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

You would need to contact Dell about buying this. You might find it somewhere online, though.

 

Thanks. I've been looking but haven't had any luck yet. I'd hoped I'd find somebody that had to take theirs out to put in a 2.5 SSD. I'll keep looking. Still interested in finding out exactly how the PCIe x4 bus works also. I wonder if anybody knows since it's still pretty new. I could call dell but it would take hours to get to somebody who actually knows.

 

Well I spent over a hour trying to get some answers. The girl I talked to was very nice but did not have the knowledge I was hoping for. She insisted that even if I had a 2.5 inch mechanical drive the SSD M.2 assembly was under the hard drive. I finally convinced her to go take a look at her bench system, which she did and conceded that the SSD M.2 assembly is not included if you have a 2.5 inch drive and they'd have to send me one. But since I don't have my system yet and my ESC has not been activated they can't send anything. She did however dig up part numbers for the board and the screws. So we did accomplish that.

Now I get to call back and go through it all again when I get my system.

The worst issue is that she really didn't know if you're running two PCIe x4 SSDs, do they both run at x2 or what. I guess it's a moot point now since I've purchased a 512 Samsung M.2 SSD for 159 from Newegg and I'll put that in the second slot for storage.

 

Here's one w/ 13R2 AGA 290x core 1125 mem 1330:

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/10375610?

3DMark Score
8185
Graphics Score
12802
Physics Score
4996
Combined Score
2980
Graphics Test 1
62.71 fps
Graphics Test 2
50.04 fps
Physics Test
15.86 fps
Combined Test
13.86 fps

This AW13 R2 has about the same frame rate as the i7-4790K on the Graphic Tests. This is very good for a dual core i7-6500U 13" portable w/ a nice 3200x1800 touch screen. Sorry, I am not sure what's the safe / right way to OC 290x on air yet.
Thanks.

 

From my experience, and hopefully this isn't the case for your system, the connector on the motherboard for the cable are a different size. i managed to order the m.2 ngff board off of ebay and the cable it comes with to connect to the motherboard is a different length (i got the 13 r2 with the regular drive too, and wanted to upgrade to the m.2 pcie).

it does make sense, the current connector only supports SATA III, so, the motherboards for the PCIE M.2 will have a different connector.

i know you've been waiting for your laptop, but maybe cancel this order if you really want to go the m.2 option.

 

I want to thank you: it worked. I knew it wasnt impossible ! I'm glad I did registered to this forum! Add it to your book/instructions as it worked perfectly (2 min, back working!)
Thanks again, seriously! I owe you for this one sir!

Where you get all theses bios block names if I can ask?

 

http://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=item&id=19567

if anyone made the mistake of getting a model with the 1366x768 screen.

verified to work, as i just got mine today and installed it.

it is glossy, and touch, but its very good. also, screen resolution is 3200 x 1800

its perfect for me, since i wont be using my 13 r2 for gaming much, will be using it as a daily driver/media consumption device.

 

Ev

Even for gaming this qhd+ screen is pretty good. I was expecting some blurriness while playing at 1920×1080 and 1600x 900 but it is not the case. Games looks gorgeous. Probably more than an original hd screen.
Scaling works well with W10.

 

completely agree with you. glossy screens get a lot of flack, but at the end of the day, you get darker blacks, and a nicer finish all together. short of getting an OLED display, this is the next best thing. who watches movies/plays games with all the lights on anyway?

 

http://www.cnet.com/products/alienware-13-2016/

New "R3" should be available in April? Or is it just a new screen? Sucks if it's only a screen. We need PCIe SSD, quad-core i5, DDR4 and a better GPU.

 

I think the R3 in the article is just speculation as the only thing new is the screen. Everything else is the same as the R2.
The 13 R2 already supports PCIe M.2s.

 

It supports the 950 Pro? PCIe Gen 4? Didn't know that. Nice!

But we still need the other stuff more so. Alienware is so far behind the times.

 

not defending Alienware/Dell, but considering the 13 would be their "entry level" its actually up there as far as specs are concerned. its not necessarily a regular notebook (a lot more upgradablility compared to regular laptops out there, considering you have an option of regular HDD, or 2 m.2 PCIe SSD that can also be setup in RAID, and 2 slots of upgradable ram) and it even has a core i7 processor, granted it is only dual core. but still, the specs are not bad at all, for a 13" laptop you can game on. the next closest thing you can get to something like that would be a Razor Blade Stealth (but no discrete graphics built in) or the XPS 13 (still no discrete graphics, and memory is soldered to the board).

for an entry level gaming laptop that is geared more for portability than power, its actually very good.

if you want more power, you should get the 15, 17 or 18. those would have quad core processors, albeit that portability of the machine will go down tremendously. the 15 is 7lbs. it doesn't seem like a lot, since you can easily lift a 5lb dumbel (whats 2 more lbs). But when running through an airport, trying to catch your connecting flight, that 7lbs becomes quite a substantial weight.

and as far as GPU's are concerned, it wouldnt make sense to put a 970m/980m in their entry level laptop if the 970m/980m are the ones they'll be putting in with their more performance oriented models.

i mean, think about it, would you really want an 8GB 980m matched up to a dual core i7 with only 3MB of cache?

 

I'm not speaking about the discrete GPU, and wasn't suggesting the AW 13 is necessarily a bad PC. You sort of took what I said and twisted it, making your own version of what I meant. My experience stems from several years of Alienware ownership. They've always been among the first to do something - pioneers in the niche market they've dominated until most recently. It's just sad to see them "catch up" every year.

Also, the XPS 13 is the Alienware 13. They share about 95% of the internals. This isn't Alienware anymore. It's Dell in disguise. The whole point of owning an Alienware (back in the day) was to be "unique" in a sense that you were paving your own path. Now they just follow instead of lead because leading means a less padded bottom line, and that would be horrible...

 

For those who looked at my signature, you would know that my laptop has been in repairs for quite some time. Well, I was offered a replacement laptop that was to be spec-for-spec the same. Turns out, I'm getting an almost fully-loaded 13 R2 (only a 256 GB PCIe M.2. insteax of the highest option). From the bigger battery to the 4 GB of VRAM to the 1800p touchscreen and an Intel WiFi card. And a Xbox 360 controller for icing. No negotiations done. It was like, "Here you go."
That $400 for warranty extension is paying off nicely.
If anybody needs a 13 R1 bottom chassis or the maintenance panel, PM me as I have a spare one.

 

What's the maximum amount of RAM supported by the Alienware 13 R2? Thanks.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

Officially, 16 GB.
Unofficially , 32 GB (2 × 16 GB).
The same applies to 13 R1 with Broadwell.

 

What do u mean unofficially, sir?


Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

 

It will work, but Alienware hasn't tested the option. Hence unofficially.

 

Isn't 4GB VRAM only for greater than 1080P gaming? I can go to 'high' settings in 1080p and get a decent frame rate, and I don't know of any game that uses more than 2GB VRAM at 1080p. I have a 4GB VRAM 960M desktop version for the graphics amp, but I don't have a 4K monitor. I run 'ultra' settings (and textures) at 1080p on the AGA, and I don't think much over 2GB of VRAM is being used. Maybe at 1800p, more than 2GB VRAM can be used, but you would have to lower the graphics quality so much for a good frame rate, it would defeat the purpose of the 4GB.

When you get it, if you can tell, please let me know if the R2 battery would fit into the R1 chassis? That is what I would really want more than more VRAM.

 

VRAM usage can be used for more than higher resolutions and, in some games, higher amounts of effects enabled. Visual mods can affect the VRAM usage. I assume there are other uses outside of gaming.
Before, my 2 GB cards couldn't really play Arkham Knight at decent settings, but my GTX 960 4 GB can thanks to its VRAM amount. As well, having high amounts of VRAM can reduce or eliminate stuttering that would be present if you had lower amounts (because then you are using the shared RAM, which is slower).
However, some lower end cards don't really take advantage of the higher VRAM amount.
As for the battery, I'll attempt. I could just use my spare base panel and make some rough guesses.

 

good day to all,
after having my motherboard replaced by a dell technician, he damaged my keyboard and now a handfull of keys do not work. my official windows from dell was also then corrupted and the only way to reinstall windows was to delete the factory image from the ssd as well. i currently have windows 10 installed from the microsoft website, and whilst dell has completely ditched servicing my computer due to "self damage", even though the damage was caused by the dell technician, i will replace my keyboard soon. recently though i have been experiencing issues with my trackpad registering mechanical clicks, especially right after a boot or waking up from sleep. the mechanical click is not completely unresponsive, and at times works fine (especially when on a table for a couple minutes) but when i lift the device and put it on my lap, the trackpad begins to miss a few mechanical clicks. is this hardware or software issue? will i also have to pay to replace my trackpad. thanks in advance.

 

A followup on this.
They cancelled the order of the 13 R2. I assumed it was because of an address change as I had requested one. It probably was now that the destination address changed. A new order of the same 13 R2, but now I'm getting a 512 GB PCIe M.2 + 128 GB SATA M.2 (highest storage offering for the 13 R2) and Windows 8.1 Pro (previously, it was Win10 Home). I don't even know what's going on, but all I know is I'm getting a new laptop covered by warranty.
In any case, if this is the laptop I get, I'll give some data about the bigger battery, the SSDs, and overall laptop performance compared to the 13 R1. And see if the bigger battery can fit in the 13 R1 chassis.

 

Hey all. New here and I just picked up an AW13 R2. I think its a great portable gaming machine, especially coming from a AW15 I had before which is a little too big for my taste. So I got it for a great deal and its been working great and all but I've had a weird issue when gaming. When I'm playing Titanfall, about to jump out of the ship or w.e, it starts to lag a lot. Fps starts to dip even when I land and start running around. So the WEIRD thing is when I change any of the video settings such as impact marks or something from low to high or high to low, the game starts running fine. Fps are at a stable 50-60. I've watched videos on Youtube with gameplay on this and theirs are running fine from beginning to end. I have the "prefer maximum power" setting on in the Nvidia Control panel. Other games are running fine though like FO4 or Bioshock Infinite. Any ideas of what could be wrong?

Also, in Mozilla when browsing the web and right clicking, sometimes I just get a black box until I highlight it then it starts showing me the options. When I minimize it and open it again everything is white until I start moving my mouse around the page. It only happens sometimes though?

 

Just picked up a Alienware 13 today used with a i7 5500u, 960m 2gb, 16gb ram, 1440p screen, and a 1TB HDD(which is already gone). Coming from a Alienware 14 this thing is fast! I love the slimmer form factor and the capacative touch screen is awesome on windows 10. The wireless card they put in these is great too, I was downloading all my steam games at 7MB/s, the same speeds I get over LAN on my desktop.

I recorded(shadowplay) and uploaded a Fallout 4 gameplay video cause I never could find one when deciding what laptop to buy. This thing does a impressive job running Fallout 4, I was even able to run GTA5 at 1440p on high settings with a solid 30 - 40 FPS, and on 900p I got 60+.

 

Few questions... I have a 15" rMBP right now, but may switch my setup up if apple's new model doesn't have a dedicated GPU.

When are we expecting the OLED release, and is there any chance we'll see an updated GPU?

 

So I just got my 13 R2. All the specs are in check, no stripped screws in sight, and it passed the Graphics Amplifier test of switching GPUs without problems. Going to set it up as my main computer (been using my m14xR2 for a few days), and I'll get to the initial reporting.

 

Just some first impressions. It's lengthy.

• The Nvidia Control Panel when using the GTX 960m has more options than it did when I used the R1. It's 1:1 to the options I get when using my m14xR2. This is because the HDMI 2.0 port is routed directly to the GTX 960m as opposed to the iGPU (HD 520). Once you connect a monitor through the HDMI port, all display settings can be taken care of through the Nvidia Control Panel as opposed to the Intel Graphics Panel. I assume the 15 R2 and 17 R3 have the same structure. Using the HDMI port should bypass Optimus altogether, just like using the mini Display port in the m14x and m11x would.
• However, if you use the Graphics Amplifier, you cannot use the HDMI Port since the GTX 960m is disabled. I assume the Thunderbolt 3 port would work just fine.
• (After the tons of updates, both relevant and irrelevant) The eGPU runs at PCIe 3.0x4, but it didn't make too much of a difference in 3DMark11 and Fire Strike compared to the PCIE 2.0x4 on my old 13 R1 (just a small improvement).
• The GTX 960m, however, still runs at PCIe 2.0x4. I'm not sure why as it should be capable at running at 3.0 since the i7-6500u supports it.
• The i7-6500u is an improvement over the i7-5500u (obviously), and when running 3DMark11, at least 300 points separated the i7-6500u to the i7-5500u. Pretty good. Fire Strike showed about 200. In the ThrottleStop benchmark, without any undervolting, it scored about 20 seconds in the 4 threads 4M as opposed to the about 24 seconds for the i7-5500u (average for it was between 25 to 26). Not bad.
• Temps can get hot when using default fan speeds. Much hotter than my 13 R1. CPU hit 85 C, and the 960m hit 80 C. When using the GA, the CPU dropped about 10 C + 2 C. However, there wasn't any throttling.
• I also found a CPU performance setting. Unsure what it does. I do know that the (gltichy) Graphics Amplifier overclock menu was replaced by a Performance page (contains settings for CPU, Fan, and RAM). Haven't done anything with the menu but browse through it.
• Physically, it looks almost identical to the 13 R1, save for the TB3 port and back port arrangement being slightly different due to the absence of a mini Display port.
• Intel WIfi card. No hiccups so far.
• The QHD+ doesn't disappoint, and there aren't any major discrepancies with it (like any weird tinting). The touchscreen is also dependable, like with the previous QHD screen I had. However, the screen is a bit dimmer than I would have hoped. Might be that way because I've been using the m14xR2's bright panel.
• I've been using 1600x900 as opposed to the usual 1920x1080 I use. Both resolutions look crisp. The 3200x1800 resolution makes everything look tiny, but everything does end up being sharp.
• Even with the bigger battery, it's not heavy. Still the okay weight it was before.
• Touchpad can get warm thanks to the SSDs under it.
• The M.2s are the PM951 (PCIe Boot drive) and CM871 (SATA storage drive). The CM871 has good sequential Read speeds, but overall, it's bad for SSD standards. A benchmark of the AS SSD showed mine had a bit of problems with random reading. Not sure why. My PM951 also had some trouble with writing as well, so I didn't complete the benchmark of it until I get the problem resolved. Either way, if you're shopping for SSD options for the 13 R2, don't get the 128 GB storage option. Not worth the extra money.
• HWMontior can't seem to monitor everything about the 13 R2, but HWInfo can (thankfully). Only the CPU, GPU, and battery are monitored, so hopefully an update to the software can help with this.
• (Something specific about this laptop) ASIC quality of the GTX 960m is 83.8%. Also has Samsung VRAM chips, so interpret that what you will.

Will get to other performance, overall usability, and battery usage soon.

 

Thanks for the thorough review/update. I do not feel too bad then about having ordered the R1 early.

Side question, I have the QHD+ screen on my 13" R1. Anyone have a good resolution to run on it that gives it a smooth and crisp look as well? I am use to running 1920x1080/1200 monitor/resolutions. I tried setting the monitor to 2560x1440 with 125% DPI scaling and it strains my eyes just a little bit. 200% DPI scaling is crisp, but too big. I tried reducing the resolution to 1920x1080, but it does not look very clear. Also tried 1600x900 with little luck. I feel like I might be missing something though :\

 

Just a couple things to note.

• The R1 had a little battery problem where you couldn't measure it's discharge rate after a couple of minutes. Windows could tell you, but it wasn't all that accurate. From what I can tell, that's been fixed with the 13 R2. Well, at least with the 62 wHr Battery.
• Might be because of the screen, but battery life isn't so different when using it (well, I am using a higher resolution screen compared to my previous laptop). Maybe an hour more on average. I would think it being left in idle would make a big difference, though. Early impressions of battery life to be taken with tiny grains of salt.
• When plugged in, there's a high-pitched whining noise that, while not loud, is noticeable. However, HWInfo reported that the fans weren't spinning. This does not happen on battery (when cooling is passive).

Still trying to get to the bottom of my PCIe SSD's write problem.

 

Yea, my R1 battery discharge rate is all over the place. Would like to eventually replace the battery with the 62 wHr battery.

 

Well what I found out was this. The NGFF board in the R1 is COMPLETELY different from the board in the R2. I know this because I ordered the first system with the mechanical drive, then ordered the NGFF board. The R1 NGFF board has a much smaller motherboard connector than the R2 M.2 board. I originally called Dell to get the part number for the NGFF board for the R2. So when it didn't fit, I called Dell and spent hours explaining all this to the techs and finally got to someone who sent my issue to engineering. They basically said I was full of &!$$ and that the NGFF boards for the R1 versus the R2 were not different nor did they have different connectors.

Obviously at this point I was very frustrated so I actually packed up the system and returned it and purchased another one with the M.2 in it. I received it today and the pulled the R2 M.2 board out and compared it to the R1 board and the two boards were very different, plus the connector that connects the NGFF board to the motherboard is much bigger. I don't know for sure but I'm probably 99% sure it's exactly the same size as the one that was on the mechanical drive. It's easy to tell the boards apart because the R1 board has a big NGFF on it as shown in the service manual. The R2 board has a big M.2 SSD on it, but no NGFF.


So moral of the story, you cannot switch NGFF boards between the R1 and the R2.

 

This is surprising? I thought skylake supposedly brought improvements on the thermal side. My 5500u+860 (+135/+200) runs at ~75c on the cpu in heavy gaming.



Sent from mTalk

 

It could be a number of factors, ranging from the thermal application quality to the fan speeds (though the R2 does have a higher max fan speed compared to the R1). It's still surprising, though.
Idle temps are around those of the R1, though (around the 40s, sometimes dipping to the 30s). Light load, such as web browsing and Office, temps are similar to the R1 as well.

 

Hi,
I also own the r2 with a 6500u and a 500G SSD.
I can confirm the withe noise, it was very loud when i received the laptop
. I changed the Power supply and now it is barely noticeable. The only scenario that can cause heavy withe kinda electric noise is when I run a graphic benchmark under battery. I am not refering to the fan. I was a bit worried with that but if it happens to other users.... I own the laptop since november and I never had any problem so far.

Regarding the performance mode in the bios, I understood that it is suppose to change the fan profile. But I do not have any source or formal testing to prove that....
It just seems that since I am using it, the fans do not wait that the laptop get crazy hot to kick in.
The only annoying issue I am having is not alienware related. The intel driver still crash from time to time when i am using firefox or chrome. Updating the driver doesn't help. I am on W10

 

Yeah, after using it a bit more, the whine noise wasn't coming from the fans but from something electrical. The noise seems to be coming from the center of the laptop, but given that the noise disappears on battery, then it is charger/power related, as you said. It does give me a reason to use the laptop on battery, though.
I do remember some people early on with the bigger laptops saying the same thing about the fan performance mode.
Which Intel GPU driver do you have? Intel has a Beta and Stable release since the end of last month.

 

The intel HD 520

 

The driver, I mean. The latest iGPU driver from Dell or the the two I mentioned from Intel?

 

The one from dell I guess... i did update from the window device manager and reverted to the dell version on several occasions , i have a doubt about the version currently installed on my system. ..
I did not manage to update via the intel website the last time I tried.
But I ll give it a try again with the beta 15.40.18.4380 if it is the one you are referring to.
Thanks for the advice

 

Well i cannot install driver from intel website.
No compatibility with the manufacturer

 

Uninstall your current graphics drivers (both Intel and Nvidia). Use DDU for uninstallation.

 

Hey there,

from my previous laptop experiences these problems arise from Speedstep technologies implemented in the mobile CPUs. I don't have this noise in my r2 13 whatsoever.

In the laptops i previously owned all I had to do was disable the CPU power-saving features... Kinda seems like thats not the point in having a Laptop if i turn off the power saving features...but the whining was just unbearable

 

Any chance you can get the part numbers for the R2 board? hopefully the cable too?

i have an R1 board and cable for sale. hahaha

 

So I did a quick test with the CPU Performance Mode in the BIOS. All it does is keep Turbo Boost enabled at all times.
That's it. Nothing else. I got a constant 3 GHz in the Throttlestop and Cinebench R15 benchmarks. No real major improvements as the scores were with the margin of error (though they were, for the most part, slightly better). However, in the single core run in Cinebench, the speeds fluctuated between 3 to 3.1 GHz, so it's not a perfect "Auto Turbo for every scenario" setting.
(If you're wondering about the Cinebench R15 scores, my best were 81.37 FPS for the OpenGL test, 322 cb for the Multi-core test, and 129 cb for the Single-core test. The first two came from the CPU Performance Mode enabled.)
The Fan Performance Mode, as stated earlier, just ramps up the fans to max speed (6700 RPM). This is something that can be done manually in HWInfo, so I don't see the point of it if it can be manually done. The fans do get real loud at that RPM, but the temps stay cooler than default settings to a noticeable degree, both when using the CPU only and when using both CPU and GPU.

 

AW13R1 here.

Weird issue with the Touchpad when using Google Chrome.

Laptop placed on the left on the desk, a PC monitor with HDMI connected to laptop placed on the right. Laptop monitor is secondary, PC monitor is primary. Just thought it's worth mentioning.

When scrolling up or down using two-finger gestures with my right hand in Chrome in the Laptop monitor, the scrolling seems to halt its inertia the moment I lift my fingers up. When I use two-finger gestures with my left hand, Chrome scrolls up and down with the inertia, as if it's normal.

Moved Chrome to the PC monitor, both left and right hand two-finger gestures work, with the scrolling keeping its inertia.

Never had such problems with Microsoft Edge, so I'm baffled why my right handed two-finger gestures don't work correctly on the laptop monitor. Anyone else have this problem?

 

Hello all.

Yesterday i receive my alienware 13 R2.
I`m thinking to upgrade the hybrid drive. Any sugestions?

 

Did some more digging with the CPU Performance mode, and the findings are interesting. Note that my "Constant Turbo Boost" is false since I had High Performance battery plan on. Oops...

Spoiler: Image

I assume this is to prevent TDP throttling. It was strange that, before enabling this mode, I could modify the Turbo Boost window in Throttlestop and in Intel XTU. I wasn't able to do that in the 13 R1.
However, given the temps of the laptop, I wouldn't advise enabling CPU performance mode without enabling Fan Performance mode (or just manually setting the Fan speed to max through HWInfo). But still, it makes me wonder that if there was a 35w Intel quad-core mobile CPU, Alienware would have already used it in the laptop (this is taking into consideration that the idea of this mode came after the i7-4702HQ, a 37w quad-core Haswell CPU).

The problem always seemed to occur through Chrome only, but I don't know if a solution has been found. Maybe using Synaptics official drivers from their website? That's all I can think of. Finding the problem itself does seem, well, random.

 

I'm sure it's not the Synaptics official drivers, because after reinstalling the drivers and rebooting the laptop, the issue in Chrome is still there. Sounds like it's an isolated issue with Chrome. Sad though.

 

I got a used AW13 with a 960m, 1440p touch screen, 16GB RAM, 1TB HDD, and a i7-5500u off ebay, but it was pretty badly damaged so I returned it to the seller and got my money back. Picked up a refurbished model off ebay with a 860m, 1440p touch screen, 16GB RAM, 512GB Samsung M. 2 SSD, and a i5-5500u for the same price. The difference between the 960m and the 860m is nearly nonexistant, with a quick 135/337 overclock on the 860m it outperforms the 960m and stays just as cool.

The 2k touch screen is excellent, it totally makes up for the awful clickpad the laptop has, I really wish alienware stuck to the same light-up touch pad they put in the 14/15/17. Viewing angles and color reproduction is awesome, but it is very glossy so its not very outdoor-friendly.



Some Dying Light gameplay on medium-high settings, the laptop runs it surprisingly well.

 

Hi Ninja2000,

I am thinking of getting the Alienware 13 r2 with the OLED screen when it launches in April. I've been trawling forums and youtube looking for any benchmarks for Shogun 2 on either the Alienware 13 r1 or r2 to no avail. I'm aware of the limitations of a ULV processor when running things like 3d mark etc but I wanted to check how you got on with your Shogun test? As a game It's more cpu intensive so can the 13 run it on medium or even high settings and if so did you use the i5 or i7 version?

In addition I saw on another thread you mentioned noise/heat difference between the i5 and i7, how did you find that and would it be a deal breaker in your view moving up?