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

You just get one of the BIOS files from Dell's support site and run the file (.exe or whatever it is).
You'll want to get A00.

 

Okay solved my own problem. Turns out that my 980M GPU was not getting activated when running Cities Skylines. My Nvidia setting is set to Autodetect but for some reason the GPU is not being used when running the game. So I had to manually set it up before playing - anyone know what may be causing this?

Oh well at least now I can enjoy my kind of game in all its 4K glory - I can see a lot more of the city in one screen =)

Oops forgot to mention that I am able to play the game at the highest video settings

 

Appreciate it Game7A1

 

Try ordering from the Singapore Dell online shop - I got the Vindicator 14 from them for ~57 USD

 

if you look back a page or two. I ended up getting my bag off ebay and I posted pics up.. the Vindicator 14 backpack fits the 15" brilliantly and I would suggest it highly over the 17/18" versions as it holds it snug.

 

Guys, my bottom left light just went out randomly... only the right one is on even after restarting comp and shutting off. Wtf do I do? Why does Alienware suck so badly. I'm starting to hate this laptop and I can't even return it anymore. I pretty much regret getting this laptop. 15 day return policy.... over. what a waste of 2000$

 

Well, did you maybe turn the light color to black in alienFX?

But seriously, aren't you still under warranty? Maybe you could send it in to dell for repair if nobody else has any solutions.

Every laptop brand comes out with defective models every so often (just look at Asus).

 

is there a way to set alienFx lights to a white colour?

 

Ugh... what a damn hassle. Send it in, wait 2 weeks without laptop, get it back. This laptop is a piece of trash ....

No, the bottom 2 lights. The right light is working, the left like just randomly went out like it died

 

I think it's worth it considering you spent "2000$" on it.....

 

Just because I spent 2000 on it doesn't make it worth. I am just now discovering the mountain of problems this laptop has. Would've been better of with an HP omen or something

 

Oh well, I tried. I'd do it if I were you. Did you ever send it in beforehand? Cause it seems you've had many problems with it looking at your earlier posts. If that's the case, and you've sent it in once or twice, I might consider getting something else (haven't actually bought it yet ).

I've considered the Omen, but the lack of upgradability, the slower GPU and the price/performance ratio kinda put me off. It's no slouch still, and the portability is a bonus (uni student over here).

EDIT: I meant it's worth sending it in to Dell, not the laptop itself cause that's up to you.

 

The whole laptop is worthless because of the two key lights that went out. OK.

You have an on-site support. You have a next day part service. Use them. It seems like all of the problems you've listed in the forums are easily fixable or just plain normal.

 

My problem with on-site support is, when the laptop is brand new out of the box and has or is faulty almost immediately, that doesn't warranty on-site support, rather replacement for DOA goods. I would expect it to run for at-least 7 days or even slightly longer before on-site tear down on a brand new machine is justified.

 

Today even though the GA overclocking was disabled, My CPU throttled again. Even dropping to 1.1GHz on games such as tomb raider. And 3DMark again saying A score of 79XX. I restarted my computer opened bios enabled and disabled back the GA overclocking. saved and exited, now the clocks are back fine.

Anyone know why this happened? I mean it's stupid if I have to go to bios every time.

 

Which BIOS version do you have?
I'm not sure why what is happening to is, well, happening.

 

A02
I updated the moment I got my laptop.

 

What were to happen, while your clocks were fine, if you...

• Re-flashed A02?
• Flashed A00 (you have the 240w PSU as I recall, so no real point in having A02)?

Same results?

 

Loving my Omen, it may be less powerful than the 15 I had but it's a better machine in every other way (for me) haha

Plus I got the 256GB PCIe SSD model for only $1120, so it was a pretty great deal to begin with.

 

You are not the only one with this problem. I am ripping my hair out trying to fix it with generic/old drivers. Gonna need to ask for a wifi card replacement. When running alien autopsy it says the card is working as intended which I highly doubt.

 

As mentioned elsewhere. The problem is while the hardware is great, killer drivers are absolutely terrible.

So do the following:

1. Open task manager -> Startup -> Disable killer network manager (It might be called Installshield by Flexera Software)

2. Open network sharing center -> change adapter settings -> right click on the Wi-Fi adapter -> properties -> UNINSTALL Killer Networks / Bandwidth Manager (cant remember what its called but its fairly similar to that) -> Restart

3. Open your power plan settings and make sure that wireless adapter settings is set to maximum performance

Restart and you should be good.

 

On top of having weird lag spikes, the laptop lighting system is now completely dim. anyone know what could be causing this?

 

this might be a silly suggestion but if you right click on the alienware alienfx (alien with green eyes) icon in the task bar next to the clock, dim lighting zone isnt ticked is it

 

I followed your steps and the connection problems still persist. Thanks for giving it a shot though. The laptop takes a while to connect to the internet after starting up and the signal strength and ping fluctuates a lot. My other laptop/devices don't have these connection issues. Trying to determine if it needs to be sent for a replacement card or if it can be fixed some other way.

 

The dim zone option is not ticked so im thinking maybe a driver refresh could do it.

 

Is it really that great compared to The AW 15? How is the cooling on the laptop? Only thing that turns me off is people saying the audio is kinda bad and also the tacky flashing lights when the audio is playing lol

 

Anyone having trouble installing the newest Alienware command center? When I try to install, it says it's unable to install. I can only install the first version. My left bottom bumper light keeps dying on me. It died last night and then I plugged in the machine and both worked fine. Now randomly it died again. I don't know if this is a hardware issue or driver.

update:

really weird, when I unplugged the charger from laptop, 2 bottom lights now working?

 

Got my laptop on February 23rd. I am in Australia and 10 minutes left for April 1st . I think being a one month plus user, this laptop did not die on me. Yes, I did the BIOS update and a full system update, no issues till now. The only funny thing I face, sometimes when I play latest games, the fans don't kick in and it stays surprisingly cool but when I try older games like the first Assassins Creed, it gets pretty warm. I don't know what is causing this but other than that, all lights are working perfectly, I use it for various purposes like video editing, SolidWorks etc...it CHOMPS through everything. The only thing left for me is to re-paste my babe up.
BEWARE: It attracts A LOT of attention. Being an engineering student, I am sometimes afraid to take this to the library so I take my old MacBook pro which blends quite easily

Good luck to users out there. I feel sorry for ya'll whose machines doesn't work like they are supposed to.
If you take good care of your machine, it will do the same to you. Happy Gaming

 

I'm a software architect mate, and people ask me if I am carrying a server around with me! who cares what people think, the true reason we buy these machines is cause we are computer nerds.

 

Well, I have a new issue. When playing a full screen game, the on-screen character has a visible, pixel-like trail that follows behind him/her. This occurs when shifting the viewing camera, and mostly only effects non-static renders. It appears to me as if the moving object has snow or dust falling off of/trailing them. One might also visualize this by thinking of the trail left behind a comet. Is this the "ghosting" that many have reported? It only began this past week and is seen in every game. The interesting part is that it isn't visible when playing in "windowed" mode. The Dell tech couldn't fix it by trying two other nvidia drivers. I eventually got tired of spending an hour on the phone, so I called it quits for the day. Any idea what could be causing these artifacts?

 

In terms of build quality and overall issues, absolutely. (I haven't had a single issue with the Omen yet, and hopefully it stays that way.) Obviously not performance wise though. The 860M was plenty for me since I do most of my gaming on my desktop.

Cooling is excellent on this thing, it stays much cooler than the 15 ever did. (In fire strike my GPU stays in the mid-upper 50s and my CPU hits the high 60s*. (*That's from memory, I'll update this post with actual numbers next time I test it. Also that would have been with max fans turned on.) While gaming the GPU stays in the low-mid 60s and CPU stays in the low-mid 70s* (automatic fan speeds, turbo boost disabled). BF4 did hit 92 on one core while the rest stayed in the 80s (High Performance mode, automatic fan speeds, sitting flat on table: no tilt/no external cooling).

Speakers do lack bass (low end) but they're not horrible. I rarely use them and I never tested the 15's speakers so I can't compare them.

The pulsating speaker lights can be disabled, so you don't have to worry about that.

Battery life: 4-5 hours on balanced mode, Wi-Fi on, etc. (I probably wasn't doing much on it.) Not sure how long it would last on a power savings mode.

To me, it's the perfect laptop for carrying to class and playing games when I'm away from my desktop.

 

Try switching the battery profile to high performance. When i switch to high performance cpu always stays at 3.3 ghz. whereas, when i run in balanced, it varies from 1.2 - 2.5 ghz.

 

It's already on High performance, both minimum and maximum CPU power state is at 100% performance.

For now the CPU didn't throttle strangely. So it seems okay for now, hope it won't happen again.

 

What's the latest Nvidia driver that everyone is using? Are you using the Dell provided 347.25, or are you using a modded driver?

 

I'm really trying to determine swapping this out for the Omen. As long as I can play league of legends flawlessly on the 860M i'm fine. But the problem is, XoticPC has a 15 day return policy on all laptops. That ended about 15 days ago. I wonder how flexible XoticPC is, in terms of returning items when there are clearly alot of problems with it

 

Does anyone (other than tom) have issues with their systems? Or is it still just people with issues that keep posting?

I wanna hear from people with good experiences too!!! All these posts are still making me unsure about buying this laptop...

 

This is more or less a tech support forum to some degree so people with issues is mostly what you'll see. You might be able to try AlienwareArena's website and make a thread there about owners and how they feel. Or you could make a thread here too for "Good reviews".

 

People with issues will post if, people without have nothing to post

 

I havent had any issues with mine. I really like it.... I do I T and we have a selected number of users we see everyday, most times its the user, not the equiptment (no offense Tom )

So if your deciding on buying, I say buy it, you will enjoy it!

I been running Warframe quit a bit lately and it runs very nice.

 

I enjoy the laptop despite the few issues. I'm sending mine in for a repair, but it will be back in good graces soon. I really don't think the 15 has many serious competitors in the 15 inch market. All other options have inferior gpu's, louder fans/too thin (ghost), or only offer glossy, mirror-like screens (Omen). This laptop gives the buyer the overall most complete 15 inch gaming laptop on the market.

 

Definitely!

 

What are good overclocking values for the 980M? ppl can share their experiences with overclocking? Like what is the sweet spot they managed to reach?

 

I love my AW15. Haven't had any real issues with it yet, aside from Dell taking their sweet time with driver updates, but that is almost all Dell products so it's just something you have to deal with or know how to get around (something I haven't figured out how to do yet). I don't think you will be disappointed if you purchase it.

 

Okay I am now having an back and forth email with dell tech support in Malaysia re the 240W PSU.
For them to take me seriously I had to show them the following link: http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/SLN295814
But now they are asking me to upgrade the BIOS instead and would not budge on sending me the 240W PSU.
I told them that I am not comfortable upgrading the BIOS and would like to have the 240W PSU.
Can this forum please help me justify my request for the 240W PSU?
Will the BIOS update really fix the issue? They want me to update to BIOS version A02. If I recall correctly, there were some who mentioned that they had issues with this version?
Are there really valid grounds for choosing the 240W PSU over the BIOS upgrade?

 

I found some threads against the A02 BIOS

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...he-solution-proof-inside.772235/#post-9944835
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/aw-15-17-r2-bios-a02.771502/#post-9932890
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/advice-on-bios-upgrading-to-a02.773510/#post-9965456

Thats 3 bullets for me - let me see if I hit the target using the first thread.

 

Upgraded to the 4K panel and 980M which both options add 50% more to the price of the notebook in my region. Would not be acceptable for throttling at this price, and not acceptable that I should have to pay extra for PSU. I had endless trouble trying to get a 240W PSU for the 980M, pretty much told I cant have it as they don't have it. I even asked to buy a 240W out of my own pocket, but no there is no actual part, so they say. I even asked for a PSU from last years AW 17, but still couldn't get it. Rejected the delivery of the unit.

In that case the only way to get the unit without any issues, is to go with the 970M, decided to just drop the expensive upgrades screen and GPU.

Is the AW15 still decent and worth buying with just the 970M and the 1080p panel?

AW15 quad upgraded to UHD and 980M = $2438 usd

AW15 quad with FHD upgraded to 970M = $1608 usd

 

Guys, I just sent an RMA request to XOTICPC... even though they have a 15 day return policy, which I have passed by over 20 days or so. Don't really feel like this laptop will last me what it's worth. Hopefully they come around and let me return. My plan is just to buy a $1000 PC and Macbook air for homework..

 

If you find an HP coupon (they have 20% off right now in the US) you could pick up an Omen for the same price as the Air (unless you've just found a really good deal on the Air).

 

Just picked up a 15, getting it setup but it's one of the nicer AW laptops I've used in a while.

 

Currently in the process of haggling.

From everything I have gathered, a 240watt PSU is a must for the 980m, correct?