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

Well it's not a 100% must but when your GPU load is high your cpu throttles, this has a drawback for some cpu intensive games. We are talking aboit a ~22% CPU performance drop. At least that is what I observed from benchmarks.

So without the 240watt psu your gpu performance stays the same and your cpu throttles.

Alse the 240watt makes it feasible to overclock your 980m too

 

As well charge your battery if it is empty after previous use while pushing your Aw to the limit.

 

This is another reason yet again why the 240W is a must with 980M.
Looking on notebook check review they had the 970M pulling a maximum 169W, leaves me wondering if the 970M option is the best no hassles path, especially for 1080p where still can max 99% of games anyhow.

 

How long will the battery last on the 4k screen with wifi off and min brightness. I will be using the laptop in class for notes.
Also, how to get an original 240w Alienware adapter?

 

I will upload a picture of how many hrs I get on mine.

When I get home

 

Has anyone else noticed that the AW 15 has 4 m.2 sata slots, two of which are blocked by the 2.5" bay and chassis?

 

yep.

 

here is the battery life of my 15, and a problem with the screen!

 

Uhh... what happened in that last picture?

 

Uhhh... might wanna get that checked.. is that the 4K variant?

 

man you got one troll of a laptop. Mind doing a battery test?
Is that the 4k variant?

 

Twilight Zone???

 

Hi guys. I have a tiny problem with my beloved laptop and I'm hoping someone could help me here. At random times, perhaps once every few days, I would encounter a BSOD error ( IRQL_driver_not_less_or_equal bwcW8x64.sys). I have no idea when this problem started to show and I have done all the basic troubleshooting steps ( updating drivers, troubleshooting in windows). Could someone please help me with this? Thanks

 

ARGHHH someone tell me how long the battery lasts on 4k screen+min brightness+wifi off. PLZ!!!!

 

Sounds strange, isn't the BSOD a common problem with a lot of these new AW's? Wonder if Dell even bothered to at least 12 hour stress test these machines before they leave the factory?

 

i cant tell u the exact time, but i get around 4 to 4;30 watching movies on battery

 

were you playing league of legends, if so, its a memory leak problem in the game, no your PC\s fault

 

Nope. Just happens at random times. I have read on some forums that it is related to the killer wireless stuff. So, I've updated the drivers as well as the killer management suite. Hopefully this solves the problem. Will update more if the problem persists

 

The two lines on the screen, you can see are very notable but on a gray background color of the screen or when I'm washing movies/video.
And yes It is the 4k screen.
The battery hr. That's a bugs I think!

 

Yep, that's correct.

 

hey guys,

Anyone with the 4k screen having issues with chrome being very laggy? I find it lags alot when scrolling and videos seem to bounce too. has happened from day one, only on chrome though.

 

Try switching hardware acceleration on and off in chrome settings

 

Fixed it.. CHeers

 

Any idea when Broadwell/Skylake refresh of AW 15 will be released? By August. I need a machine by mid august.

 

Has anyone confirmed if they work?

 

An update to this problem: the driver reinstall from the Dell website did not solve this problem. Any thoughts from the forum? How do I solve this?

 

could be a faulty card, call dell

 

Did that just now. They identified that the culprit is the intel hd display driver as well as the NVidia driver. reinstalled as they recommended. Still too soon to tell though.

 

I noticed when running Warframe my GPU runs at 70 degrees Celsius, does anyone know if that is good or bad..

 

That's fine. You would only be worried if it ran past 80 to 85 C.

 

Guys, just got my alienware 15 yesterday but noticed that the plastic panel holding the webcam is very flimsy and it wobbles and moves when i touch it ! anyone has the same problem or is it only me ? The rest of the laptop is super solid and very impressive.

 

Can anyone confirm that if I leave the laptop plugged in at 100%, is it running on AC power? As in the power goes directly to the laptop without charging the battery?

 

New to the forums. Tempted to buy an Alienware 15 (i7, 970M), but have a few questions before ordering one. Hopefully someone can answer.

- First of all, how is the quality of the 1080p panel? Is it good for movies, as well as gaming? Saw a picture of one, and it had terrible backlight bleed - is that common with the Alienware 15? Backlight bleed is a no-no for me, and could potentially make me not buy it.

- 8 GB or 16 GB ram? Is 16 really necessary? I'm leaning towards 8 right now, as I don't want to pay more than necessary. I'll use the laptop for gaming, watching movies and surfing. I will not use it for video editing - at least not often. Can I update ram at a later point?

- SSD. Thinking about going for the 128 GB option. Can I add another 128 myself later?

- How is the noise? I've read that it's very loud as soon as you start a game. Is it a problem?

- And last question: do you recommend it? Say, if yours was stolen, would you buy a new one, or buy a different laptop?


Hope someone can take the time to answer these.

 

I have an 17 R2 so I can't answer all your questions but:

Is the 16gb rm necessary? Not really. I mean I have 16 in my laptop and I've yet to see it use (not cache) more than 5gb. With things like just office, and web browsing it uses less than 3.

I would say if you want to save money, just go with the 8gb and upgrade to 16 later. However if they're similar priced or theres a promotion going on for free ram (which I believe there is) then the 16gb might just be worth it.

Yes you can, you can add upto 3 M.2 SSDs and 1 2.5" SSD (if you replace the 2.5" HDD)

Yet again if you're going for best bang for your buck. Skip the SSD and get just the HDD. The SSD from alienware isn't bad but its not great either. I mean the read speeds are great (about 540mb/s) but the write is only 320mb/s. And its a little bit pricer than if you purchased the SSD yourself. The only downside is you have to set it up again (either by cloning the drive or reinstalling windows)

Well like I said I have the 17" version but based on that most definitely yes.

 

-I like the quality of the 1080p to me the 4k isnt worth the money yet.
-I opted for the 8gb from dell only because you can find deals on Newegg for the 16gb (i actually bought 16gb on newegg for $114 when it was on sale) so its cheaper that paying $150 from dell + tax.
-If your not computer savy i would just order the 128gb option so you dont have to clone your drive, if you are savy i would just purchase the 1tb 5400 drive that comes standard with it and then purchase an m.2 drive along with an evo 850 ssd.
-The noise, is very very little comapred to the alienware 14, its acutally very quiet in my opinion, i really like how they corrected te noise issue compared to the previous models.
- and yes, i would definitely purchase another one

 

Thanks for your replies.

4k is out of the question, as I agree that it is not worth it. The question is rather, how good is the 1080p one? I've read about ghosting and backlight bleed on the AW15, and that worries me. I've already returned a G751JT, because of backlight bleed.

As I'm not very computer savvy, I'll probably go for the 128GB SSD option.

8 GB ram is also probably what I'll go for.

Worse case scenario is that I buy it and return it if I'm not happy with it. We have a standard 14 days return option here in Norway (when buying online).

 

One thing to note about displays is you could have a powerful laptop or desktop, with a nice gpu card, but if your display response time isnt good say around 2ms then your whole build is no good.

 

Backlight bleed is a common symptom of IPS screens.

If your laptop arrives and its noticeable, just call Dell up and let them know. They'll give you the option to have a tech come out the next day and replace the screen or have the entire laptop replaced with a new one (you will get to keep using your laptop until the new one arrives).

 

Wow, I'm super disappointed in Dell/Alienware. I sent my laptop in due to the unplayable levels of "ghosting/artifacts." (unplugged weirdly isn't effected) I typed a two page letter discussing all of my troubleshooting attempts, and told them it is either a GPU or display error. I received the 15 back today, and the d**n ghosting is still super visible. They replaced the display, and the screen now has very noticeable yellow backlighting. In my letter, I specifically asked them to examine the display (if replaced) to ensure no light bleed. I also informed them of the wireless card's 10 second reconnection time, upon waking from sleep mode and that electrical current/coil-like noise which occurs upon fan start up. Neither of these two issues were attended to. It is just mind blowing that they would a. use a poor replacement screen and b. they couldn't even be bothered to start up any game (i even mentioned areas where the phenomenon is clearly shown). Upon calling them, I mentioned the 10 tech support calls on various issues and 7 + grand that I have invested in their company (see sig). I was told that I couldn't receive a new laptop due to it being past 30 days and you also have to send your laptop in 3 times before you rate a new product exchange. How in God's name can their techs be so lackluster with their QA product inspections.

 

They replaced the screen of my 15 yesterday and it look better now. The tech guy did a great job! Thanks dell technical support!

Also thanks to,
Tannia Vanessa

Alienware Technical Support.

 

Good to hear. Did any other problems get fixed as well? Or just the screen?

 

Not, the problems was the screen only.

 

I have to say, there is something wrong when a US config is more expensive than a AUS config.
3rd US option + m295x = $1949 + tax + possible shipping fees
1st AUS option + m295x (will include i7) = $2132.10; tax and shipping included
If tax is about 9%, they're about the same price. If greater than 9%, then the US config is more expensive.
Speaking of the m295x, I assume no one has the AMD AW15?

 

That's even more expensive than NZ, even more so is that NZ GST is 15% and yet it's still cheaper.

 

With the current Australian dollar and the New Zealand dollar being equal at this time, paying 20% more in NZ than Australia is F'en rip off. Considering we have exactly the same website outlay/options, and the exact same Dell ANZ sales reps.

 

Can anyone confirm whether or not the 980M in the AW15 supports Gsync? I was under the impression that the 980M supports Gsync on external monitor but I can't seem to get the option to switch it on when connected to my new monitor.

 

I could be wrong but I don't think any laptop that uses nvidia optimus supports gsync (so essentially all of them). I believe they are working on fixing it but I wouldn't hold your breath =(

Edit: Yup the 980M doesn't support GSYNC: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/g-sync/supported-gpus

But like I said nvidia is "working" to fix that.

 

Ok thanks. I've read through google that a few people with ROG laptops were able to get 144Hz + Gsync working on the Swift so I foolishly assumed that I could do the same with the Alienware.

 

Its currently being worked on by nvidia themselves.

The one you're mentioned about the ROG driver was basically a hacked nvidia driver to enable options that normally couldn't be enabled. Something ASUS was working on to try and force G-SYNC on their laptops but if I remember correctly it proved to be fruitless and didn't work fully as expected.

 

It was nice talking and getting help from all of you, but I have returned my AW15 due to the issues I had... shipping cost $90... lol ouch. I am now determining to get an HP omen, or a desktop. The only game I play is League of Legends.