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

Downgrading the bios helped a lot. I might try a program like speedfan just to see what those fans can do.

 

Great.. Use either Hwinfo64. Believes this is the best software anyway.

 

Alright, received my aw15 today. First impression.. pretty impressed. A bit annoyed they shipped it with the OS installed on the 5400 1tb drive instead of the ssd... what the heck? Now I have to deal with that. It's a good size, pretty substantial but knowing what's inside makes it seem pretty trim. Amazingingly it was shipped with the 240w adapter. I've only ran a few things but 3dmark firestrike scored 8025.. sound about right but maybe on the lower side , my GTX 770 and i7 920 desktop scored 6300 so this is substantially faster. Also I ran Borderlands pre sequel and compared fps using fraps.. 112 with the desktop in one scene and 165 on the laptop.. so that's roughly 50 percent faster. Crysis warhead at Full 1080 ran at an average of 45fps with everything completely maxed out and vsync on, I turned down the aa to 4x and was in the 50's, ridiculous a game almost 8 years old still can't hit 60fps with some of the best hardware out. It looked better and was smoother than I've ever seen it... 45fps is pretty darn fluid, would guessed it was much higher. The fan is louder than I expected and it turned on each time I played everything. The touchpad seems like it lacks sensitivity.. maybe an adjustment.
Well now I get to figure out how to swap my boot drives.. if anyone can give me a jump start on software to use.. it's been a while.

 

Was the notebook set to high performance in battery settings?

 

May anyone tell me how to downgrade the BIOS? I received mine yesterday and I really want to downgrade.


Thank you

 

It was on high performance, highly doubt but could it be that I was running the 3dmark demo off a usb drive(steamfolder) taken any points off?

 

Thanks ufomammut! Those tweaks did the trick.

 

I'm waiting for my AW15 to arrive, which I bought on a sale that was supposed to end April 30th, but I just saw that the sale is still on, but now they're suddenly offering 256GB SSD + 1TB 7200 HDD. That wasn't even an option when I ordered, so I ordered 256GB SSD + 1TB 5400 HDD, and now they're offering 7200RPM for the same price!? As if my purchase hasn't turned out to be a total clusterfuck already, and now this happens.

Should I care? Will I notice the difference in speed often? Should I ask them to send a tech over to change it - is that even possible?

 

Anyone find a working 980m driver for Windows 10? I've got the beta 352.63 and have tried a few others with no avail... they install but when i go to play a game it seems to stay using the intel 4400

 

You can find the A00 in the list of BIOS in the drivers page of AW15.

 

A00 bios is by far the best, offering good performance and temperature.

 

Bump for the new page. Anyone?

 

Given that the HDD will be for storage, I doubt you'll notice a difference with 5400 rpm and 7200 rpm.

 

Will probably install several games on it, as games now take up 40-50GB each. Won't there be a difference in loading times? What about loading textures, etc?

 

I use a 5400 rpm HDD for my games (have been for a good amount of time). Never really noticed a big difference between it and my old 7200 rpm in my m14xR2.
There will be a difference, but it may not be noticeable.

 

Thanks!

 

Who here has the 4k screen? How is it? Any of this "glimmering" I keep hearing of? How does 1080p look on it?

I have had 2 systems with 1080p screens and the ghosting was terrible.
I'm desperate so I'm looking into the 4K screens.

 

get the 4k! its Amazing, plus it has touch if you care about that, i don't use the touch much but its a nice feature to have.
Performance won't be as Amazing as the 1080p for gaming but the rest the machine to me has been great, i can also game on it 4k, i don't care about having 60+ fps, and if i do i can lower the resolutions and it flies.
Anyone that has the A01 Bios here (i do), is A00 better than that also, or problems such as temps are more for A002 and A003?

 

I think A00 = Lower temp..

 

A00 = lower temps = fan too much loud

 

What is the alternative? An all too hot laptop even before the thermal grease is old. And become even hotter, as the thermal grease starts to deteriorate of age or to high temperature... There is not anyone who dares to apply new thermal grease after the heat becomes a problem and the warranty on the laptop is discontinued.

 

I dont know why everyone is always about "silent" computers. I would rather a louder (within reason) compu, then friggin heat. lol just saying.

 

Better with little noise from the fans than an throttled CPU due to high temperature... How about 82 degrees celsius in Cinebench 11.5 benchmark test with 4.3ghz in a laptop? Had not received this score with quiet fans.

 

yes but mine become very loud, I've never had a laptop with fans so noisy..my previous lenovo Y50 with the same cpu was
much less noisy..and it was half tick than this AW15.
I think Dell didn't make a good job with fan profiles and cpu temps

 

Finally got Dell to send me the 240W adapter. 3DMark Firestrike is now better by 600+ points =)

 

Think of all those who are denied a 240W power supply from Dell... They either need to use the updated hybrid bios (heat problems and battery wear) or forget extra performance.

 

Yep thats what Dell told me, to upgrade my BIOS but thanks to this forum I found that the new BIOS version actually has heat problems. So I pushed them to send me the 240W else I will return the unit.

 

This should all do if they did not receive a free 240W power supply from Dell. The laptop is totally useless without...

 

Downgraded back to win 8.1 and downloaded newest nvidia drivers.. getting a little over 8300 in firestrike now and every game is running perfect. Will be nice when an all working win10 drivers released.

 

I have an i5 with 965m. From what I understand I do not need the 240W power supply. Is this right?

 

No, you don't. Its just for people with a 980m GPU. You'll have no problems with a 180W PSU

 

Hey so ive ordered by AW15 by calling and I havent recieved any invoice or confirmation.
I used a prepaid card and I got a message that $$$ has been debited.
Does the confirmation email take more than 24hours??

 

Hi,
I decided to change my WD Blue as it is slow and I think it makes some strange beep noise in random time (however smart is clear). I bought HGST 7K1000. I have a question in this terms. I prepare USB disk with Alien Respawn. Is it ok to just install HDD and run OS installation from USB? It will work just like that? It will also install drivers?

Second thing, Kionix. This sensor is build into Alienware itself or in HDD? Should I have this installed with other HDD than WD Blue that was delivered with computer?

 

A question for you all, does the I5-4210h limits the gtx 965m?

 

No, you are good.

 

What do you guys have to say about the 4k panel? I'm just worried about Windows scaling because I'm planning to use this more as a school work machine than a gaming rig. Im not very picky about screens, even the 1200x800 display on my 8 inch tab is fine for me. The reason why I want it is because I can get it cheaper than a 1080p model (the world is a funny place). Windows 10 promises better scaling, but I'm not relying on that since we all saw what happened with Windows 8/8.1.....

 

get the 4k don't even think about it especially if you can get it cheaper. I love it, everyone else that has it loves it too it seems.

 

Hey guys I'm pretty close to picking up an Alienware 15. It was between this and a Lenovo Y50, and I think this will last a lot longer... I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I do game often and while portability isn't a huge deal, I'm looking at a 15" laptop instead of the 17" laptops I am used to. I have a few questions for ya if you don't mind!

1. How is the graphics amplifier? I'm thinking about picking this up and then buying... nothing to go inside of it. Basically, in two years or so, I'll pick up a good card to use. The 15 will be my HTPC in addition to standard pc usage, so I'm thinking this will help me make this purchase be more flexible in the future...

2. Does it come with all caddies needed to install additional hard drives? I'm looking to install a SSD from my older laptop to supplement the 1TB drive. Is this easily do-able? Or do I have to order a special part that costs a ridiculous amount of money?

3. How is their tech support? My M17x replaced my old XPS 1730 which failed hard. Thanks to their in-home 4 year warranty, I lucked out with the M17x. I'm looking to do a 4 year warranty for the 15 to ensure a healthy life...

4. What are your biggest complaints? I've read about bios/temp issues (typical for Dell/AW) as well as a PSU issue. I'm looking to get the i7 model with 970 card.

5. What would you say was over-hyped? Usually, there's something that they say is ZOMG AWESOME but ends up being total crap. For example, on my M17x it was SLI gaming which ended up introducing audio tearing due to latency issues with the nVidia cards. Eventually, I got it switched out to ATi cards in Crossfire (thank you, Dell warranty!).

6. Anything else I should know? Has it been on sale recently and I just missed it? Are prices good now or should I wait till E3? I have lots of time, as right now I'm just playing games like World of Warships, Minecraft, Civ V on it...

Thanks

 

I own an Alienware 15 with an i7-4710HQ and GTX 980M.

1) I do not own the graphics amplifier. From what I read online, you often get 80% or more of the video card's performance, which seems great to me.

2) To install a new hard drive, I used cloning software to create a backup of my computer and a bootable USB drive to restore the backup onto the new drive. Dell requires you pay for their cloning software, but free ones exist on the Internet and work just as well.

Another way to install a hard drive: Create a factory image USB which can load the factory image onto your new drive. However, the method fails when the disk capacity of the original drive used to make the factory image and your new drive differ. For example, I created a factory image on a computer with a 1 TB hard drive, but failed to restore the image onto a 480 GB SSD.

3) Dell offered to send me a replacement device for a single faulty LED on the bottom of my Alienware. I like the warranty, but I stay away from their in-home technician service, which I hear many negative things about.

4) The fans go crazy under load, and the keyboard temperatures feel too hot. The rubber wrist rest always stays cool, but attracts grease and fingerprints everywhere.

5) Other than the Amplifier which I do not have, everything seems to be as advertised.

6) You missed an outlet sale which took 25% off all Alienware laptops and desktops. On EBay, a few resellers have some of their purchased models on sale to make a quick buck. As of now, I see on EBay a refurbished Alienware 15 with the 970M costs $1200 and the 980M costs $1450. You still get a warranty and pay nothing for tax and shipping. Unless you negotiate with the representatives and somehow find one willing to give you $300 off, the EBay prices seem very good.

 

Well it work fine for me, I create an image of the default Toshiba 1TB and install it on my M.2 250GB and it work perfectly. All you need to do is open the service panel and disconnect the main HDD off then restore the image like you install Windows, then when everything done, shutdown PC and reconnect the HDD back, the laptop then should boot from the M.2 instead of the HDD, else just go to the BIOS and re-arrange the boot order from there.

 

Oh I meant physically installing the drive. I can install Windows no problem. The m17x I have only came with one hard drive caddy unless you bought two drives when you ordered it. Same with my Asus g73jw. The jw has an awesome custom mount made up of usps flat rate shipping boxes .

Also, no more customizable name plate???

 

Also my ssd is not an m2, so I'm talking about two standard size hard drives one ssd and the standard 1tb they come with.

 

The Alienware 15 can only hold one 2.5" drive.

 

I get an error from the factory restore bootable USB software telling me the drive sizes have to match in order to restore a factory image. I resolved the issue by using a different cloning software. Also, I used a standard 2.5" SSD instead of an M.2 one. I removed the default 1 TB HDD and put in my SSD. As stated above, the Alienware possesses just one 2.5" slot, but also 4 M.2 slots for multiple SSDs.

No more customizable name plate.

 

Thanks that helps a bunch!

 

Does anyone who bought the Alienware recently got the key for Witcher 3?

 

New AW 15 owner here.

Is there a detailed guide/video for CPU/GPU thermal re-paste on the Alienware 15? Can't seem to find it anywhere. Help would be appreciated!

 

Check the service manual for the Alienware 15 on Dell's website. It at least shows you how to tear down the machine.

 

http://www.myfixguide.com/manual/dell-alienware-15-disassembly/

 

Hi I can get the psu 240W but with I connect the psu and cpu gets me 0,8ghz have bios a00, what is the problem? Bios? Psu?