as the AW 17 R4 6820HK 1080 as shown in this guide?

I have the 1070 build & just want to make sure I get the right pads

thanks

 

No the GPU is a factor, you will need different pad placement for 1070 Vs 1080 but both are covered in iunlocks guide

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

Not completely, some areas should have thicker layers as @alexnvidia mentioned. I had experience with several 7820+1080 heat sinks and contacts were not the best without adding thicker pads or bending those parts of HS. Obviously it's safer to add thicker pads.

 

For the guys that repasted a 15R3 with kaby lake CPU. is it still possible to remove the heatsink without removing the motherboard?

Maybe want to do a repaste soon to lower my temps. I dont have temperature issues at all now but Lower is better. Wanna see how low I can go.

 

It is possible. You just need to unscrew the fans from the top of the housing instead. It's faster for sure. But the screws on the fan are smaller and more prone to stripping

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

 

Stripping the screws itself or the threads inside of those fans?

 

If I remember correctly, is it still advertised to remove the MB although you can skip this part.

 

The heads of the screws themselves cuz they're so tiny

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

 

he mentions a AW 17 R4 GTX 1070 but it doesnt mention if its the 6700k /7700k or 6820/7820

either way I ordered 3 x 1m 3 x 0.5 hopefully it will do

 

Ah okay, in the previous series the screws holes themselves had too soft threads so I ruined one of them after replacong the fans. Had to order a new pair of fans because my OCD acted up

 

I ruined my CPU fan screws on 15 r2 and last week I cleaned my CPU/GPU fans, I just removed the black tape on top of CPU/GPU fans and it popped off real easy. I have used tape to secure them and temps seem great since I cleaned it after a year.

 

Did something I didnt thought I would do, Call Dell.

They came over with a new heatsink and I bent the tension arm and the temps are more even now.

Using Kyronaut. Previously, when I bent the tension arm on my older heatsink, it didn’t work.

CPU 100% load temps with Furmark GPU and CPU burner running in the background, laptop in a warm non air conditioned room (GPU 65C)



I am pretty surprised that the temp difference is now only ~5C, very good considering the triangular design. Was previously 10C+

 

I went the repaste route yesterday. When the heatsink was removed we noticed that the pads looked perfectly placed and all seemed to have had good connection (judging by the squeeze marks), also the GPU paste looked very good and even. What was crap was the CPU paste. It was completely dried up and crumbled upon touching it, plus it was not centered so not the whole dice was not covered properly.

I took the easy route and only repasted properly with high quality Cooler Master paste. There will be a break-in period, but the temps are already much more even. The max temps are only reduced slightly right now (before repaste 80C on CPU and 75C on GPU) but the time it takes to reach that temp has changed from about 3 minutes to about 30.

All in all, while I know I'd reach better temps with LM, this will do for me for the time being.

 

For me, the paste was still more liquid/wet after I disassembled it after 3 months.
Turn on CPU performance mode and see the temps go down by another 10C. LM will further reduce temps by another 10-15C.

 

I will not go with LM at this moment as I move around my laptop quite a bit and I don't want even the slightest chance of shortcircuits. I will however exchange it for Grizzly Kyronaut in the near future.

 

Well the experience will be similar to Maker gel nano. See if you can buy Phobya Nanogrease.

 

Grizzly Kyronaut was the one that was easiest to get hold of for me.

 

Is it worth paying 80 USD for good thermal pads? - considering grizzley LM costs 20, it seems excessive for pads.

 

Short circuits can be avoided by doing the following:
1) paper pressure test to make 100% sure you have 100% even full contact on CPU with heatsink.
2) foam dams like @tijgert and @Mr. Fox used on their systems to prevent any LM chance from escaping the CPU or GPU area and getting on the motherboard (Foam dams will insure this does NOT happen).
3) either 3 coats of nail polish insulation (1 coat, let it dry, then 2nd coat) over SMD resistors around the CPU or GPU, or Kapton tape or Super 33+ tape insulation. You don't have to do both nail polish and tape at the same time. But foam dams + either one work excellent.

 

How exactly do you go about doing the paper pressure test?

 

Check other posts. I don't know. It's been discussed multiple times here and in another AW repaste threads. It's to check for fully even pressure (no power in use test, just full even spread) and spread with basic paste to avoid wasting expensive stuff. You can even use toothpaste for the test.

 

Those paper pressure test are very expensive and unless you do repasting services in bulk its hard to justify its price.
I used a cheaper method, where I used some sketch pen preferably black or red and painted either HS(Heatsink) and CPu/GPu die and slapped the HS back and after sometime you will see some color on cpu die.
I also used by fingers to feel the HS for any uneven surface and lapped it.
Be sure to clean the heatsink with Alcohol prep pads to cleanup oil and dirt particles after running your fingers on the HS.

 

Hello Guys! Good night. I have a question for you. I bought recently my Alienware 15R3 W/ GTX1070 and I'm using a laptop stand and getting about 90c MAX TEMP playing PUBG. Also sometimes when I do an alt+tab during the game my computer is getting so slow and the sound starts to crackle something like that. I don't know if this is happening because I changed in NVIDIA Control Panel the power management mode of PUBG to "Prefer Performance". Anyways, I bought this laptop one week ago and I would like to know if should I take to the store and return or is it normal this temperature and other stuff that I mentioned?

 

You might have to repaste to reduce that temps to 80C.

 

I understand, but I just bought the laptop one week ago. Would not it be better to exchange for another one? It does not make sense in my head to repaste on something that I just bought.

 

Then return it before the time window closes.

 

Even if you exchange, chances are Dell is going to use the rubbish stamp again. So you are better off repasting your own.

Unless you are “upgrading” to a better spec laptop, exchanging isn’t going to solve the issue.

Currently have a 2017 Batch AW17 R4. I tore it down only to realise they still used the rubbish stamp.

 

I got it. Do you know why sometimes when I do an alt+tab during the game my computer is getting so slow that the sound starts to crackle and I barely can move my mice cursor? The game is running normally, but if I do an alt+tab, it's like a nightmare.I had the same impression when I executed a stress test.

 

A much cheaper and preferred way I use is to use a 0.5mm Arctic pad which is a little squishy and will therefore leave an imprint when in-between a dry fitted heatsink and CPU die

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

How hard is it to repaste? Reading the instructions it doesn't seem crazy difficult?? My R4 17 has been stuttering in games after 15-20 minutes of playing. Tried most everything, short of repasting. It has gotten better but still stutters.

 

u might have read the wrong instructions. this might help you http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...gtx1080-in-game-random-stutter-freeze.804499/

 

Using iunlocks guide and some common sense its not too difficult if you've done this sort of thing before. First one will take approximately 8hrs though if done right and if you take your time

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

Can anyone help me with which thermal pad goes where in case of a 15r3 with a 1070

 

Hey man, are you still doing repastes for a charge? I'm interested. Contact me on disc at Frostydax#0751 or email me at [email protected]. Thanks

 

Hey mate, if this was aimed at me then check your discord. Cheers, Pete

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk