Alienware 15 R3 mini Review [wednesday/thursday]

Gents I did a write up to get the 373 drivers on the laptop. Enjoy!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-15-r3-update-nvidia-drivers.797314/

 

what means this ?

 

This is with the old drivers, right?

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That's good info,
The bleeding is very minimal,
All AH-IPS panels come with them.

The LGD049B / LP156WF6-SPB4 also does not have any PWM.
I think the the 6820 will go even higher in temp.

 

No PWM that i know of ^^ and I'm usually sensitive to it.

One advice :
FORGET THE 6820HK (for now)

Clearly there's 2 problem here :
- TOO MUCH VOLTAGE (DELL NEED TO FIX THIS)
- CPU FAN takes time to react (DELL NEED TO FIX THIS)

I cannot after having this laptop for 3 days advice the 6820HK, because cpu temps are a little bit too high.

I will not say a thing about thermal paste because all manufacturers have crappy toothpaste as thermal paste.


As of now : No throttling on the CPU: in 3DMARK, UNIGINE Valley, witcher 3 and rise of the tomb raider, so I'm happy , but waiting for the nvidia drivers and a new EC/BIOS to fix fans reaction time and CPU voltage !!!!!


as I said with a -115mV I have up to -12°C on the CPU package (xtu stress test 20 minutes), seriously DELL wtf ?

 

Dell isnt really the bad guy... intel sets the cpu voltage afaik

 

Maybe , but it's really a shame. Only quirk I could find in this otherwise awesome laptop

 

Latest official driver 375.57 recognizes the GPU .

Now one problem solved.

Let's wait now for a bios/ec fix for better CPU temps and it would be perfect.

 

Driver came out?

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yes it did!

 

I added a firestrike benchmark with latest drivers and undervolt.
13000+ Not bad IMO

I made the undervolt persistent via reboot/sleep/hibernate using a powershell trick found on reddit btw. That way I don't have to start xtu each time.

 

how does that work?

 

The extra voltage in 6820 is because of the Core Overclocking Level set to OC Level 1 by default in BIOS,
if u change it to disabled, and run at stock, the voltage will drop.
And for the fan u can set it to performance mode and see if it reacts quickly over 80 or 90C .

 

The panel in Alienware 15 UHD, LQ156D1 from LG has pwm.

 

Apparently the FHD and UHD panels in AW15 are same as those of precision 7510,
72% NTSC FHD and UHD panels.

 

Let's do some gaming benchmarks. Stock clocks if possible, brother

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GTX 1070 doesn't need benchmarks.

 

Question, how did you download and install the new drivers? Some are getting errors when installing it

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Took it from nvidia website and installed it : 1070 (notebook) windows 10 64bits , didn't get an error. I chose express install.

 

Thanks, great man. will you do your benchmarking today?

 

Maybe if I have time , maximum early next week.
I spent all my time trying to get the best undervolt : -145mV.

 

Thanks, brother.

 

So the technician is at my house, he has the worst shaky hands ever, he has broken he plastic frame so far and I have helped him numerous times because he can't get the pieces apart or back together again. What do I do call dell and ask for an exchange? I don't want him to come back out to replace the part he broke.

 

How did u made it persistent?

 

I followed that on reddit, but pay caution, you can bug your windows or maybe worse, it worked for me but nothing says it won't bug for someone else ^^.

 

Anyone know if the bios 1.0.6 improves the 6700HQ temps also ?

When I received the 6700HQ it was running hot but I repasted and undervolted the thing removed 19°C.

But yeah at first it was shocking to see the GPU running so cold and the CPU not...i knew something was wrong with the bios but I really hope Alienware didn't just fix the 6820HK, because even if the 6700HQ doesn't throttle or shutdown it has the SAME bios bug.

 

What did u repaste with, Gelid or smthing else ???

 

IC diamond 7 + -140mV undervolt

 

@wickette
But isn't gelid the best paste non conductive one and did u undervolt using intel xtu or bios ???

 

Ic diamond is also marketed as non conductive, feel free to try any thermal paste you want I used ICdiamond for several years and I don't plan on changing it.

I used intel XTU you can't undervolt via bios.

 

So quick question, aw is sending me a mew laptop due to the tech breaking mine. I have my 850 pro in there with windows. Since it's the same hardware can I plug that in to the new one and resume my old windows, or will I have to reinstall everything and lose my data.

 

Not sure but I think that the licence key is stored in the UEFI of the alienware not the HDD so if you change the HDD with a near exact copy it SHOULD work but not sure !

 

I was talking about the ssd i have in the alienware just plugging it into another alienware and having it boot up normally

 

Yes what I said is that the windows licence isn't stored in the HDD anyways but in the BIOS so swapping the HDD of your new machine with your ssd SHOULD work fine but not sure.

 

You can use TS

 

Use TS before resorting to XTU.

 

I don't use XTU. Wasted clock cycles!!

 

Thing is i can make XTU undervolt run all the time using a powershell script. I don't know how persistent undervolt with TS are if you can help me with that, that would be super great .

I've been using xtu for years, so TS is good yes but i feel more comfortable with xtu because I know it better.

Now if TS uv are persistent even after boot/sleep/hibernate etc. I wouldn't mind going to TS ^^.

 

New Bios, increased cpu temp. Oh"well. Maybe Dell should backcall the shipped models before they reach the new owners? I think support will have a lot to do forwards. A good advice... Go and buy a decent thermal paste before the tech support knocking on your door. If not, you risking he put on a new bad thermal paste from Dell

 

They just pushed a BETA bios that raises temps from 88 to 99°C in game....

When will they learn...TEST BEFORE dell.

Clearly the beta is buggued as f, so let's be patient and wait for the REAL 1.0.6 not the crappy beta

 

Next time they will increase the fan speed and the cpu will reach 110.

 

Increased fan speed aka louder fans will dump the CPU max temperature

 

After studying the fan behaviour a little, it's not a speed problem it's a reaction problem imo, the fans react too slowly when the CPU is under stress so by the time they get to optimal speed it can get hot (before any repaste / UV of course).

But thank God (prema) for good thermal paste and the ability to modify the registry of the CPU to UV it. In BF1 ULTRA/DX12 2 hours straight CPU max 78° and CPU average 69°C the difference between that and stock parameters is INSANE, really happy now, because my laptop is finally BATTLE READY ^^.

 

it was metaphorical.

 

This issue is fixed in bios 1.06 but still the temp doesn't go down.

 

I have 6700HQ so can't install 1.0.6 right now i think. But that issue fixed coupled with good thermal paste and undervolt will definitely improve even more the temps.

 

Yes dont get that bios, it increases the temp further, though it fixes the fan problem.
Undervolting and repasting always get the job done, i was saying from manufacturers point.

 

Regarding temp increases I know you're referring to that video but I think we should wait for more results I read contradictory infos (apparently the guy ran inadvertently with an overclock the 1.0.6 and compared to a stock 1.0.2) it needs to be double checked.

 

true that