*OFFICIAL* Alienware 13 R3 Owner's Lounge

I thought the same, everything seems OK now.
Light load was browsing, few programs open and opening a game, literally as soon as it was launched it would spike to 96+
Will see how I get on with my current settings and if problem persists will try a repaste as the images I've seen regarding dell's factory attempt is pretty shocking to honest.
Just seems funny it's core 0 that's the issue.

The gpu is brilliant. 76 maxed in gears / ultra 1080.

Also, my fans seem to be grinding slightly at idle, will check the alignment when a repaste happens.

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Also, I've never heard of undervolting causing any damage. Worst case, it hard freezes/BSODs, and I can imagine in an extreme circumstance you might lose data in the process. However, any basic guide will tell you to incrementally increase the undervolt bit by bit until you hit the first small signs of instability and then step back. I also don't think that someone shouldn't do it because they've never done it before - then we'd never do anything new Undervolting is an amazing thing, less heat, longer component life, less noise, longer battery life, and can't break your hardware. In some cases, it can even mean more power (if CPU is hitting wattage and/or thermal limit, like on my Surface Pro). Overclocking and increasing voltage is a different animal, of course.

 

Undervolting is not dangerous to the hardware, just stability, and it is easy enough to go back. The stock voltage pushed out for Intel chips is a mean which all chips should run stably. However each chip is different, and the less voltage you can stably have you chip run on, the better it is for heat, power consumption, and longevity.

The current gen of Intel chips all seem to be running very hot, undervolting is a good tool to use to lower that. But a repaste of Dell's awful thermal paste is recommended first. Remember that these CPUs share the heat sink with the GPU. With a repaste and an udervolt, you can safely Overclock the GTX 1060 and aim for stock GTX 1070 scores

 

Anyone getting a very slight buzz/hissing noise when scrolling up and down on web pages?

 

My AGA got delivered today and my second AW13 (ordered on 12/9) will be delivered tomorrow!

 

Got mine in, what's the best test for temps?


Also didn't know performance mode would be on 24/7 xD I think I'll deal with warmer temps while gaming to be able to browse without the fans at full

 

So what does cpu performance mode actually do? And I'm assuming fan performance just ramps up the fans?

 

Just wanted to update everyone that there appear to be delays in the OLED panels.

I ordered my laptop on the 14th with an expected delivery date of 22-28th. Hearing about the delays here I called Dell today and was told that my order was on hold due to component shortage of the OLED panel. If you try to place a new order on the Dell Web Site with the OLED option you get a 28-31 day leadtime, so this appears a serious shortage.
I believe if you modify the order they will charge you for the new laptop and give a refund separately. I don't want 2 charges at the same time, so will wait till 28th and see if the date improves. If not, might cancel. I will lose the TENOFF coupon though, too bad because it was a great price.

For those who ordered without the OLED screen, any regrets? Is it worth the extra 250 and any delays?

 

Did they say how long the hold would be for? I ordered on the same day

 

Unfortunately not, order modification team just said shortage. I don't even know if it will impact our order lead times significantly since we still have another week. This was an impulse buy as a spare laptop because the price was very good, I can wait for it for some time, so might wait till the New Year to see if things improve. If you do up talking to them please update if you get a concrete date.

 

Uh my temps are jumping all over from just downloading stuff


Hwmonitor

Current: bouncing from 48 to mid 50s edit in mid 60s now with two downloads going
Max: 74/67/77/66/76

from downloading bencharms

I don't understand why this thing can keep stable. Can't wait to see its p95 temps ....

 

Hi Mr K, hope you get yours soon. Not sure where you are based, I am in the UK, and some folk here saw their laptops shipped from china, only to be put on hold and held in a U.K. Warehouse whilst Dell "sorted" a problem with a config setting (maintenance mode left on). This caused some angst, particularly because of the complete absence of communication, and indeed almost deliberate obfuscation of the facts by the call centre reps. Users such as @Rairch complained to customer services and negotiated further rebate post receipt of laptop. I think @Rairch secured 10%, I managed to secure 50GBP, read into that what you will, but I concluded that @Rairch must be able to tell people to go to hell in such a way that they actually look forward to the trip!

To conclude, I am unsure if you will succeed in securing additional monies off unless there has been some disruption to the normal process, so a delay waiting for parts might not cut it. But if you don't ask, you don't get...

Wishing you well with your laptop.

 

So I'm going to leave prime for a few hours but running the small fft I can notice two things off the bat


1) still uneven heating (up to 15c difference
2) pretty good stock cooling


Maxes: 94/79/94/81/94
Then the fans kicked in and I'm maxing around 83c on core 0/2 with 2/3 in the low 70s/high 60s



I'd say this thing cools pretty well

 

Dear Sparkle999,
I appreciate you taking your time to reply to a message of mine.
The information you had provided has helped with my understanding of the delay. It's upsetting were all sharing this horrible experience.
Ill be optimistic and expect it to be rectified shortly.
To mention, i was able to gain a settlement of 107 GBP; The funds should be deposited in to my account with in 5 working days after delivery.
Not knowing if this would help increase the 'size' of the 'good will gesture' you were offered/provided...
I informed Dell that i work at a university of law and am willing to forward my ID etc.. and am prepared to dispute the breach of contract under altered time frame to supply the goods.
And in lieu of formal action, i was offered a cash settlement!
It was a 17 minute call so it was long. But proportional to the funds gained in return.
Wish you well and merry Christmas.
Mr.E.khan

 

Curiosity. Why you ordered a second one? I got a second unit coming tomorrow aswell. Was expected the 30th. A week earlier I can't complain. The other unit is planned for a return. But I get to play with both I can maybe cancel my current one if I don't like the second one as much as the 1st one. But I hope that's not the case.


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Look at the other numbers:

Current Capacity: 72200

Designed Capacity: 76000

72200 / 76000 = current capacity is 95% of designed capacity

That number isn't bad, as others are reporting lower, but I don't know that it really means much as the batteries are new and haven't even gone through many discharge / charge cycles.

I don't see any current Dell Battery Calibration downloads, but if you can find an app that applies to your hardware then give that a try too.

Otherwise run on battery a few times from full charge to about 40%-30% and then fully charge. See if that has an effect on the "wear level" / percentage.

 

The second one I ordered while there was the sale price and I was able to stack two coupons I had. So I upgraded the initial SSD and the warranty for not much more than my first one's price. In the time that I had my first one I had decided that its going to completely replace my desktop so I wanted to make a few adjustments to the configuration and this was actually a cheaper way than upgrading the pieces individually.

 

i went out to run an errand and left it running prime and when i got back the screen/fx lights were off. said something about a microsft update when i logged back on. guess windows restarted?


anyways it erased my temp so i only got 30mins of prime to go by (small fft)

maxete temps: 94/79/94/81/94
then the fans kicked in
current temp averaged around 83/70/83/70/83


@hmscott should i rerun it? or am i good

 

Actually 5 minutes to 15 minutes maximum is really enough to get a good reading for CPU temps and stability.

We used to use hours long runs of p95 to find power supply and other component stability issues, but it's been quite a while since I have needed that kind of testing.

The inability to stop Windows Update and the reboot's that often follow is ridiculus and MS needs to bring back control to the owner over updates and reboots.

Your temps look similar to others that have large core temperature differentials.

Your laptop needs return to Dell to get the fixes so you can have even cooling results across the cores. Or, swap for another new production unit that was built with the fixes.

You could do it all yourself based on iunlock and others findings, but you did pay so much for a out of the box running laptop, why not let Dell earn their money

 

Hi,
Another newbie here so, bear with me.
The 13 R3 I ordered has shipped earlier than expected (IPS display).
(FHD IPS, i7, 16Gb, 512, Killer 1535)
A cousin of mine is going to be receiving it and bringing it to me (India).

I need to instruct him to go through a checklist of things of look out for.
This is what I have so far:

• Excessive lightbleed
• 60% charging (easy fix during boot)
• Build and trim
• Temperature check with OCCT for 15 minutes (?)
  • CPU OCCT and GPU 3D tests
  • Infinite (vs Automatic) for 15 minutes
• HWiNFO to check current battery wear %

Please let me know if that's all. I'm replacing my 5 yr old MBP with this beauty. Hope it works out as well as I hope it does

 

Just got my 13r3 and it's great. Unfortunately the temps are horrendous. We opened it up and we could see why. We are doing a much needed repaste.
Not only is the material poor, the application is awful too. I cannot imagine the great engineering put into this laptop just so it can be paired up with terrible factory pasting. $1600 laptop should be better. I'll update later on with temps.

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well it took a month to get this so not looking forward to that.
funny think is i just ran the elemental demo and the cores all ran within 2c of each other. with temps maxing at 78C

anyone know if timespy runs at native? im under 30fps or its using the igpu

 

Really impressed with Grizzly thermal paste. 85C went down to 70C. Fans are inaudible during tests. Ran some Furmark from OCCT and once again the different was phenomenal. Very impressive and no doubt everyone should consider a repaste to extend the life of this laptop.

Core#2 was so hot it hits the threshold in 30 seconds. After the repaste Core#2 was still warmer than the rest, but it never got past 76C. Colossal improvement. As for the fans, it's been pretty quiet but I purchased a laptop cooler and it's bringing my temps down to around 55C - 65C while playing Street Fighter V at 1440p.

Overall I'm very happy with this purchase, just dumbfounded on the thermal pasting. I will be making a video this weekend discussing more results and fine tuning.

 

I was looking at the current capacity, have been gaming on battery to around 7% and then charging to full. No change as of yet.
Will keep an eye on this as others have stated it needs a good few full drains and charbes to settle.

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Haha, was just polite on the phone...... Well until I was lied to numerous times, then I was just extremely persistent (but never rude) and told them to add all of this to my notes for when I ring again.

I think they just got sick of me by the end and put something on my notes as the customer care woman threw in the 10% without even trying really.

Have now asked for extended warranty due to the time holding my laptop for battery issues only to be not even fixed when delivered......... That's just crazy.

Not heard anything back so time will tell. Highly doubtful.
He is looking into sending me a new battery though.




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I am afraid that I did not choose wrong. This laptop is nearly perfect for my requirements. I may have a fault with the battery (or the sensors) - it shows wear now at 11% after 2 weeks use. On that rate it will no longer be a portable laptop in 20 weeks time. As stated there are consumer laws to protect buyers from this kind of thing.
But I wonder what set of criteria you should have chose for me when I was deciding upon which laptop to buy? Maybe I should've just asked you for undoubted sage advice whilst I was weighing up the various options. Passing off your personal opinion as a fact shows your arrogance and misplaced sense of superiority. It is my considererd opinon that you are a muppet.
Ciao

 

This is very worrying. As someone who has never opened up a laptop other than to replace memory and hard drives, the idea of taking apart a brand new laptop is very intimidating. Would you suggest people like me just skip this iteration and wait for a while to see if Dell manufacturing gets things get sorted out in future batches?

If this is the only issue, any referrals for re-pasting services in the Bay Area? I know I will never end up doing this myself.. Many Thanks..

 

I've just tried that and my wear has gone from 2% to 6.3%!

 

Actually I think it's none of your business to state whether or not he chose wrongly, as you do not know anything about him and why he chose this specific model.
And even if you did you are the one that's wrong, as he could just have chosen this since he wanted a powerful gpu and a little bit of mobility. So that's perfectly fine.
And with a working battery that little mobility could last a few years instead of a few months. I don't see how a thing so simple can be so hard for you to understand.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry!

 

Perhaps both?

 

"Wear" level is probably a bad name for it when it first comes out of the box, as it's "Current Capacity" vs "Designed Capacity"

Just like all batteries there is some variation in actual capacity attained during the build - materials - assembly - phase of the moon.

Coming out of the box it's really not a valid number.

After being in use for a while the value will fluctuate until it finally settles on a constant mostly unchanging value.

The problems are seen when that number continues to drop when new, or years from now when it starts to drop again - in a normal battery - this is where the "Wear" comes in to play.

The use or "Wear" on the battery from charging / discharging will eventually start reducing the "Current Capacity".

It's a number to not panic about unless it continues to drop when new, or if it's a really low number after a few dischage/charge cycles and the number settles on a low value.

I think the lowest I have had on a new battery was 87%, while my other batteries bought as spares (yes, when you could swap them), were in the low 90's %.

 

Cool. That's good to know. I guess I'll just see how it goes.

 

So how are people getting benchmarks to work?


I've tried spy and firestrike (the free versions) and They both automatically use native resolution so that's not helping but I'm pretty sure that the 1060 shouldnt be getting 10-20 fps even in 1440p


Also anybody have tips for the tobi?
I can't leave my PC alone when I'm doing big downloads because Of Tobi

But at the same time tobi is going to my best bet at fighting off burn in on the oled

 

Yes please I'd love a video for the 13 r3! I've got some kryonaught waiting in the wings for when the damn thing gets here. Hoping I wont have to use it but thought id get some just in case, want to get that fan noise down

 

I have Tobi just to turn the screen off, not put the computer in sleep mode.

 

I have been using my A13 r3 for 2 weeks now. My battery wear level was 5% out of the box, it's at 10.1% now. At this rate, my battery will die in about 36 weeks.

 

I don't know Scotty, but Dell is sending me a replacement battery. Mine just keeps dropping in both wear and capacity levels [current cap - 60034 mWh out of designed 76000mWh]

 

I didn't say there wasn't a problem, I was trying to convey what to look for and what's normal.

If your battery "Current Capacity" is constantly dropping in value when new then there is something wrong, either with the battery or the charging circuit.

At the values you named, the "Current Capacity is 79%, which is the lowest I have seen for a new battery, so there is definately something wrong.

Hopefully it's the battery, since that is what they are sending, and the new one settles at a higher "Current Capacity".

Another fun Dell problem to diagnose, oh joy

 

I would suggest people like you get out a guide and go for it.

Or you can pay to have it done by certain forum members here (decently cheap) and they will use liquid metal if you want it. And because its the AW 13 you won't be paying ridiculous shipping fees

 

Tried a hard reset, just as you suggested [unplugged battery and charger]...didn't help. Lost another 1% overnight. Dell is sending a replacement. Real-life, and not just the readings, show decline in charge hold too. I really hope that my issue is an isolated instance and others won't face that too.

 

Got my second unit. My battery wear is 5% vs the 2% in the first one. I'll try to cycle the battery. If it doesn't sort itself. I'll just swap the battery out with the one I'm sending back (the 0% wear battery that was 2% out the box)


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Well at least Dell is on it, and they are not sending an incompetent mingkey to replace the battery. Wouldn't let a Dell tech in proximity of my computers.

Just be cautious that the current battery might be glued in on one side, they sometimes do this so it doesn't move around if the fit isn't perfect. If its glued tight, don't try to force it, you can bend or break what its glued to. fire it up and play a demanding game for a while, the heat should loosen the glue.

 

I wonder what they do with the returned systems ... do they tear them down and re-assemble part-by-part or just swap the casing along with the screen ? The later would mean that someone would get that pickled battery later on though ...

 

Can you run CMD.exe (as admin) and type powercfg -batteryreport


Should see how close together the serial #'s of potential bad batteries are

Gives useful detailed info
example:
Battery report
COMPUTER NAME DESKTOP-71R5HDF
SYSTEM PRODUCT NAME Alienware Alienware 13 R2
BIOS 1.2.15 07/11/2016
OS BUILD
PLATFORM ROLE Mobile
CONNECTED STANDBY Not supported
REPORT TIME 2016-12-22 13:38:48

Installed batteries
Information about each currently installed battery
BATTERY 1
NAME PABAS0241231
MANUFACTURER COMPAL
SERIAL NUMBER 41167
CHEMISTRY Li-I
DESIGN CAPACITY 61,986 mWh
FULL CHARGE CAPACITY 60,466 mWh
CYCLE COUNT -

....
Battery capacity history
Charge capacity history of the system's batteries
PERIOD FULL CHARGE CAPACITY DESIGN CAPACITY
2016-09-25 - 2016-10-02 60,466 mWh 61,986 mWh
2016-10-02 - 2016-10-09 60,466 mWh 61,986 mWh
2016-10-09 - 2016-10-16 60,466 mWh 61,986 mWh
2016-10-16 - 2016-10-23 60,466 mWh 61,986 mWh
2016-10-23 - 2016-10-30 60,466 mWh 61,986 mWh
2016-10-30 - 2016-11-06 60,466 mWh 61,986 mWh
2016-11-06 - 2016-11-13 60,466 mWh 61,986 mWh
2016-11-13 - 2016-11-20 60,466 mWh 61,986 mWh
2016-11-20 - 2016-11-27 60,466 mWh 61,986 mWh
2016-11-27 - 2016-12-04 60,466 mWh 61,986 mWh
2016-12-04 - 2016-12-11 60,466 mWh 61,986 mWh

 

Wait a minute ... F.C. is @ 63.627 mWh and C.R. @ 68.309 mWh !?!?
S.N. is 41167

 

I know that he (and perhaps you as well) chose a product that was not meant for you, it's intended purpose or it's target audience. Hence your and his disappointment.

One love.

 

I noticed that too. So what I do you need cos I might just copy and past the lot on wordpad although my battery on unit 1 is exactly same serial number and name except it is 76000 mWh


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Again? I double checked Alienware's site, nowhere it states "intended for l33t gamerz only". Instead it advertises a 76Wh battery.

 

Are you really italian?