*OFFICIAL* Alienware 13 R3 Owner's Lounge

Got the R3 OLED and really like it but it can't even last 3 minutes in OCCT. How much lower are temps after repasting with normal thermal paste? Trying to decide between returning it or asking my friend if he can do it/go through the hassle of repasting this.

 

Oh! haha that is a relief!

 

Could you post your temperatures here? It's surprising honestly as I thought the 13 didn't have the heat problems of the 15 and 17 although it'd make sense that it does...

 

I doubt it matters, I have the top-spec one. OLED screen, 16 gb RAM. When I did some searching for keyboard repeat rate problems, the first thing that came up was the same issue but on the Alienware 15. Are we going to be stuck with this annoyance forever? I have to press backspace repeatedly like a machine gun just to fix a typo.

 

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I only ran OCCT.

 

Oh damn it seems you got a bad machine. Many people report temps n 60-70s... Repasting is always good but I'd return this one for another.

 

I would like to see screenshots of those people reporting 60's - 70's under full load?

And without performance fan enabled. I have 2 13 OLED and both repasted with Grizz Kryo and undervolted -175 max full load is 87c both systems performing around the same.

Enable fan performance though and ye temps is in low 60's.

 

Occt has the default threshold set to 85 degrees per core. Since most of these chips throttle around 95 degrees you could increase the threshold to this value. While 95 degrees feels a bit uncomfortable, this shouldn't harm the chip. This should allow you to find out how hot it is really running.

 

I only tested during games. as stress test is not really pratical, you are never going to do that to your CPU, no matter what applications you're running but i'll do it when I get home.

 

Out of curiosity, did you use the kryo included spatula to apply the paste or did you use another method(dot, stripe, cross)?


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Understood, however just run time spy and let me know highest temps from one run of time spy if possible?

Thanks.

 

Regarding the .iso from the Dell support site...

I had no issue downloading and re-installing from it. As people have mentioned, its not a traditional re-install, but if you follow the directions on this page you should not have an issue.

After the install, I also did not have any issue with any of the drivers. As mentioned, the recovery media is not like a factory install and will have some differences. This was not an issue for me, but kind of wish I still had the OLED option in the Power Options or at least knew what all it does so I could try to replicate it. Also of note, it does create a Windows.old folder which can be removed via disk cleanup and is highly recommend since mine was over 30GB.

 

Which Image did you use the 1st(Labelled Dell) or 2nd one?

 

So, the 14 inch slim Vindicator carry case doesn't fit this laptop in case anyone was wondering..

 

I have also a temp problem, when I do a burn, there is a 30° difference between cores. Do I re-paste it or call Dell services?

 

and at those temps you probably barely hear the fan?

My fans kick on when running a game or time spy/valley benchmarks but are about 40% of max.

With occt, my fan only kicks on maybe 10% my Cpu hit a max of 91c on a 30min test.

Same test with fan performance on my cpu hit a max of 78c

 

I did this before it was mentioned which was which in this thread and selected the second one. I had started downloading both and I want to say that the file name for the second seemed to indicate a more recent version number. I may try again with the first one to see if the results are any different.

 

I am still looking for more info on the battery life. This will be my primary work laptop, and I am still concerned how long it will last on a charge. I have seen anywhere from under two hours to 4 hours (undervolted with the i5). Do we have any more data points? I am really hoping to get 4+ hrs for standard office work (msft office, web browsing, etc).


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No offense, but I don't get posts like this... Other people's experience are only going to give you a "ballpark" idea, maybe. IMO, just order one, test it out in YOUR scenario and then you'll know pretty much how it will work for YOU. If it doesn't fit your needs, return it.

 

The fans are not kicking in indeed. I've not tested with the performance setting. I sent a mail to Dell, I'll see what they can do

 

Thanks for the replies. I'll set OCCT to stop at 95c - how long are most people getting at that setting?

 

Stock? I say you will hit 95 within 15min?

 

With the second one. Did it have the anniversary update included. I'm sure one of them doesn't have it included as I download both but think for mixed up in naming which one was which despite the sizes


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So you can confirm it DOESNT fit? Cos I've got one ordered and it should fit width ways apparently. But maybe equal to how deep it is?


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finally got in contact with my sales agaent who says the system is showing a shortage of screen and drives, so thats why im delayed.

guessing it'll be a 19th delivery date

 

Is anyone willing to run some benchmarks on this laptop? I am very curious about Firestrike scores.. The Razer Blade is getting 9-9200, some even as low as 89**. According to a YouTube reviewer the Alienware 13 R3 should perform worse than the Blade in Firestrike but I am having a hard time believing it. If anyone kindly wants to run Firestrike, can you bench mark in these two scenarios:

1. Regular settings and bios
2. Regular settings, bios performance fan on

Much Obliged!

 

How did you get in touch with sales agent ? I called dell support twice today ,both times they said sales agent will contact me but no one contacted me, Dell has charged my credit card full amount which is ridiculous , never had an online order where credit card was charged before shipping..

 

you are not going to get more than 4.5 hours...

 

It won't be a good laptop for you if battery life is your concern

 

59 is max...kinda uneven on core 2 and 4 though

 

Worse youtube unboxing ever, by yours truly

 

Oh I see you have the i5. Ye those temps are good but no one with an i7 will see close to those unless they LM and undervolt.

Thanks for sharing.

 

his extension number, he hardly answer tho so i got lucky

 

you wouldnt see 90+ on I7 though, if thats the case then I would never get I7..10% speed for +30 degrees thermal?

 

Found the fix to the stupid micro stutter...go into device manager (right click on this pc and property) disable the IGPU (intel HD graphic 530)....its the only fixed so far...

EDIT: Broke brightness settings revert back to enable IGPU

 

Had a chat yesterday with dell support about the restore image download manager. They keep pointing to the microsoft image tool and finally acknowledged that the dell download isn't working "in some cases". Meanwhile I've tried dozens of times, mostly end up with corrupt images and had 2 cases where the image would mount but still had various sizes. I'd really like to have a reliable restore image (including the alienware stuff) on another medium than the laptop ssd itself...

 

TBH this is a bit of epeen waggling as it won't really matter in software more than a couple of FPS.

HOWEVER...

My AW13R3 is definitely better than what they were reporting on the Razor forums. They sacrifice pure performance (and noise) for sexier looks and weight.

1. Out of the box it was ~9500
2. With -150mV under volt on CPU & +175mhz core / +300mhz Mem on GPU that score jumped to ~10050. @+195mhz core / +400mhz mem it jumps to ~10190. From the data collected there was no throttling. At these settings it was also a solid 7.8 on the SteamVR test.

All the above is on standard fan profile. It was not particularly loud at all (not that much more than my MBP 13 when I was playing games), peak temps ~78C CPU / ~80C GPU.

No repaste, core differential under full load is ~15C.

A Reddit post I did a few days ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/5gsenc/aw13r3_thoughts_after_a_couple_of_days/

Battery is ~4-5 hours for video/browsing, BatteryBarPro shows mostly between -10,000mV and -15,000mV for most video/desktop. Was playing light games for 1 hour on the train this morning for ~25% battery (PlanetBase if anyone is interested ), thats using GPU... Geforce Experience is capping at 30fps (or it should be). Barely hear the fans, and it was on my lap the entire trip, was nice and warm (NOT hot). Oh, and this is the OLED version.

Had bad microstutter (mostly while watching Video, was a regular hiccup in VLC every 2 mins or so), figured out that Chrome was running in background (untick the option in icon tray), disabled that and its a LOT better. Will look at disabling Superfetch and Xbox DVR as well.

TBH I'm loving this laptop, wish it as a few pounds lighter, but happy to put up with it for the performance / quality.

 

I got the vindicator v2.0 for the 13. Seems great. Other than that you stlll have the new messenger that fits up to 17 inches and can be adjusted for smaller devices...

 

Good to know, thanks.

 

Good to know it fits, thanks. I was having doubts because Dell doesn't seem to be interested in conveying proper laptop and bag sizes on their site.. Does it have space for the power brick as well? In a way that it doesn't start to crush the laptop itself in the long run?

 

1) Go to dell.com.
2) Sign into your account.
3) Click on your account name (will take you to the 'My Account' page)
4) Check the order number for your Alienware 13 purchase. You can find it under order details, on the right side or in the email you would have received upon placing the order.
5) Scroll down on the 'My Account' page. In the 'Support' area, you will find a 'My Products and Services' option. Click on that to go to the 'My Products and Services' page.
6) Click on the 'Find and Add Products' tab just under the 'My Products and Services' heading on the new page.
7) Click on the drop down and select 'Order Number'. Enter your order number and country of purchase.
8) Click Find Products and add the product.
9) Now go to the 'Product List' tab and you should find your Alienware 13 listed there. Click on the service tag for your product.
10) A new page should open up that will show you the warranty details of your AW13. You can find a button on this page to "Request Warranty Extension"

Hope this helps. Cheers!

 

So spoke to Dell and syncreon regarding the hold request on my order.

Dell don't have a clue and no one's bothered to ring syncreon with a release order.

Had a dell rep say it's due to lack of parts?...... It's already built and with the UK courier.....

They really don't have a clue about what's going on, seems my order is stuck in limbo and syncreon are refusing to send me the laptop until dell send them a request to release!

And here I thought the process was going swimmingly.......


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I was able to download the windows restore image. I tested by putting in another SSD and tried to rebuild the laptop. It only installed windows but I had no Ethernet or wireless drivers so had to include those on the usb stick also, then I was able to download the Alienware specific drivers from Dell and get the machine 99% working (no tobii drivers). so for now I will take a base image of my 512gb ssd as backup.

 

Am in same boat... UK based, expecting delivery anytime now, order tracked from china to U.K. and now on hold in UK depot. I have queried this morning but have not had any feedback yet.

 

After a few days messing about a dell rep admitted its a technical issue on their end. (the ordering system) Said my order isn't updating and he will email his supervisor for permission to send the release request to Syncreon.

Seems the system is sending out hold orders for no reason and no Dell reps have knowledge of it.

If I don't hear back today I'll contact them again and get a manager to just phone syncreon and give the release request.

How hard can it be to just give them a call and admit they have been having tech issues and to just send the orders.....

They are all built and sitting there ready to go.

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After careful consideration, I am returning my AW13 R3. The DPC Latency issue seems to be an on going problem that Nvidia/Dell/Microsoft does not know how to remedy. For some, this is not a big issue, but I know I will spend my time looking for ways to fix the issue but there might not be one. So rather than wasting my time, I regretfully will return this Laptop.

If anyone dont want to wait or sick of waiting and would like to get an I5-6300 HQ with 16 GB of ram and 256gb of NVME SSD, PM me, I will charge you the price that Dell charged me, this way you don't have to wait.

P.S I'm doing this for forum favor, I am not going to lower the price because Dell has a 30 day return policy at no cost.

 

So, I was lucky enough to snatch off [ Kingston Technology HyperX Impact 32GB Kit (2x16GB) 2400MHz DDR4 CL14 260-Pin SODIMM Laptop HX424S14IBK2/32 @ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BNJL8I4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ] for $119.00

Yesterday I installed them, but the system won't boot with both sticks in. Once on, Alien head would flash [2-red; 3-blue]; black screen and the cooling fans gradually kick in to probably 100%. No issues if one is removed.
Any ideas guys ?

I cant seem to find error codes for AW13 R3 anywhere ..

 

Sorry to hear that, it seems this stuttering issue is a massive problem on a lot of 1060-equipped machines. Are you going to get an Aorus X3 v6 then? If so, it would be amazing if you could come here (and/or the GS43 forum) and tell us if that machine also has the stuttering problem.