*OFFICIAL* Alienware 13 R1/R2 Owner's Lounge

^ thank you for the update, that's more like it

can you overclock it, and if so by how much, and what software do you use for the purpose? I'm using RivaTuner for mine but that's pretty old stuff already so not sure if it would still work for the AW13

Thanks

 

I use Nvidia Inspector for my GPU overclocking. On the core, the max is + 135 MHz. On the Memory Clock, it can go up to + 2500 MHZ, but I go up to + 335 MHz. I see +250 MHz as the common memory overclock.
With my overclock, I saw about a 12% boost in my graphics score in 3DMark11. That should translate to about 8 to 10% in gaming. As well, with the comparison I linked, the combined scores are not that much different due to the CPU. Don't worry too much about that score; the GPU overclock is noticeable in gaming. Temps when overclocking the GPU never reached beyond 75 C when running the benchmark, so I would think 80 C is the max I would see.

 

It's paste but more like a pad like the intel stuff / paste you get on a new cooler it's a perfect square that is on the heat sink not like the memory "foamy" pads but more like hard paste.

 

can somebody run LinX and see how the CPU behaves ? That's the Intels Linpack benchmark that loads the CPU the most, you should be able to google/download it easy. Some people think the CPU would thermal throttle a lot running that one, so I'm curious to find out what happens.

as I remember from back in the day, my [email protected] on booth cores reaches 87 deg C on the 15th minute running LinX, or something like that, but I had to undervolt it and alter the fan speed of my laptop.

also please report back the GFlops.

thanks

 

I allready installed W10 (fresh install) last week without any issue.
With the 1440p screen, the new windows resize system is really good.

Command center, multitouch touchpad shortcuts all seems to be ok.
No networks problems with the last Killer suite.

 

@akouazote: Under Device Manager, do you have any unknown devices listed?

 

For anyone doing a fresh install on win 10 and can't seem to find "desktop mode battery charge". It's in the Alienware On Screen Display Application still under win 8.1 x64. Seems to work fine.

 

Nothing in the list, i successfully install the intel thermal... drivers (8.1 version) who remove the last unlnown devices from the list ^^

 

Anyone have problems watching full screen YouTube videos while connected to the amplifier? Getting super low fps while full screen - windowed work fine.

No problems without the amp., and works fine when I turn off hardware acceleration.

Possibly a driver issue with the amp or (NVIDIA? Using a 970)

 

is this issue fixed already?



---

also, is there an option in BIOS to disable the charge of the battery? I read some AW laptops have that. And some have option with pressing Fn+F2 to disable the battery charge, so does the AW13 have any of these ?

Reason for asking is that I'll try to see what can be done to protect the battery over time.

Thanks

EDIT: the BIOS option apparently is called "desktop charging mode" or something like that.

 

Anyone here upgraded their OS to Win10? Read a lot of Windows 10 news lately about driver issues, but I'm on the fence right now to upgrade.

I want to know if there are issues involving software development and upgrading to Windows 10 on AW13 laptops (especially for late 2014 models)?

 

Read back a few posts....

 

Yea, I already had that installed. Can't figure out what it is and it is driving me nuts! Also, looks like the Audio package for Windows 10 on Dell's website is incomplete. Tried installing it and did not work. Had to use Windows 8.1 Audio package install from Dell's website.

 

Will do the test tonight.

 

I have had 2 AW13 and they never did that, now I did install win7 pro fresh on day one so I will say it's software not hardware.

 

These battery discharge monitor programs don't work correctly on the AW13. Use a stop watch to take some real data and use that to calculate a discharge rate, then compare it to the numbers from the program, and I think you'll see they're wrong. I don't have time to conduct a controlled experiment, but I'm pretty sure my battery charge lasts longer than what these programs show.

 

where do you all buy these AW13 from ?

I made my configuration and it came out at ~2.1k USD

i7 / 16GB HyperX / 1TB 850 Pro / 1080p / Win 7 Pro - from xoticpc.com

the biggest price bump is form the SSD of course

 

I got mine a BestBuy for 1399 i7 860M 1tb HDD 16GB ram win8.1 crapped out but had bought complete care from dell after I sent it in every thing was wrong with it so they sent me a new one they could not downgrade and did not have the 860m or the 1tb hdd next up in size was the 640gb ssd

 

Here is LinX max temp 82 but that was once when the fan had not turned on yet after they started I was at 65.

 

^ nice ...

 

Been trying to do a clean install Windows 10 for my Alienware 13 late 2014.

**** happens when I plug in the AGA. Screen just goes black and stays black. 353.62 drivers reinstalled after windows did the default driver installation, also installed the AGA (+ GTX970) and command centre from the dell support site for the AW13. Still no go. Works when I don't have the AGA in though.

Thankfully I did the clean install on my second m.2 drive so in the meanwhile I'm just using the updated windows 8.1->10.

Anyone managed to get the AGA working on a clean install of Windows 10?

 

Anybody have trouble installing the windows 10 audio driver? I had to install the 8.1 driver. I had to reinstall the sound blaster software to get that to work.

 

I had the same issue. Looks as if the audio driver for Windows 10 that is provided on Dell's website does not work.

 

So, looks like my BSoD was related to the drivers for the wireless NIC. I think things are stable now. I need to find a way to load the network traffic as much as I can to see if it will crash again. Other than that, I just did a clean install of Windows 8.1 and upgraded to Windows 10. This seemed to be the easiest way for me without having to worry about re-installing all the drivers and trying to get Windows 10 to like them (drivers, that is).

 

Yeah I keep getting the thread exception not handled in regards to qcmain10x64.sys or something similar. My killer management suite no longer shows my wifi settings. I've tried the drivers from dell and from killer directly even without the management suite to no avail to fix this. Did a clean install of win 10 as well...hopefully some better drivers will come out soon.

Sidenote: To anyone trying to play games on win 10 I've found shutting off the Game DVR in the xbox app helps immensely.

 

Yea, Qcamain10x64.sys refers to the Killer NIC wireless adapter. Waiting on Dell to release another update for the wireless card, as well as, the audio package that Dell has listed is incomplete, at least that what it seems like to me, seeing as, the installer for it does not work for me.

 

Most Skylake-U processors will run at PCI-E 3.0 as opposed to Haswell and Broadwell's PCI-E 2.0 speed. So more graphics performance for the 13 R2.

 

Looks like Dell updated the audio driver package for Windows 10. Will try it out when I get off work this evening.

As far as wireless, looks like everything is still working smoothly. Downloaded 20 GBs of data last night for about an hour without an issue, granted, I was only downloading around 7 MB/s (70 Mbps), which isn't that much (personal opinion) for this wireless card seeing as it hasn't even hit n speeds (300 Mbps). I'll eventually upgrade my wireless router to AC when I start doing larger file transfers between my systems at home.

 

Hello - Sorry to change the subject but can someone please help me with a part number for the

Alienware 13: 3200 x 1800 IPS-Panel TrueLife 400-nits Display with Touch Technology.

Also does anyone know if it needs a special connection to the motherboard or can the standard LCD cable be used on the QHD screen.

Thanks to anyone who can help....

 

Should be the same part number used on the XPS 13 Infinity Display (SHP1421; don't know actual part number). I would think both the AW13 and XPS 13 share some of the same screens.
You may need a special connector to use the touch function, but that would be it.

 

i am still pending to install windows 10, any one updated ?

 

I followed the guidelines listed on dell support site for alienware upgrade and I can not just upgrade, It fails and rolls back. I will have to do a full fresh install and I will do that when Dell posts all the working drivers on the site.

 

So, the wireless driver for Windows 10 is still every once in a while giving me a BSoD. Anyone else experiencing this issue? Otherwise, Windows 10 is pretty solid.

 

Good experience so far

 

Not me, I'm still pending.

 

Did you try to install the killer suite ( here) instead of the official Dell driver ?

 

I have not. If I get a chance this afternoon, I will try it. The thing is, I do not understand how one minute, I can download 20 GBs worth of games (Steam) and not a single BSoD, but if I just decide to randomly open up my web browser and go to my home page, BAM! BSoD...

 

updated to windows 10 been using it for a few days all of my games installed on win 8.1 work fine absolutely no driver issues wifi works great ,touchpad works fine bluetooth too , i just updated all of the drivers from dells support page for win 10 ,installation time was roughly 1 to 1&1/2 hours, the upgrade process was painless and i did not lose any data or apps
windows 10 to me overall is just ok,just fixes and a few visual changes nothing really made me go wow thats great ,i wouldnt mind going back to 8.1 or even 7 for that matter im just using 10 because its the latest
also there no boot animation just a black screen
perform a disk cleanup after updating and delete previous installation and update files i got 24.8 gigs back also disable the keylogging and location access when setting up windows
finally battery life has gone down after the update will have to investigate further...

 

The driver from Killer Networking site gave me issues. Spent an hour trying to get my wireless adapter to work again under Windows 10. Tried the Dell driver and the Killer driver from Killer Networking's website. I really would like to use Windows 10, but the wireless driver is killing me. Probably will just revert back to Windows 8.1 until Dell releases a newer driver for wireless

 

@Eurasianman
did you install the bluetooth driver?
if not install the one from dells website for win 10

 

No idea. I don't think I ever saw it say it did install the Bluetooth driver. However, under device manager, everything shows up as good to go....

Now that I think about it, I don't think I saw an option to disable the bluetooth through Windows 10 new notification window or whatever on the bottom right of the screen that pops up. I'll have to look at it again.

Still, part of me is telling to just go back to Windows 8.1 until Windows 10 has been out for a while, but the tech geek in me says screw it and keep rolling with Windows 10.

 

I've ordered an Alienware 13 for school.

 

@Eurasainman
http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER03163989M/1/Communications_Driver_57DFF_WN32_10.0.0.102_A00.EXE

try installing it, worth a shot

 

Does anyone have the 512GB M.2 SSD from Alienware? Is this the same SSD, or is it the PM951?

 

It'll mostly likely be a SATA III OEM SSD from Samsung, Toshiba, or LiteON. Can't say for certain which you'll get if you got a 512 GB M.2, though.
The 13 only accepts SATA III M.2s. PCI M.2s don't work.

 

I have been contemplating the AW13 for awhile... Has the i7 with 1080P ever been a offered config? I was looking at it today and noticed that i7 only has the QHD+ option...

 

It was, but you can get it through resellers.
http://www.xoticpc.com/alienware-960m-fhd-p-8119.html?wconfigure=yes

 

Thanks for the info. It should arrive tomorrow. Hope it works as expected.

 

Thanks... I think I'd rather go through Alienware as I can get a discount. Just got to decide if I want to go with the QHD+.

I know this has probably been discussed in this huge thread, but what are some pros/cons between the two screens that users have discovered?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I ordered QHD+ because of the deal I managed to get...and I figured if I want to game, I'd just lower the resolution. But this laptop will be used primarily for work / school. My home rig is much more powerful and will most likely be used for gaming. You should try to negotiate.

A huge downside is that not everything in Windows (or other applications) will be optimized for such high resolution, so they will appear to be very tiny.