*OFFICIAL* Alienware 15 R1/R2 Owner's Lounge

Hey folks, does anyone know if the m2 SSD's that come in the 15 are SATA based or PCIe?

Will a PCIe m2 SSD work in the 15?

Cheers!

 

Finally, after much debate between AW and MSI, I've ordered an AW 15 with a 980m. I didn't get the 4k screen; I have the rest though - 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and 1TB HDD. I searched and tried to get the price down for a few days, and eventually ended up getting not too bad a deal I think - ~$1,700 (which includes cash back through the DELL preferred account). Estimated delivery date is around the first week of March. Can't wait to check it out!

 

Dayum especially in america you guys get impressive prices. In belgium here there are only two guys working at the costumer sales department. And they are the most ignorant ppl who simply don't give a single f*ck.

Even with the discount I still payed more then most of the guys here. 1739€ for i7, 980m, 1080p, 16gb ram, no ssd, 1 year forced next business day warranty and 2nd year is state law standard warranty.

Though still in transit. No tracking info is given except that their agent went to get the package on friday in China.

So it's a very painful wait where I have no guidlines of expectations.

 

Sorry to hear that, QUICKSORT. I have just the 1 year limited warranty - but I can see the difference in the deals. Good luck! Looking forward to hearing about your laptop soon - hopefully, your mood will be much better then!

 

Alright, so 250GB will be enough as my only drive if I go with the SSD? Does anyone know how much disk space the Win 8.1 OS and factory software on the AW 15 take up? As In how much space is being used up on the drive when booting up the laptop day 1?

 

Before I pull the trigger on a 4k model, I would LOVE to see some gameplay videos with and without the GA. There are NONE on youtube. I see tons of 13s (not even 3k 13s). Can a kind soul please shoot some videos of 4k gaming on the 15 please!?
))

 

I think only in the states they can get good discounts, reps are more prepared also so they can help more, i got no discount from the italian site, they were really unprepared, so i bargained a little with the polish one (since i live here for a while) and got little discount, not much from laptop itself, especially from the 2 year warranty and the Vindicator bag (no i dont already have a laptop bag). since i got no Student any other kind of requirements, i ordered it even with just a little discount, afterall i want this laptop so

 

For anyone thinking about purchasing, ask about the free tablet as mine came with one since they could not apply the military discount. This is what it says on my quote that a representative prepared: "$149.99 tablet discount removed from qualifying PC. " Worth a try. Who wouldn't want a free tablet?

 

I was able to get $75 off instead of opting for the tablet

 

I got 80 doller

 

Guys I am so existed , The y shipped my laptop going to here tomorrow !!

 

Now i have Question about discount .I got 10% advance user ,10% gift card , 2% student , 50$ instance save and 80 droller tablet Cash back .Do I miss any thing else?

 

Wow. I am an avid Slickdeal goer and we have a saying there that goes "buy now ask questions later" when the deal is that good.

 

They gave me the 50 dollars off as well as the tablet. Seeing all you guys get better coupons makes me jealous. On a side note, I called back to try to upgrade to the gtx 980m from the 970m but decided that my main game I play, Skyrim, will play fine with all 41 mods on max. I had a g751 with the 980m before but I returned it due to three dead pixels which is unacceptable when spending more than 2 grand on a computer. My experience with the 980m was wonderful but the money I saved going with the 970m will leave me with enough money for the graphics amplifier when it's matured and they work out the kinks. I plan on throwing a 780ti in there since I've seen a few on CraigsList for only 200 dollars. I have a few standards when it comes to gaming laptops which include fan noise, no matter how loud it is, isn't whiney like my gs70 stealth pro was, backlit keyboard, and a great display. After a good bit of research the AW 15 was the best fit especially with their uncharacteristicly low prices on these new models. Very competitive.

 

So that means i didn't miss anything right? I cant believe it that i will have it tomorrow

 

What configuration and what was the final price? When did you order and what country are you in?

 

US , M980 ,I7, 1tb , 8Gb ,full Hd , 1602 $ with tax + 10% gift card later . 9/2 will be deliver 2/18.

 

So I ended up having this same issue with mine, even though I was extra careful about taking off the service door due to your experience. So I started a chat with tech support and told them the machine came this way, hoping they would send me a new door. The tech told me they could not send me a new one at all and instead offered to send me a whole new system as an exchange, which is pretty overboard in my opinion. Its great they are doing this but I would have preferred just getting a new service door because I worry it will just break when I remove it on the new machine too. Those clips are unbelievably fragile!

 

Thanks for all the great answers guys! I have a few more question. Would it be better to simply install the SSD and then re spawn or do a fresh installation? I have heard if you don't do a fresh install the OS wont be optimized. Also, how do I go about doing a fresh install on a new SSD?

 

That's a great deal. I've done a lot of research and the best price I could find for a 15 inch notebook with the GTX 980m was around $1,650.00 from a custom Sager build on XoticPC. The price you got is the lowest for that mobile graphics card I've seen as of yet. The best part about the 900m series is the dynamic super resolution. I was only able to get it in the less taxing games like Skyrim. To check if DSR is on, it will be under the Nvidia GEForce Experience under each game's settings. It will either say yes or no. I hear that since we will have to use the specific driver from AW, it does not allow for the Nvidia GEForce Experience to be available. Is this true?

 

you can do either both would be just fine

once I get my laptop, (Thursday by the way) I plan on booting it up, letting windows do the first boot, installing acronis, then use a usb to sata cable to clone the drive. takes about 20 mins. then ill swap the drive.

this way I leave the drive that came with the alienware completely untouched, and then I can reclone it if needed.

 

I want to do something tomorrow . But why you want to do first boot? because i plan to make clone before first boot. Is it necessary the first boot?

 

Just a quick question: What is the size of the screw used to secure the SSD?

 

The regular SATA 3 drive has its on screws/bracket.
The m.2's use this size:

http://www.moddiy.com/products/M2.0...%2d3.3).html?gclid=COnGk8-Qy8MCFdgKgQodOKQAXA

 

Yea, when my door snapped it was a huge disappointment. I was told that the service door part was unavailable and to check back in 2-3 weeks, by a rep in India. When speaking to a tech, concerning another issue, he quoted that the part would be in stock in 6 days. I received an email from UPS, stating that I have a delivery due tomorrow from Dell. I hope one of those two agents took the initiative to order that part, without my call back/reminder. It would surely give me a higher opinion on their level of customer service. fingers crossed........

 

This bad,

Could you possibly take screenshot of the broken piece? I will replace my harddrive immediately too since I have my own ssd. And I want to avoid the mistake you two guys did. Any advice on that?

@djweissman woot? Fast delivery. I ordered mine the same date from belgium. Got shipped on friday previous week, but still no single shipment update from ups. Only "last seen in China on friday the 13th"

 

hello AW 15 owners, how do you wipe off that oil slick on the 15's palm rest, we have a lot of stock baby wipes - will that work?

 

That palm rest material from aw13. Same shiat they put on it. I'm not sure why...

I use screen cleaners and microfiber cloth it seems to work.

 

I'd like to share one tip regarding the opening of the back hatch.
I was about to find some plastic crowbar to open it, while my landlord offered this clever way:
He used one of those suction hangers to hang clothes to suck up the back, and it was super effective.

 

I would just make sure to not pull on the corners, which led to my downfall. It is such a tight fit that my cell phone, rubber pry tool couldn't even fit in the cracks. I had to use one of those silver push pill holders to get some leverage. The 14, 17, and 18 had such an easy access door. I guess with these new models, they really don't want us fishing around with the internals. I will be interested to hear from the first brave soul who removes the entire base plate, for maintenance/cleaning. I bet there are some more of those tabs just waiting inside. The same asinine tabs are used in the graphics amp, which scared the hell out of me during the first opening. I'll have to look into this suction method. Maybe Alienware can brand their own "no compromise" suction tool

 

Any 14, 17, or 18 owners have touchpad oil "marks/finger streaks" that will not come off? I have a shinier section, on my 14, from one finger scrolling. I used screen cleaners and even rubbing alcohol, to no avail. The 15 has an identical T-pad, so I'm hoping to avoid this blight. I guess I'll put degreaser on my hands before each use

 

Guys, I got my Alienware 15 from XoticPC... did I get ripped off , price wise?

For $1924 total

i7 4710
970M
IC Diamond thermal compound (GPU+CPU)
1TB 7200RPM HDD
256GB SSD
8GB RAM

I Paid an additional $50 for rush build. XoticPC did not charge me sales tax. Final total was $1924

 

Everytime i turn my pc on bandwith limit connection ( from killer drivers ) would be turned on. Even if i switched it off everytime. Anyone?

 

there has to be a service you can turn off, that or look in the msconfig file to stop if from starting up each time widows boots up

I get my laptop tomorrow night, ill have to look, there has to be a setting or service somewhere that is running

 

Typically those shiny spots on touchpads over time are actually from the finish wearing a bit, thus making it absolutely unavoidable no matter how clean you keep your hands. The only touchpad I've used where this didnt eventually happen are the glass ones on macbooks.

 

yea, that "feature" was driving me bloody nuts. When activated, a steam download would render internet browsing nearly unusable (mouse stuttering, etc). I have no clue why that is a factory default that auto loads, upon startup. I think that I shut it off for good (fingers crossed), by using run - msconfig - startup - open task manager - disable K install shield. The killer suite is no longer in the lower right icon "box," and my download speeds seem normal (no throttling). This should almost be stickied, as the Dell techs were not even able to diagnose the issue as the bandwidth restriction. Upon my self discovery of the problem, they could give no means to stop the auto start. I googled till I found that path that I mentioned. So basically internet search > Dell "techs"

 

Definitely overpriced. There is no haggling with Xoticpc. Nor the coupons.

You could have gotten the computer (of course without the rush build and IC Diamond thermal compound) for about or less than 1500 dollars with tax from Dell. You basically paid 400 dollars for rush build and the thermal compound.

 

I really don't like trashing Dell reps, because most of them that I talked with were nice, but hell, they're clueless with almost about everything. Every problem that I came across, I did it myself, in the exception of parts replacements.
The only times now that I call Dell techs are to request for parts or just to complain about any issues of the computer so that they put it in my records for future events.

 

Thank you for posting this solution to network issues. I have updated the OP ( post 2) with this troubleshooting solution. Thanks, and keep them coming =).

 

Yea, both the Indian and Costa Rican offices have pretty nice agents (despite their basic troubleshooting). The gent, that I spoke to today, discussed the various American accents that he interacts with. He rated my southern accent ('Bama), in terms of ease of understanding, higher than the Yankee equivalent. He said the Texas drawl was the worst of all

 

I am finding the heat on my AW15 while idle to be pretty ridiculous. Just sitting on my table doing absolutely nothing the bottom gets very warm. The bottom of this thing while idle is actually warmer to the touch than my 15 retina macbook pro gets during a long handbrake transcode which is crazy.

 

What temps are you registering, via HW Info? I've been web browsing for about 3 hours and mine averages around 60 degrees Celsius (without the cooler). The bottom is a little warm in the center. I'm too paranoid, of heat wear, to use it in my lap (fan blockage). If I do browse from my recliner, etc, I use the cooler linked below. It not only keeps it cool, but positions the display at a more eye level position. At least the rear is really too small to get hot. The larger backside of my Alienware 14 gets really hot, as noticed while resting it on my thigh.

http://www.amazon.com/CM-Storm-SF-15-Cooling-Retractable/dp/B00EQV0VSU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1424295081&sr=8-2&keywords=storm 15 cooler

 

For all of those that are still "in production," you are going to really impressed by your incoming 15. Despite my issues, well documented in this thread, I'm now fully in love with this beauty. The 15 inch size is absolutely perfect, as my 14 was too small and 18 massive. The soft touch material trumps anything MSI and especially Clevo has to offer. The weight feels lighter than my 14, despite it being listed as heavier (better weight dispersion). The only alteration to the design would be the use of lightweight carbon fiber or aluminum pieces for the lid and the silver baseplate sections (though it would probably add more weight; the plastic is quality). The 1080p screen is screen is vivid, has no ghosting, nor reflections under office lighting. I'm able to run AAA titles in 45-60 fps. I'm actually excited for you guys, as I'm sure that initial unboxing and boot up will be a memorable one.

 

Well that's great to know finally some good coming out of it !

 

I know what you mean! I love mine to!

 

Is it possible to eventually upgrade from a 1080p to 4K on the AW 15?

 

Wow I'm an idiot.. and it's a rush build, when they get the system in to work on it. They are ordering from Alienware themselves, and they haven't even got it in yet. It's almost been a month. I ordered on 1/29

 

Please tell me there is something wrong with his 15? I had a late 2013 AW17 R5, but when I used that thing on my laptop, even on idle or surfing web it got BLAZING hot in the back. I was told that those issues should be fixed by now. I got the IC diamond on my GPU/CPU, please tell me that helps the issue even more. I'll be pissed as hell if this laptop gets hot on idle.

 

Cancel the order and get it directly from Alienware. So much for "rush build" huh?

 

Finally will receive my laptop tomorrow (hopefully if nothing goes wrong).

Replacing hard drives, doing clean install etc. Will take quite some time. Also have a job interview friday. But will add my full review of the laptop here after I have a good try out of the laptop. Hope my system won't have any issues.