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

They will work just fine!

 

Thanks for the super quick reply!

One more thing, I know there's a dedicated thread talking about the stupid yellowish screen that comes with aw15 R2. I've posted my question there but no one replies. Maybe some luck here? Basically I got Model: LGD04B9 156WF6 for the screen. It doesn't say SPB1 though so I'm not sure if I have the better model? It has the stupid yellowish thingy too though. What do you think?

 

Apologies, I must have missed your post in that thread, I usually keep a good eye on that one.....

Well, there's no doubt that you have a WF6 however, unfortunately there are several models and not all of them are good. See here - http://www.panelook.com/modelsearch.php?panel_part_number=156wf6

You'll note that a lot of the WF6 panels listed there don't have brightness ratings so yours could be any one of those although, looking at the production quantities I might hazard a guess of you having the SPK1 model...... Just a guess though, if HWiNFO64 does not give you any more than WF6 then the only way to tell will be to pop the bezel, unscrew the panel and have a look!

 

Hmm.. its been a 'few months' for nearly a year and in the best case that is when they will announce it, how quickly will alienware put it into their laptops?

980m will be good for a couple of years, although you could always sell your laptop when they hit the market. A Monster speced out 15r2 with all the bells and whistles 'should' get a good price? (or is that me being optimistic while I wait for my 980m to show up?)

 

The 980M is capable for sure. Now I dont have any issues running any game on the market with it on fullHD with decent settings and good framerates. So in that regards I am sure that it will be decent for at least 2 years.

But you can expect a 30% jump maybe with Pascal, but it is unknown how fast Alienware would adopt the new GPU's. The resale value is unfortunately not great with any WIndows based PC. Also because with Dell laptops you cannot transfer the warranty easily. The warranty is one of the selling points.

 

I opened up my screen, and its WF6 SPM1.

Though i messed up the bezel a bit, where the 'aleinware' logo is since its glued, a few ribbons came off as well

 

So I bought a new Amp for my AW15R1 and put a R9 Nano in it. After several driver issues (it's looking like it might be a defective card) resulting in a clean instal of Windows 10, my internet went from being 89 MB/s+ and stable to being 65MB/s(-) and completely unstable. Everything else connected on it is fine, but I can't go into the settings on the router since I made it IPv6 capable a while back. Is there any way it's a driver that needs to be installed that I somehow overlooked?

 

The latest Killer network drivers from their website. not from the dell website.

 

The 6820HK with the 980M is a solid purchase if you can get a great deal on it. It's not a 4K gaming laptop, however, it does very well to handle any 1080p titles without a sweat. I play all my games at 1440p connected to my 4k Samsung Monitor, which I prefer over 4K gaming anyway. - And of course if you can wait until Pascal, then I'd wait it out, but there is no need to starve yourself as the 6820HK/980M will not disappoint.

 

Concerning the Alienware 15 R2 ... has anyone found any specs and/or technical data that confirm or deny that the two M.2 slots support PCie x4 on slot 1, and PCie x2 on slot 2? Can anyone confirm if they are only SATA III speed, or will we get PCIe x4 Gen 3.0 speed The only information given in the service manual related to this is the following:

1. Interface SATA 6 Gbps
2. Hard drive One 2.5‑inch drive
3. Solid‑state drive Two M.2 PCIe/SATA drives

Does this mean that the M.2 slots are limited to 6Gbps? Has it been determined whether the Alienware 15 R2 can do PCI-Express on the M.2 slot or is it limited to SATA III?

 

I have two questions, are you guys using any form of cooler or any pad to keep the laptop elevated, so that the laptop gets proper ventilation.

Secondly is there any way to reduce the sharpness of the palm rest. When I type too long, the edge pf the palm rest, kinda pushes into my wrists and can get uncomfortable, since its quite pointed, any way to put some after market skin on it to make it less pointy?

 

Don't worry about it! damn that's really ashame. Should've gone with the UHD ones... Now I have to figure out how to get better panel out there lol, shipping is quite a problem in my country. Anyway, thanks for the great infos!

 

Must be nice. My 6820hk cant handle 4.0ghz playing the division at 1440p for more then an hour without a little tdp throttle. I've undervolted as well but I think most of this has to do with the gpu sucking up all that extra power. Temps still stay relatively low though mid 80s max

 

As long as you have a medium Oc and not push the voltage too high on GPU, so should a 240W psu fine supply enough power for all the hardware. It should not be a sole reason that your processor should dip down below the maximum clock speed. Buy a Kill_A_Watt for monitoring the power consumption. Those are very very cheap to obtain.

 

I don't believe its a power consumption issue. More of a tdp limit issue. It also only happens while playing at 1440p which I believe is draining more power for the gpu and raising the tdp level above the limit. I am by no means an expert on this, but from what I understand of tdp this is my theory.

 

As far as I was aware, TDP is the maximum level of thermal dissipation that the cooling system can handle. Once that limit is breached, the system throttles to bring the temps down to an acceptable level. What temps are you hitting?

Edit: Have you increased your power limit in the BIOS?

 

If he experience the maximum level of thermal dissipation, something is very wrong with the paste/heatsink. He says the mid-80s max... I don't know if this is for cpu + gpu. Anyway, an i7 shall not thermal throttle before almost 100 degrees.
@sluggz A power limit is just a limit. Max out everything and try again.

 

My thoughts exactly, the 6820HK thermally throttles at 90-95c so if he is only hitting 80c then the power limit must be the issue........ I'll be doing another run with mine tonight, need to re-do that Firestrike

 

Do not forget 3Dm11. Push the hardware even more Firestrike is for ladies

 

Sorry for reposting it, but any information will be highly appreciated.

I have two questions, are you guys using any form of cooler or any pad to keep the laptop elevated, so that the laptop gets proper ventilation.

Secondly is there any way to reduce the sharpness of the palm rest. When I type too long, the edge pf the palm rest, kinda pushes into my wrists and can get uncomfortable, since its quite pointed, any way to put some after market skin on it to make it less pointy?

 

I personally don't use any cooling pads, though I do sometimes prop the back end of the laptop up with a door wedge! I only really do that when I'm pushing the laptop, most of the time it's just flat on a desk.....

As for the edge, I kinda know what you mean, it is a little sharp though it doesn't bother me too much.... I had a look for silicone skins but can't really find anything. Keyboard protectors keep coming up and the only other "skins" that come up are the stickers and they won't help...

 

I use throttle stop to monitor everything while I am gaming and even though my temps are mid 80s max, throttlestop shows tdp throttle and my co % at 100. It's odd because my package power is usually only around 35-40 W. I did find all this to be very odd and have noticed that my power brick has at times just straight turned off. Almost as if it has overheated.

@Papusan Are you saying I should decrease my undervolt?

 

I use a cooling pad and it really doesnt do much other then lift it up and circulate clean air. Can't really say it makes much a difference. Also not sure about the palm rest. You just kinda get used to it

 

Thank you so much! Sir Lee. I have another question. I have installed a NvME drive SM 951, I can see it in bios, I can even see it in the device manager, But in the my computer (this pc) option I don't find it anywhere. I can only see my HDD OS (c: drive) but cannot locate the NVME drive, however I can see it in the device manager. Do I need to change any setting in the BIOS?

 

Assuming you're running W10, right click on the start button and go to "disk management". You should then be given the option of "initialising" the drive, if not then you should see it listed in the drive list so you may need to assign it a drive letter and then format it.

 

When traveling I don't use a laptop cooler, however, when the AW is docked at the office I do use a cooler and it does help. Actually it helps a lot. ~8C a lot. Yea, no joke... simply elevating the back of the laptop also helps a lot to where it's worth justifying the lifting of the back.

I also wanted a laptop cooler with an aluminum / metal surface with big air holes as oppose to the smaller ones found on the majority of coolers out there. I have the 17 inch pad by pwr+, the only metal surface + big holes + very silent fan pad that I've found.

As for the sharpness of the palm rest, time to get out grinder and sand paper. j/k...



Powered by: Quad Core Exynos + 6820HK

 

Thank you, can you provide any link / name of the pad which you are currently using?

 

It doesnt push your gpu to the max though. It doesnt use half of the GPU that newer benchmarks do use. Even Firestrike is not using all of the current day gpu's unfortunately. Want to benchmark asynchronous shaders? Then you are out of luck with both 3Dmark 11 and Firestrike.

edit: removed some stupid typos

 

3Dm firestrike takes no account of the processor. Physics test in Firestrike + partial tests with cpu in action is all too weak. If you are on the edge of implementing this lady bench, you can forget to carry out 3Dm11. The same applies also to 3DMark Vantage. 3Dmark11 / Vantage is a better bench if you want to stress the whole system.

 

Hi guys,

anyone able to Run bluestacks on 15 R2?

This laptop can run extreme games but cannot run bluestacks. It just gets stuck in loading screen. I tried 5-10 times at least.

Any input appreciated

 

Here you go... http://www.amazon.com/Pwr-Laptop-Cooling-Stand-Macbook/dp/B00PMCGGPE

Powered by: Quad Core Exynos + 6820HK

 

I was just informed that the 6820hk actually has a configurable throttle down to 35 tdp that can be executed by the manufacturer
http://ark.intel.com/m/products/889...-Cache-up-to-3_60-GHz#@product/specifications

 

Yes, whilst the processor/system has the capability of reducing the TDP, I think this is only a side effect of being part of a processor family where other CPU's may require limits based on inferior cooling and/or power systems eg: Ultrabooks etc...

As the 6820HK is unlocked and we can adjust the power limit via the BIOS, configurable TDP is only useful when raising those limits rather than reducing them...

 

So my 15R2 again needed another motherboard replacement, tech came about 3 weeks ago and replaced it and found alot more issues from the last tech who broke a large amount of connectors.
So he and the Alienware rep recommended I send my 15R2 to the depot to be fully repaired, I decided to do it but was so upset with how many times I have had to have this thing fixed I purchased a GT72 Pro G and am happy with it. But of course 3 days after I order it Dell calls me and wants to replace my laptop with a new, refurbished, model. I accept but they told me it could take as long as a month.

So yesterday my MSI comes in, and so far I am quite happy with it but today I got an email from Dell telling me to expect my new laptop today, they were supposed to confirm any replacement with me if it wasn't exact so I assumed it must be the same one... It definitely is not but man did they upgrade me lol.
Went from 15R2 8GB ram, 6820HK, 980M 8GB, 128GB SSD, 1tb data, 4k screen
to
17R3 32gb ram, 256GB PCIE, 6820HK, 1tb data drive,980m 8gb, 4k screen

Makes me kinda wanna return the MSI but I am still trying to decide.

 

I went through the same thing with the 17 r2 and ended up getting same upgrade. As pissed as I was for how long the process took, I couldn't be any happier with what I got in return

 

Is 17 R3 somehow better than the 15 R?

 

Bigger screen

 

So yea

 

LOL, but I thought they say bigger isnt always better?

 

Oh Yeah, Bigger is better http://www.3dmark.com/fs/8430003 The same said the girl

 

Honestly it's basically the same.. Well it is the same besides screen. The screen on the 17 is brighter and has better whites comparing it to the 15.

Fans still have PWM noise(expected).
Thermals are better on the 17 by about 8 or 9 deg C but that could just be the heatsink on my 15 was believed to of been warped by one of the many techs.
But overall it is a very nice laptop but I enjoy the Gt72 more so I will sell the 17 here in the marketplace or ebay soon.

The main thing that made this an upgrade was the 32gb of ram and PCIE SSD they included. Which honestly I don't think it makes up for the time I took off work to wait for techs and all the time I spent on the phone... Especially when I am WAY more qualified than any tech they sent out. (They would not just send me the parts no matter how much I tried)

 

You are lucky! Is the msi 17"as well ?

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

Yeah it's a 17". MXM GPU and BGA processor

 

Then makes sense to do what you plan (keep the msi)
Hope much did the msi cost compared to the AW R2 you originally purchased?

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

What is the difference between the BGA processor and a regular one? and an MXM GPU and the one in the Alienware?

 

I ordered a unit today from the outlet, ended up getting it for 30% off with a TV and 0% interest after some haggle over chat and then on the phone. All said $1600 out the door with the 32" Smart TV.

The 15R2 is fully stacked, 4k screen, 512SSD, 32gb memory....But the GPU wasn't listed. They said they couldn't tell me either. But it would be at least a 965M. lol. If it has a 965M in it, it's going back... Hell if its not a 980 I'll probably still send it back. I couldn't believe they couldn't tell me. I find it hard to believe someone would have built it fully stacked but with a lowly GPU.

 

BGA means the chip is soldered and is part of the motherboard; Lack there of a socket.
The largest downside is that after warranty if the motherboard has to be replaced it is going to be more expensive.
The plus side is usually if you have a CPU/GPU that is BGA then the laptop is thinner and slightly lighter.
Another plus side (usually) is that BGA CPU(s) do not need to be delidded as they have no heatspreader and the core is directly exposed.

MXM is a slot standard for laptop Video cards. This is the opposite of BGA and means the graphics card can be replaced or upgraded if needed much like a desktop video card.
This is good because if it breaks in the future you could just replace the video card and not the whole motherboard.
However I have experienced that MXM cards during and after production are often really expensive to replace. I suspect that this is because they are in limited supply from a limited number of resellers.
I have also experienced a stone wall when it comes to upgrading as either the standard changes resulting in future incompatible cards or the design of the laptop simply doesn't have enough power or cooling to handle future cards.
However there have been some instances where this was not the case. i.e. a 5 year old Alienware running a 880 etc.

The BGA / Socket debate will go on indefinitely just like Android vs Apple or Chevy vs Ford.
They both have their pros and cons and depends on personal preference and circumstances.

 

BGA means the chip is soldered and is part of the motherboard = Slimmer/lighter notebook design → weaker cooling. The silicon lottery → what will you get if you need to replace the motherboard? A worse binned processor or Gpu? Or even both are junk binned? You have to live with what you get!!

 

Ya that's true I could see how that would be a pain if you were going for overclocking and hoping for a good binned chip.
However if I was that hardcore I would just try for some warranty swaps.
However as far as cooling I cannot really say the cooling is weak. After a repaste my cooling is pretty decent. I have no complaints.

 

Spoiler: Try push your OC'd processor with up to +100w in bench and your processor is still max 65C